Commercial Web Hosting - Business Considerations
By Brian Thorn
There are many reasons why choosing the right web host pack can be beneficial for your business. Most importantly, if you don't purchase a package that offers you all the things you need to run a business online, you won't be able to attract and retain a faithful client base. For example, one way an online business can benefit from the right web host pack is through the use of domain names. Some web hosts offer free domain names and for the blossoming online business, the right name is often very important.
Remember that domain names are unique - no two web sites can have the same name (or the same address). If you have an idea for a great name for your domain and that name has not already been taken, you can register your name even before you are ready to set up your website. This process is called "parking" the domain name and it ensures that the name will be available when you are ready to start your website. Many web hosting providers include domain names as part of the web host pack. Taking advantage of such an offer is one way an online business can benefit from the right web host pack.
Security is another feature offered by web hosting companies and another example of how an online business can benefit from the right web host pack. In today's climate, computer hackers, viruses and worms are simply a matter of fact. If an online business cannot assure customers that it's safe to enter personal information on the company's website, there's likely to be few people who are willing to take the chance. Especially when it comes to financial information - credit card numbers and bank account information - security is vital. People who routinely shop online are usually careful to note the privacy policies and security systems in place before they order. While providing your own security is feasible, having a web host pack that includes a solid security system will help ensure that your company information and your clients' information is secure. After all, how hard would it be to regain trust if you had a major security breach?
Finding a web host that has a pack tailored to your needs is important. While it's probably going to be easy to find a company that offers web hosting that exceeds your current needs, it might not be feasible for you to take on that extra expense (especially during the business's infancy). For example, you might need only a single e-mail account, but with a large amount of disk space. The web host packs with enough disk space also have unlimited e-mail accounts. If you can find a company that will tailor a plan to your needs, that company might discount the monthly fee as long as you don't need additional e-mail accounts. If you do find a plan like this, remember to allow yourself room to grow in the future. Looking for tailored plans is just another way an online business can benefit from the right web host pack.
About the Author
Brian Thorn is an avid internet enthusiast who writes easy-to-understand articles about web hosting. Also check out: cheap web hosting package , internet service provider hosting and email domain hosting.
Dedicated Server: A Smart Choice for Hosting Your Web Site
By Paras Shah
Hosting your personal or business web sites on your own dedicated server may seems expensive choice in comparison to shared web hosting, but at the end, it proves a smart choice. Shared web hosting, no matter how well managed, cannot be 100% reliable and stable. However if you have your own dedicated server you can manage to avoid most of the variables affecting the reliability and stability of a server, commonly experienced by shared hosting accounts; variables such as: overload, bad codes and scripts from other users (especially beginners); and, too many applications and components uploaded, and so on.
On a dedicated server you will install only software and applications you want to use, while on a shared hosting server you will find a host of other software and applications installed for other users.
By the very nature of the account, a dedicated server: reduces your dependency on the web host; and bypasses time delays and possible expenses incurred from these. With dedicated server hosting you can provide instant support to your own clients whenever required, which is not possible if you are on a shared server. A reliable and fast support service is vital for your own business growth just like the stability and reliability you wish for your own website. In business, reliability is reflected through word-of-mouth as one of the most effective promotional activities.
For people with clients, such as Graphic Designers and Web Designers a dedicated server is invaluable. A dedicated server will bring extra income into the studio, not just as a hosting facility, but, as a designer knows only too well, for the extra bread and butter' income value. If you have 24hour access to your own dedicated server then you can adjust, correct or update a clients website in minutes, allowing you to keep the dollar back in your studio and not in someone else's. Ready availability results in reduced labor costs for the client, but higher studio-income frequency for the designer. Hence you will see the return of all your regular offline clients, bringing their web work with them.
The need for a dedicated server to your average shared server user is realized when stats tell you: how quickly people left your site because it was taking too much time to download; or how many daily visitors you are down by, because your site was not up. The true negative is the worry of how many lost visitors could have been your future paying-customers. The loss could easily equal the value of the upgrade to a Dedicated Server!
For a business, a website that is quickly downloadable and up all the time gives the visitor encouragement that your service is just as reliable, hence you will be more likely to make a sale. It will also enhance the company's image and encourage existing customers to refer your service to others. This will result in more sales for less promotion.
If you are serious about your online presence you need to get a Dedicated Server.
Please refer following web sites for useful resources related to web site hosting:
http://www.vipwh.com
http://www.vippowernet.com
http://www.thehostingguide.com
About the Author
Paras Shah
Chief Technology Officer
VIP PowerNet, Inc.
Phone: (713)787-6501
Email: paras@vippowernet.com
What makes a good Web Hosting Provider!
By Jonathan White
When building your website and getting it hosted online, you want your site to be up and running on the World Wide Web 24/7 without any hitches so that it is making you money all the time and all you have to worry about then is getting visitors to your site, doing seo, getting repeat visitors, maximizing your sites revenue, etc. You don't want to have to worry about your web hosting and it's stability.
So, when choosing a web hosting provider to host your website with, you want to try and get the best web hosting provider so that your site is always up and running smoothly on the World Wide Web.
So what makes a good Web Hosting Provider?
There are many things that make up a good web-hosting provider. Some of these include good support, good uptime, good backup system in place, good hardware, offers loads of web hosting features including email features, scripting features and more.
So where can some good Web Hosting Providers be found?
There are many places across the web where you can find some of these good web-hosting providers. A good place to start is probably using a web-hosting directory as you can easily compare these web-hosting providers against what other providers are offering that's listed within any individual web-hosting directory. For example, with http://www.1hostseeking.com you can easily find and compare a large amount of some of the top and most reliable web-hosting providers online. You can easily compare each web host against each other so that you can easily see what they offer for the amount of money that they charge.
When choosing a web host it is also best to choose one that offers free set-up and also a money back guarantee. This is because if you find that they don't quite offer what you need for your website, then you can easily get your money back and choose another web hosting provider.
Even if you found some web hosting providers from a web hosting directory like http://www.1hostseeking.com that offer the features that you need for your website, but you still would like further information about the quality of their service, then you could also go to a web hosting related forum and ask others about what they think about these web hosting providers that you have chosen.
After you have done all this, you should then have a good idea or a better idea of which web hosting provider you are most likely to choose to host your website.
About the Author
Jonathan White has been involved in Web Hosting and other Webmaster activities on the Web for over two years now and is the Webmaster of http://www.1hostseeking.com - a categorized Web hosting directory listing a large amount of Web hosting providers.
How To Host Several Websites Under One Account
By Mario Sanchez
How To Host Several Websites Under One Account
by: Mario Sanchez
If you operate several websites, each with its own domain name, signing up of separate ...hosting accounts can be an expensive proposition. Even if your hosting company offers the add-on domain feature (which will allow you to add different domains to the same hosting account) you will be charged a monthly fee for each domain you add, sometimes costing almost the same as your full hosting fee.
The solution is to open a reseller account. Reseller accounts were created to allow web designers to offer hosting services to their customers, to create a one-stop-shop for all their web design and hosting needs. However, you don't need to be a reseller to buy a reseller hosting plan.
Reseller accounts are usually slightly more expensive than regular hosting accounts, but they will allow you to host different domain names without incurring in the add-on domain fees, making more efficient use of your space and bandwidth.
You want to choose a reseller account that offers:
no limit to the number of domains you can add.
the possibility of hosting your main website free, without using any of the space and bandwidth in your hosting plan. If you are a reseller, your main website will be your business website, and the space and bandwidth will be reserved for your customers. If you are not a reseller and just want to manage different websites, you can designate one of your domains as your main website (usually the largest and/or most popular, since you won't accrue any space or bandwidth for it).
the possibility of upgrading to another plan without any penalties or fees.
To find out how much space and bandwidth you will need, first determine how many sites you are likely to host, how many pages each site may have, and how many visits will those sites most likely have. If you plan to host 10 sites with 20 pages each, at an average of 50KB per page and 100 page views per site per day, you will need 10MB of space (10 x 20 x 50KB) and 1.5GB of bandwidth per month (10 x 100 x 50KB x 30).
As far as pricing is concerned, there are reseller accounts costing as little as $10 / month up to several hundreds (or even thousands). It all depends on your requirements and the hosting company you choose, so shop around to get the best possible deal in terms of cost and reliability.
About the Author
Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest ( http://www.theinternetdigest.net ), an online collection of web design and Internet marketing articles and resources.
HostingChecker.com - help for all your web hosting needs.
http://www.hostingchecker.com
Article may be republished if this portion is not removed.
The Pros & Cons Of Hosting The Site Yourself
By Jason Shpik
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
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