Fact: the Super Bowl has been the best-rated TV show every year since 1995.

Fact: Advertisers paid an average of $2.4 million per 30-second spot.

Fact: Go Daddy advertised twice in the last Super Bowl.

Question: Was it worth it?

According to Bob Parsons, CEO of The Go Daddy Group, via his blog, it was a great way to spend advertising dollars. Mr. Parsons opined, ”I’m proud to report that Go Daddy unquestionably had the very best ad in this year’s Super Bowl and I’ve got the numbers to back it up.”

According to data provided by Go Daddy, the company experienced an incremental 1.79 million visitors to the www.godaddy.com website in two days. On Super Bowl Sunday, visits were up by 880,000 more visitors than normal. On the following day, Super Monday, visits continued to be strong and were also up by 910,000 more visitors than normal.

Let’s just examine those numbers for a minute. According to data provided by Cheap Web Hosting Directory (www.cheaphostingdirectory.com) in its Pay-Per-Click Keyword Index , (www.cheaphostingdirectory.com/payperclickcomparison.html) the cost of web hosting related keywords is currently averaging around $5.00 per click (visit). So the math goes like this: 1,800,000 visitors x $5 per visit = $9,000,000 dollars worth of visitors.

However, Go Daddy only paid $2.4 million each for 2 ads = $4,800,000.

So according to those metrics, Go Daddy made a cool $4.2 million. That’s just in the first 2 days. Wow. That’s big money, even for Bob Parsons.

Experience has shown that spending millions to advertise in the Super Bowl will pay off for some and be wasted dollars for others. According to an online survey by InsightExpress, half of the 130 million viewers of last year’s Super Bowl tuned in just to watch the ads. Larry Weber, CEO of new-media consultancy W2 Group, told internetnews.com that ”The majority of the ads were going to be pointing people to digital destinations.”

Additional data seems to back up Go Daddy’s claim that the ads were a big success. 80% of business performance services provider Akami’s Super Bowl spikes were attributable to traffic going to GoDaddy.com. Akamai monitored the usage and reported that there was a spike of 164,000 visitors just before half time and another spike of about 780,000 after the game. They also reported that viewers going to GoDaddy.com represented 80% of the traffic during the spikes.

Upon completing the first known Super Bowl advertising effectiveness study of its kind, Dr. Charles Tomkovick, UW-Eau Claire Professor of Management and Marketing, along with Dr. Rama Yelkur, Associate Professor of Management and Marketing, surmise that among those most clearly benefiting from advertising during the Super Bowl is, not surprisingly, Hollywood’s movie industry. Mr. Tomkovick’s stated, ”All else being equal, we know from this study that spending $2 million-plus for a 30-second movie ad in the Super Bowl will pay off handsomely for a majority of the studios.” Movie studios advertise on television and the Internet.

Ms. Yelkur says, ”Very little research has been devoted to studying Super Bowl ads and subsequent related market activity. After testing several other categories, we settled on movie ads, in part, because reliable revenue data is available in the public domain.” Any skepticism about Super Bowl advertising may also be allayed by the multi-layered possibilities afforded by multi-media advertising. Nearly every movie has its own web site. Every web site affords the opportunity to promote virtually any other business or commerce related activity.

The researchers have found that in addition to movies, products like snack foods and beverages also benefit from Super Bowl advertising. PepsiCo and Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. (maker of Budweiser and Bud Light beer) are examples of businesses that spend millions in Super Bowl ads each year, for just this reason.

Go Daddy, won approval from the ABC Television Network to air its 30 second spot during Super Bowl XL only after 14 tries.

The approval process ironically began during last year’s Super Bowl – when Go Daddy was denied a second airing of its debut Super Bowl ad. The ad spoofed the infamous ‘wardrobe malfunction’ of Janet Jackson during the halftime of Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004. During the live halftime show, Justin Timberlake ripped off a breast cover on Ms. Jackson’s outfit to reveal a sun shaped ‘nipple shield’ over an otherwise bare breast, in front of 89 million ostensibly shocked viewers.

The Go Daddy Super Bowl spot from last year spoofed the incident by presenting a mock censorship panel who are interrogating a shapely Go Daddy spokes model (Candice Michelle) when she experiences a similar ‘wardrobe malfunction’. To view last year’s Go Daddy Super Bowl commercial, click here: http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/superbowl05/landing.asp’se=%2B and select ‘2005 Super Bowl’.

According to information posted on Go Daddy President and Founder, Bob Parson’s blog, the company bought two ads in last year’s Super Bowl. The aforementioned ad was approved for air in both spots by Fox Broadcasting, and ran once during the game. After the ad had been aired, Fox was pressured by the NFL to suspend airing the second running during the final two minute warning – therefore, the ad never ran a second time. It is supposed that the ad was deemed to racy or indecent for the viewing audience.

Fast forward to this year’s Super Bowl. Go Daddy is again airing an ad – and has created a compelling new commercial for air. When submitted to this year’s Super Bowl network, ABC, it is rejected to air during the game. The spot again features Ms. Michelle – now know as ‘The Go Daddy Girl’ – working in a desert gas station. As a patron enters to gas up his vehicle, The Go Daddy Girl proceeds to generously wash his car for him – and while she’s at it, she washes him . To see the original Super Bowl XL rejected ad, click here: https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/superbowl06/timeline.asp’se=%2B&ci=5478 , and click 11/21 Steamy Carwash.

The vast majority of GoDaddy.com’s viewers were approved of the company’s approved Super Bowl commercial, while 5.9% found it offensive. This breaks down to 3% of males and 12.7% of females. This is slightly more contentious than last year’s ad where 4.7% of viewers found the commercial offensive, with the breakdown being 3.5% male and 12.2% female. To learn more about The Go Daddy Group, please visit: www.godaddy.com .

About the Author

Derek Vaughan has extensive online marketing experience including marketing ecommerce at ESPN.com. and NASCAR.com. Mr. Vaughan is a partner at Website Hosting Directory (www.websitehostdirectory.com) and Cheap Web Hosting Directory (www.cheaphostingdirectory.com).

How to Choose a Web Hosting Service!

1. Support. Is there really anybody there? Send them a question by email and see how long they take to respond. You want to know if

they’ll be there when you need them. Some offer 24-hour support and a few will respond quickly. Speedy customer service is rare and indicates a superior service. I think that this is the single most important consideration. Also, check out the quality of their online documentation.

2. Server performance. You want a server that is reliable and fast. There is a free tool available that allows you to evaluate this before making a decision! NetMechanic.com will measure the speed of access for all facets of access (network speed, DNS lookup, connect time, download time, and absence of timeouts).

The “download time” statistic is the most important single item to compare. Collect your list of candidate hosting services and run side-by-side tests of all the candidates. Sample during peak and non-peak times for optimal comparison.

3. Are they familiar with the application you plan to use? If you’re

planning to use a particular application that requires special setup parameters (such as Online Merchant, a popular online store), make sure your potential host is familiar with the application. Otherwise you may find yourself spending a great deal of time trying to figure out how to configure it – perhaps never succeeding!

4. Traffic allowance. Compare your traffic allowances. Some services give you a small limit on the amount of material that can be downloaded from your site each month and charge you large amounts when that limit is exceeded. Some offer huge traffic allowances (several thousand MB/month, where 1,000 MB = 1 GB) for the same price as others that limit you to a few hundred MB/month. Sure you probably need less than a hundred MB/month now, but why put yourself in a position where you have to move when your traffic takes off? Plan ahead and allow for growth.

5. Space. How much space do you expect to eventually want for your web site? Planning ahead can save you lots of money later. If you expect to grow, look for a place that offers sites of 100 MB or more. Some services offer 500 MB sites for less money than others that offer only 30 MB.

6. Features. Consider what features you want to simplify development of your web site.

-Do you want access to a cgi-bin so that you can install your own scripts?

-Do you want many scripts pre-installed and pre- configured?

-Do you want to be able to use Microsoft’s FrontPage?

-Do you want autoresponders for email processing? -Do you want email aliases (automatic forwarding) so you don’t

need to check email in more than one place?

7. Guarantee. With so many hosting services to choose from, why not choose one that offers a guarantee? Services that offer a moneyback guarantee are confident that you’ll be

delighted with their service.

8. Cost. Look for hidden costs when comparing price.

-Do they expect you to pay for a long term in advance to get a good price? Choose one that doesn’t bait

you with a low price

that’s only available if you make a long-term commitment. -Will they handle the registration of your domain for free?

-If you’re

transferring an existing domain, will they submit the domain change to InterNIC for free?

Choosing an excellent service to host your web site doesn’t have to require luck. Knowing what to look for makes selection simple.

Good luck with your marketing and God Bless.

Tracy Perrin is a well-known online marketer who has contributed to many websites and ezines. His latest project is 500Megabytes.com. Your One Stop Hosting Solution for low cost web site hosting plans – $24.95/mo. Low cost domain name registration. http://www.500megabytes.com

How to get Domains and Hosting for Free

How to get hosting and Domains for free.

Are you paying too much for your Domain names and Hosting?

I was before I started checking out things.

I was paying 30$ a year for a single .com Domain, and I didn’t even get good service, a free email account or any possibilities of controlling anything regarding my Domains my self.

Then I started checking out things and now I am actually paying nothing for my hosting!

How is that possible?

Well let me tell you how things work. You can get a .com Domain for as low 1.99$ if you for instance go to www.ShopA.name or many other places. But you will have to by something else to get it at that prize, because nobody is making any money at that prize, and they only sell it to you at that prize because you then hopefully will by your hosting there and stick around for several years. So in the long run they will make money on you. Remember THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH, so if you save money on your Domain you will have to give money for something else or every domain seller would be out of business very quickly.

Where you can save money and even make money is if you become a reseller of Domains. If you become a reseller of Domains you will by them at a wholesale prize that is lower than ay prize you can get anywhere else, plus you will be able to make money from selling to other people. That’s what I do. Whenever I need a Domain name I by it from my self. A .com Domain cost me 7$, so you see selling it for 1.99$ means loosing money, so nobody is doing that unless they make money on something else. The best thing you can do is therefore to make money on your self, that way you get your Domains and Hosting as cheap as you can and you can with a little effort even make money by selling to other people.

Godaddy is the #1 registrar and they sell finished web shops for selling Domains. They use their sister company Wild West Domains to sell reseller plans. They provide 24/7 support for your costumers, so you don’t have to worry of anything. There are two different reseller plans the small cost 99$ and the big 199$, but here’s another scoop. Some people have chosen to become master resellers, selling reseller shops, and they are usually giving a discount, to win market shares. If you go to www.masterdomaine.com you can get the same Wild West products for 90$ and 179$.

So for only 90$ you can get all your hosting and Domains as cheap as possible and you will even make money at the same time selling to others!

That’s how Domains and Hosting became absolutely free for me.

About the Author

Gorm Jonsen is an artist, studio owner and internet Marketer. Gorm Jonsen sells Web Education at www.cash2learn.com studio facilities at www.ideophonics.com and promotes music at www.thegorm.com

How to Choose the Web Site Hosting Service that’s Right for You

There are few things as critical to your e-business success as having a reliable web hosting service …

Heres How To Choose The Right Web Host To Guarantee Your Web site Stays Up And Running!

Whether your focus is affiliate marketing or any other online business, now more than ever as the Internet grows by leaps and bounds the choice of a reliable Web site hosting provider is absolutely critical.

Cheapest … biggest … smartest … newest … oldest with thousands of web site hosting companies vying for your attention, its easy to get confused. And, heaven forbid, if you make the wrong choice, it could cost you dearly in time, effort and money. Transferring a site from one host to another host is nightmarish at best if its even do-able. So …

How do you pick the BEST host for your web site and online business needs — the very first time out?

You can start by going through the following checklist:

[ ] What is the Initial Set-up Fee?

[ ] Is the cost of a domain name included?

[ ] How much bandwidth (data transfer) will you be allowed each month?

[ ] How much disk space (data storage) is provided?

[ ] What features are provided on the website control panel?

[ ] Are you provided with unlimited email accounts?

[ ] Do you get unlimited single and multiple sequential autoresponders?

[ ] What is the level of shopping cart compatibility?

[ ] Are website analysis tools provided?

[ ] Are tools provided for traffic analysis, tracking reports?

[ ] Are search engine submission tools provided? Ranking reports?

[ ] Do you have access to your own cgi-bin directory?

[ ] What web design tools are provided, as part of a complete web design capability?

[ ] Are web site design templates included?

[ ] Are there any ezine publication tools?

[ ] Is there a Spam check tool?

[ ] What kind of technical support is provided?

[ ] What security measures are in place? Offer your clients ease of mind with SSL (Secure Socket Layer) for selling from your site.

[ ] What is the speed of the web hosts Internet connections?

[ ] Is there 24-7 customer service? How does the company rate on support?

[ ] What is the hosting cost per month?

Pricing, of course, is a key consideration in choosing a web host thats right for your needs. Just remember, as with everything else in life, youre going to get what you pay for. There are 3 general categories of web hosting providers readily available, ranging from $0 to $75 per month. (More expensive solutions are for really big companies and beyond the scope of this article). Lets take a look:

FREE Web Hosting

Tempting as it sounds, $0 cost hosting is best reserved for casual use for a hobby or other personal purpose not related to making money on the Internet. Among the disadvantages: Low bandwidth, poor technical and customer support, excessive downtime, slow connection times, poor or no search engine positioning.

One of the most significant compromises you face is that 99% of free web hosts put their own ads on the homepage of your site, detracting from your business. It comes across as unprofessional and can quickly drive your prospects away. Also extremely important for affiliate marketers many affiliate programs will not accept people who are hosted on a free web service!

The Search Engines may not accept rating your web site if it has a sub-domain name not as part of your own dot.com name, especially if the sub-domain is part of a free web host domain name.

If, for any reason, youre interested in going this route, do a search on Google. For example, search for “Free web hosting” and discover more that 1.5 million references. For this reason, I can not pick any favorites, being unable to verify how reputable they are. Good luck with your search. Compare features, over and over. It is the best way to narrow the field of candidates.

CHEAP Web Hosting

Low cost web hosting will work for you if your budget is limited and you dont want to spend money for larger disk space and other options that might not be necessary for you at the moment.

Most providers in this category charge from $3 to $10 a month. Many of them do not offer you a Control Panel and a number of other useful features like tracking, autoresponders, sub domains, etc.

If you dont need the storage space or extra features, cheap web hosting is a workable solution, especially if your needs are not for e-business.

For some examples… nah, forget it, I don’t want to give you examples of what I don’t really believe in.

PROFESSIONAL Web Hosting

When youre in it for the long haul, it really pays to think and act like a Pro.

As you continue to add content to your site, you will need more disk space. As your traffic increases, so does your need for more bandwidth. Youll want that sophisticated control panel with all the bells and whistles — unlimited autoresponders, unlimited email addresses, unlimited sub domains, detailed website statistics, website promotional tools, topnotch support and so on.

Prices for top level hosting range from $20 to $49 a month or more. Granted, its not free or cheap. But its the BEST choice for running a successful online business. Time is money especially on the Internet, and you want a web host that has enough power to assure that your website will load fast.

And before you sign on the dotted line …

Dont be shy about doing some double checking. Send some emails and see how quickly the companys customer service responds. Get feedback from several existing customers on how they find the service.

Due to the intense competition between web hosting companies, they are constantly adding more features and better tools to attract new customers. So take the time to do some comparing dont let anyone rush you. Make sure you sign-up with a reputable web host that can support you and accommodate all your needs as your web business expands.

And now, for examples of top rated professional web hosts that are ideal for affiliate marketing web sites, read the reviews of these two web hosts…

Site Build It! Superb Marketing and Web Site Management

http://www.bestaffiliateproducts.com/sbi.html

Third Sphere complete Web Hosting solutions, with monthly Recurring Income.

http://www.bestaffiliateproducts.com/thirdsphere.html

Now You know what to look for … Best of luck with your selection and your business!

Fred Farah

copyright 2004

---

About the author:

The Best Affiliate Products

and Niche Market Strategies for Maximum Profits

Best Affiliate Products

Top Five Questions to Ask Your Web Hosting Company

Each day many new and existing webmasters either launch a new web site for the first time, or transfer their web site to a new web hosting provider. In preparation for this important process, there are five important questions that should be asked prior to signing on with a new web hosting company.

1. Do you have a trial period or money-back guarantee?

Okay, so that’s technically two questions. The point is, no matter how much homework you do, or how much research stands behind your decision – it’s still possible to make a mistake. Also – the company could change policies or services, or management – prices can go up, call wait times for support can spike, and things can just generally go bad. With the assurance of a trial period or money-back guarantee, you won’t end up paying over and over again for that bad decision.

2. How does your customer service and technical support system work?

I don’t care how smart you are, how much programming you know, or how many web sites you’ve set up in the past – you are gonna have to call support eventually. There are just too many weird little things that can derail a web site or email. Many reside on the web hosting company’s side. To figure out what’s up – you need to get in contact with them. Sowill it be by email only, during the hours of 8:00 am to 5:00 pm eastern standard time or via a toll free phone line that is available 24×7? Make certain you understand when support is available – and how you actually reach someone with real knowledge, not just a “knowledge base” or “canned” response.

3. Can I view a sample site that is hosted on the same server that my web site will be on?

Sure, the main company web site has nearly 100% uptime. That’s because they have their web site on a separate server than their customers. Viewing an actual customer site potentially tells you many things about the web hosting company and their web hosting services. You can check the load times of their pages easily by using a tool like Alertra ( www.alertra.com ). You can also send the webmaster of the site a nice email asking about their experiences with the hosting company.

4. Are they a web hosting reseller or a core web hosting provider?

Not that there’s anything wrong with buying services from a reseller, but you should know for sure whether your company contact can really do anything to solve problems, or if they have to pass your concerns along to a “parent” company. Also, why buy services from a middle man when you can go straight to the source?Here are some examples of reseller hosting companies.

5. Will you waive set up fees or give me some other special incentives to sign up with you today?

In the highly competitive business of web hosting services, each customer sign up is precious. You will often see special offers listed on the company’s web site or in advertisements. Unknown to each buyer is the fact that sales people are often given “extra special offers” to close sales of customers that are right on the edge of buying, but are resisting. The special offers are designed to close the sale. Make sure that you ask for each and every special offer they can give you. You have nothing to lose, and you may find that the offer that’s being given today is fairly generous.

About The Author

Derek Vaughan

CheapHostingDirectory.Com is a resource for webmasters and consumers looking to find a web hosting company or a quality expiring domain names with traffic.

CHD is part of the TechPad Agency network of web hosting related sites, visit www.TechPadAgency.com for more information.

This article may be reprinted or published without the authors consent as long as the “About” and “weblinks” are kept intact. If you publish this article, we would love to know the location. Feel free to email us.

info@cheaphostingdirectory.com

How To Get Started Searching Web Hosting Resources On The ‘Net

Since the early days of the Web, finding resources on web hosting got notably simpler. You basically had to look into a dictionary in order to get somewhat appropriate to web hosting – Do you remember? Not a very convenient circumstances, am I right? Today the cyberspace is growing every minute, so there’s tons of resources on web hosting accessible – you only need to know where to start.

Altavista or Google are usually a good idea to begin your search on web hosting — especially if you are new to the topic. The end of the story? Probably people get thousands or even millions of results about web hosting. In the consequence we have to remove the valuable material from the bad recommendations. Suggested resources to begin with are often so-called “internet portals”. Folks who have a lot of education about web hosting come up with all the advice you need and you don’t even have to pay for it!

Let’s say you want to find out anything about web hosting — where would you like to go? Many institutions come up with free or cheap web hosting groups you can sign up with. The Cyberspace generated chats and forums to let you communicate with web hosting authorities. Once again, a search engine like Google, Yahoo or Ask Jeeves assists you to get started, simply do a search on “web hosting forum” or “web hosting community”.

If you need to get your web hosting information delivered by email, a “electronic magazine” would likely be an excellent idea. Simply send a subscription email to the publisher or fill out a form on their Internet site and you get started! Sometimes people have to pay a small fee to the provider of the newsletter, but often an electronic magazine is free. If so, one can anticipate first class quality advice on web hosting! When you get a specialist about web hosting by yourself, create a membership site can be an excellent method to generate additional revenue.

For those who don’t feel like reasearching sources on web hosting, info products are probably a smart choice. Arranged in an ebook or video tutorial you’ll come up with tips you would have spend days to research on the Cyberspace. Life can be uncomplicated if you have sufficient funds…

Given that you need decent web hosting material quickly, current online resources on the Internet are very handy. Now it’s your turn to find out anything you may need about web hosting!

About the Author

About the author: Sue-Ann Reyna is a freelance publisher based in Dallas, Texas. She publishes articles and reports in various ezines and provides web hosting resources on Just Web Hosting!

The Basics of Hosting

At its most basic, getting an Internet project up and running requires two essentials: access to hardware and access to the Internet. Hardware and bandwidth are a major consideration in light of both the potential expense and the issue of quality of service. This is one of those areas where you can pay as much or as little as you like. There is a correlation between what you pay and the quality you get, but there are plenty of good deals to be found in the current market, so shop around.

Lets take one step back and make sure everyone shares some common ground, in terms of terms.

“Servers” are the hardware that holds and distributes information to people via the Internet. A small site may reside on a server with a number of other sites, a large site may require hundreds of separate servers in a variety of physical locations, all connected together and running as one cohesive system.

Servers can handle a wide variety of functions, from housing websites, to running mailing systems. For a quick rundown of server terminology check out the Webopedia server listing.

While some firms are interested in owning and feeding their own equipment, most firms these days choose to outsource all, or at least part, of the task. Outside of firms with special needs, it is hard to make a case for purchasing hardware in the current market. Like a new car, a server depreciates massively the moment it is taken from the dealer. Add to the equation the maintenance of the hardware and the software, and you have a cost center that not only becomes more expensive over time, but less functional relative to the newest technology.

A web hosting company (sometimes called an “Internet Data Center” or “IDC”) will offer a variety of packages, including the rental of hardware. The low monthly costs associated with hosting these days tips the hardware scale firmly toward the decision to rent, rather than buy hardware. Let the web hosts staff worry about changing disk drives, updating the operating system with the newest security patch and keeping the electricity and Internet connection going 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Outsourcing lets you focus on your core competencies, and the fact is that most IT departments weaned on office networks are in no position to support a real time data center-type operation.

When we talk about outsourcing hosting, another term you are likely to hear frequently is collocation. Co-location facilities physically house hardware and equipment in a secure location. The facility generally offers some degree of security against physical intrusion, fire, and power or bandwidth interruption. The quality of the physical facility and staff is generally related directly to the price and a site visit is appropriate where high-reliability installations are required.

If you are in the e-commerce business, or providing support services through your website, down time can be very expensive. Larger hosts will provide redundancy for drives, power supplies and bandwidth. If your site produces revenues, dont scrimp on the host.

Security of your data and your customers data is a sensitive issue. While your host is unlikely to guarantee security of any system, they should have in place adequate assurances that their environment does not contribute to the risk. They should also be willing to guarantee turn-around time on installation of patches and security fixes as they are released by vendors (like Microsoft!).

Selecting the right host for your company requires taking a hard look at your needs. Issues that must be resolved and prioritized include your need for ongoing maintenance and physical support services, network quality and speed, contract terms, and of course the value for money. Lets not forget that the current market, with its slough of bankruptcies, has also taught us that the financial stability of the firm is a factor.

For most clients, the level of the hosts customer service is the key to satisfaction. Poor customer service is commonly cited as a reason for moving from one host to another, so make an effort to assess any firms abilities in this area. Several sites now focus on rating web hosts and these should serve as a good starting point for your investigations. Try Hostsearch.com, with its wizard interface, and Web Host Directory. Make a point to ask around – word of mouth is a strong persuader in the customer service game.

Other issues that will inform your decision include your preferred operating system Windows, Linux or Unix — and your database needs. The additional services area is where a lot of firms distinguish themselves, offering incentives in the form of unlimited email addresses, or free domain name re-directs. Look carefully at the fine print and add up the cost of additional services. You may well find that the more expensive package bundles a lot of items marked as additional expense in the budget packages. But, also never forget that the company will be more than happy to let you upgrade to a bigger package if your needs change in the future.

author: Ric Shreves, www.waterandstone.com

Lets take one step back and make sure everyone shares some common ground, in terms of terms.

“Servers” are the hardware that holds and distributes information to people via the Internet. A small site may reside on a server with a number of other sites, a large site may require hundreds of separate servers in a variety of physical locations, all connected together and running as one cohesive system.

Servers can handle a wide variety of functions, from housing websites, to running mailing systems. For a quick rundown of server terminology check out the Webopedia server listing.

While some firms are interested in owning and feeding their own equipment, most firms these days choose to outsource all, or at least part, of the task. Outside of firms with special needs, it is hard to make a case for purchasing hardware in the current market. Like a new car, a server depreciates massively the moment it is taken from the dealer. Add to the equation the maintenance of the hardware and the software, and you have a cost center that not only becomes more expensive over time, but less functional relative to the newest technology.

A web hosting company (sometimes called an “Internet Data Center” or “IDC”) will offer a variety of packages, including the rental of hardware. The low monthly costs associated with hosting these days tips the hardware scale firmly toward the decision to rent, rather than buy hardware. Let the web hosts staff worry about changing disk drives, updating the operating system with the newest security patch and keeping the electricity and Internet connection going 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Outsourcing lets you focus on your core competencies, and the fact is that most IT departments weaned on office networks are in no position to support a real time data center-type operation.

When we talk about outsourcing hosting, another term you are likely to hear frequently is collocation. Co-location facilities physically house hardware and equipment in a secure location. The facility generally offers some degree of security against physical intrusion, fire, and power or bandwidth interruption. The quality of the physical facility and staff is generally related directly to the price and a site visit is appropriate where high-reliability installations are required.

If you are in the e-commerce business, or providing support services through your website, down time can be very expensive. Larger hosts will provide redundancy for drives, power supplies and bandwidth. If your site produces revenues, dont scrimp on the host.

Security of your data and your customers data is a sensitive issue. While your host is unlikely to guarantee security of any system, they should have in place adequate assurances that their environment does not contribute to the risk. They should also be willing to guarantee turn-around time on installation of patches and security fixes as they are released by vendors (like Microsoft!).

Selecting the right host for your company requires taking a hard look at your needs. Issues that must be resolved and prioritized include your need for ongoing maintenance and physical support services, network quality and speed, contract terms, and of course the value for money. Lets not forget that the current market, with its slough of bankruptcies, has also taught us that the financial stability of the firm is a factor.

For most clients, the level of the hosts customer service is the key to satisfaction. Poor customer service is commonly cited as a reason for moving from one host to another, so make an effort to assess any firms abilities in this area. Several sites now focus on rating web hosts and these should serve as a good starting point for your investigations. Try Hostsearch.com, with its wizard interface, and Web Host Directory. Make a point to ask around – word of mouth is a strong persuader in the customer service game.

Other issues that will inform your decision include your preferred operating system Windows, Linux or Unix — and your database needs. The additional services area is where a lot of firms distinguish themselves, offering incentives in the form of unlimited email addresses, or free domain name re-directs. Look carefully at the fine print and add up the cost of additional services. You may well find that the more expensive package bundles a lot of items marked as additional expense in the budget packages. But, also never forget that the company will be more than happy to let you upgrade to a bigger package if your needs change in the future.

author: Ric Shreves, www.waterandstone.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ric Shreves is an Internet consultant and author specializing in web technologies. He is a partner in Water & Stone, a web design agency focused on Mambo, osCommerce, and other open source tools. Read more of his work online at: http://www.waterandstone.com.

Solving Common Problems with Web Hosting Companies

Solving Common Problems with Web Hosting Companies

by Robin Nobles

For those of you with Web sites, you probably know what a host is. Its a company that provides a location, or address, on the Internet where your Web site resides.

In other words, just like a physical business needs an address, so does a Web site. You cant have a Web site and just stick it up on the Web. Unless you want to set up your own server, you have to go through a hosting company who gives you that address, including server space and bandwidth, that enables the search engines and visitors to find your site.

Lets look at some common problems we often have with hosting companies:

* You can never find an actual person to talk to! They may have a 24-hour customer service line open, but you can never get through to a real person.

* Hosting companies often think that the lowest price will always get the sale, but they fail to realize that what people really want is excellent customer service, servers that are up almost 100% of the time, and a variety of services that come with the hosting package.

* Many hosting companies dont provide any other functionality other than Web site hosting. They dont provide a control panel full of goodies such as PGP secure e-mail, shopping carts, log analysis, database creation, etc.

* Guess what? Technical support people often dont make the best customer support people. They may be technical gurus, but their main interest lies in their high tech servers and other functionality, rather than solving the simple problems of their customers.

* In other words, weak customer service is a major problem with the majority of hosting companies these days.

Solution:

I recently had the pleasure of being introduced to Combustion Hosting Company, and to say I was impressed is a vast understatement.

Here are some things that struck me as unbelievable. When the phone rings, whoever answers the phone is required to stand up to answer it and talk. After all, the sheer act of standing up requires that theyre on the ball and are listening to your problems and concerns. And, you actually speak to a real person!

With Combustion, if you have a problem, they dont just tell you how to solve it, they solve it for you! Also, their services certainly arent limited to hosting. They can set you up with an account to where you can access the Internet through local access numbers no matter where you travel.

Their prices are extremely reasonable much better than I had been paying previously. Plus, the extras Ive received by going with Combustion are amazing.

But the one thing that makes Combustion shine over most Web hosting companies is their devotion to providing good customer service, and this is an area in which they truly excel.

So, if youre in the market for a new Web site, or if you arent pleased with your current host, consider Combustion Hosting. It will be one of the smartest moves you could ever make for your Web site. http://www.combustionhosting.com/moreinfo

If you want further proof as to the benefits of using Combustion, read: http://www.techvibes.com/absolutenm/templates/template.asp?articleid=39&zoneid=2

Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists, (http://www.academywebspecialists.com) has trained several thousand people in her online search engine marketing courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com) and is the content provider for GRSeo software (http://www.se-optimizer.com). She also teaches 2-, 3-, and 5-day hands-on search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe with Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).

Copyright 2003 Robin Nobles. All rights reserved.

How to Get Started With Your Hosting Plan

At Hostchart.com we are often asked what is involved in the setup of a new hosting account. This article reviews the basic steps of: 1. domain name setup 2. login to a control panel to manage the hosting account 3. set up of new email accounts 4. upload of a website to a hosting plan.

These are the first things a new web hosting customer needs to accomplish, and in a lot of cases they will not need to adjust their account again, except to view website traffic statistics. This article covers these four steps, as well as a couple of other important tasks needed to get a website up and running with your hosting plan.

Let us start by defining what a hosting plan consists of: A hosting plan is memory space on the hard drive of a server, it is internet bandwidth, and it is a control panel of features to manage your site.

Step 1: Domain Name Setup The first step in getting your website up and running is to purchase a domain name. Current prices range between $8 to $20 per year. This will be the actual name of your website. No one else will be able to use your name once it is registered. Examples of common domain names you have heard of may include ebay.com, mapquest.com, etc. Once you have chosen a domain name, it needs to be pointed to the server that holds your hosting account, so when someone types www.yourdomainname.com into a browser, it will find the website files you will upload to your hosting plan.

Every domain name has at least 2 DNS settings that map the domain to an actual computer. The Domain Name Server (DNS) is a server that has a look up table of domain names and the IP address they belong to. The IP address is the internet address of a computer connected to the internet. There are thousands of DNS’ throughout the internet, which help with its flexibility. When you order a new hosting account with a web hosting company, they will send you 2 DNS settings. There are at least 2 DNS settings for each domain. This allows for a backup in case the primary DNS setting is unavailable. This is one of the beauties of the internet. Each DNS contains only a handful of domain names, and each domain name has a backup. This makes it virtually impossible for a hacker to bring down all websites, or the entire internet for that matter.

You will need to login where you registered your domain name and change the DNS settings to the ones that the web hosting company has given you. Note that you will have a control panel to manage your domain name, as well as a control panel to manage your hosting plan. New customers to hosting are often confused about the difference between registering their domain name and hosting the website for that domain name. Once you make these DNS changes, it will take 24-72 hours (1 to 3 days) for your domain name to propagate, at which time your domain name will start pointing to our servers and to your new hosting account. The time delay is caused by the distributed nature of the internet. A hosting company cannot tell you exactly how long it will take for your domain name to propagate across the whole world. It is dependent on all of the Internet providers in the world picking up the new results.

Step 2: Logging in to your Control Panel You’ll want to login to your control panel to do such things as view web traffic statistics, set up email addresses, set up databases, do backups, etc. Every web hosting company offers a control panel to manage your account (cPanel, Plesk, Helm, and Hsphere are the most popular control panels offered by web hosting companies, but some have even built there own to customize it to their services). They all offer basically the same features. In the control panel you can read your email, or set it up to be read through an email program like Outlook. You will also manage databases here, view your website’s performance, backup your website, install pre-built scripts, etc. You can use the control panel to upload your website’s files, but a lot of programmers prefer to do this through a separate FTP program. There will be more on this later. You should have a way to login before your domain propagates. This will allow you to get started on your control panel while propagation is occurring.

Step 3: Setting up Email accounts Once you are logged in to your control panel, you’ll want to setup at least one email address. Even if you do not want one, it is good to at least define one as a catch all to make sure you do not miss any emails sent to your domain.

Email Forwarding- If you want to simply “forward” all email to an outside email address (like your ISP email address), then simply set your Default Address (a tool in the Mail Management section of your Control Panel) to your ISP email address…. or to any email address where you want the emails to automatically be forwarded to. That way, any email sent to ‘anything’@yourdomain.com will be automatically (and immediately) sent to you. If you want to forward some emails to one address, and others to other addresses, you can do this with the Email Forwarders tool in your control panel.

Email Accounts (POP3 Accounts)- If you want to create a new email address with its own account (or email box; this is called a POP3 email account), then use the Add / Del Email Accounts tool in your control panel. From there you can add POP3 email accounts, assigning each one it’s own unique password. You will then want to go to your own email program (like Outlook, Outlook Express, etc.) and configure it to receive the emails sent to the new account you created.

For example: let’s say your new hosting account is yourcompany.com and you created an email address in your control panel called you@yourcompany.com and assigned it a password called yourpass. The details you’ll need to setup your email account(s) are as follows:

Account name: you@yourcompany.com Password: yourpass Incoming POP3: mail.yourcompany.com Outgoing SMTP: mail.yourcompany.com

Here is a video tutorial that shows setting up an email account in Outlook, http://www.roundberry.com/tutorials/email/email_outlook2002.htm .

Step 4: Uploading your Website/Files Once your domain name has propagated, you can upload your website and files to your account using an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program like WS_FTP. If you do not have an FTP program, you can download a free version of WS_FTP… it is one of the most popular FTP programs in use today. FTP is the most common way to move files around on the internet. If you are going to build and publish websites you will become very familiar with FTP. It is a simple protocol and there are a number of good FTP clients available for free. With FTP you connect to another computer and drag and drop files between them. In this case the “other computer” is the server where your hosting plan is located.

Microsoft FrontPage- If you are using FrontPage to build your website, then you do not need an FTP program. Instead, use FrontPage’s “Publish” feature to publish your website to your hosting account, using the username and password for your account (provided in your welcome email).

Prior to Domain Propagation- Another way to upload your files to your hosting account is by using the File Manager tool in your control panel. In fact, you can do this prior to your Domain Name propagating, so that your website will be functional prior to your domain name working. All of the common control panels have a File Manager tool or at least an FTP client. Viewing your Website/Files Prior to Domain Name Propagation- You may want to view your website prior to your domain name working, to make sure that it looks and works the way it should. You can immediately view your website prior to your domain name propagating by using the following link:

http://IPaddress/~username

Where IPaddress is the primary nameserver IP address given to you by your hosting company, and username is the username for your new account which is also given to you by your web hosts. So for example, if you are assigned the IP address of 12.123.12.123, and a username of “youracct”, then you would simply browse to:

http://12.123.12.123/~youracct

If you want to view a specific page in your website, say contactus.html, then you would browse to:

http://12.123.12.123/~youracct/contactus.html

Of course, you will first have to upload your website to be able to view the pages…. and you can do that from within your Control Panel.

Congratulations! After completing the above steps, you will have setup your domain name, created email accounts, and uploaded your website to your web hosting account. You are now in business!

About the Author

About the Author: Rodney Ringler is President of Advantage1 Web Services, Inc., which owns a network of Web Hosting Informational Websites including HostChart.com, ResellerConnection.com, FoundHost.com, ResellerForums.com, and HostingKnowledge.net. Rodney has over 15 years industry experience from programming to internet marketing.

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