Common Mistakes in Choosing a Web Host
Are you in look out for a hosting provider for your online business? It’s a common observation that most people commit mistakes in making a choice of web host. You must act smart and make sure that you don’t make these mistakes.
Have a glance at some of the common mistakes made by people in choosing a host:
(1) Unclear understanding of your web needs
Before making this important decision of choosing a host, you must do the required homework for the same and jot down all the resources that your website would be requiring. Don’t go by what people say! In fact, analyze your business objectives and then make an intelligent choice.
Most companies have their defined market segment. Hence, you must do a proper analysis of your own requirements and then figure out which web host addresses them best. A wrong choice of web host can fetch you lots of difficult experiences. So stay wise!
(2) Squandering lots of time looking for Cheap Web host
Your time is precious. So don’t waste it looking for cheap hosting companies. Instead, you must look out for a host that offers affordable and high-quality web hosting solutions. Quality is one key element that can never be compromised on. Choosing a cheap company can be detrimental for your online business.
It’s quite possible that you come across a reseller offering low-cost web hosting solutions. However, it must be clearly etched in your mind that many a times, resellers can’t yield the same quality of solutions as original web hosts do.
(3) Don’t fall for the Price Trap
Beware of the price trap in hosting business. You may come across companies that offer quite cheap web hosting solutions. But what needs to be considered here is the extent to which you can look for price aspect. If you are a netizen who wish to carve your online niche then you must not compromise on the quality.
A host offering cheap hosting services might not give the required bandwidth & disk space as may be required by your website or backup servers or technical support services. All this may hamper the day-to-day functioning of your website and can adversely affect the same.
(4) Don’t take Testimonials at Face Value
You must not take all testimonials true to their face value. Instead get connected with people in the same businesses who’ve had experiences with the web hosts. This would enlighten you on the true experiences of the people and enable you make a right decision.
Often, web hosts highlight the testimonials given to them by their loyal customers. Sometimes those can even be paid testimonials. Hence, take into consideration only the true experiences of people as this would help you make an intelligent choice of the web host for your online enterprise.
(5) Missing out on the contact details of the web host
Quite often, people don’t have a written record of the contact details and email addresses of the companies they choose. So it’s always wise to list down all the contact details, phone numbers, email addresses of your host so that in case of need, you can connect with the web host instantly and get a solution to your business query.
(6) Assuming your web host equipped with advanced software
There has been witnessed a remarkable upsurge in cyber crime cases. More and more efforts are put to come up with software that can defeat these security threats. Many netizens complain afterwards that they didn’t even know that their chosen web hosts did not have the latest software to check these security holes.
So before you make a purchase of web hosting solutions, you must check with the host (you’re planning to choose) whether it offers anti-virus software or not.
Having known the common errors made by people while choosing a web host, I hope you will act intelligent and choose a web host that offers solutions as per your online requirements and help you establish a strong online presence on the World Wide Web. Currently, many good Web Hosting companies are operating in the market such as LimeDomains, HostGator, FatCow etc.
Source Link: http://www.articlesbase.com/web-hosting-articles/common-mistakes-in-choosing-a-web-host-1183279.html
Friday, September 04, 2009 | 0 Comments
Free Webspace & Free Web Hosting FAQ
Most of these "free" services make profit from hosting your website, either by: (1) placing banner ads on your free webpages, (2) placing banner ads on the administration pages which you use to upload files and other website maintenance, or (3) by sending you email from advertisers. This is to your benefit in a way, since if they make money, they will probably continue to offer the "free" webspace. The more traffic your website gets, the more their banners are viewed, and the more money they make. (4) Some websites offer free hosting in hopes visitors to your website will visit the homepage of the URL you are given. (5) Many recent free web page hosting sites require forum posting, which gives their website free content. (6) Several commercial hosting services offer free webhosting in hopes you will want to upgrade to their paid hosting. These are often unreliable, as they usually end up ceasing their free service. (7) A few free web site hosts are run as hobbies by the owner, and are the least reliable. (8) There are several services, such as Community Architect, which allow websites to offer cobranded free webhosting at no charge to the cohost (cobranded host). These are not recommended, as your website will then depend on at least two services continuing their free service.
That depends a lot on the webhosting needs of your free web site (do you need CGI, PHP, ASP, SSI, unlimited bandwidth, domain hosting, FrontPage server extensions, large file sizes, FTP upload, ecommerce with SSL, free cpanel hosting, etc.). If you serious about having a website, buying your own domain name is recommended. Look for a free web hosting service which has been in business a long time, and is making profit. See our web page listing free web hosting ratings (based on user reviews and voting), and our list of best free web host.
If you know exactly what services you need, the best method is the advanced free web hosting search - choose only the features you need, click on the "search" button, and the free web space hosts meeting those requirements are returned. The simple search is best if you are looking for a particular free website provider, or a feature not listed in the advanced search. You can also browse the full list of unique free webspace providers. If web hosting features aren't as important as the URL name you will use, also check out the cobranded hosts, such as Community Architect, which aren't listed in the searchable database using the default settings. There is a separate section for a list of free image hosting and free file hosting service providers.
See our webhosting terms and definitions page.
How do I add new free hosting services to this website?
Just go to our contact page and submit the URL, and preferably as much info as possible about it. We always double-check the information, but it makes the process faster.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 | 0 Comments
Free Web Hosting Tips
Yes, there are hundreds of free hosting web sites, as far as not having to pay any money to have your website hosted. Generally they either cost you in time, web hosting restrictions, or modifying your free web pages by adding popups, banners, or other adverts. When looking for free web hosting (especially on search engines), you should beware that there are also a large number of commercial web hosts that claim to offer free hosting services, but those often have a catch, such as paying an excessive amount for a domain name or other service, and therefore aren't really free. The free free hosting guide below will give you some tips for finding the right free webhosting comapny for you.
The free website hosts often make money in other ways, such as putting banners, popups, or popunders ads on your free webpages. Some free web hosting companies do not put ads on your site, but require you as the webmaster to click on banners in their control panel or signup process, or just display banners in the file manager in hopes you will click them. Some lure visitors with free hosting in hopes you will upgrade and pay for advanced features. A few send you occasional emails with ads, or may even sell your email address. A new method that is becoming popular is requiring a certain number of "quality" forum posting, usually as a means of getting free content for them and thereby being able to display more ads to their website visitors.
Free web hosting is not recommended for businesses unless you can get domain hosting from an ad-free host that is very selective. Other reasons for using free hosting websites would be to learn the basics of website hosting, have a personal website with pictures of your family or whatever, a doorway page to another web site of yours, or to try scripts you have developed on different web hosting environments.
The best place to search for free webhosting is on a free webspace directory website (i.e. a web site which specializes in listing only free web hosting providers). There are some which add new free hosts pretty much every week (and if it is updated often, has usually had to delete about as many). There are also many which almost never update their web site, and a huge percent of their links and info are outdated. Unfortunately that includes most of the directories that were the best several years ago. The problem is free hosts change so often, and most fold up in less than a year (often even after only a day or two), that it is hard to keep such a freehosting directory up-to-date. The most recommended free web space directory is Free Web Hosting (http://www.free-webhosts.com/), which has a detailed list of over 500 free web hosting providers with user reviews, ratings, and free hosting searchable database. It is updated daily, and the advanced free web hosting search has 42 options, helping you to find the free hosting package with all the features you need, such as CGI, PHP, MySQL, ASP, SSI, Ruby on Rails, FrontPage server extensions, and even free cpanel web hosting.
For a smaller, more selective list of the best free hosts, there are also these free webspace hosting directories:
Best Free Webspace (http://www.100-Best-Free-Webspace.com/)
Free Hosting (http://www.Absolutely-Free-Hosting.com/)
Free Webspace (http://www.free-webspace.org/)
Other (usually less useful) resources include subcategories of freebies sites, search engines and directories, and forums. Your ISP might also supply you with free webhosting.
Hints for finding the best free web hosting service
Generally it is best not to choose a free hosting package with more features than you need, and also check to see if the company somehow receives revenue from the free hosting itself to keep it in business. As already mentioned, it is best to try to get accepted to a more selective free host if possible. Look at other sites hosted there to see what kind of ads are on your site, and the server speed (keep in mind newer hosts will be faster at first). Read the Terms of Service (TOS) and host features to make sure it has enough bandwidth for your site, large webspace and file size limit, and any scripting options you might need. Read free webspace reviews and ratings by other users on free hosting directories. If you don't have your own domain name, you might want to use a free URL forwarding service so you can change your site's host if needed.
Recommended free web hosts
It would be awfully hard to recommend any free web space host and someone not like it, as different people need different web hosting features and have different priorities, and the webhosting quality may change over time. Also some people want free domain hosting (you own the domain), and others might not be able to buy a domain name. Here are some of the most recommended free web hosts, and their main features.
50Webs (http://www.50webs.com/) gives you a URL such as http://you.50webs.com/ (or you can use your own domain name), and offers 60 MB webspace, POP3 email, and unlimited bandwidth. You can upload via a file manger or FTP import. There are no ads or popups placed on your hosted web pages. You can setup multiple addon domains and subdomains under the same web hosting account.
Tripod (http://www.tripod.lycos.com/) is controversial. Many people hate the ads they put on your site or its other limitations, but it is one of the oldest and most reliable free web hosts. They give you 20 MB webspace, a subdomain, file manager and editor, and webpage statistics. The bandwidth limit is 1 GB/month. You can upload several file types such as RealAudio, RealVideo, Flash, MP3, and Java; and CGI/Perl, SSI, and FrontPage Server Extensions scripting is supported.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 | 0 Comments