Hosting Preview

Often times those seeking to create their own webpage with a unique domain name encounter a little difficulty when identifying a web hosting provider suitable for them. Many providers charge a hefty price for domain names and the services they provide, which are frequently inadequate. However there are numerous web hosting service providers who offer a great variety of benefits at affordable rates. One such provider that presents superior cheap rates is GoDaddy. Simply visiting GoDaddy.com just once will enable you to view the many services and advantages of hosting with GoDaddy and also browse through an abundance of available packages and domain names.

Being one of the world’s largest and most popular hosts, one would expect GoDaddy to present quite an extensive array of services and options as is the case. With every single package offered by GoDaddy you get the promise of continuous monitoring, maintenance and security that has essentially made GoDaddy such a reputable and sought after provider. The world-class data center allows this provider to constantly watch over your webpage and the constant presence of a top-notch firewall serves to make your website extraordinarily secure. Along with the benefit of cheap rates and the aforementioned advantages of hosting with GoDaddy, users can also receive custom support, thus you can truly receive a remarkably accommodating service with GoDaddy.

There are a fair number of providers offering very quick setup free of charge but none like GoDaddy. Their free rapid account setup is virtually unmatched. Browsing the website one will also notice the ease with which one can find a suitable package for them and also contact GoDaddy if necessary. Finding information about building your website and web hosting in general is also quite easy on the GoDaddy webpage. What’s more sections of the website actually explain how to go about performing specific tasks that you may need to carry out when building your site.

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Website hosts are essential for any website. They are the reason why your website exsists. However, choosing a website host may be a difficult task, because there are so many hosts out there that offer so many different options. This tutorial was written to help you choose a host that is perfect for your website’s needs. Lets start with what hosts offer:

Web Space - With Web Space, the more you have, the better! Web Space is like your online hard drive. Website hosts offer many sizes of web space. Most website hosts offer between 1GB and 4GB of space. That is a heck of a lot of space, and most likely, you won’t use even half that. If you are setting up an information site, you won’t need much web space because .html files are really tiny in size. However, if your website is going to contain video and programs, then you will need a lot of web space.

Bandwidth - Bandwidth is the maximum size of data that can be transfered from your web host’s server, to the people surfing your website. However, almost all hosts offer much more bandwidth then you will actually use. Its almost rare for a website to use all of its bandwidth. Look for hosts that offer Bandwidth in giga-bytes(GB). The higher the Bandwidth offered, the better.

E-mail - If you don’t know what e-mail is, then please, shut down your computer, and sell it some kid for a hundred dollars. Just kidding! Your web host should offer what’s called POP3 E-mail. This is just e-mail that we have grown to know and love, but instead of you@aol.com, its you@yourdomainname.com. You would access the you@yourdomainname.com e-mail address through Microsoft’s Outlook Express, or some other type of e-mail program. Most web hosts offer between 10-100 POP3 e-mail addresses, each with its own username and password. This way, you could give all your friends, relatives, or employees their own personalized e-mail address.

E-mail Autoresponders - E-mail autoresponders are a really unique tool. They allow an e-mail address to automatically send a message to anyone that e-mails a certain e-mail address. These are great to have if you have forms on your website, or a shopping cart. You can setup an Autoresponder to e-mail your customers a list of their purchases, or just a Thanks for Ordering!mailto:info@yourdomainname.com, E-mail. Look for hosts that offer at least 10 autoresopnders if you plan on using forms and a shopping cart. Some websites even offer Unlimited Autoresponders.

E-mail Forwarders - E-mail forwarders forward an e-mail to your e-mail address. Say your e-mail address is Webmaster@yourdomainname.com, and you want to setup three e-mail address, Info@yourdomainname.com, Help@yourdomainname.com, and Billing@yourdomainname.com. Instead of checking all four e-mail addresses every day, you can get the latter three to forward their messages to the Webmaster@yourdomainname.com e-mail address. This is a real time saver! Look for website hosts that offer 10 to Unlimited E-mail Forwarders.

Subdomains - Subdomains allow you to have many different websites under one domain name. A subdomain’s address would be http://subdomain.yourdomainname.com, but subdomain can be replaced with whatever you want. You could have http://monkey.yourdomainname.com, or http://help.yourdomainname.com. Each subdomain has its own FTP username and password, or can be accessed through your main username and password. Subdomains are useful because they shorten the urls, and organize your website. You can also allow people to setup their own websites under your subdomains, without having access to your root directory, only their subdomain directory.

CGI-BIN/Perl, PHP, and MySQL - These are all powerful programming languages for your website, and allow you to make a lot of things easier. CGI-BIN, Perl, and PHP allow you to setup message boards, form mail, web-based e-mail, banner rotaters, and much more on your website. MySQL is an extremely reliable and fast database system that can be used to better manage the content on your website, or you can use it to store any type of information you want, including pictures. Look for web hosts that offer these for free. Beware of web hosts that charge more for PHP and CGI-BIN. Some web hosts charge for MySQL.

Control Panel - A control panel allows you to take charge of your web hosting account. At the control panel, you should be able to create POP3 E-mail address, Autoresponders, FTP Accounts, Subdomains, and manage MySQL databases. Look for a demo of the Control Panel before you choose your website host. This way, you can see if it is easy to use or not.

Besides offering all of the tools above, a website host should offer you a free domain name with your hosting package. If you have already registered your domain name with a different company like Godaddy.com or Register.com, your website host should offer a free domain name transfer.

As for Price, you shouldn’t pay anymore than $20.00 a month for a website host. There are a lot of website hosts that provide you with more than you need for less than $10.00 per month.

Michael Press is an internet entrepreneur and investor. He currently runs PassiveIncomeInfo.com and EquityLoanAdvice.com.

You’ve made your decision to move from your website from your current web host to a new web host. The following tips will help you make the transition easier and make you aware of some potential pitfalls to avoid.

1) Make sure the new web hosting plan you’ve chosen offers you the storage capabilities to handle all of your current website storage requirements. If your website is 50MB, you need to make sure your new hosting plan offers that much space, or more. If you’re not sure how much space your website is using, ask your current host. You can also usually find this information on your web hosting control panel.

2) How does your current web host determine what your storage amount is used for? Find out what your current and new host includes in your plan’s storage amount. Are your emails and log files counted towards your total storage, or just your web files?

3) What operating system does your current hosting plan use? Windows or Unix? Sometimes this can make no difference, in other cases it can make the difference between a working website and a broken website. If your site is currently on a Windows server and your website uses ASP scripting, you’ll find it difficult to make things work well on a Unix server, as ASP is a Windows based programming language. Find out ahead of time whether your current hosting plan is on a Unix or Windows server.

4) Does your site currently use FrontPage? Find out if your new host supports FrontPage. And make sure your new host supports the same version of FrontPage you currently use.

5) Find out if your new hosting plan offers you the same amount of bandwidth that your current host offers. You don’t want to be surprised by unexpected overage charges at the end of the month.

6) Does your new web hosting plan give you the same amount of email accounts, autoresponders and mail forwards that you currently use?

7) Does your site use a shopping cart that your current hosting plan provides? Can you move the cart to your new host? If not, does your new host have a suitable shopping cart replacement?

If you are using any scripts on your website, make sure that your new hosting plan supports all of your scripts. Find out in advance if you’ll need to make any modifications to your scripts to get them working on the new server.

9) Make sure to set up your existing email accounts on your new server before transferring your domain name to the new server. At MateMedia (www.matemediainc.com) we see this overlooked quite often.

10) Do you know how to upload your website files to the new server? If you don’t, you’ll need to find out if your new web host will upload your files for you. Some hosts will do this at no charge, some will do it for a fee, yet other hosts won’t do it all because of liability issues.

Once all your files are uploaded to the new server, you’ll want to double check that the site looks and functions properly on the new server. Most hosts can provide a preview link for you to see how your site looks before the domain name is transferred over. If your host does not provide a method for you to preview your site, you can modify your hosts file to preview your site. The host file tells your computer where to go to look for sites that are listed in that file. This works with any version of Windows. The file name is the same, the location can change. Here’s how to modify your hosts file:

The file HOSTS should be in the c:windowssystem32driversetc You might only find a file named HOSTS.SAM (as in SAMPLE). That is OK; we can modify the HOSTS.SAM file as well and do a SAVE AS HOSTS.

In either case, double click on the HOSTS file to open it. You will be prompted by Windows to select an Application (Program) to use to VIEW the file.

Scroll the list and select Notepad. Click the OK button. The NOTEPAD program will now open, displaying the file HOSTS. You will see examples listed (The # symbol is used to comment out line or remarks.), the format is this. IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx SPACE name)

So, to tell your computer that www.yourwebsite.com is at the address (replace with your real IP) 12.345.678.90 add the following entry to the bottom of the hosts file:

12.345.678.90 www.yourdomain.com (As in the example).

Click on FILE, slide down and click on SAVE AS.

In the Save As Type field, select ALL FILES. (Ensure that no .SAM is shown after the filename HOSTS. Click SAVE. You may be warned that the file already exists; this is fine, click YES.

Close Notepad, by clicking on FILE, slide down to EXIT, and click.

Now when you open your web browser, or try to ping the site, your system will go to the IP address you typed in the HOSTS file.

Remember to undo this when finished testing or your machine will always want to go to that IP address whenever you want to go to that site.

After you’re satisfied that your site looks ok and functions ok, you can go to your registrar (the company where your domain name is registered) and modify the nameservers associated with your domain name to your new web host’s nameservers. If you don’t know your new host’s nameservers, ask them. Most hosts have that information listed somewhere on their website or in the email you first get after signing up for an account.

Once the dns modification is completed it’ll be 24-48 hours before you’ll see your site on the new server.

Most whois utilities will display the nameservers of the current host. A good one is at http://whois.sc. Check your domain name and see if the nameservers you added are listed. If so, you have completed the website transfer to your new web host. Only after you’ve confirmed this is it ok to cancel your old web hosting account.

About The Author

Russ Mate is President of MateMedia, Inc.

www.matemediainc.com

sales@matemediainc.com

Web hosting is the method of putting a website on the Internet with the use of a server. Once a website has been placed on a server, people from all over the world who have access in the Internet will be able to view and visit the website anytime they want.

Why is web hosting important? Web hosting is needed if a company or an individual would like to become visible on the Internet. Web hosting is like renting a small lot or a certain property. An individual will rent a place in the server to allow his website to be viewed and accessed by everyone on the Internet.

A web hosting service is needed by those people who have their own websites and e-commerce pages but do not have their own servers to accommodate the web pages. However, one challenge that may be encountered is choosing the right web host since there are millions of web host services in the Internet today.

What are the requirements needed in web hosting? Three things need to be considered. They are the website, the domain name and an account from a web hosting company or a server. All these three should be present before one is able to avail of a web hosting service.

Many factors should be considered before one should decide on a web host company. The person or the company needs to make sure that the web hosting service is the right service for them. It is important to think first before deciding since it would be very difficult to move out of a web hosting service once a contract has been made.

The person or the company needs to identify what services and features are needed for the website. Web hosting packages offer different features and some may not be appropriate for a specific website. The company or the individual person may only be paying for a feature that will not be utilized.

In choosing a web host, the bandwidth should also be considered. A small site does not encounter much traffic. Therefore a 10 to 100 Megabyte of disk space and a 1 to 10 Gigabyte of data transfer every month would be enough to satisfy the needs of the website. One thing to consider is whether the web site will be using sound and movie files or text files. Sound and movie files consume larger spaces. If the website will only be used for text files, then the space will not be much of a problem.

It is also important to consider the primary purpose of the website whether it will be used for personal purposes or for something that would require developing ones skills on web designing. If the web page will only be used for personal matters, a smaller space would only be required and some may even find web hosts free of charge. If the web page will be used to display skills in web development, therefore the features and the space allotment should be considered.

Visit http://www.quezoncity.com to check more of Mabelle Sese’s articles.

Finding reliable hosting for your business opportunity is no small task. Actually, it can be a full-time undertaking!

This is because most hosting companies focus on the higher end corporate market and overlook the fast-growing small office/home office (SOHO) sector. It is possible, however, if you clarify needs, gather recommendations, create a list of potential hosts and ask questions….lots of them.

Clarify your needs: how much disk space and bandwidth is necessary? Will you need CGI or database capacities? What operating system will you require? Will your site change dramatically down the pike, and are you searching only for yourself or for customers?

Be wary of web hosting directories since many are owned by web hosts. You should obtain feedback from those with sites and glean webmaster newsgroup postings.

In creating a list, include those recommended the most and complained about the least, and determine which hosts offer specific services best suited to your need(s) and which fits your price range.

Always ask questions, i.e.: technical questions to gauge their knowledge and accuracy; find out whether they are committed to their customers or their bank account and subject them to an honesty test…offer them the opportunity to upsell you needlessly.

If you fall into the SOHO category, you may feel more comfortable with a smaller hosting company who better understands your needs and situation. Please be sure you can add domains to a core plan and resell services, and ensure that they offer a knowledge base.

You should also watch for signs of rudeness, impatience and unresponsiveness and make sure they are flexible. A downed site costs you visitors and sales and gives you only another headache in your life of an Internet marketer.

Walter Pfarr has over 30 years media experience and has won several writing and community service awards. He is also a prolific grant writer and administrator and is versed in fundraising techniques, special event coordination, development and currently is writing his own e-course and soon his own ezine: PfarrOut. He lives with his wife, Joann, in Oklahoma and may be reached at walterpfarr@mynewsletter.ws