Website Hosting Tips - Ten Factors To Consider When Choosing A Website Host

In order to become successful online you really need your own website, but how do you choose which hosting plan is right for you? There are many factors that you need to be aware of before you decide which company you want to use.

Firstly, you may want to use a free hosting service for your first website but there are some major disadvantages such as disk space and data transfer restrictions, banner or pop up adverts which you have no control over, and a lack of personal support if you require any help.

With website hosting accounts now available for as little as $3 per month for 5 gigabytes disk space and 50 gigabytes data transfer there really is no need to use a free service anymore.

Here are some of the factors you need to consider before choosing a website host:

1. The amount of disk space you require. If you plan on creating a large website with hundreds or thousands of content pages and various scripts you will need a hosting plan that offers unlimited disk space so that you never have to worry about how large your websites gets. Some hosting plans offer a set amount of disk space with no ability to upgrade to get more so if you reach the limit you will need to find a new host and transfer your entire website which can be very stressful and time consuming.

2. The amount of data transfer you require. If you plan on sending a large amount of visitors to your website every month you will need a hosting plan that offers a large amount of data transfer (also known as bandwidth) so that you never have to worry about how much traffic you send to your website. If you reach the limit of your allocated monthly data transfer your website will become unavailable for the rest of the month which can result in a massive loss of profits.

3. The number of domain names you require. If you plan on creating many different websites you will need a hosting plan that offers the ability to host multiple separate domains on one account so that you don’t have to create a new account for each domain name.

4. Support for the latest versions of PHP, Perl, JavaScript, and CGI. This is essential if you intend to install various scripts on your website such as blogs, forums, article directories, etc…

5. Access to MySQL, SSL, and shopping cart. If you plan on using scripts on your website you will need to be able to create MySQL databases and if you want to collect credit card information you will need SSL for encrypted security.

6. Support for both DreamWeaver and FrontPage. Whether you use DreamWeaver or FrontPage you will need a hosting plan that offers compatibility with both in case you decide to switch and use one over the other.

7. Personalized email accounts. Its important to be able to create personalized email addresses for your domain name including mail forwarding addresses, catch all addresses, auto responder addresses, and the ability to retrieve mail with your email software.

8. Shared or dedicated server. The problem with a shared server (also known as a virtual server) is that only a small amount of disk space and data transfer is available and that many other websites will be hosted on the same server which can reduce the loading speed and availability of your website. Its far better and safer to use a dedicated server because your website will be the only one using it and you will have far more disk space and data transfer.

9. Windows or Linux server. In the past there where some major differences between Windows and Linux based servers but recent improvements have meant that these differences have now diminished to the point where you can make your choice of hosting company based on the features they offer rather than the operating system.

10. Live support. This is one of the most important factors when choosing a website host because if you ever have any problems you need to be able to instantly communicate with a professional to solve the issue. It can be very frustrating if you have to wait a few days for your help desk ticket to be answered.

This is a brief overview of what you should look out for before you decide to purchase a hosting plan. Its a good idea to plan for the long term and buy as much disk space and data transfer as you can afford to ensure that you don’t run into any problems in the future.

For affordable website hosting plans and excellent support you should consider using a company such as Host Excellence which provides all the essential features for very low prices and if you decide you want more disk space or data transfer you can always upgrade your account to a higher level: http://www.marketingoasis.com/direct/hostexcellence/

About the Author

This article was written by Simon Akers who is the editor of the Marketing Oasis newsletter, a free internet marketing ezine packed with tips to help you succeed and increase your profits: http://www.MarketingOasis.com

How To Reduce Web Hosting Bandwidth

How To Reduce Web Hosting Bandwidth Copyright 2002 by Herman Drost

You just received a higher than normal monthly bill on your credit card for web hosting. Your hosting company explains that you exceeded your monthly minimum for bandwidth usage and suggests reducing the size of your web site files.

What is bandwidth usage? What does bandwidth mean? How much bandwidth do you need? How can you reduce bandwidth usage?

Lets discuss each of these topics in more depth.

What is bandwidth usage? This refers to the total amount of information that has been served to your web site visitors each month. Every file on your Web Site has a specific size (e.g. 22K). Every time a visitor downloads that file, your bandwidth usage goes up by that amount.

The larger the file, the higher the bandwidth usage when it is downloaded. The more traffic to your site, the more bandwidth you will use.

What does bandwidth mean? Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time. The data transfer rate is the speed with which data can be transmitted from one device to another. Data rates are often measured in megabits (million bits) or megabytes (million bytes) per second. These are usually abbreviated as Mbps and Mbps, respectively.

Bits and Bytes

8 bits = 1 byte.

1,024 bytes = 1 kilobyte (Kb). 1,024 kilobytes (Kb) = 1 megabyte (mb or meg) 1,024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte (gb or gig)

How much bandwidth do I need? To determine how much bandwidth you need, estimate the file size of each web page, and then multiply it by the number of pages on your web site.

Multiply this figure by the number of the number of page views you expect per month from your site.

For example, if your web page consists of two 15Kb images and 3Kb of html, you would have 33Kb of data for that page. Now multiply this by the number of page views you expect to have per month (e.g. 100,000 per month). This would mean 3.3Gb of data needs to be transferred per month for that page.

Now recalculate this number for each page, and youll know approximately how much bandwidth your entire site requires.

How can you reduce bandwidth usage? The easy way is to reduce the size of the files on your site, particularly images and other graphics. For example, you have a large image (i.e. 200KB) on your web page that is downloaded by each visitor every time the page is requested. If you reduce this image to 20KB or remove it altogether, it will dramatically cut your bandwidth usage. It will also speed up your sites performance.

For more information on optimizing images for the Web, read my article, Preparing Images for Your Web Site, (www.isitebuild.com/imageoptimization2).

Web Sites that have MP3s to download, movies, music playing in the background and large images, will obviously have a higher bandwidth. Large web sites or sites that expect a lot of traffic, will also use a lot.

If your site has mainly html pages and small images, your bandwidth will not be that high.

Bandwidth Tools

Monitoring bandwidth

http://www.utoronto.ca/ucres/netup.htm

Web Page Checker

http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/page_size.cgi

Tuning up your Web Site http://websitegarage.netscape.com/

Bandwidth Tips

If you make changes to your site by adding more files and/or web pages, recalculate your web site file size.

Estimate how many visitors will be accessing your web pages over the next few months.

Recalculate the bandwidth usage for your site. You may need more web space and bandwidth for your site to function effectively.

Check with your web hosting company to upgrade your hosting plan.

Conclusion

Now you can avoid the shock of exceeding your monthly bandwidth usage and paying higher hosting fees. You are now ready to receive more traffic to your site and therefore make more sales. ===========================================================

Herman Drost is a Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of iSiteBuild.com Site Design and Low Cost Hosting from $30/year. (http://www.isitebuild.com)

Subscribe to the Marketing Tips newsletter for more original articles. mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com. Insert Subscribe Me in the subject line.

Hqhosts Dedicated And Shared Web Hosting: Economical Server Wizard And Per Gigabyte Services

HQHost, a web hosting provider, informs about its high end Server Wizard and Per Gigabyte services for its dedicated and shared web hosting clients. In order to decrease their outlay on web hosting, HQHosts clients can control their hosting funds by creating their own web hosting packages.

August 5, 2004 HQHost Company, a high end web hosting provider, makes clear the advantages of its economical Server Wizard service for dedicated server clients and Per Gigabyte web hosting service for its shared hosting clients to be able to create their own suitable web hosting plans.

Any web hosting can be economical if taken sensibly. HQHosts Server Wizard and Per Gigabyte web hosting services are vivid examples of economical approach to your hosting expenses. Both dedicated server clients and shared hosting clients can benefit from these services by creating their own web hosting plans with the required bandwidth and storage space.

These services are especially designed to cater to the needs of web hosting clients. No more long bills. You pay only for what you have used, not more not less, says Serg Sabetyev, CEO of HQHost Company.

Standard web hosting packages advertised everywhere demand a fixed price for certain amount of bandwidth. The burning question is if a client is able to use all the gigabytes ordered. In case of non-exhausting the limit, the client will pay the whole fixed cost of the package. In case the client exceeds the limit, he pays much more per additional gigabyte. There is the third alternative. HQHosts Per Gigabyte web hosting service applies to the shared hosting customers http://www.hq-host.com/en/virtual.html. Calculate the required bandwidth for your site and pay only those gigabytes you are going to use.

As compared to shared web hosting, dedicated server hosting is a high level secure service. Large corporate websites put up great funds into dedicated web hosting on different reasons. Some of them have sensible information to deal with. The others have complicated ecommerce software. The prevailing factor is high traffic. Whatever reason for huge dedicated server outlay there can be, dedicated server web hosting can be affordable. Any client can arrange its own rational dedicated server package with HQHosts Server Wizard service http://www.hq-host.com/en/ded_wizard.html.

According to Serg Sabetyev, CEO of HQHost Company, this is an advantage-ground for those websites that have a seasonable traffic slump. They can arrange any web hosting packages suitable for them with Server Wizard and Per Gigabyte services. If your site traffic is high at rush season only, you can benefit by HQHosts unique services.

HQHost (High Quality Host Company), a web hosting provider, was founded in 2001. HQHosts data centers are located in the United States and assure absolute visibility of its clients websites worldwide. HQHost is a privately owned company with headquarters in Sacramento, CA.

For additional information, please contact:

Serg Sabetyev

HQHost Company CEO

Address: Fast Internet Technology, Inc.

5325 Elkhorn Blvd. PMB # 8227,

Sacramento, CA 95842, USA

URL: http://www.hq-host.com/

E-mail: manager@hq-host.com

# # #

August 5, 2004 HQHost Company, a high end web hosting provider, makes clear the advantages of its economical Server Wizard service for dedicated server clients and Per Gigabyte web hosting service for its shared hosting clients to be able to create their own suitable web hosting plans.

Any web hosting can be economical if taken sensibly. HQHosts Server Wizard and Per Gigabyte web hosting services are vivid examples of economical approach to your hosting expenses. Both dedicated server clients and shared hosting clients can benefit from these services by creating their own web hosting plans with the required bandwidth and storage space.

These services are especially designed to cater to the needs of web hosting clients. No more long bills. You pay only for what you have used, not more not less, says Serg Sabetyev, CEO of HQHost Company.

Standard web hosting packages advertised everywhere demand a fixed price for certain amount of bandwidth. The burning question is if a client is able to use all the gigabytes ordered. In case of non-exhausting the limit, the client will pay the whole fixed cost of the package. In case the client exceeds the limit, he pays much more per additional gigabyte. There is the third alternative. HQHosts Per Gigabyte web hosting service applies to the shared hosting customers http://www.hq-host.com/en/virtual.html. Calculate the required bandwidth for your site and pay only those gigabytes you are going to use.

As compared to shared web hosting, dedicated server hosting is a high level secure service. Large corporate websites put up great funds into dedicated web hosting on different reasons. Some of them have sensible information to deal with. The others have complicated ecommerce software. The prevailing factor is high traffic. Whatever reason for huge dedicated server outlay there can be, dedicated server web hosting can be affordable. Any client can arrange its own rational dedicated server package with HQHosts Server Wizard service http://www.hq-host.com/en/ded_wizard.html.

According to Serg Sabetyev, CEO of HQHost Company, this is an advantage-ground for those websites that have a seasonable traffic slump. They can arrange any web hosting packages suitable for them with Server Wizard and Per Gigabyte services. If your site traffic is high at rush season only, you can benefit by HQHosts unique services.

HQHost (High Quality Host Company), a web hosting provider, was founded in 2001. HQHosts data centers are located in the United States and assure absolute visibility of its clients websites worldwide. HQHost is a privately owned company with headquarters in Sacramento, CA.

For additional information, please contact:

Serg Sabetyev

HQHost Company CEO

Address: Fast Internet Technology, Inc.

5325 Elkhorn Blvd. PMB # 8227,

Sacramento, CA 95842, USA

URL: http://www.hq-host.com/

E-mail: manager@hq-host.com

# # #

7 Key Points to Consider When Choosing a Web HostKyle DusangWith literally thousands of web hosting companies in the industry all vieing for your business, carefully consider these key points to ensure you make the most well informed decision possible.

1. Server Space

First, think about how much space your site will take up on a server. Unless you are planning on running a software repository or an image gallery, the files that make up your website will probably only use between 1 and 5 megabytes of disk space. Many companies will offer several hundreds of megabytes of webspace for a very reasonable price in attempt to out perform their competitors, but ask yourself “Do I really need that much space?”. Though it’s true that you should allow your site “room to grow”, don’t opt for what seems like a great deal on a massively sized account if you’ll never use all of the space offered. Chances are you’ll find an even better deal on an amount of space more suitable for your site size.

2. Data Transfer Allowance

This decision should be based on the same principal as above. Though you may be convinced that your site will be the next Amazon or Yahoo and receive a gazillion visitors a day, you really shouldn’t need an extremely high data transfer allowance unless, as stated above, you’re running a software download site or a large image gallery. Even heavily trafficked normal HTML sites usually only use a few gigabytes per month in bandwidth allowance. Don’t go overboard just because it seems like an awesome deal. You may also want to be wary of companies who offer “unlimited” data transfer as there are usually some fine-print stipulations that make this claim not entirely true. Be sure to read their terms and conditions very carefully before opting for this type of account. A five or ten gigabyte bandwidth allowance is usually plenty enough for a small to medium sized business or personal site.

3. Technical Support

A very important point to consider when choosing a web host is the types of technical support offered by the company and how easy they are to contact when you need them. Ideally, a company should offer 24/7 toll-free telephone support and email. I have seen companies that do not even offer a telephone number on their website. You should look for a company that is very easily accessible in your time of need. Nothing is more frustrating than being in the middle of working on your site and needing an important piece of information to finish the job and not being able to contact your hosting company to find it out.

4. CGI-Bin Access

No matter what type of site you are planning on running, chances are you will eventually need to install some type of CGI script. Whether it be a mailing list management script, contact form processor, or maybe even a fancy credit card processing script, your hosting account will need to allow you to install and run them. This requires access to a special folder on your server called “CGI-Bin”. Some hosting accounts will only allow you to use “pre-installed” scripts as a security measure. These are scripts that the owners of the company have installed and configured so that they know that they will work properly and not adversely affect their server’s performance. That may be all you need, but if you have the knowledge, it’s always nice to have the ability to install your own scripts and configure them to suit your individual needs. You should also be sure that the account you choose supports the language in which your scripts are written, such as PHP, Perl, etc.

5. Up-Time Guarantee

Another very important issue in determining the value of a hosting company is how often and for how long their servers “go down”. No matter how good a deal you get on server space or bandwidht allowance, or how wonderfully the company’s tech support takes care of you, your site can’t receive visitors or produce revenue if the machine on which it is hosted is not up and running. Naturally you want a company who can guarantee the highest up-time percentage possible. Servers are taken down briefly from time to time for maintenance or upgrading, so no company can ensure 100% up-time, but you want your site to be hosted on dependable, well managed machines that are not constantly having problems which require them to be down for long periods of time.

6. Email Accounts

Again, like data transfer allowance and server space, some companies will offer you loads more email accounts than you will ever use. Some offer hundreds or even unlimited email accounts as a selling point. This is an important factor if you are Bill Gates and have thousands of employees, each who need their own email box, but not such a big deal if you’re just one person or a small company. You should be okay with 10 or 15.

7. Reputation

This is probably the most important factor to consider when choosing a web host. Do your homework. Pay attention to any negative feedback you may hear or read about a particular hosting company. There are several sites arount the Web that feature discussion forums that allow people to discuss and critique various hosting companies. Ask specific questions about any company you might be interested in using to see if anyone else has had any negative experiences with them. As a beginning webmaster, I had initially contracted the services of a particular web hosting company to host my first site, who promised very good, dependable service for a very cheap price. Then one day, for no apparent reason, decided to delete my entire site without warning or explanation. Only then did I visit some hosting forums and find that many others had similar negative experiences with that company. Don’t make the same mistake I did, find out for sure from the start that your hosting company is not going to let you down.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Webmaster: http://www.verybesthosting.com

Looking for a web host? Start here. Compare plans, features, and pricing from several of the Web’s most reputable hosting companies all in one place.

4 Tips in Choosing the Right Web Hosting Company.

When choosing a web hosting company there are many factors to consider.

When choosing a web hosting company there are many factors to consider.

1. Does the company offer telephone support?

Email support is always nice to have available, but you may already know how long it takes some people to reply to these. Getting someone on the ‘phone when your site goes down will instantly make you feel better and get you the answers you need as quickly as you need them. A lot of bigger web hosting companies offer free support and often are available out of hours too. Phone support is a great benefit for any web hosting client.

2. What sort of history does the company have? How long has this company been in business?

Web hosting companies that have been in existence for less than a year may not be the best choice for you or your website. A hosting company with a proven track record and many happy clients is certainly a good sign and might work well for you. A lot of the larger hosting businesses will post customer testimonials on their site to reinforce the message.

3. What software does the company offer?

This varies widely between web hosting companies. Now that I have used Cpanel I wouldn’t want to be without it, mainly because I am used to it and now know what features it has and how to use most of them. It’s a lot easier to stick with something you know than have to try switching to a new User Interface.

Are you designing your site with Frontpage?. If so, check your host supports this, as not all do.

Another area you may want to research is the supplied statistics. What sort of web statistics software is included with your web hosting account? Is, for example, Awstats included?

4. Fees.

I’d rather pay a little more for a full feature set and reliabilty than get the cheapest deal and have problems with server downtime, bandwith issues, etc. With hosting deals you usually get a level of service that is relative to the price you have paid.

Check that your prospective hosting company offers a refund service before signing up. Most quality ones do as they know they can deliver what they promise.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

More articles available from www.info-sales.co.uk

The Most Important Web Hosting Tips And Tricks

The investments in a website might often involve large amounts of money, often reaching 5 figures. However, regardless if you have a highly complex website or a personal web site, there are a few things that you want to know for sure. The hosting provider should guarantee a server up-time of over 99% and you should also have a backup server in case the main server has problems - these are essential requirements for any web hosting services company. FTP and email access should also be discussed and there are a few other details that you want to be certain of before you make a commitment.

A little shopping around can pay off for you in cheap web hosting and design services, especially if you’re building a business web site. There are several web hosting services that offer all-in-one design and hosting services starting at $9.95 a month for a one page business card site to $50 a month for a 9-10 page full service catalog. Some require a commitment of 12-24 months, though they’ll only bill you the monthly fee up front, and all require that if you leave their web hosting service, the site design belongs to them. If the web hosting company is otherwise dependable, reliable and offers all the bells and whistles that you need, an all-in-one package can be a great way to get a professional design at cheap rates. You can get more tips and tricks concerning services and rates here: Business web site hosting company

As a novice who doesn’t understand all the web hosting jargon this can pose a problem. Are you an individual, small business, blog, or a big time corporation? What do you need and how do you get it. You know you are a customer and a person, not just a number on a sales receipt. I believe the hosting companies are the same. A smaller hosting company will probably treat its users with more honest integrity as well as having more flexibility in dealing with your individual situation. They can often tailor web site packages to accommodate exactly what you are looking for as well as the ability to update them quickly when your needs change. My advice is to contact a few of the smaller companies. Look for ones with good reputations or just arbitrarily email them and compare results from different places. Which one do you feel most comfortable with? Go for it; ask as many questions as you can, see how the different hosts differ in their answers. Try one; if it doesn’t work out try another, it’s really easy to move around. Don’t be afraid, you’ve got nothing to lose except the fear itself!

Find out more about web hosting here: Expert Web Hosting Advice

About the Author

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The 5 Top Things To Know Before Buying Web Hosting Space

Having a website or a blog requires that you have a web hosting account. Without web hosting, it’s not possible to have an online presence or do online business. While it’s true that you can get a free blog on Google’s Blogger site with free hosting, you should also realize that Google can pull the plug on it at anytime, for any reason. And, many times for various reasons they do.

There’s not much if any recourse and your blog site information is literally gone in a flash. So, in reference to blogs, I am referring to blogs like, Wordpress, that allow you to put them on your own hosting space.

Therefore, to have a strong online presence (whether for a website or a blog) it’s important to start with a good web hosting.

Here are the 5 most important things you should know before deciding on your website hosting and be sure to follow this if you want to avoid the pitfalls.

1) Server up-time:

A main thing to look for in web hosting is server up-time. While 100% up-time cannot be guaranteed by any web hosting company you can certainly find a host that will guarantee your site to be up 99% or more of the time.

2) cPanel:

Another main factor is to make sure your web host uses the cPanel admin interface.

cPanel is most popular web-wide because it allows you to easily manage your web space. Be sure to avoid hosts that do not use cPanel.

3) Support:

This is very important because if you have a technical issue, good support makes the difference between night & day. Good support will respond quickly, especially when you have a pressing technical issue.

With a good host, you can easily handle all support issues via email or support tickets. But be sure to read the terms of the support service (or even personally enquire) so you will know what to expect on support issues along the way.

4) Features:

You’ll want a host with a lot of features because things can get costly later if you need to add them on. A good idea is to get a plan that includes as much in the package as you get - without compromising quality.

It’s well-worth having more than you need even if you aren’t ready to use it all right away. As your site grows, you’ll find you’ll need more resources to accommodate your web presence, so it’s good to have a robust account. However, with that said… you have to draw the line so it’s not overkill.

For instance, when you want to add more web sites onto your server space, it’s a good idea to have some space ready to grow into.

And that can happen faster than you’ll expect. So, it’s very good to plan ahead knowing your web space is well-equipped with most of the common bells & whistles you will be needing to accommodate your website. And remember you can always add-on some much needed extras later when the time comes.

And finally…

5) Hosting Costs…

You’ll find hosting space costs from a few bucks to a few hundred dollars per month + and everywhere in between…

The cost does not always reflect the quality so here again you really have to watch what you are getting into. Compare many plans to help you make the best decision.

However, I can tell you it’s not unsual to find web hosting costs at about $24.95 per month for decent web space with 300 to 500 MB of web space.

That’s about $300.00 per year and can get quite expensive if you have to keep adding-on more resources. But if you do your home work, you’ll have a much better chance at finding a great host at a great price.

And, with a lot of competition out there, if you look hard, you can find better hosting offers coming out everyday.

Let’s summarize the 5 Top things you’ll need to know that can help you make a good decision…

1) Look for 99% + server up-time…

2) Make sure your host offers cPanel to easily manage your site(s)…

3) Read the support terms so you know what to expect on any support tasks…

4) Look for robust hosting features without compromising the overall quality… (sometimes more sounds better - but if they can’t deliver, it’s not better)

5) Hosting Costs: Go for the most bang for your buck by comparing various hosting plans (also without compromising quality for quantity) and watch the heavy monthly costs that can add up.

There you go… You now know the 5 top things to look for when considering good web hosting space and with these important tips, you’re well on your way to having a strong web presence.

Michael Nicholas publishes the Impact Info Newsletter… the newsletter the gurus read. Discover hot tips & tools on affiliate/internet marketing geared to skyrocket your success. AND you’ll also receive a set of 7 videos on affiliate marketing - Yours FREE. For more information go to: ===> http://www.MichaelsBlog.NET

The Pros & Cons Of Hosting The Site Yourself

DO-IT-YOURSELF

You host the Web site yourself, relying purely on in-house resources except for the external connectivity.

PROS:

* No service costs to pay

* You have total control over the application

CONS:

* Can be difficult and expensive to maintain the required expertise

* You may not have an ideal physical environment

* Coping with future increase in demand may be painful.

YANILLA CO-LOCATION

Hosting company provides the physical space and associated environmental services, including building access security, for your Web server and the connectivity to the Internet. However, the server is yours and you manage everything else to do with it, including the hardware, operating system and application.

PROS:

* Far cheaper than full-blown dedicated hosting, while avoiding all the environmental and connectivity issues of in-house hosting

CONS:

* You stilt need the resources to manage the Web server itself including operating system and application.

CO-MANAGED

This is a half-way house, in which you still look after the application, but now the hosting company owns and administers the server and the operating system, as well as providing all the basic co-location facilities. This represents a split in responsibility between the IT platform and the application running on it.

PROS:

* It off-loads all responsibility for hardware and operating system, allowing you to focus on the application

* Cheaper than full dedicated hosting

CONS:

* Considerably more expensive than co-location

* You still have to look after the application, which is often the main source of reliability problems.

DEDICATED HOSTING

Here the hosting company looks after everything to do with the IT of your Web site, including the application and even processing-electronic payments.

PROS:

* It off-loads all responsibility for IT, allowing you to focus purely on products and customers

CONS:

* Very expensive

* You will stilt deal with customers and products

* You may stilt have to grapple with complex integration issues involving in-house systems.

FULL-BLOWN PROCESS OUTSOURCING

This is dedicated hosting with the additional component of managing processes such as CRM and product pricing, in effect outsourcing the whale e-commerce operation, concentrating on the products or services you provide but leaving the online distribution to the service provider.

PROS:

* It off-loads some of the integration issues (or all of them if you resort to total outsourcing of IT)

* Fastest route to new online markets

CONS

* Adds even more to the cost

* Extends dependence on hosting provider beyond IT provision into customer relationship management, which may be beyond its core competence.

Case study: Warner Brothers International Theatre (WBIT)

WBIT. like some other national cinema chains. recently established a Web site supporting online ticket sales. With rivals moving online, WBIT decided it needed to act quickly, setting itself a tight four-month deadline. The business plan for a Web presence coupled with online ticket sales was only completed in February 2000. However, the company wanted to go live in time for the launch in July of the year’s biggest movie. Star Wars, Episode One — The Phantom Menace.

According to James Scott, WBIT project director, this tight deadline narrowed the field of contenders significantly and meant that only a seasoned hosting provider could be considered. BT was chosen largely on the strength of its existing relationship with WBIT for telecoms services. The deadline was met, and the site quickly proved popular, with seven million hits in a month shortly after going live.

This is an example of dedicated hosting, in which the provider looks after all IT issues relating to provision and operation of the Web site. But it is not full-blown outsourcing, because WBIT looks after the actual ticketing systems within each local cinema.

The site is managed on BT’s own server farm in Milton Keynes and this interacts with WBIT’s network connecting the local cinemas. When a customer checks times of films and orders a ticket, the enquiry runs through the BT server farm to WBIT’s central system in its London headquarters and is then routed to the requested local cinema. The ticket order is then processed in the local cinema’s system and a message confirming — or if fully booked denying — the purchase is sent back via the same route.

Submitted by HostingChecker.com - for help on all your hosting needs.

http://www.hostingchecker.com

Article may be republished if this portion is not removed.

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Web Hosting Checklist - Never Miss A Thing

Before rushing for a web hosting account, you need to check the following features which are important for any web hosting account. Many people overlook this features and pay the price later. So here are the important features you need to check with your hosting company before paying for it.

Technical Support

Technical support is one of the most important factor you need to consider when a choosing a web host. Test different companies before you sign up by sending them an email with a question or two. If they respond quickly, this is a good sign.

Uptime

The more uptime they guarantee, the better. 99% uptime is the minimum acceptable standard. Look for 99% plus guaranteed uptime. 1% of uptime is about 87 hours in a year.

Disk Space

Decide how much disk space you will require. A basic web site with few images and about 10 to 20 pages will not take up much web space . If you require a lot of graphics or multimedia or you need to store a lot of information, you will need a bit higher disk space. Again you can increase your web space as required with almost all the hosts by paying the extra charges.

Data Transfer

This factor is usually overlooked until the data transfer limit is reached. If you go over your alloted data transfer, you will get a hefty bill. If you are running a site with lots of downloads, or a site with lots of images such at a photo post site, your data transfer will be higher than a site with mainly text. The average website uses less than 200MB of bandwidth per month.

Scripting Languages support

If you using a scripting language to output your html, you need to check whether the plan has support for that script. You will need a windows hosting plan only if you are using microsoft scripting languages like asp and asp.net.

CGI Bin

This is now standard feature with almost all hosting companies. If you do not have access to your own CGI Bin, you cannot install your own cgi scripts and programs.

Perl

If you do not have Perl, you cannot run Perl Programs. Many good scripts that you buy or get for free are written in Perl. In my opinion, it would be a limitation not to have the latest version of Perl installed

SSI

Server Side Includes are great if you want to spend minimal time updating your site. Again this feature is provided by many hosts.

FTP Access

Unlimited and unrestricted FTP access to your site is essential. You will need an FTP program to transfer files from your computer to the server.

Statistics Program

A good stats program is handy if you want to keep an eye on how many visitors you are getting, where they are coming from, referrers, top entry and exit pages and so on. Some companies offer excellent stats programs as standard while others offer basic stats but you have to pay extra for advanced statistics.

Tips For Choosing A Web Hosting Company

There are literally hundreds of web hosting companies with multiple hosting plans vying for your business. While most are good and will do an adequate or better job of hosting your site, there are a number of considerations to make when looking at various companies.

For most web sites, shared hosting provides the most cost effective solution to web hosting. While the basic hosting is just that, each offer many different features and incentives. Before even looking at a hosting service, it is a good idea to thoroughly assess your present and future needs. For example, an ecommerce site will require much more in the way of storage and features than a personal or hobby site. If you will be hosting multiple domains or sub-domains, you need to know if a given company will support them without additional charges. Plans may include basic shopping carts, free domain registrations, multiple scripting options, etc. The list is endless, but the first order of business is to develop some criteria based on what you need right now and what you may require in the future. Its always possible to switch companies in the future, but much easier to get it as right as possible the first time.

In evaluating various companies, there are several aspects generic to all that you should look at.

Is the company established? Look for a company that has been in business at least 3-5 years and has a physical address and phone number posted on their web site. Use caution with a company whose only contact information is an email address. Also look at the number of domains hosted by the company. An established company should be hosting at least 50,000 (if not more) domains.

Is 24/7 monitoring and service available? The company should have someone monitoring their servers at all times as well as someone available to handle emergency service in the event your site goes down.

Is their a money back guarantee? It is common practice for a company to require a year or two payments up front in order to obtain the best pricing. Check to see if the company offers a pro-rated refund if you choose to switch companies.

How much are additional services? Should you exceed your plans allotted bandwidth or storage, it is important to know what additional transfer or storage will cost. Most companies are quite reasonable, however some require that you purchase additional storage / bandwidth in large blocks. Most companies will send you an alert if you are approaching your plans limits and allow for arrangements to be made. Others will simply shut down your web site until you have paid.

Testimonials? They are nice to see, but should always be taken with a grain of salt. Check to see if the testimonials include a web address and visit the web-site.

Is the sales staff available to answer questions? They should be. Look for a toll free number and call with any questions before making a commitment.

The last thing you need do is evaluate the pricing and assure that it fits in your budget. While you certainly don’t want to choose an obviously shady hosting company for the sake of saving a few bucks, it has been our experience that more expensive does not necessarily mean better when it comes to shared hosting.

About the Author:

For more tips and info on web hosting, visit our website How to Choose a Web Hosting Plan.

Are Your Web Hosting Costs Too High?

Choosing the right host is an important aspect in lowering your web hosting costs. The web hosting industry, boasting several thousand web hosts, is still young and growing at a remarkable pace; hence finding the right host is not only difficult, but very time consuming; fortunately though it is worth the time and effort.

There are a few things to keep in mind when exploring; when deciding to form a partnership with the host. Below are just a few things to consider, which directly attribute to final cost.

Disk Space - Knowing how much web space your web site needs and compensating for a bit extra, for growth. For example, if your web site needs 200 MB of disk space, look for the plan which offers at least 250 to 300 MB of web space; this will prevent a large unexpected bill at the end of the month when high priced costs, charged by most web hosts for extra disk space usage, are added on to your bill. As a rule of thumb, an average web site should cost you no more than $1 per 10 MB

Bandwidth - Figure out how much bandwidth (data transfer) your web site uses. As above, ensure you get more bandwidth than your site uses. For example, if your website uses 8GB bandwidth per month, then choose a plan, which offers at least 8 or 10GB bandwidth per month. This again will prevent ’spikes’ of over usage, leading to higher extra costs. As a reference, an average web site should pay no more than $3 per GB for bandwidth usage.

Block buying - Ask the web host if they have “block buying” facilities for purchasing projected extra disk space or bandwidth. But, be careful, if your web site needs only 2 GB extra bandwidth, you may have to buy an extra package in blocks of 5GB bandwidth; in this case, look for the host which will allow you to purchase extra disk space and bandwidth allowance as per your needs, this is crucial to cost savings.

Note: Ensure that you know the over-usage allowance rules; you need to know what happens if your web site uses more disk space or bandwidth than you have been allocated. The web host who informs you of possible over-usage well in advance, allowing you to take measures to reduce or budget for extra usage, is ‘worth their weight in gold’.

Number of web sites - if you have more than one web site, sign up an account with a web host who provides multiple domains hosted on one account; this will work out a lot cheaper than an account per website.

A good tip would be to ask your friends and colleagues if they want to host their websites with you on one account. For example at M6.net - http://www.m6.net a person or persons with 4 websites can save roughly $20 per month by signing up an M6-2, multiple hosting account.

Applications and databases - Ensure that all the applications your web site uses (FrontPage, ASP pages, databases, cgi, PHP, etc.), are supported within the chosen account type. Find out if there are any extra fees for particular applications or associated database support. For example allot of hosts charge extra set-up fees to install FrontPage, which may be avoided by choosing another host offering the same features with no extra costs.

Mail Server - Emails are the lifeblood of your online business. Ensure that you get a sufficient number of email addresses with your own domain name (preferably unlimited); these are necessary for other email features like forwarders, and auto responders, etc. There is no need to pay an extra fee for use of a mail server as many hosts offer this service now for free, within the hosting plan.

Avoid long-term contracts - Many web hosts offer huge discounts on yearly or half yearly payments in advance, this may appear a good way to go, but note how long you are locked in. If possible avoid long-term contracts until you are sure about the services and reliability offered by that particular host. Paying on a monthly basis obviously has its benefits. If there are concerns with your service encouraging you to seek a new host elsewhere, you may lose out on many months of hosting fees when breaking a yearly or half-yearly contract; but, if the necessity arises, a loss of only a few days to close a troublesome account, is preferable.

Thinking ahead with reference to an established plan of action will help you avoid most surprises, and definitely help towards cutting costs, short term or long-term. Work out your growth rate and project future expansions. Keep a good record of past and present bandwidth and web space usage, this will help to project future needs.

Savings are mostly a matter of common sense, but in this industry of high technology most people forget this rule and try to look for the best, most efficient and most expensive technical programs and software to save them a buck or two. As in most businesses good cost effective groundwork is the best start to cutting costs.

By Candice Humbley

http://m6.net

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