Top20 Hosting

Finding reliable hosting for your business opportunity is no small task. Actually, it can be a full-time undertaking!

This is because most hosting companies focus on the higher end corporate market and overlook the fast-growing small office/home office (SOHO) sector. It is possible, however, if you clarify needs, gather recommendations, create a list of potential hosts and ask questions….lots of them.

Clarify your needs: how much disk space and bandwidth is necessary? Will you need CGI or database capacities? What operating system will you require? Will your site change dramatically down the pike, and are you searching only for yourself or for customers?

Be wary of web hosting directories since many are owned by web hosts. You should obtain feedback from those with sites and glean webmaster newsgroup postings.

In creating a list, include those recommended the most and complained about the least, and determine which hosts offer specific services best suited to your need(s) and which fits your price range.

Always ask questions, i.e.: technical questions to gauge their knowledge and accuracy; find out whether they are committed to their customers or their bank account and subject them to an honesty test…offer them the opportunity to upsell you needlessly.

If you fall into the SOHO category, you may feel more comfortable with a smaller hosting company who better understands your needs and situation. Please be sure you can add domains to a core plan and resell services, and ensure that they offer a knowledge base.

You should also watch for signs of rudeness, impatience and unresponsiveness and make sure they are flexible. A downed site costs you visitors and sales and gives you only another headache in your life of an Internet marketer.

Walter Pfarr has over 30 years media experience and has won several writing and community service awards. He is also a prolific grant writer and administrator and is versed in fundraising techniques, special event coordination, development and currently is writing his own e-course and soon his own ezine: PfarrOut. He lives with his wife, Joann, in Oklahoma and may be reached at walterpfarr@mynewsletter.ws

Comments(0)

Finding reliable hosting for your business opportunity is no small task. Actually, it can be a full-time undertaking!

This is because most hosting companies focus on the higher end corporate market and overlook the fast-growing small office/home office (SOHO) sector. It is possible, however, if you clarify needs, gather recommendations, create a list of potential hosts and ask questions….lots of them.

Clarify your needs: how much disk space and bandwidth is necessary? Will you need CGI or database capacities? What operating system will you require? Will your site change dramatically down the pike, and are you searching only for yourself or for customers?

Be wary of web hosting directories since many are owned by web hosts. You should obtain feedback from those with sites and glean webmaster newsgroup postings.

In creating a list, include those recommended the most and complained about the least, and determine which hosts offer specific services best suited to your need(s) and which fits your price range.

Always ask questions, i.e.: technical questions to gauge their knowledge and accuracy; find out whether they are committed to their customers or their bank account and subject them to an honesty test…offer them the opportunity to upsell you needlessly.

If you fall into the SOHO category, you may feel more comfortable with a smaller hosting company who better understands your needs and situation. Please be sure you can add domains to a core plan and resell services, and ensure that they offer a knowledge base.

You should also watch for signs of rudeness, impatience and unresponsiveness and make sure they are flexible. A downed site costs you visitors and sales and gives you only another headache in your life of an Internet marketer.

Walter Pfarr has over 30 years media experience and has won several writing and community service awards. He is also a prolific grant writer and administrator and is versed in fundraising techniques, special event coordination, development and currently is writing his own e-course and soon his own ezine: PfarrOut. He lives with his wife, Joann, in Oklahoma and may be reached at walterpfarr@mynewsletter.ws

Comments(0)

Finding reliable hosting for your business opportunity is no small task. Actually, it can be a full-time undertaking!

This is because most hosting companies focus on the higher end corporate market and overlook the fast-growing small office/home office (SOHO) sector. It is possible, however, if you clarify needs, gather recommendations, create a list of potential hosts and ask questions….lots of them.

Clarify your needs: how much disk space and bandwidth is necessary? Will you need CGI or database capacities? What operating system will you require? Will your site change dramatically down the pike, and are you searching only for yourself or for customers?

Be wary of web hosting directories since many are owned by web hosts. You should obtain feedback from those with sites and glean webmaster newsgroup postings.

In creating a list, include those recommended the most and complained about the least, and determine which hosts offer specific services best suited to your need(s) and which fits your price range.

Always ask questions, i.e.: technical questions to gauge their knowledge and accuracy; find out whether they are committed to their customers or their bank account and subject them to an honesty test…offer them the opportunity to upsell you needlessly.

If you fall into the SOHO category, you may feel more comfortable with a smaller hosting company who better understands your needs and situation. Please be sure you can add domains to a core plan and resell services, and ensure that they offer a knowledge base.

You should also watch for signs of rudeness, impatience and unresponsiveness and make sure they are flexible. A downed site costs you visitors and sales and gives you only another headache in your life of an Internet marketer.

Walter Pfarr has over 30 years media experience and has won several writing and community service awards. He is also a prolific grant writer and administrator and is versed in fundraising techniques, special event coordination, development and currently is writing his own e-course and soon his own ezine: PfarrOut. He lives with his wife, Joann, in Oklahoma and may be reached at walterpfarr@mynewsletter.ws

Comments(0)

Finding reliable hosting for your business opportunity is no small task. Actually, it can be a full-time undertaking!

This is because most hosting companies focus on the higher end corporate market and overlook the fast-growing small office/home office (SOHO) sector. It is possible, however, if you clarify needs, gather recommendations, create a list of potential hosts and ask questions….lots of them.

Clarify your needs: how much disk space and bandwidth is necessary? Will you need CGI or database capacities? What operating system will you require? Will your site change dramatically down the pike, and are you searching only for yourself or for customers?

Be wary of web hosting directories since many are owned by web hosts. You should obtain feedback from those with sites and glean webmaster newsgroup postings.

In creating a list, include those recommended the most and complained about the least, and determine which hosts offer specific services best suited to your need(s) and which fits your price range.

Always ask questions, i.e.: technical questions to gauge their knowledge and accuracy; find out whether they are committed to their customers or their bank account and subject them to an honesty test…offer them the opportunity to upsell you needlessly.

If you fall into the SOHO category, you may feel more comfortable with a smaller hosting company who better understands your needs and situation. Please be sure you can add domains to a core plan and resell services, and ensure that they offer a knowledge base.

You should also watch for signs of rudeness, impatience and unresponsiveness and make sure they are flexible. A downed site costs you visitors and sales and gives you only another headache in your life of an Internet marketer.

Walter Pfarr has over 30 years media experience and has won several writing and community service awards. He is also a prolific grant writer and administrator and is versed in fundraising techniques, special event coordination, development and currently is writing his own e-course and soon his own ezine: PfarrOut. He lives with his wife, Joann, in Oklahoma and may be reached at walterpfarr@mynewsletter.ws

Comments(0)

Finding reliable hosting for your business opportunity is no small task. Actually, it can be a full-time undertaking!

This is because most hosting companies focus on the higher end corporate market and overlook the fast-growing small office/home office (SOHO) sector. It is possible, however, if you clarify needs, gather recommendations, create a list of potential hosts and ask questions….lots of them.

Clarify your needs: how much disk space and bandwidth is necessary? Will you need CGI or database capacities? What operating system will you require? Will your site change dramatically down the pike, and are you searching only for yourself or for customers?

Be wary of web hosting directories since many are owned by web hosts. You should obtain feedback from those with sites and glean webmaster newsgroup postings.

In creating a list, include those recommended the most and complained about the least, and determine which hosts offer specific services best suited to your need(s) and which fits your price range.

Always ask questions, i.e.: technical questions to gauge their knowledge and accuracy; find out whether they are committed to their customers or their bank account and subject them to an honesty test…offer them the opportunity to upsell you needlessly.

If you fall into the SOHO category, you may feel more comfortable with a smaller hosting company who better understands your needs and situation. Please be sure you can add domains to a core plan and resell services, and ensure that they offer a knowledge base.

You should also watch for signs of rudeness, impatience and unresponsiveness and make sure they are flexible. A downed site costs you visitors and sales and gives you only another headache in your life of an Internet marketer.

Walter Pfarr has over 30 years media experience and has won several writing and community service awards. He is also a prolific grant writer and administrator and is versed in fundraising techniques, special event coordination, development and currently is writing his own e-course and soon his own ezine: PfarrOut. He lives with his wife, Joann, in Oklahoma and may be reached at walterpfarr@mynewsletter.ws

Comments(0)

You’ve made your decision to move from your website from your current web host to a new web host. The following tips will help you make the transition easier and make you aware of some potential pitfalls to avoid.

1) Make sure the new web hosting plan you’ve chosen offers you the storage capabilities to handle all of your current website storage requirements. If your website is 50MB, you need to make sure your new hosting plan offers that much space, or more. If you’re not sure how much space your website is using, ask your current host. You can also usually find this information on your web hosting control panel.

2) How does your current web host determine what your storage amount is used for? Find out what your current and new host includes in your plan’s storage amount. Are your emails and log files counted towards your total storage, or just your web files?

3) What operating system does your current hosting plan use? Windows or Unix? Sometimes this can make no difference, in other cases it can make the difference between a working website and a broken website. If your site is currently on a Windows server and your website uses ASP scripting, you’ll find it difficult to make things work well on a Unix server, as ASP is a Windows based programming language. Find out ahead of time whether your current hosting plan is on a Unix or Windows server.

4) Does your site currently use FrontPage? Find out if your new host supports FrontPage. And make sure your new host supports the same version of FrontPage you currently use.

5) Find out if your new hosting plan offers you the same amount of bandwidth that your current host offers. You don’t want to be surprised by unexpected overage charges at the end of the month.

6) Does your new web hosting plan give you the same amount of email accounts, autoresponders and mail forwards that you currently use?

7) Does your site use a shopping cart that your current hosting plan provides? Can you move the cart to your new host? If not, does your new host have a suitable shopping cart replacement?

If you are using any scripts on your website, make sure that your new hosting plan supports all of your scripts. Find out in advance if you’ll need to make any modifications to your scripts to get them working on the new server.

9) Make sure to set up your existing email accounts on your new server before transferring your domain name to the new server. At MateMedia (www.matemediainc.com) we see this overlooked quite often.

10) Do you know how to upload your website files to the new server? If you don’t, you’ll need to find out if your new web host will upload your files for you. Some hosts will do this at no charge, some will do it for a fee, yet other hosts won’t do it all because of liability issues.

Once all your files are uploaded to the new server, you’ll want to double check that the site looks and functions properly on the new server. Most hosts can provide a preview link for you to see how your site looks before the domain name is transferred over. If your host does not provide a method for you to preview your site, you can modify your hosts file to preview your site. The host file tells your computer where to go to look for sites that are listed in that file. This works with any version of Windows. The file name is the same, the location can change. Here’s how to modify your hosts file:

The file HOSTS should be in the c:windowssystem32driversetc You might only find a file named HOSTS.SAM (as in SAMPLE). That is OK; we can modify the HOSTS.SAM file as well and do a SAVE AS HOSTS.

In either case, double click on the HOSTS file to open it. You will be prompted by Windows to select an Application (Program) to use to VIEW the file.

Scroll the list and select Notepad. Click the OK button. The NOTEPAD program will now open, displaying the file HOSTS. You will see examples listed (The # symbol is used to comment out line or remarks.), the format is this. IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx SPACE name)

So, to tell your computer that www.yourwebsite.com is at the address (replace with your real IP) 12.345.678.90 add the following entry to the bottom of the hosts file:

12.345.678.90 www.yourdomain.com (As in the example).

Click on FILE, slide down and click on SAVE AS.

In the Save As Type field, select ALL FILES. (Ensure that no .SAM is shown after the filename HOSTS. Click SAVE. You may be warned that the file already exists; this is fine, click YES.

Close Notepad, by clicking on FILE, slide down to EXIT, and click.

Now when you open your web browser, or try to ping the site, your system will go to the IP address you typed in the HOSTS file.

Remember to undo this when finished testing or your machine will always want to go to that IP address whenever you want to go to that site.

After you’re satisfied that your site looks ok and functions ok, you can go to your registrar (the company where your domain name is registered) and modify the nameservers associated with your domain name to your new web host’s nameservers. If you don’t know your new host’s nameservers, ask them. Most hosts have that information listed somewhere on their website or in the email you first get after signing up for an account.

Once the dns modification is completed it’ll be 24-48 hours before you’ll see your site on the new server.

Most whois utilities will display the nameservers of the current host. A good one is at http://whois.sc. Check your domain name and see if the nameservers you added are listed. If so, you have completed the website transfer to your new web host. Only after you’ve confirmed this is it ok to cancel your old web hosting account.

About The Author

Russ Mate is President of MateMedia, Inc.

www.matemediainc.com

sales@matemediainc.com

Comments(0)

Finding reliable hosting for your business opportunity is no small task. Actually, it can be a full-time undertaking!

This is because most hosting companies focus on the higher end corporate market and overlook the fast-growing small office/home office (SOHO) sector. It is possible, however, if you clarify needs, gather recommendations, create a list of potential hosts and ask questions….lots of them.

Clarify your needs: how much disk space and bandwidth is necessary? Will you need CGI or database capacities? What operating system will you require? Will your site change dramatically down the pike, and are you searching only for yourself or for customers?

Be wary of web hosting directories since many are owned by web hosts. You should obtain feedback from those with sites and glean webmaster newsgroup postings.

In creating a list, include those recommended the most and complained about the least, and determine which hosts offer specific services best suited to your need(s) and which fits your price range.

Always ask questions, i.e.: technical questions to gauge their knowledge and accuracy; find out whether they are committed to their customers or their bank account and subject them to an honesty test…offer them the opportunity to upsell you needlessly.

If you fall into the SOHO category, you may feel more comfortable with a smaller hosting company who better understands your needs and situation. Please be sure you can add domains to a core plan and resell services, and ensure that they offer a knowledge base.

You should also watch for signs of rudeness, impatience and unresponsiveness and make sure they are flexible. A downed site costs you visitors and sales and gives you only another headache in your life of an Internet marketer.

Walter Pfarr has over 30 years media experience and has won several writing and community service awards. He is also a prolific grant writer and administrator and is versed in fundraising techniques, special event coordination, development and currently is writing his own e-course and soon his own ezine: PfarrOut. He lives with his wife, Joann, in Oklahoma and may be reached at walterpfarr@mynewsletter.ws

Comments(0)

Virtually anyone with an email address knows what Spam is, and has, perhaps, considered giving up the speed, convenience, and simplicity of email because of it. Those who have their own websites are more vulnerable than the average person with a single work or home email address from their company or Internet Service Provider. Email addresses visible on a website can quickly become Spam magnets, as automated programs, similar in form to search engine spiders, roam the web, looking for addresses to which new broadsides of Spam may be fired. Website hosting companies generally provide their clients email accounts for use with their domain, but are you with a host that provides those email accounts with Spam and virus protection?

Local Blacklist Filters
Webmasters shouldn’t need to seek out local filters for their site’s contact email addresses. There are a variety of server level solutions a hosting company can offer to protect their users from unwanted emails. A most basic step is provision of a very rudimentary blacklist functionality to their users, allowing them to prevent future Spam emails from arriving from the same address. This type of filter is virtually worthless in today’s Spam environment, though, as it is quite rare to see unsophisticated email arriving from the same address multiple times. Spammers have grown far more sophisticated than that. Blacklisting functionality is only really useful in avoiding email from other real people you don’t particularly wish to hear from anymore.

Keywords and Regular Expressions
More advanced server level Spam filters are available. A small advance is accomplished using keyword filters. Keyword filters merely check for instances of a certain string of characters and deny the message if that string if found. The core problem with keyword-only filters is they can over filter. Someone who puts sex on their keyword filter will find receiving local news and event announcements difficult if they live in a town named Essex. Some filters attempt to address this deficiency by using regular expressions in order to build a sophisticated rule set to prevent Spam from reaching your inbox. Briefly, regular expressions are syntax rules used to identify certain strings of text or numbers. These rules can be set up to identify text patterns that are commonly used in Spam. They can become quite complex, but, as with most any filtering method, are not 100% bullet proof. Some filters that use regular expressions come with a basic set that can be appended by the user. Obviously this kind of feature is of little use to someone not familiar with regular expressions.

Bayesian Filters
Currently the most sophisticated filtering methods use Bayesian inferences. Bayesian filters take a large data set and determine the probability a message is Spam based on its similarity to previous Spam messages. The more emails that are processed and flagged theoretically make the filter more accurate. Services that provide filtering on an ISP or host level, like Postini’s SpamAway, filter billions of emails and provide the highest level of success and fewest false positives. SpamAway is already highly intelligent about identifying Spam and doesn’t require any learning commands or examples be provided. The online, browser based interface keeps flagged messages in an easily accessible quarantine and allows the user to check for any false positives. White list functionality is provided to aide in the prevention of future false positives. A hosting company offering such an advanced service takes Spam and virus filtering for their customers seriously.

Mr. Lester has served for 4 years as the webmaster for ApolloHosting.com and previously worked in the IT industry an additional 5 years, acquiring knowledge of hosting, design, and search engine optimization. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers. Established in 1999, Apollo prides itself on the highest levels of customer support.

Comments(0)

Finding reliable hosting for your business opportunity is no small task. Actually, it can be a full-time undertaking!

This is because most hosting companies focus on the higher end corporate market and overlook the fast-growing small office/home office (SOHO) sector. It is possible, however, if you clarify needs, gather recommendations, create a list of potential hosts and ask questions….lots of them.

Clarify your needs: how much disk space and bandwidth is necessary? Will you need CGI or database capacities? What operating system will you require? Will your site change dramatically down the pike, and are you searching only for yourself or for customers?

Be wary of web hosting directories since many are owned by web hosts. You should obtain feedback from those with sites and glean webmaster newsgroup postings.

In creating a list, include those recommended the most and complained about the least, and determine which hosts offer specific services best suited to your need(s) and which fits your price range.

Always ask questions, i.e.: technical questions to gauge their knowledge and accuracy; find out whether they are committed to their customers or their bank account and subject them to an honesty test…offer them the opportunity to upsell you needlessly.

If you fall into the SOHO category, you may feel more comfortable with a smaller hosting company who better understands your needs and situation. Please be sure you can add domains to a core plan and resell services, and ensure that they offer a knowledge base.

You should also watch for signs of rudeness, impatience and unresponsiveness and make sure they are flexible. A downed site costs you visitors and sales and gives you only another headache in your life of an Internet marketer.

Walter Pfarr has over 30 years media experience and has won several writing and community service awards. He is also a prolific grant writer and administrator and is versed in fundraising techniques, special event coordination, development and currently is writing his own e-course and soon his own ezine: PfarrOut. He lives with his wife, Joann, in Oklahoma and may be reached at walterpfarr@mynewsletter.ws

Comments(0)