Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Choosing Between Free or Paid Web Hosting

There are a number of things to consider when choosing between a free or paid web hosting service. Setting aside cost for a moment, lets look at some factors that will help you make an informative decision.

The very first thing you must consider is the intent or purpose of your website. Are you looking for a convenient way to share photos of family and friends? Or, are you considering something a little more complex such as adding multiple pages with different content on each? How about a website to promote a product or business?

The purpose of your website will act as a key component in determining which type of web hosting service is best suited for you. For example, if your website will be used primarily for personal postings, your file sizes aren't very large and you don't expect a lot of traffic, you won't require a lot of disk space or bandwidth for your hosting.

If this is the case, a free web hosting service may meet your needs. Free web hosting services are also useful if you're inexperienced in creating web pages. This type of service can provide an excellent opportunity for you to learn and practice your html skills. You could even use a free service as a test site before uploading your web pages to your live website.

Keep in mind that most free web hosting services provide limited features compared to paid web hosting services, but normally offer enough disk space and bandwidth to host a small website. To help offset costs, though, most free providers will place advertisements on your web pages.

With paid hosting, you'll find a variety of available plans to choose from. These plans allow more disk space and bandwidth, and usually include a number of other features such as free domain names, free sub-domains and unlimited email accounts. Some of the more advanced common features are a CGI-Bin, MySQL databases and Microsoft FrontPage extensions.

Compared to free web hosting, you'll also find that the services provided by paid web hosting companies are much more reliable, not to mention offering a higher level of customer support.

Cost wise, there is no charge to register for a free web hosting service, although you may be required to purchase your own domain name. For a basic paid service, you can expect to pay anywhere from $5 to $10 per month - a very small price for the improved service, support and features you receive.




By : John Purdy
John Purdy is the owner of 1st Web Hosting Plans. We maintain a current directory of affordable web hosting providers and other website resources for personal internet users, online marketers and business owners. We also have directories dedicated to business and free web hosting. Visit us today at http://www.1st-web-hosting-plans.com.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

How To Get Root Access Through Your Web Hosting Company

Website masters have a ton of responsibility to maintain their website and the subsequent links to it. Primarily, they have to figure it if they prefer to have access to all of the websites on their company server or if they prefer not to. When a webmaster has root access, he can virtually control anything stored on his server. This means he can access security information, user groups, and any file on the server. One might wonder why a webmaster wouldn't want this access. Read on for the benefits and drawbacks to having root access.

When a webmaster opts to use a virtual private server hosting service, he's choosing the less expensive option. He doesn't have the hassle of maintaining a server at his home or having to access a remote server from his computer. Additionally, his site is much more protected from the threat of hackers, and the server owners will make the server more reliable. Additionally, virtual private hosting services come with easy to use browsers.

So who really needs this kind of control though? Who should have access to everything on a server? Those who have this access must know how to maintain their website. You should understand basic software apps in addition to browsers. And if you want root access, you should have a successful business that sees plenty of hits on a daily basis or a business site that has several employees working on it.

As stated above, the virtual private hosting plans are less expensive, but they still cost a bundle. A webmaster will pay around $100 to $150 a month for such a service. Additionally, he'll pay a given fee to purchase the web hosting plan and root access to the server. Sure, if you shop around at given times you might be able to find a deal, but the webmaster should still prepare himself for the intial start up cost.

Root access does have major benefits. It allows the webmaster to do his job when his site receives plenty of hits daily. He can install the necessary software or upgrade the site easily or install necessary patches. He can move mailboxes or change links as well. Basically, the webmaster can personalize the site to meet his client's needs.

Virtual private servers also allow the webmaster to use whatever software he needs. The server does not require a specific software, thus allowing the customer to save money in the end. You ultimately have unlimited data transfer, several mailboxes, a ton of storage, and a variety of other services for the minimal cost that you pay compared to purchasing your own server.

Ultimately your decision to utilize root access is up to you, the webmaster. Consider all of the benefits and drawbacks before you fully commit to this change, because in the end, it truly is a commitment on your part.



By : Gregg Hall
Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Florida. Find more about this as well as web hosting packages at http://www.webhostingpackagesonline.com

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Untangling the Mystery of Web Hosting

There are a large variety of web hosting services available on the internet. It can be very confusing to decide the best option for you. If you need more features than are provided by free website hosting, then you may consider an upgrade to a free service. Many of the free sites offer more memory space and traffic allotment for a monthly fee. Compare prices between servers before you make a decision.

Once you've done the research and discover that an upgrade simply doesn't meet your needs, you might consider the next step of registering a domain name and getting a bigger web hosting package. There are many sites where you can purchase a domain name. Some sites simply sell you a domain name, but provide no hosting. Other sites provide a domain name for a low fee, and then you can pay per month for hosting. And other sites allow you to buy a domain name and offer free basic hosting, with upgrades available.

If you are using it for a business, you need to decide how much traffic you expect before you can decide what service you will need. It's best to start out small, and then upgrade as needed. Many offer more than one package to choose from.

You can also buy a domain from one site and then transfer hosting to another for the server space. Most of the sites have a transfer fee, so you need to decide if the cheaper domain cost is worth the difference in just registering the domain through the hosting site to begin with. Some of the companies also have affiliate programs, where you can refer people to their hosting service and receive anything from a free domain transfer to cash.

Here are some of the more poplar sites that offer domains and web hosting:

www.godaddy.com - Godaddy.com has very reasonable domain registry and transfer rates. It even has domain names up for auction. They have monthly hosting from around $4.00 a month up to $15.00 a month.

www.register.com - Register.com has a 30-day money back guarantee, and a subscription to Fortune Magazine and 24/7 tech support. It also has bulk domain registration as well as discounts for registering domain names for longer than a year (up to 150 years).

www.networksolutions.com - NetworkSolutions offers many features in addition to domain registration and hosting. It also has things to help enhance your site, like e-commerce, search engine optimization and online marketing for additional monthly fees.

www.doteasy.com - Doteasy offers free basic web hosting with domain registration, with annual renewal of the domain. Additional web space features can be added for monthly fees. Doteasy also has a nice comparison chart for various web hosting services.




By : John Layton
John Layton is the author of What Do You Really Want and can provide additional tips and advise at his websites http://www.stormhosting.info http://www.hostingnow.info http://www.yourhostingnow.info he also publishes a daily blog at http://www.internetsighting.info

Monday, September 7, 2009

E-Commerce Hosting - Factors to Consider

So you have decided to take the plunge and take your business on the web. This most likely means you will need a reliable hosting service to host your e-Commerce website. What are the key factors that you should consider when considering various web hosting companies?

When considering a web hosting service you should consider at least three factors, how reliable the service actually is, how knowledgeable and prompt are their support staff and what is the actual cost of using this service. Let's break down each factor and really consider this situation in depth.

The reliability of the web hosting service is perhaps the most important to your business as a unreliable service can seriously hamper the reputation of your business. So how do you determine if a host is actually reliable? The first and perhaps the easiest way is to join a public newsgroup of web developers and simply ask them who they use to host their websites.
For instance if you should want to use a ASP/ASP.Net hosting service I would go to asp.net and simply ask who is the most reliable hosting service. Also, searching through these newsgroups will reveal quite a lot of information regarding how knowledgeably and helpful the support staff is as well. Simply stay away from hosting providers that have a poor reputation as those service companies most likely are only concerned with separating your money from your wallet and not actually helping you grow your business.

How do you determine which service has the most knowledgeable and helpful staff? This one is again fairly easy to determine. If the staff of the company takes the time to answer questions on public newsgroups and is willing to share their time and knowledge to help out others then this is the company you should utilize. For instance I have noticed that on some public newsgroups or forums many of the questions being answered are from various web hosting services. This not only reinforces their reputation of being really knowledgeable and helpful but it allows the company to get some "free advertising" as well.

Lastly is the cost factor to consider. There are many low cost web hosting providers out there. All you have to do is a search on Google and you will obtain potentially millions of hits on that key term. However, even low cost web hosting services can turn out to be expensive when you consider the various add-ons that you may have to attach to your website to make it truly useful to you. So therefore when considering a web hosting service write down your exact requirements you need to make your website run. Also consider the amount of growth that you anticipate when using this website. A website that may work for you now may not work for you in the near future if your business should really take off and you have not factored that consideration into account. Also take into account any cost of upgrading your service should you outgrow it or you need to move to a high end hosting solution.

When considering a e-Commerce web hosting service or any web hosting service these are the key factors to consider before making any purchase. While certainly not an exhaustive listing of everything you need to consider this should get you on the right path to narrow your choices down to at least three or four services.



By : Richard Callaby
Richard Callaby is a Independent Computer Consultant, Writer, Author, Speaker and Instructor. More articles from this author can be reached at his article directory at http://www.econtentking.com.