After a good amount of time in the business of web hosting, I have come to realize many things. Learning these things has helped me in my business more then anything else! It wasn’t any costly SEO company, it wasn’t any overpriced Google or Yahoo ad program. It was hard work, it was hours and HOURS that turned into days and then weeks of time spent working on the website, editing the website (then editing again), making sure my keyword relevancy was up to par using my favorite keyword analyzer at Submit Express, checking to make sure my packages were priced to compete with other host’s that offered the same quality services that I provide (not the kiddie host’s that offer 25gb disc space and 200gb bandwidth for $5.00 a month), and also taking care of my clients to ensure they got anything they wanted or needed.

So anyway, let’s get on to what has worked for me. Some of you other host’s may disagree with me, or have had different experiences then I, so again, this is only what worked for me, and is my opinion only.

I started my first web hosting business in November of 2004. I can’t disclose the name of that business due to the agreement of sale, but I can tell you that it was a very successful host, and was on track to be a big player in the web hosting game. I just burnt out and had to sell! I was working 16-20 hours a day taking care of clients via Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, AOL, Skype, PHPLive, and any other live chat program I could use, email, and phone. This leads me to my first assessment, and bit of knowledge to pass on.

1. Support : This is (in my mind) the most important part of a web hosting business, and can make or break a starting business FAST, either way. If you offer TRUE 24×7 support to your client’s, and the support they receive is fast, accurate, and friendly. Your brand (host name and logo) will spread like wildfire, in time, you just have to be consistent with the support. You can’t let tickets lay around because you had to go to school, or you had to mow the lawn, or your girlfriend wouldn’t let you, or you just didn’t feel like dealing with it.

This can prove to be a very difficult task after awhile. The first few customers you get will submit a few tickets a month. Then, when you have a few more, maybe 25, you will start to have tickets, live chats, emails, pre-sales questions, all of it pouring in at once. Then you get up in to the 50-100 client range and you are swamped. This is when you start to loose sleep and begin to burn out quick!

If you have 50-100, or ever 30 or so, you should look into an outsourced support solution. I have used BobCares and have found them to be the most professional and reliable for the package they offer resellers, and starts at $24 a month to cover 12 clients 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Some hosts, and customers, frown upon outsourcing support, but until you have the money to hire your own support staff, I suggest you look into outsourcing. Another company I have heard good things about is Root Support, though I haven’t tried them, I have noticed that they have some very good prices, and as I said, good reviews.

So that’s the upside, the bad side is easy. You don’t offer good support, and you find yourself in 3 months telling the 500 FREE hosting clients, and no paid clients that you have, that they need to find another host because you are shutting down.

2. Choosing a host: When you are searching for a reseller , or VPS host, you may be tempted by the low prices of some overselling host (run by a 15 yr old kid) that offers the world or, my favorite, “Unlimited”..LOL. You show me a host that has a hard drive with unlimited space, and I’ll show you some pictures of Big Foot that I took in Buck Snort Tennessee! If you choose a host by price alone you are destine to fail. You will end up with nothing but downtime, nothing to tell your clients when it happens because your host is no where to be found, and when the server IS up, it will be so overloaded that it will run like an epileptic chicken!

I heard it described best on a forum, “There is no perfect host, there is only the host that is perfect for you”. I suggest you look at Web Hosting Talk.com. Be sure to look in the “Advertisements” section, there are always a few good offers there for whatever type of hosting you are needing. You can also Google the words “web host review.” That will bring up hundreds of different resources for use in choosing a web host. This can be quite overwhelming also, so try and be as specific you can in your search terms.
When looking at the prices offered by offered a host, ask yourself a few questions.

A. Does the website look professional, or does it look like something you could have made when you were 13? This is not always the best way to determine your host, so again, do not base your decision on the website alone either!

B. What type of server specs (CPU, RAM,) does the host say that your account will be held on? If you do some further research, you’ll see that a reliable server with even a single P4 3.0GHz HT server with 1gb RAM is going to cost $150 AT CHEAPEST, and if you go up into the dual CPU servers, the price of a single server can go up to $300 a month EASY. So, if the host is offering 5gb disc space and 100gb bandwidth for $5 a month, you can be pretty sure you are not getting as good a deal as it may seem!

C. Check their support link, does it even work? If they offer live chat, use it, send them an email and ask questions specific to your needs, ask as many questions as you want, in as many different emails or tickets as you want, it’s a very important decision, be SURE you get what you need from a provider that will GIVE you what you need.

D. Uptime: a lot of hosts offer shared hosting plans for as cheap as $1.00 for the first month. I suggest you sign up and pay for one month. Tell the host what your intentions are, and that you want your account to be placed on the same server that your reseller will be placed on so you can review the resources. Then place a free uptime monitor such as DotUptime on it and see what the uptime is like in a 1 month time period. Spending a couple of dollars to make sure you get what you want will save you a TON of headache in the future!

E. Search as many web hosting forums and / or Google pages as you can for “whateverhost”. Look and see what others have to say about the host. But, keep in mind also that no host can please EVERY customer, and some people just can’t be pleased.

F. Finally, is it within your budget? Don’t be afraid to spend some money if you can, but don’t go overboard either. Remember, you have to spend money to make money. I am one to go all out from the start. I believe that the more you put into a GOOD host, the more you get back, and the happier your clients are, in turn attracting more customers. So we have our servers at LiquidWeb.com . They have proven to be the most reliable in terms of managed dedicated servers.

3. Choosing a billing system : There are many different billing systems available, and searching for one that’s fits can also be a wearing task. There are the first few big name scripts such as ModernBill, WHMAutoPilot, ClientExec, and Lpanel. Most of these options allow for automated account creation, meaning when a customer signs up and pays, it automaticly creates their account and emails the customer their login information.

It isn’t wise to use this feature though, unless you also pay for a fraudgate to check all your orders before setup. If you allow instant (automated) account creation without a fruadgate, you will find yourself swamped with spammers and fraudulent orders that result in charge backs, in no time at all!

ModernBill is by far the best in my opinion, and goes for about $25 a month. It keeps track of everything you can think of, ands some very key features that others don’t have, such as the ability to update package price depending on the upgrades they choose. WHMAutoPilot is the next step down at the same price ($25). It is still a very powerfull billing system, but lacks a few small features that ModernBill has. ClientExec is the best choice for a beginning web host, and starts at $12 a month. It is all you need to get ready to sell and keep track or your clients. It also has a built in support desk (most good billing scripts do). When you choose your billing system, be sure you read the description of that package. Some of them charge per client after a certain amount, and that can get costly.

4. Advertising : It’s no secret that any websites success depends on the amount of traffic it receives. So, in order to get traffic you have to let people know that your website and packages are out there!
Some good ways I have found for doing this are:

A. Forum posts: Register at as many web hosting forums you can find in Google. Most web hosing forums have “Requests Hosting” sections, so you can post offers to requests there, and you can also post offers in the “Offers” section usually. Be sure of the forum rules BEFORE posting your offers though. If you post an offer and it is edited by a moderator and only reads “Read the rules” your not going to look like the most trustworthy host. Remember to put a link to your hosting website, and maybe a little sentence or 2 about your services in your signature on the forum. Try and make it eye cacthing, add some color, or some symbols (>> +ll whatever).

B. Look on web hosting forums for people offering ad space. I use WebHostingTalk.com for my ad searches, and it has worked very well. Don’t buy ad space on just any website. Try to only buy ad space on websites that pertain to yoru market. For example, you wouldn’t put ads for a hunting website on an animal rights activist website! Try to only place ads for your hosting business on design sites, or hosting search forums, hosting directories, script development websites, anything that they might need a web host for!

C. Banners: Some say banner ads are dead, but I disagree. I know when I go to a website and see an eye catching banner ad, I tend to click on the ad to see what it’s all about. Whether this results in a sale or not, it is still a great avenue for brand awareness. So, if you decide to do some banner advertising, be sure to have an ad that looks professional, and eye catching. Otherwise you have an ad that no one notices.

D. Word of mouth: Without a doubt, the BEST type of advertising! When you provide good service and support to a client, he goes and tells his friends ” Hey, I got this host you guys should check out”. Then, those friends tell their friends, and their friends tell their friends, and their….You see where I’m going with this!

E. Local Market: Never underestimate your local market. You can start by making some fliers to post around town, or place some business cards on post-it boards. Ads in your local paper or ad magazine are sometimes good also. You can also think about sending a little packet of information about your business and what you can do for a client to small businesses in / around your area that might need a website and/or web host. If your budget allows for it, radio and tv ads are great sources, but can be very costly.

5. Prices: Don’t try to be the cheapest host on the block, you will only run yourself into the ground over time. If you look at the “Big Boys”, or as I like to call them, the “Oversellers who can”, you will see that if you tried to beat their prices you would be out of business within 2 -3 months.
Instead, take a look at your hosting package, whether it be a reseller, VPS, or Dedicated Server, and do a little math:

Lets say you have a reseller package with 10gb disc space, and 100gb bandwidth (a little large for a starter reseller I know, but it’s an easy round number to use J ). We’ll say your reseller costs you $25 a month.
You can look at your costs in a couple of different ways, here’s a couple that I use:

Disc Space    Cost (monthly)    Bandwidth

10GB    $25.00    100GB

5GB    $12.50    50GB

2.5GB    $6.25    25GB

1.25GB    $3.12    12.5GB

612MB    $1.56    6.25GB

Or, you can split the costs and look at it like this:

Disc Space    Cost    Bandwidth    Cost

10GB    $12.50    100GB    $12.50

5GB    $6.25    50GB    $6.25

2.5GB    $3.12    25GB    $3.12

1.25GB    $1.56    12.5GB    $1.56

612MB    $0.78    6.25GB    $0.78

Or, do a little chart like this:

Disc Space    10GB    5GB    2.5GB    1.25GB    612MB

Bandwidth

100GB        $25.00    $18.75    $15.62    $14.06    $13.28

50GB        $18.75    $12.50    $9.37    $7.81    $7.03

25GB        $15.62    $9.37    $6.24    $4.68    $3.90

12.5GB        $14.06    $7.81    $4.68    $3.12    $2.34

6.25GB        $13.23    $7.03    $3.90    $2.34    $1.56

Remember to ad in your other costs, such as your billing system, your sitebuilder (if you have one), processor fees, and any other cost you may need to add.

After you have added up all of your costs, then decide what you think is a fair price to charge OVER your costs. So if a package costs you $5 a month, then maybe you would charge $8 – $7 – $6 a month. Just be sure to allow for enough profit to upgrade when you need to.

Again, don’t try to be the cheapest, you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot for sure!

6. Overselling : Overselling is the practice of selling more disc space and/or bandwidth then you actually have. So for an example, lets say you have 1 apple, you tell 8 people that you will sell them %25 of the apple. So if the people actually eat all of their apple, you are in trouble! Some overselling is ok, not a lot, you don’t want to overload your reseller or VPS, or dedicated server. You can safely assume the following (usually).
If you have 10gb disc space, and 100gb bandwidth, you can sell it as if you had 12gb disc space, and 120gb bandwidth. It’s a small percentage, but can help to increase profits. But be sure to keep a close eye on things, and upgrade when / if needed.

7. Professionalism : When you are posting an ad on a forum, replying to a pre-sales email, talking a to customer in chat, or replying to a support ticket, you must always maintain a professional attitude through your speech, or typing. A person looking for hosting isn’t going to be interested in a post that reads like a 12 year old wrote it. Try to use proper punctuation, I am not the world’s best at that (as you can see), but I try J.

Never discuss business matters or private customer information in public situations such as forums. This can lead to serious legal issues!

8. Free Hosting: A lot of hosts offer free hosting in hopes that the user will eventually upgrade. The truth is, only about %5 of your free hosting customers will upgrade to a paid plan. Also, it is usually those seeking free hosting that have no idea what they are doing and send hundreds of support tickets a month. Or, they sign up with a free host, send out a few thousand spam emails, and then move on to the next free host.

So to make a long story short, free hosting isn’t worth the time or frustration. Instead, maybe offer a small, shared package for $1.00 a month. This is low enough to reel them in, and then have them upgrade.
If you do decide to offer free hosting, be sure to put free hosting customers on one server or reseller, and paid clients on another reseller or server. That way if one of your free clients overloads the server, your paid clients are not affected at all, and you have no worries of loosing them!

9. Firm, Fair, and Consistent: I have found that you have to be fair overall, but you must also be firm, and consistent with your clients. If they are late on their payments all the time, start to penalize them with a late fee, their payments will soon show up on time for sure. I don’t mean to penalize them $100 for the first time their late, but there should be some sort of “push” to make them pay on time.

If you have a client who is requesting a refund because of an extended amount of downtime, you would want your money back to, so give it to them, always be fair.

Stay on top of your billing system and system resources, and when you come across a problem, take care of it right then, don’t wait!

I hope some of this helps some of you!

By Mike Brown

With virtual or shared web hosting, you don’t have a lot of flexibility or control over your web server that your hosting provider owns. The company providing shared web hosting services partitions a server to be shared between a number of customers for their websites and email. Because it is a shared server, the customers with virtual web hosting on the server share the hard
drive, the processor, and the bandwidth as well as applications. The web host that provides the virtual hosting services has control over the server configurations.

Dedicated web hosting is a step up from virtual web hosting because, even if the server is provided by a web hosting company, with dedicated web hosting you are the only customer that uses the server and you generally have complete control of the server for administrative purposes. Because you administer and control the web server yourself with dedicated web hosting, you have
greater flexibility. The hosting company that provides dedicated web hosting services generally owns the server and leases it to you as a dedicated web hosting client so they are responsible for hardware management. Depending upon the dedicated web hosting services provided, you may be able to handle your own upgrades and install your own software, or you can outsource such tasks to
the dedicated web hosting provider.

Aside from flexibility and control, there are other advantages of having dedicated web hosting. Because you are the only customer using the server, you don’t share resources such as hard drive space, processing speed, bandwidth and applications, so dedicated web hosting can be a lot more efficient and can provide a lot more space and speed of processing for your website, database and email applications. The disadvantage of dedicated web hosting as
compared to virtual web hosting is that the cost of dedicated web hosting is higher than that of shared hosting.

For most internet-based businesses, dedicated web hosting is sufficient; however, for businesses with advanced needs custom engineering and server design using clustered hosting may be necessary. However, clustered hosting is really pretty rare. For businesses that need custom applications and more space than what is available in a shared environment, dedicated web hosting is
usually the answer.

Upgrading from virtual web hosting to dedicated web hosting is recommended if your business has multiple websites, uses custom applications, needs specialized support or increased web hosting space and speed. If your website or websites provide download capabilities for customers, then dedicated web hosting is a good web hosting option for you because there will be fewer bandwidth restrictions than there are with virtual or shared web hosting.

When you first start out in internet business, you may find that virtual web hosting is sufficient and cost-effective; however, as your business grows and you add features and capabilities to your website, or launch multiple websites, dedicated web hosting may be a better option. When making long-term plans for your internet business, be sure to consider the possibility of upgrading to dedicated web hosting in the future and the relative costs
involved. It is beneficial to choose a virtual web hosting provider that offers the ability to quickly and easily upgrade to dedicated web hosting when it becomes a necessity for your business.

Copyright Christopher J. Enders.

Step back a bit. You don’t need to learn everything about web sites to choose a host. You do however need to know what a web host is, and the basic types of web hosting. This knowledge will lead you to know what type of hosting you need, and ultimately you can make a sound decision.

To begin, let’s define the term. Web hosting is a service that hosts web pages on servers that can be accessed through the Internet. There are three primary categories of web hosting providers that cater to the requirements of site owners; these include virtual web hosting, dedicated web hosting, and co-located hosting. There are various sources online that offer detailed information and reviews on these services, but there are several details you should pay most attention to. The points to consider before selecting a web hosting provider include the number of clients they service, years in business, customer service reputation, hardware specifications, and backup routines. With that out of the way, let’s jump in and explore the basic types of web hosting.

Dedicated hosting

A dedicated web server is basically like the name sounds it’s dedicated to your site only. Typically it is leased to a site owner. The hosting company is responsible for the maintenance, backing up, security, and power management. The site owner manages the software-related issues.

Dedicated hosting is useful for websites that need extra bandwidth and system resources because of the use of technologies such as e-commerce software, customized server applications, and heavy traffic. Such websites are often better served by a dedicated hosting provider rather than developing and running an in-house solution. Dedicated hosting is possible with Windows, Mac, and Linux servers. A dedicated server can cost upward of $100 / month.

Pros and cons: 24/7 tech support is available. Speed, dependability, and customizability of website are often enhanced. The response time of dedicated servers is fast as compared to shared servers where the activity of other sites affects server speeds. Reliability and customizability of websites are improved as dedicated hosting offers greater storage capacity and greater freedom in terms of hardware configurations and software installations; hard drives can be upgraded and bandwidths increased with growth.

Shared servers and CoLo hosting are cheaper alternatives to dedicated hosting. Moreover, as the server is not owned by the site owner, security of sensitive data can be an issue.

Virtual hosting

Virtual hosting, also called shared hosting, is a popular and cost-effective web hosting solution. The hosting provider leases the website hosting server, services, and bandwidth to more than one website. Small and medium-sized websites, which do not have high traffic and have limited bandwidth requirements, benefit from virtual hosting. A virtual hosting offer by a service provider usually includes features such as Internet connection, domain name registration, file storage, email account, and may also include website design assistance. The cost of virtual hosting is in the range of $5-40 per month. It can be more or less depending upon the package selected.

Pros and cons: Virtual hosting enables the establishment of an online presence with no expensive equipment purchases required on part of the site owners and therefore is the perfect solution for SMBs.

One of the limitations of virtual hosting is that sites compete for the provider’s service, this may result in slow server response times in periods of heavy traffic and make browsing inconvenient. Since websites hosted on a server may be grouped under a single IP address, there is a chance that a site owner may have to share an IP address with adult or scam sites. This can lead to debarring from search engine placements which will have an adverse effect on the traffic. As the software components are shared between websites, a site owner may not be able to personalize the website as per his business objectives and target audience.

While purchasing virtual hosting services, it is useful to have an idea of the total anticipated traffic during the day as well as the visits during the peak period. This helps in obtaining a package with sufficient bandwidth for immediate and near term needs. Also, the cost of an upgrade and changes to the package should be understood.

Co-location (Co-lo) hosting

In Co-location hosting, the server is owned by the site owner and it is leased at the co-lo facility, where it is installed along with other servers in the facility. A co-lo service enables site owners to make maximum use of network access points and the freedom to choose between telecom lines provided by the hosting company and other telecom lines. Co-location hosting enables site owners to utilize high bandwidth at a cost that is not significantly higher than that of a normal web hosting package. The site owner maintains the server while the hosting provider ensures smooth running by providing regular power supply and IT support.

Co-location hosting services can be standalone data centers or companies that operate by leasing server space from a co-location web hosting reseller. The cost of the server and the volume of rack space required by the servers of a site owner influence the cost of co-lo hosting. Servers that fit in with the dimensions of the racks can help to save costs; co-locating tower servers usually cost more. Additional services provided by the hosting provider and insurance are other factors that affect cost. The monthly cost of a co-lo service for a half-rack of server space can be up to $1000.

Pros and cons: The benefits of co-location hosting include temperature and humidity controlled environment for the servers; security from hacking, fire, and theft, provision of redundancy and backup. It enables the site owner to control the critical features of web hosting such as bandwidth allocation, routers, VPN, server space, and VLAN.

Site owners may not find it easy to locate a co-lo service that is situated close enough to facilitate easy and safe transfer of servers and at the same time provide the best connection speeds. Co-lo hosting is of greater advantage to those who have hosting experience and consequently are better placed to recover the costs involved.

Ultimately, it is the requirements of the site that dictate the choice of web hosting solution. Online stores and sites with heavy traffic are better off with dedicated hosting, personal blogs and small sites without ecommerce activity that do not have high bandwidth consumption can function with virtual hosting, and websites that require a high degree of customization and deal with sensitive data benefit from a co-lo hosting arrangement.

To determine what type of host you need, ask yourself what type of site you have, and it should all flow naturally from there.

John Hasson

The first wave of Web hosting started in the middle of 1990s. At the time, there weren’t really many web hosting companies. Web hosting was a part of ISP (Internet Service Provider) operation. Within two years, the number of ISPs had grown from a few dozens to a few thousands in United States alone. Many analysts predicated that the consolidation of ISP industry was unavoidable. But the analysts didn’t pay much attention to the future of the web hosting. The web hosting clients for ISPs were most small to medium-sized organizations which couldn’t offer to have dedicated Internet connection.

The Second Wave – One Plan Hosting Wave

As large telecommunication companies entering into the ISP industry and the prevailing of broadband connection into both commercial and residential buildings, a few leading ISP, such as AOL had grabbed residential users from small ISP companies, and telecommunication companies had stolen or acquired commercial clients from small or regional ISP companies. Because of the economy of scale, ISPs couldn’t compete with either AOL, Comcast or Qwest for Internet connection service. Most ISP companies were disappeared as fast as they were emerged.

On the other hand, the growth of the Web has pushed the second wave of web hosting. The web hosting companies offer hosting service at a fraction of cost of what ISPs used to charge. In contrast to the Web hosting service from ISP, which is often customized for each client one way or another, the idea of one hosting plan has helped grow the client base from a few hundreds to hundreds of thousands at few leading hosting companies in a few short years. Todays’ web hosting companies don’t offer Internet connection service at all. It’s unbelievable that early ISP companies had never attempted to transform themselves into web hosting companies to survive the inevitable consolidation of ISP industry.

The Third Wave – Hosting Plan for Users

Seasoned webmasters can easily setup a new website in minutes with one of their preferred hosting companies. Novice webmasters are often confused by the various web hosting plans – affordable web hosting, Cheap Web hosting, ASP Web Hosting, Budget Hosting, Dedicated Servers, eCommerce Hosting, FrontPage Web Hosting, Hosting With Templates, Managed Web Hosting, PHP Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, Shared Hosting, Unix / Linux Hosting, Virtual Private Servers, Windows Hosting and Co-location Hosting.

The size of the Web will continue to grow exponentially as more and more people join the crow to create their own websites. If web hosting companies do not expect average Joe to understand operating systems, programming languages or variations of web servers, they’ll develop the service and sell the hosting plan that’ll make sense to average Mary. New web hosting plan will be labeled in terms of what is can do for hosting customers, instead of technical buzzwords.

The Web hosting industry has been enjoying healthy growth as the global economy and IT industry revives. It’s too early to see the tide of the third wave in Web hosting right now. If the first and the second wave of Web hosing were pushed by the start of a new economic cycle, the coming of the third wave may not be an exception either.

Copyright @2005, Bruce Zhang

Those commonly used web hosting terms represent the many faces of web hosting. All web hosting plans and terminologies can be classified in terms of cost, programming languages, operation systems, Web servers and functionality.

Cost – Web hosting plans are referred as affordable web hosting, budget hosting and cheap web hosting. Cost of web hosting is the first thing that many small site owners are looking for. Affordable web hosting, budget hosting or cheap web hosting plan often cost less than $5 per month.

Programming Languages – If you want to add dynamics and interactivity to your websites and you happen to know something about programming, you want to hosting plans that support the programming languages that you know well or want to master. The commonly used wen development languages include PHP, ASP, JSP and PERL. The hosting plans that support those programming languages are referred as PHP Web hosting, ASP Web hosting, JSP Web hosting or PERL Web hosting.

Operating Systems – Once you’ve picked up the programming language(s) for your Web development, you still have freedom to choose the operating system that hosts your Websites. Besides ASP which works only on Microsoft Windows, other programming languages, PHP, JSP and PERL, work on Windows, Unix and Linux. Hosting plans that support particular operating systems are referred as Window Hosting, Unix Hosting or Linux hosting.

Servers – Apache is the most widely supported Web server in Web hosting industry. ASP works only on Mirosoft Internet Information Server or IIS server. Weblogic or Websphere is needed for JSP hosting. When webmasters are talking about Web servers, they’re most interested in the server performance – Managed Web Hosting, Shared Hosting, Dedicated Servers, or Virtual Private Servers (VPS). Shared hosting is the cheapest plan, and you can host as many sites as you like with a Reseller Hosting option. VPS costs around $50 a month, and Dedicated Server plan will cost from $50 – $100 or more a month dependent on storage space and bandwidth of the hosting plan.

Functionality – There’re hosting plans out there that either make the site creation easier or offer support for secure online transactions. A simple website can be easily created in hours if you choose hosting plans that support various templates. Ecommerce hosting plan is the choice for sites that provide shopping carts and accept payment online.

Copyright @2005, Bruce Zhang

Web hosting companies are extremely profitable if they are popular, they have high start-up costs, but over time their general overheads dramatically reduce (proportionally). This is evident if you think that they have to pay to get directly connected to the backbone in order to establish the fastest possible connection, they need secure fire resistance premises, equipment, support staff and much more.

Once established their costs per web hosting account reduce, if you go to a major web hosting company and order a web hosting server, all they are really doing is adding a computer to their existing network, therefore splitting the overall costs. Then you pay approximately $150-$200 per month to keep that dedicated web hosting server.

Your web hosting requirements

You need to realistically establish what web hosting requirements you have for your site, do you really need 400 gigabytes of bandwidth (transfer) per month? Most sites are lucky to use 2 gigabytes per month from their web hosting account. Databases are another big issue, many web hosting companies change extra for databases, when in actual fact they don’t cost anything to maintain as they reside on the same server. So before you proceed, you need to analyse what web hosting requirements you really have, look at the script requirements you have of any potential software products you plan to use on your web hosting account.

Another limitation a lot of web hosting companies impose is the amount of mailboxes you can have, many people start on the internet with the intention of offering their friends, family and staff email boxes as well as numerous emails for their site, for example webmaster@domain.com , support@domain.com , jobs@domain.com and contact@domain.com . The chances are you really don’t need that many mail boxes and administering them can be a gruelling task.

You know your web hosting requirements, what next?

Your primary goal should be to visit web hosting information sites in order to obtain a list of potential web hosting companies. A great web hosting information resource is Web Hosting Village, they provide web hosting articles, news and information, and in fact the best place to start your search for quality web hosting.

Creating a list of potential web hosting companies

Given that web hosting companies are profitable, they tend to advertise immensely across the internet. The more successful a web hosting company is the more they are willing to spend on web hosting related advertising. Therefore finding hosting companies via paid advertising, such as Googles Adsense, is generally a good idea as this a good step to take to establish how successful they have been.

Short listing

In order to short list your potential web hosting companies you need to visit each site and just quickly look around, if the design is poor or they don’t offer adequate support, then the chances are this web hosting company is not for you. Whether you are new to the whole web hosting experience or an expert, there will eventually be a time when you need to contact your web hosting support. If they are non existent then you will really have a problem, so establishing their channels of communication and support should be one of your top priorities when selecting a web hosting company.

Inside information

Once you have a shortlist of several web hosting companies, you need to research them via forums and webmaster communities. Chances are if someone has had a bad experience or extremely good they will want to write about it somewhere on the internet.

Selection

You should now have a list of two to three potential web hosting companies who you are really impressed with, now you need to make the selection. The best way is to weigh up the features and price and be really realistic as to your requirements, we have all been in the situation where we have been over ambitious and bought something that is too advanced for us.

If you have a winning concept that will make you bigger than Yahoo or eBay, the chances are you still don’t need a mega server when you start off, you just need something small and stable that will allow you to develop and promote your business. Once you have a good source of income you can upgrade your web hosting account with your current supplier and not experience any downtime whatsoever, so why pay for a mega web hosting account when you can get by with a $19.99 a month web hosting account and use the additional amount on marketing or development.

By James Piper

Proposed Hosting Strategy for Managing Multiple Websites

The hosting strategy we propose is to host your multiple major websites with 3-4 different hosting companies, and open a reseller account with another hosting company for 1) small and new websites, 2) web development and 3) backup. Hosting with too many hosting companies will significantly increase the time and the difficulty of managing sites, and using a single hosting company isn’t a smart choice either.

Justification of the Hosting Strategy

Cost – Cost of the Web hosting isn’t an issue for running a single web site whether it costs $5 or $25 a month. The difference is only a few hundred dollars or less a year. It’s always nice and smart to get the most out of every single dollar in doing business. At least, a few hundred dollars difference wouldn’t make or break a business. If you run 10 or even 50 websites, the cost of Web hosting alone will define the success or failure of your online adventure. To cut the hosting cost, the option is to use a reseller hosting account to host as many small or new sites as you want for about $15 a month. You host one or 2 major websites with one hosting company. Shared hosting account costs under $10 a month, and dedicated server will cost $50 or more a month.

Uptime – If your bread-and-butter maker website is down for a few hours, you’ll lose hundreds of dollars and more. Even though most hosting companies promise 99.9% uptime, it’s not common to see a website down for a few hours. A site could be down for a half day or even more if a hosting company is doing a major update. The hosting company may do the update in a weekend or a major holiday, but that’s when many family-oriented and travel sites generate their revenues. If you could afford the loss of revenues, many websites owners can’t bear the psychological loss and pressure. Hosting your sites with a few hosting companies will reduce the risk of downtime.

Application Development – For simple web application, webmasters will do development on the same production hosting site. If your ecommerce applications are complex, doing development on the production site may bring down the live site especially if you’re in the process of changing configuration files or install customized applications. The option is setup a website on your reseller account for development and testing, and move the applications to production account on another server after the completion.

Backup – If you’re not happy with a hosting company, a hosting company is out of business, or the servers will be down for a day or two, you can easily temporarily or permanently switch from one hosting company to other since you’re familiar with the site managing tools already. If you have a backup or secondary copy running on another server, all you need for the switch is the transfer of the domain, which will take no more than a minute.

Shop Before You Buy

There’re too many hosting plans to choose from a large number of hosting companies – ASP Web Hosting, Budget Hosting, Dedicated Servers, eCommerce Hosting, FrontPage Web Hosting, Hosting With Templates, Managed Web Hosting, PHP Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, Shared Hosting, Unix / Linux Hosting, Virtual Private Servers, Windows Hosting or Co-location Hosting. Compare the cost, hosting features, tracking records of hosting companies before making your commitment. Good luck with your online adventures.

By Bruce Zhang

Just what is web hosting anyway?

In simple terms, web hosting is renting space on a web server. A website is not simply a domain name, it is a collection of files linked together by HTML code to display text and graphics on a computer. In order for anybody to see this collection of files you’ve created, it has to be housed on a computer somewhere that has access to the internet. Not just any computer will do, of course. A web server is a computer set up with special software that allows it to receive requests from the internet for the website files it has stored on it and to send those files out over the internet so that the requesting computer can display them. It is very much like a waiter in a restaurant taking your order and bringing the food that you ask for from the kitchen, hence the name “server.”

Along with making sure your files can be seen by internet users around the world, a web server provides other important services as well. First and foremost is the ability to create email addresses based on your domain name and to send and receive email with them. The web server also has various types of software installed on it that allow your website to run programs, create and manage databases, display video, and many other functions you might find useful. Almost any type of computer can function as a web server, but it’s the software that’s on it that makes it a server.

When you buy webhosting, the monthly fee you pay goes to the continued maintenance and upgrading of the server’s hardware and software, the cost of keeping it online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a secure data center with a fast and powerful internet connection, and to pay for the expertise of the people who do all that work. It is completely possible to turn your own home or office computer into a web server if you really want to, but in most cases it is far more economical to pay someone else who is dedicated to providing this service in a properly reliable manner than it is to try and do it yourself.

What kinds of web hosting are there?

Shared Hosting – Most websites are not huge affairs with hundreds of pages and thousands of files and graphics, and they are targeted toward a particular audience, so they will not get as many visitors as the large general sites like Yahoo! that are targeted at everybody who uses the internet. As such, the average website therefore is not going to require the full resources of an entire web server to run it. Web servers are designed to be able to handle dozens, even hundreds of websites at once because they are powerful machines.

Shared hosting is simply the concept of hosting more than one website on a particular server. Over 95% of all websites on the internet are being run in a shared hosting environment. Since the resources of the server can be split among the clients hosted on it, so can the costs of operating the server, so shared hosting is universally cheaper than any other type. Shared hosting packages are generally designed so that each client is allotted a certain amount of each resource, with different payment levels representing different amounts of resources such as disk space, bandwidth, email addresses, and so on. Shared hosting is also known as virtual hosting.

Dedicated Hosting – If you do have a big, powerful website that gets lots of visitors and has a tendency to hog resources, then you might want to have a web server all to yourself. Some companies also prefer the extra security of not having to share the server with anyone else who could do something accidentally or on purpose to crash it. Renting the use of an entire server is known as dedicated hosting. The web hosting company still owns the machine and takes responsibility for maintaining the hardware and the web hosting software, but you have greater control over the configuration and use of the server. There is also such a thing as semi-dedicated hosting, in which a web server is only split between a very small number of clients, such as 2 to 4, with strong partitions between each to prevent them from interfering with one another. Since the hosting company is still responsible for the upkeep of the server, this type of hosting is also known as managed hosting. For obvious reasons, dedicated hosting always costs significantly more than shared hosting.

Server Co-Location – If you really want complete control over every aspect of your web server, you might very well choose to buy one and maintain it yourself if you have sufficient knowledge. However, chances are that you still don’t have the resources to keep your server completely safe from power outages, roof leaks, thieves, unwary employees and other hazards and keep it on the internet on a fast, high-bandwidth connection at all times. You need a data center to provide those services for you. Co-location is the rental of physical security, continuous electrical power and a fast, reliable internet connection for a server that you own. The data center is not responsible for any of the hardware or software maintenance of a co-located server, you are. This can be a cheaper alternative to dedicated hosting if you have the necessary expertise and time to run a web server yourself.

Some web hosts are offering UNIX hosting and Windows hosting. What’s the difference?

The terms UNIX hosting and Windows hosting refer to the operating system (OS) that is running on the server. The operating system, of course, is the software that allows the computer to function and manage all of the other hardware and software that is installed on it. Chances are good that you are reading this on a computer running a version of the Windows operating system, the most popular operating system in the world for personal and business computers. Other operating systems that are growing in popularity are Macintosh and various versions of Linux. However, the operating system you use on your computer is irrelevant to which type of hosting you choose. Here are some of the main features of UNIX and Windows:

UNIX Hosting

Most of the web servers in the world today run on one of the many variants of UNIX. The UNIX operating system was originally developed by universities for servers and networking, and many different versions have been written by programmers around the world under the open-source protocol, which means that the code for the operating system is openly available for programmers to customize and make improvements. Linux and BSD are the most popular forms of UNIX and come in many varieties, such as Red Hat Linux, Debian, SuSE, and FreeBSD. Most of these different versions (and much of the software that runs on them) can be obtained for free, which makes UNIX hosting cheaper for a web host than other operating systems and allows them to offer lower prices. UNIX hosting platforms are generally considered to be stable, secure, powerful and fast. Most web programming applications can be performed by software that is available for a UNIX platform. “UNIX hosting” has become a generic term to refer to any platform that is derived from the original UNIX.

Windows Hosting

Microsoft has developed its own operating system for servers as a special version of its Windows operating system, Windows Server 2003. It is a commercial product which requires the operator to purchase a license, which increases the cost of operation for the web host and usually results in higher hosting prices. Windows is designed to be user friendly, but it is generally considered to be less powerful and secure than UNIX for operating in a network environment. ASP, ASP.NET, and ColdFusion are scripting languages which will only run on a Windows server, as will the Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access database programs. These are popular for certain web programming applications, and if you are planning on using them to build your website, you will need to find a Windows host.

What are some of the terms I need to know when I choose a web host?

Disk Space or Storage – Because your website is a collection of files being offered on the internet for viewing, they have to be stored somewhere for retrieval and take up space. Each web server has a finite amount of hard disk memory to divide up and offer to hosting customers. Typically that space is divided up by different package levels so that the more you pay, the more space you are allowed to store pictures, web pages, videos and whatever other files you like on the web server’s hard drive. If your website gets bigger than the space you are given, you will need to purchase more disk space from the web host.

Bandwidth or Data Transfer – Whenever you visit a website and view a page, you are transfering a copy of the files that make up that page over the internet from the web server to your computer. If the page you are viewing consists of an HTML file that is 3KB in size and three pictures of 47KB, 100KB and 250 KB, then you have just used 400KB of bandwidth or data transfer, because that is the total amount of data you just downloaded from the web server to view that page. Bandwidth is a commodity like disk space that the web host has to buy from its internet service provider, so it too is divided up and offered to the customers in specific amounts. Bandwidth amounts are usually measured in gigabytes (GB), because while only one copy of your files needs to be stored on the server, thousands or even millions of copies may be downloaded for viewing. If your website is viewed more times than the amount of bandwidth you are allowed can handle, your website may be turned off until the next billing period starts, or you may simply be billed for the excess amount used, depending on your host’s policies. You can always purchase more bandwidth as your site’s traffic increases.

Uptime – In an ideal world, every web server would be up and running and offering your web pages to the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week forever. However, web servers are computers, and like any other computer, things happen to make them fail, or they get old and out of date and require maintenance and repair. When a web host gives you a 99% uptime guarantee, they are saying that the web server will be up and running for 99% of the billing period. If they fail to meet this guarantee, most web hosts will refund a certain portion of your money depending on the amount of excess downtime they experienced.

Traffic Statistics – Website traffic statistics programs try to track visitors to your website. They can track how many times your site was visited, how many visitors were unique and how many returned more than once, which pages were most popular, where the visitors came to your site from, what search terms they used in the search engines, and many other types of information which could be useful to you in marketing your website to a target audience. These statistics can be displayed in tables, graphs and charts by hour, day, week, month or year. Some statistics programs are better than others and offer more types of data, better displays, easier navigation or other useful features. Most web hosts today offer some sort of traffic statistics software with their hosting packages.

CGI Scripts – Many web hosts offer a variety of free CGI scripts with their packages. These are things like hit counters, guestbooks, form mail programs, message boards, and other programs that allow your website to perform commonly desired functions. You can use the ones your host provides you with or you can upload and run custom CGI scripts written by yourself or somebody else to perform different tasks like conducting a survey or processing customer information to produce an automatic price quote. Most CGI scripts are written in common programming languages like Perl, PHP or ASP.

You could spend a long time trying to learn everything there is to know about web hosting, but if you’ve read this far then you should be armed with the basic knowledge you need to understand what different web hosts are offering you. Your next task is to figure out what you need and go out and find a host that wants to give it to you at a great price!

© Copyright 2005-2008 by Stacy Clifford

As a general rule, it is a good idea to go for shared web hosting if you are a small business owner and cost is your major concern. But before you make your hosting decision, let us first understand what is shared web hosting service and what are the advantages and disadvantages of shared web hosting.

What is shared web hosting?

Shared web hosting service is a convenient and economic way of hosting web sites if you do not require extremely high performance and high bandwidth. As its name suggests, in shared web hosting service, the web server that hosting the web pages are shared by many other websites. The number of websites on a shared hosting server can go up to thousands at times. Due to one large and high performance web server is shared by hosting many different websites on it, web hosting companies providing shared web hosting service could offer them at an economic rates.

Even with so many websites hosted on a web server, you can be rest assured that the web hosting providers will not compromise on any kind of security and performance issues on the shared hosting servers. Moreover, shared hosting web servers are operated, monitored and maintained around the clock by IT professionals to ensure minimum server downtimes.

Technically speaking, shared hosting servers are run on Unix or other multi-user operating system and each website hosted on the web server is given a separate account in the operating system. Typically, websites hosted on shared servers are given a shared IP addresses and allocated a fix amount of web resources.

Let’s examine the advantages and disadvantages of shared web hosting before you consider shared web hosting service:

Advantages of Shared Web Hosting Service

Economical: As many websites are hosted on a single web server, web hosting providers are able to offer low cost shared web hosting services. In general, you can expect to pay $5-10 per month for shared web hosting services. Today, due to stiff competition in the web hosting industry, you can even discover many web hosting companies offering huge web space and bandwidth (as high as 1000 MB disk space and 40 GB bandwith).

Convenience: Shared hosting web servers are managed and maintained by professionals who are highly skilled with specialized knowledge of the field. As a result, you can concentrate on your web business and let these professionals worry about the maintenance and uptimes of the web server.

Customization: Even though web resources are shared, web masters can manage their website using control panel or similar tools provided by the web hosting company. They are free to upload files, remove web pages, add database, check web statistic and etc. Also they are allowed to create domain name specific e-mails accounts.

Efficiency: Today, shared web hosting service comes with web space and bandwidth that are more than sufficient for small business websites. However, you can always add more resources should you overrun the web space or bandwidth usage.

Disadvantages of Shared Web Hosting Service

Slower Responses: Given that a physical web server is shared, websites in the shared web hosting have to accept slower server response time if compare to dedicate server hosting.

Reliability Issues: In most cases, web hosting providers may take care of the security and performance of the shared server. However, it may happen that some of websites hosted on the shared server run a malicious program or script or over-utilize the resources, can bring down the web server. Your website would have to suffer downtimes and inaccessibility as a result.

Sharing Issues: Moreover, you just need one “bad” website in your shared web server to get your website banned altogether by ISP or search engine due to shared IP address (Note: you can always pay extra to get a dedicated IP address to avoid this problem).

Security Issues: Shared web hosting is more risky and opens up potential security issues as other web masters having an account on the same web server could hacked to your sensitive data.

Before you decide to ink a deal on shared web hosting, be sure to consider all the pros and cons of shared web hosting services above. After all, selecting a right web hosting services may be one of the most critical business decisions for your online business.

By Andrew Webb

What can go wrong with web hosting

Too much downtime

Problems happen, and even when they don’t, server maintenance results in a minimal amount of downtime. A dependable web host not only maintains servers well, but also monitors the servers and fixes problems immediately. With the type of web host you want to avoid, however, your site may be down for days.

Features that don’t work

When your email doesn’t work, your business shuts down. Problems with databases and other features can also slow down or stop your business. Most web hosts understand this, but some don’t place a high priority on keeping not only your site online but everything working as well.

Poor support

Dependable web hosts answer tech support questions within hours. Other web hosts, however, have been known to take days. And when those responses come, sometimes they’re canned responses that don’t address the issue.

Poor communication

Support people with good communication skills help keep problems from becoming bigger problems. Being told, “Everything looks fine here, so the problem is solved,” leads to frustration. So is having your site shut down because it used too many resources rather than the web host contacting you about the problem first.

Billing problems

Even after you cancel your account, problems may continue. Some less-than-dependable web hosts don’t honor their refund policy. Others don’t stop automatic billing after the account is cancelled.

What to watch out for

When you see the following at web host websites, consider them red flags to warn you of possible problems.

Unsustainable pricing

If the pricing looks too good to be true, it probably is. Is it enough to pay for server maintenance and tech support? You get what you pay for.

Unlimited bandwidth

Nothing is really unlimited. If you sign up for an account offering unlimited bandwidth and then use a lot of bandwidth, expect to have the plug pulled on your site. The web host may find another explanation for discontinuing your account, but “unlimited” typically means “as long as you don’t use a lot.”

An unprofessional-looking website

Consider how much effort the web host put into providing a usable website with informative content. Does it give you confidence in the web host, or is it full of unsubstantiated statements and grammar and spelling mistakes? A web host doesn’t need to be a spelling expert, of course. But if the company hasn’t put much effort into telling you about their services, will they be conscientious about meeting clients’ needs?

How to research web hosts

Finding web hosts is easy enough. Search engines can take you to the websites of thousands of web hosts. But after you’ve narrowed down your list by features and price, how do you find out which web hosts are dependable?

Read web host package details and TOS

If the hosting packages offer huge amounts of disk space and bandwidth for very low prices, consider yourself warned. Don’t expect the company to have enough money for maintenance and support.

If you want to be sure that you can get a refund if you want one, check what the Terms of Service (TOS) says about refunds.

Read the web host forum

What is the ambience in the forum? Are clients’ questions answered satisfactorily? Don’t be concerned if you see problems; instead, be concerned if you don’t see any problems. Some web hosts remove posts that don’t show their company in a positive light. If posts about problems remain in the forum, you can observe how the host handles problems.

Read web host reviews

Client feedback at the web host’s site may or may not be valid. It’s possible for hosts to make up feedback, and some have even copied feedback from other sites. Look for feedback with links to the clients’ sites, and check via http://www.Whois.sc to see if the particular web host actually hosts that site.

Numerous forums allow people to post web host reviews. When you read reviews, consider the poster’s credibility. Some people bash their hosts just because they’re unhappy about something. If the host posts in response to a problem, observe how the host tries to resolve it.

Check the company background

The “About Us” or “Company Background” page at the web host’s site should answer these questions.

How long has the company been in business? A new company may be excellent, but it’s good to keep in mind that a lot of businesses fail within the first year.

Does the company publish a privacy policy? Does this policy clearly protect clients’ privacy?

Where are the servers located? Ideally, they should be in a datacenter, and not in someone’s basement.

What are the server uptime statistics? If the web host doesn’t publish a link to a server uptime monitor, ask for a link to one. Uptime of about 99.7 percent or higher is generally considered good.

Does the company publish an address? You may never need it, but when you’re placing your company website in another company’s hands, you want to know that the company is legitimate and accessible.

Email pre-sales questions

Answers to your pre-sales questions tell you a lot about the web host. You’ll see how fast the company responds and how well they communicate. Ask questions about any of the above points as well as questions specific to your needs.

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Finding a dependable web host takes time, but dealing with problems and moving your site takes more time. The time spent looking for a dependable web host is a worthwhile investment.

By Lois S