Archive for the ‘Web Hosting’ Category

What do you look for in a web host? A low price? Reliability and good support I hope. If you’re anything like today’s ambitious webmaster, you’re on the hunt for the best features. There’s a lot of programs and management tools available to make your site standout but I bet there are some features you pay no mind at all. Often overlooked but one should never forget about critical security features as they will help to keep your web hosting environment protected from an array of threats. Security features are abundant but here some you simply can’t do without:

SFTP

Short for Secure File Transfer Protocol, SFTP is more efficient and secure variation of FTP. In its purest form, FTP only has the ability to transfer files, leaving them vulnerable to a range of security breaches such as eavesdropping, tampering and even interception of the entire file. A web hosting company offering SFTP provides you with the ability to secure your files in transit with SSH (Secure Shell Host), a protocol that protects data with government recommended 128-bit encryption.

SSL

Secure Sockets Layer or SSL, should be incorporated on any website that sells products or services. SSL is a standard encryption protocol designed to keep internet communications secure. If a web hosting company doesn’t support a shared or private SSL certificate, you need to turn in the opposite direction and find yourself another provider.

Data Backups

Data backup and restoration is not only something that should be practiced with the files on your hard drive, but those on the web host’s server as well. All it takes is one technical difficulty or natural disaster for the web hosting company to lose a server and all of your website data. The good thing is that most providers perform redundant backups to ensure that your data can be restored in the event of a failure. To be on the safe side, I recommend looking into a web host that offers a utility that allows you to backup your own data.

Network Security

Aside from protecting your files and website transactions, you also need to keep an eye out for security features that protect the web hosting company’s network. Do a little research to learn how the web host is protecting their infrastructure, keeping in mind that intrusion detection systems, firewalls, DDoS protection, virus and spam filtering are common features. Servers are prime targets of hackers and malicious code writers so if the hardware is breached or goes down, your website will suffer right along with it.

These are just a few of numerous security features a web hosting company should offer to ensure the safety of your website data. Hackers are constantly trying to crack into web servers while malware writers are releasing new infectious strains everyday. A web host that doesn’t take this into mind is essentially leaving you wide open for exploitation.

If one is looking for a cheap UK web hosting service, there are certain important points which one should keep in mind while searching for a reliable and cost effective web host. Given below are some questions which one needs to know while searching for a cheap UK web hosting service:

Q1. How is the technical support of cheap UK web hosting?

Q2. What are the working hours of the company?

Q3. What is the response time of the company?

Q4. What are the type of support methods provided by the company i.e. toll free phone, email, IM or live person?

Q5. How much the web hosting plans of the company cost?

Q6. To check whether the web hosting service offered is dependable and stable or not?

Q7. What is the uptime or reliability of the provider?

Q8. Is the provider providing backup of one’s web site and allows easy recovery or not? What type of web site monitoring will the cheap UK web hosting service provide?

Q9. Is the company having premium hardware and fast servers with good quality?

Q10. What is the amount of traffic that the cheap UK web hosting service can handle?

Q11. Is the location of cheap UK web hosting service favorable or not?

Thus the above are very important questions which one should consider before finalizing with a cheap UK web hosting service. It is advisable that the user must take his/her time to get the answer of all above questions and then should take decision accordingly. The user must keep in mind to think twice in advance as afterwards it’s really very complicated to change to new provider when the site is quite popular.

Cheap UK Web Hosting

Most of the cheap UK web hosting services plans and packages offers variety of operating systems such as Linux and Windows. Along with this one is offered different disk space/storage in MB sizes. In addition one is offered data transfer in GB rates for the amounts of traffic that user will receive any time. Following are some of the most important options that user will get with cheap UK web hosting service. They are email, POP3, auto forwarding, databases, scripting languages such as (ASP, PHP, JSP) CGI-Bin access, FrontPage access, an IP Address, log files, reporting stats, secure server ( SSL) for commerce, shopping carts and web based control panel. Thus in additions to above there are many other good advantages for selecting a cheap UK web hosting services.

Thus after carefully studying the above questions and doing proper research one can get a good provider at less cost. It is always better to educate one as the user himself/herself can know better what are his/her business or personal needs.

There are many people who wants to have a presence on internet, purpose can be various; it can be whether business purpose, or just for personal reasons, but the second part of this process consists of a daunting task called selection of hosting service. A host who is affordable, providing maximum uptime, adequate bandwidth support, suitable web-space, and brilliant customer service and support is just like a dream and users usually do not get such an all rounder, still patient and strategic decision can provide user a dream output.

Here, user’s requirements and purpose of actual site plays a key role. If the web site required to be hosted is a commercial website, then uptime of the concern server matters the most. If the uptime were less than 99.5% then it can be lethal for a commercial web site. This is because if one’s site is suffering downtime and at that very moment search engines index the sites then one’s site may loose an opportunity as well as business. In addition to it, if there is any customer who visits the site finding it unable to publish it can create a negative impression in his/her mind. If the web site is meant for a non-profit organization, a club or for personal use designed for limited use then user should not concern about 99.5% uptime.

If one talks about another matter for consideration then it will be the quantity of file space that is provided by hosting company. If one talks about an average commercial web site then it usually enclose around few hundred web pages, some java or php scripts and image, multimedia files etc. One can surround all these details in the web space of about 50 to100 Mega Byte. But when it comes to additional space, charges differ from host to host.

Another concerning aspect is Bandwidth. If the site is meant for personal snaps then there will be no immense amount of traffic. But if user possess an Ecommerce site and have a huge amount of traffic each day then he/she should enquire how much amount of bandwidth does user offers for a month.

One should also ensure that what are the additional features in the package. Does the host provide only 3 email accounts, or rather up to 100? Can user establish sub domains along with it? What sorts of technologies does it adapt to? For example, if user plans to use PHP, he/she should confirm the installation of PHP in the server.

At the end, one should account repute of host in the market. It’s experience in the sector? What is their customer service standard?

If one values his/her web site then going along with a high standard and dependable web host is recommended, as it is always said, “prevention is better than cure”.

What can be the relation between internet and different web-hosting services? Talking in scientific language one can say that, demand for different web-hosting services is directly proportional to expansion of internet. Persons related to business or organization increases by the day on the internet. There are several people who do not bear to spend much money on their web site, however, if the site is meant for important purpose, then ignorance of quality can be harmful.

Taking an example, dealing with a cheap web host can lead to slow assess of site. It happens with several surfers on broadband connections who get irritated with such sort of problem. If a site does not offer fast access and downloads, it is a waste for the visitors. It not only leads to financial loss but also delivers an undesirable publicity of worthless site.

One cannot deny the fact that, a well-established web host can demand extra money but the services would be worth it. There are also few high quality hosts in the market which even proposes free add-ones and promotions to the users. Features like free web site builder or support for MySQL databases which user enjoy ensures him/her that he/she is not at the loosing side in terms of cost. A cheap host cannot provides a user these facilities and if yes then not without extra money.

It is also a universal truth that cheapest web hosts may not have a good repute every time, either. It is not a mere play, to start a web hosting business. It requires proper network, well-established infrastructure for guaranteed satisfaction to client. There is less probability of frequent down times in server and quitting the business at any time!!

Hence, host’s status, quality and price all three are important for a successful search. However, few web hosts offer the client both outstanding services as well as nominal prices due to stiff competition in the market. Thus, user should know that he/she is precious and ultimate in the market.

In web hosting world there are many interesting events that take place. For a beginner it’s quite difficult to segregate between two hosting companies as all look alike in the beginning the difference is only found out afterwards when he/she gets shut down without warning.

The problem faced by beginners now a day is how to rely on a web host review when thousands are there. It is really impossible for anyone to review the thousands of web host out there, but it is in one’s favour if the user bases his/her web host review on high in demand providers. It is a fact that there are many top marketers having their own server, and one can’t afford to pay $200 or more monthly for one’s own server.

In this article we are going to discuss on the things which are helpful in preventing web host shut down and the ways by which one can learn how to use the forums to find recommendation for choosing a right web hosting provider.

For a beginner it is really difficult to digest that even the forums given are not very helpful. These forums are posted by people who are not having any good experience by the company.

Following are the four tips one should follow to get a good web host review:

1) Say no to unlimited domain names: One should always keep in mind not to go for unlimited domain names. Whenever a user creates a new account a provider automatically divide up his/her hosting bandwidth, it means that if one is just having 40 Gigs of bandwidth and he/she opts to divide it up by four domain names, in that case he/she must have used up all his/her bandwidth. Thus addition in any domain name will exceed the bandwidth as well. This is the policy adopted by cheap web hosting providers. By this way cheap hosting providers charges unlimited for extra bandwidth and user has to pay as he/she is not having any other choice. Thus one needs to be very careful regarding this matter.

2) Say yes to monthly payments: It is quite often that web hosting providers offer cheap prices in case user is making yearly payment. However in that case user will be in great loss as after paying the yearly amount he/she has already tied up with the company and now they will provide the services which are just useless and user have to accept it. Thus one should go with a company that is offering quarterly or monthly payment plan with money back guarantee.

3) First test by sending email: One should first test by sending a simple introductory email to check the response time. The response time of the host provider will tell everything about his/her services.

4) Ask for refund: One should always keep all the receipts safely and at any time if his/her site gets shut down, he/she should ask for refund from the provider if the payment is paid in advance. One should immediately file the complaint and should do all to get valuable money back.

Thus after keeping all the above 4 points in mind one will surely know how to get rid of problems and will safe his/her valuable money.