Everybody seems to have a view about free web hosting. Some see it as the worst idea possible while others see it as a necessary facility to help those on a tight budget get their websites online. Where possible you should always go for paid web hosting. If you are a business or intend to earn money from your site then using free hosting will give the wrong impression to your visitors. Businesses should never ever contemplate free web hosting.

So what exactly is the problem? Why shouldn’t a business try to save money by using free web hosting?

The main problem with free web hosting is that, in order to make up the money shortfall that they are not receiving from customers, the hosts accept paid advertising and will display ads or banners on your website. It is not rare to see adverts from rival companies displayed on a free hosted site and for a business this would be commercial suicide. Even worse is that they sometimes use pop ups and pop unders which visitors to your site will find extremely annoying. This may even stop them from coming back to your site. If you don’t mind having adverts appear on your site then you should place your own adverts so that you make the money from them not the web host.

Despite all the negativity about free web hosting it does have its place, if you want to set up a site for family or friends to view family news or photographs then they are a great way to share. If you want to keep in contact with friends while travelling once again they may be the ideal solution.

Before you sign up for free web hosting it is worth checking out exactly how much disk space and bandwidth you get. Often you will find these are very limited and that your site may go offline in the later part of the month if it is busy. Also check what sort of advertising the hosting company will place on your sites I really can’t emphasize enough that you don’t want any free web hosting that utilizes pop ups not only do they annoy people they can also carry viruses and spyware.

There are thousands of free web hosting solutions available so you should have no problem finding a decent host that will provide a usable solution for you. It makes sense to shop around and not choose the first host you find. It also makes sense to contact current users and make sure that they are happy with the free web hosting that their host provides.

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When it comes to looking for business web hosting you need to look for the providers with the best reputation and the best quality equipment.

Before you start looking you need to decide exactly what you will need with regards to disk space and bandwidth. If your site is going to have lots of traffic and visitors then you will need a guaranteed 100% uptime. In this case you should consider looking at choosing one of the larger multinational business web hosting companies who will mirror your site at 2 different locations so should one datacenter or a server go down the site will be still be available.

As you can imagine ensuring your site has 100% uptime and can cope with large amounts of traffic doesn’t come cheap but trying to skimp on your hosting is a false economy. There have been a number of stories about large companies who chose the cheap business web hosting option rather than the more expensive hosting they should have paid for. One such company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing a new product and promoting it. Press releases were sent out and advertising space booked. Every advert and press release contained the website address. Unfortunately the initial rush of customers took the company over their bandwidth limit and all that most of the visitors initially saw was an account suspended notice. Not, I’m sure you’ll agree, the best image to portray for a fledgling business.

The moral of that story is when it comes to business web hosting don’t skimp on the configuration you opt for. In addition to the amount of web space and bandwidth you are assigned it is important that your host has a good support network available 24/7. The support staff who answer the phones should be knowledgeable and have direct contact with a more qualified technician in case they can’t rectify the issue themselves. Try them out. If you already have a web hosting company in mind, send their support department an email with a few questions to see how quick they are to respond and how professional they are in their approach. This little exercise could save you a large amount of money down the road.

Many business web hosting companies will be able to provide you with any additional tools not usually used by individuals. Mailing list management software and SSL security certificates to name but two. If you intend to take money online then the SSL security certificates will be a very important asset for your online image as they will help to reassure people that your site is secure. One final area that you should check out is what security your host can provide you with. Using any business web hosting provider could make you a target for unscrupulous hackers so it is imperative that your host has a number of layers of security precautions in place. If in doubt ask them before signing up.

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Many people worry about getting adult web hosting for their sites but in reality it is very easy. 90% of hosting companies will quite happily host any of your adult sites so long as you stay within the laws of the country or state where the sites are hosted. If in doubt you should ask the host you have chosen if they have any objections to you posting adult material on your site. In addition to asking your host if they object to adult material there are a few basic rules you should follow that will help keep you out of trouble.

Any reputable adult web hosting company will certainly ask that firstly, to make sure that only people who are legally allowed to view your site do so, ensure that your site has a warning page. That is to say that the index page, or the first page that anyone comes to informs them that your site contains adult content and if they object they should not proceed any further. It should be clearly stated that if viewing adult material is illegal in the state or country where your visitor lives then they should not proceed to the site.

If your site or your chosen adult web hosting company is based in the United States then it is important that you comply with federal Law 18 U.S.C 2257. This states that records documenting and verifying the legal age of the models must be kept. This applies to any photographs which are deemed sexually explicit. This doesn’t just apply to photographs taken by you but for any photographs bought for display on your site. It is vital that you have copies of this documentation before you publish photographs on your site. If you purchase stock photography from a reputable company you should receive the relevant documentation along with the photographs.

One aspect of adult web hosting that many people tend to overlook is the amount of resources that a moderately successful web site will use. Most adult sites are comprised of mostly images and videos. By their very nature they use considerably more bandwidth than most normal sites which contain mostly text. It is not unusual for a new adult site to exceed its bandwidth in under a week. Care must be also be taken to ensure that people aren’t linking directly to your photographs or videos. If you use an experienced adult web hosting service they will be able to advise you how to best avoid this and maybe even be able to provide you with the appropriate tools to prevent direct linking.

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If you don’t have a decent Hosting provider, your online business is destined to fail. There is a chance you will encounter endless problems like down time, loss of data, poor customer service, and maybe even a hacked site. Before you choose a hosting provider you should first do research. I’m here to save you some time, and give you a few tips to use when choosing a hosting provider.

So you spent hours on your business plan, your web site is nicely designed, and you are ready to launch, so where are you going to put your site? Unless you are a large corporation with the budget to host your own site; you will most likely have to fine a hosting provider. Most people overlook this step and just choose any hosting provider without any prior knowledge of the company. So before you choose a provider here are a few things to consider…

• What kind of customer support do they offer?
• Does their hosting solutions fit your website needs?
• Can you upgrade your package?
• What happens if you go over your bandwidth?
• Are you tied to a contract?
• What is their up-time percentage?
• Do they offer any tools for design and marketing?
• Do they backup your data?
• What type of servers to they offer

These are important things to know before you choose a provider. If you are not that internet savvy then you might need a provider that has 24/7 customer service via phone rather then a provider that only has email support. What if - and I hope this happens - your business grows and you need to upgrade your package, will you have to go somewhere else, or can you upgrade? What if their servers go down is your data protected? Most hosting providers offer Linux servers that use PHP as a scripting language. What if you script in ASP .NET, and need a Microsoft server.

I have dealt with websites in one form or another since the late 90’s, and in that time I have gone through lots of hosting providers. They ranged from crappy to excellent, cheap to expensive. To be honest the saying “You get what you pay for” is not always true when it comes to hosting. With the introduction of Broadband internet to the market and the cheap cost of servers, just about anyone with any IT knowledge can call themselves a hosting provider. Also since there is no standard on pricing homegrown providers can charge anything they want. So I advise you to do your homework. When you are searching for providers see if they are a member of any associations. If they offer domain registration see if they are recognized by icann.

Most likely if they are part of an association then they are legit. I do my hosting through 1and1.com I feel that 1and1 is one of the better hosting companies out there. They have a variety of packages to choose from, they have 24/7 phone support, and you can upgrade or change packages at any time. Included with most of their packages you get a surplus of features such as templates, free scripts, programs, and vouchers for online marketing services. They offer Microsoft and Linux servers, so you are not limited to one platform. Finally their prices are reasonable and you get a lot for your buck. I have the developer plan and I get 300GB of web space, 3TB of bandwidth, and a TON of add-ons for only $14.99 a month. When you choose a hosing provider you should have a couple of providers to choose from so that you can compare their solutions to choose the package that is right for your website. I have selected 3 reputable hosting providers, http://www.1and1.com, http://www.Dreamhost.com, and http://www.iPowerWeb.com, and compared their features. You can my detailed comparison chart on my
online marketing blog

Gary Ware

Gary Ware, an interactive designer from Southern California has been in the biz since the late 90’s. He has done design for various [dot] com start-ups. Currently he is in charge of the web marketing team for a data storage company in the San Diego area, and does freelance design and consulting on the site. When he is not designing he is discussing the web industry on his web marking blog http://garyware.blogspot.com

Many people, especially newcomers, when they register their domain names, are convinced to sign up for a hosting account with the company that registered their domain name. That could be godaddy.com, yahoo.com or any number of other domain name registering companies. That’s really unfortunate, because the hosting services those people usually get don’t generally meet the needs of an online entreprenuer. Those hosting accounts just lack the functionality you really need to promote your business.

Here’s what happens - the domain name registering companies will make you an offer of a low level hosting plan. Since the customers that are registering the domain names are usually beginners, they aren’t aware of all the hosting choices that are readily available elsewhere. They think that just because the company they’re dealing with can register domain names, they must have the best hosting too.

To make a long story short, people that buy into the hosting that’s offered when they register their domains are usually disappointed once they get started with their new online business. Although they got what seemed like a low price, they’ll find out later, when they compare it to other offers, that it really wasn’t such a good deal.

But that’s only part of the problem. As they become more and more involved in running their new online business, they discover that there may be some special software that they want to run on their website. Perhaps it’s a shopping cart or maybe a content management system. When they look at the requirements of the software and compare those requirements to their hosting account, they’ll see that their hosting account won’t support the new software. You see, most marketing related software will use PHP or mySQL databases. If your web hosting account doesn’t support PHP and mySQL, you’re just out of luck.

Of course, these customers can go back to their hosting provider, who will explain to them that the features required for support of the new software are available to them, but they’ll have to ‘upgrade’ their hosting account. And the upgrade isn’t free, by the way. Their original hosting may have cost only $7.95 a month, but the new, upgraded hosting will cost them $25 or $30 a month. Now, all of the sudden, that great hosting deal doesn’t seem so great anymore.

Don’t waste your time and money with ‘bargain’ web hosting that won’t do the job.

Another mistake is trying to run your business with free hosting. First of all, if you’re looking for free web hosting because you’re not willing to spend a small amount of money for your own web hosting account, you might as well just give up right now. If you want to do everything for free, you’re not looking for a real business, you’re looking for a hobby.

Usually, when you go with free hosting, your website URL will end up being something like “freehosting.megacities.com/18987/~parkavenue/1793″ If your only interest is in having a place on the web to display your family photos, maybe the free hosting is right for you. But if you’re trying to run a business, the free hosting can be a big handicap. For one thing, the URL doesn’t look very professional.

And the free hosting companies tend to display their own advertising banners on the pages of your website. How does that look to your potential customers? Just imagine that if you’re trying to operate a family oriented business and when prospects visit your website, banners advertising “Adult Chat Rooms” are on your pages.

Types of web hosting - Primarily, there are 2 different types of web hosting. One is Microsoft Windows based and the other is Linux/Unix based. My personal recommendation is to stay away from the Windows based hosting. I’ve had friends that went with Windows hosting, and then later found out that much of the software they wanted to run wasn’t compatible with the Windows server. Most all web based software that is used for marketing purposes is designed to run on Linux servers, so I wouldn’t recommend anything other than Linux based hosting.

Now that we’ve established the need for Linux based hosting and that you shouldn’t get hosting from the same place you registered your domain, the question is - Where do you get hosting?

I’m going to let you in on a little secret - all those banner ads and email messages you probably see pitching hosting deals - IGNORE THEM. The absolute best hosting I’ve seen is available at dirt cheap prices on Ebay. Yes, Ebay, the online auction.

Just go to ebay.com and search for “web hosting reseller” By getting a reseller’s hosting account, you’ll get all the hosting you’ll ever need. Here’s how it works - A reseller’s hosting account gives you the ability to sell hosting accounts to other people. One of the benefits of a reseller account is that you can usually host an unlimited number of domains.

Right now you may be thinking this isn’t for you because you’re not interested in selling hosting to other people. You just want hosting for your own business. That’s OK, you don’t need to sell hosting with the reseller’s account. You can just use it for yourself. You can use it to host the new domain that you recently registered and then, later on, if you register more domain names, you can host those also - without paying any more money for hosting.

I bought a hosting reseller’s account on Ebay about 3 years ago. It’s full featured, reliable, and the service and support is great. I pay $139 a year and I currently have about 95 domains hosted. Do the math - that works out to a little over a dollar per year for hosting that has everything I need. I think that’s a pretty good deal.

If you don’t want to get a reseller’s account, you can get by even cheaper. I have another hosting account I bought at Ebay that only hosts a single domain, but it only costs 75 cents a month. This 75 cent account supports PHP, mySQL, has unlimited space and bandwidth, unlimited email accounts and just about everything else you could think of.

I strongly recommend that you check out the hosting offers on Ebay before you make any other commitments. Here are the features you want to make sure your hosting has -

1) Linux based web server
2) CPANEL admin control. This is the web based admin where you can check traffic stats, setup mySQL databases, setup email accounts and a whole lot more
3) Fantastico - This is an installation aid that’s really handy to have. It allows you to automatically install several high powered software applications with just a single mouse click. Want a WordPress blog? Click and you have it, ready to roll. Want an online forum - same deal, click and it’s there. Catalog and shopping cart - You guessed it, click and you’ll have it.

It goes without saying that you should check the seller’s feedback on Ebay before you make any commitment. See what other customers have to say about the service. You want to make sure you’re dealing with someone that’s reputable.

Author: Carson Danfield

If you would be interested in Hosting Your Website roll over on SevenDollarSolution.com

Across the globe, mostly all web servers either run Windows or Linux. But, what difference does it make to you?

Simple. They both have their own pros and cons. Depending on your needs, you should choose which hosting to implement.

Linux is suitable for low cost economic hosting. This hosting is becoming more and more popular as it can now support more and more technologies. But even today, if you web site contains ASPs, I would recommend a windows platform for you. To some it may seem that Windows is a better option, but it has its own drawbacks too and also comes at a heavier price.

Additionally, with Linux your database solutions are cheaper as MySQL works better and naturally on a linux platform, while for windows solutions MS-SQL is the desired choice. While MySQL is free, you need to pay extra for MS-SQL. Also if you are programming in .NET and ASP .NET then you will have to choose Windows hosting.

But ASP is not the only scripting language. Perl, PHP, CGI, Python are all scripting languages which you can implement most effectively on a linux platform.

Don’t buy into the paid advertising that Microsoft is putting out everywhere without considering it carefully. If you are large enterprise and running a network with over 100 clients with solutions designed to work better with Microsoft Windows servers, then it is a different issue. For most of us, looking to put up a reliable web site, I would highly recommend windows.

As a solution provider we keep the same margins on both linux and windows. Our net billing is lower by selling a linux solution, yet we recommend it whole heartedly, because I believe that the customer’s benefit and value come first.

You can get reliable Linux and Windows web hosting at Sigel WebSolutions.

P.S. If you are hiring a web developer, ask him if s/he really needs a windows hosting. If not, it would be wiser decision to choose Linux. It would work out more cost effective for you.

This article is written by Gautamm Mehra, an entreprenuer, running a successful Web Solutions firm in Mumbai, India. You can write to him at gautam [dot] mail [at] gmail [dot] com.

A virtual private server, also known as virtual dedicated server, provides one of the ways of partitioning one server computer into multiple servers. By this, each server has the facade and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine or computer. In each virtual private server hosting, a full-fledged operating system can independently run and reboot each server.

Virtual private server hosting is not a new technology as it had been in common practice in mainframe computers. However, it has its rebirth with the improvement of virtualization software and technologies for other architectures. In all, virtual dedicated server hosting acts as a bridge between shared web hosting services and dedicated server hosting services. The biggest advantage of using virtual private server hosting is its cheaper cost, in comparison to a dedicated server.

A virtual private server hosting generally runs its own copy of operating system with customers having super-user-level access. Above all, in virtual private server hosting, you can easily install almost any software that runs on the OS. At times, certain software does not run well in a virtualized environment. This includes firewalls, anti-virus clients, and even the virtualizers.Having said that, Arachno Net provide their virtual private servers, complete with raid disc mirroring, a secured /tmp directory, firewall and brute force detection system already installed.

Recent time has witnessed the massive increase of the number of virtualization clients. These virtualization clients, usually, run on a single machine. A virtual private server web hosting generally has limited processor time, RAM, and disk space. You will be surprised to know that at times virtual private servers are also employed as honeypots. These honeypots allow a machine to purposely run software with known security flaws. They, of course, make sure that it is done without endangering the rest of the server. Multiple honeypots can be quickly set up through virtual private servers in this fashion.

While choosing a virtual private server hosting company, ask the following questions. Finalize your selection only if you are convinced:

1. What are the specifications of the host server, that is, the RAM, CPU, and network throughout?

2. How many virtual private servers are run on the host server that you’ll be on?

3. How is resource contention handled? In other words, what happens if all the other virtual private servers on your host server are running CPU/RAM-intensive processes?

4. Last but not the least, do you have a dedicated minimum amount of RAM/CPU/Network usage? If so, how much?

All these questions are satisfactorily answered by virtual private server hosting provided by Arachno Net. Arachno Net provides network monitoring, daily data backups, 99.7% uptime through multiple oc3 Internet connectivity, and backup power UPS and generators. For more information on virtual private server hosting, virtual private server, virtual dedicated server, and dedicated server hosting, just click www.arachnonet.com .

Reg is a well known author who writes for http://www.arachnonet.com, about evolving trends and practices in web hosting technologies.

With the web hosting industry having over thirty thousand providers all offering different services, it can often feel like picking your way through a minefield to try and decide which one is right for your needs. After all, what may be fine for you as a personal website user is unlikely to be the same for a company looking for a web host, and vice versa. To make sure you have a good web host for you, there are a few important points that you should be looking for:

Quality - one of the main reasons that people choose to leave their existing web hosts and move to another is the quality of service offered (or not, as the case may be). With so many companies striving to get your business, you can afford to look around and compare. Find out what their support infrastructure is like – do they have twenty-four hour customer service seven days a week? This is pretty much standard now and is the least you should expect. Check into the background and reputation of the web host too – this can be easily found in various online forums, and will give you an insight into how legitimate your potential web host is.

Reliability – how reliable the service and back up is should be the next thing you look at. It’s all very well paying less for one web host’s services than with a competitor, but how reliable is their network? Can it cope with extra pages and content being added? Will it freeze when transactions are being carried out? Will any updates and repairs to the network adversely affect your website while they’re being carried out? Unless you can be sure that you’re picking a reliable network with support both immediate and on going, the savings made will be useless. Again, check web reviews and forums on a particular web host to see how they compare to others.

Continuity – this can be looked at in two ways, and is extremely important in both. You want to be sure that your web host will still be around in a year, two years, ten years and so on, and again this is tied in with quality. If you’ve a lot of information that’s been built up over the years and you suddenly lose it or have to transfer it because your web host has gone out of business, this can be a major disaster. Similarly, if the web host needs to make changes to its infrastructure and implement new software, will this affect the design and functionality of your website, or will things continue as normal, just in a better manner? Check online again for how your web host is viewed by others.

Although it can be frustrating and take time to find the right web host for you, in the long run it won’t only save you money, but possibly something more important – time, investment and peace of mind.

Get more Web Hosting Resale information from the dedicated reseller information forums at http://www.resellerboard.com

One of the ways that many web hosts fail to maximize the potential of their site is that they do not attract enough customers to it in the first place. You may have some of the best services and products around, but without potential customers visiting your site in the first place, how are you expected to sell? Therefore, getting sign ups is an extremely important part of web hosting, and with a little forethought and work, can be relatively easy. There are many ways to do this, but some of the best include:

Use a blog - although this may seem an unlikely way to get links and sign ups to your website, you’d be surprised. You could even make a dummy blog and sing the praises of your website or host, and that way interested or curious customers will start to visit.

Pay Per Click – this may be a little costly to start with, but in the long run the rewards far outshine the expense. Basically, Pay Per Click is where you pay a search engine like Google to make you a “featured” link on its front page, for instance. Then, when someone is looking for your product, your information is prominent. When an interested party clicks on your link, you pay Google a fee – for instance, ten cents per click. While this may seem like a lot, say you receive 100 visitors, at a cost of ten dollars, but you make a sale for double that. See how it makes sense?

Meta tags – this is one of the most under used yet important pieces of SEO that you can have. It’s no good having a site without advertising it properly. Keywords and Meta tags are a way to do this – when submitting your site to Google and the like, write a good introduction and article about your site that uses keywords. So, if your business is Jim’s Skate Boarding Store, write something along the lines of “For all your skate boarding needs, Jim’s Skate Boarding Store can fix you up with all the latest skates, boards and other…”. By mixing your business in this manner, you’ll be far more successful in being picked up by search engines.

Advertise – although this may be common sense, advertising is still one of the key ways to attract new business and visitors. Advertise your services in online magazines and ezines; that way you will attract the exact type of people you’re looking for.

Although there are a host of methods to enable you to increase your sign ups, each have their own plusses dependent on what your website offers, so look at who you wish to attract and this will make it easier to decide what way to proceed.

Get more Web Hosting Resale information from the dedicated reseller information forum at http://www.resellerboard.com

The Internet and web hosting services that we know today are both far different beasts than those that originated almost forty years ago. Where that service was a system purely put in place to link computers of the company that was the precursor to NASA, today’s incarnation has a multitude of services. Whether you’re simply a single person looking for a website as a hobby, or a multi-million dollar company looking to prove more successful than your competitors, making sure you have the right web host is paramount. But what is web hosting, and what does the future hold for it?

What we know as web hosting today was first designed and used in 1990, by a single user, although it wasn’t until 1991 that web hosting (where a company or organization will give you internet space to host your products or service) really came into its own. By paying a company a fee to host your services on the web, it takes a lot of the work out of your hands, such as admin, email accounts, libraries, etc, so that you can concentrate on the business at hand, whether that’s writing a journalistic diary, or selling goods online.

Now, fifteen years later, web hosting is such big business that there are over thirty thousand companies offering some kind of web hosting service, whether it’s space for a personal site or a business-heavy option. Such is the growth in this area that the traditional heavy-hitting companies like Microsoft and Yahoo are having to constantly re-evaluate what they offer their customers, who will quite rightly go to who offers the best package, not only now but for the future.

Yet surely this kind of growth can only accommodate so many people, or users, before it reaches its peak? Well, yes and no. With industry experts predicting that next year may see the highest yet for the web hosting industry, with over 100 billion dollars being spent on services, it’s obvious that those web hosting companies who can adapt will come out the strongest.

It’s no longer going to be enough to simply provide a service. Users have let it be known that they now expect a far more in-depth support back up; affiliate programmes are also becoming more popular, and by paying its “customers” to use their web space (via bringing other users on board), the web hosting companies that listen to their users will be the ones that continue to succeed and grow. And in an industry that’s becoming more price-competitive than ever, it’s this difference that will count the most.

Get more Web Hosting Resale information from the dedicated reseller information forum at http://www.resellerboard.com