Web Hosting Uptime – What is it?

By admin | Published: August 28, 2009

When someone refers to uptime in relation to web hosting, they are simply referring to the time a web hosting company will guarantee that a website stays online for. But contrary to common belief, no web host in the world can guarantee uptime of 100%, so this is always something to be wary of when checking out hosts.

The uptime of a website is obviously immensely important for a variety of factors. This is especially true for business websites as these depend totally on their clients. It would be highly unprofessional of a business to have a website that wasn’t up and online all the time. If this was the case, the business would not only lose potential clients, they may also lose current clients and suffer all the financial woes that go with this scenario. The site doesn’t even have to be down for any length of time; even momentary down time happening frequently could be enough to make visitors click elsewhere.

But when it comes to looking at a web hosting services uptime, it is vital to understand just what causes potential downtime. There are two types of downtime that could be classed as beneficial; there is also a third type that if present on any web hosting service should be avoided like the plague.

The two kinds of downtime that you shouldn’t really concern yourself overly with are the following: planned downtime, which is basically the time that the web hosts use to carry out reboots, software upgrades, etc. All good web hosts will give you more than ample warning for such occurrences. Then there are the downtimes that occur due to a problem occurring, meaning the web hosting service has to take the servers down for repair. Even in this situation though, the hosts should be able to give you some warning about when and how long this will be happening for.

The downtime you want to be avoiding is the unplanned sort. These can be caused for a number of reasons and a host that usually suffers from these problems will be well known to the community at large. The main reason for this type of downtime is too many sites hosted on the same server, therefore overloading the system. This is obviously more than enough reason to avoid the specific web host because you could have a site on the system that could just go down with no notice. This not only impacts on your professionalism as a web site owner, but also the professionalism of the web hosting service itself.

Now that uptime and downtime has been explained in brief, make sure you research your potential web hosting services uptime thoroughly before making a decision on its services; and don’t just go by what the potential web hosting services site is telling you either – do your own research. Try and use web hosting comparison sites to help you. As a rule of thumb, a good web hosting company will always offer a 99.9% uptime.

Posted in Web Hosting | 2 Comments

Web Hosting and Bandwidth Required

By admin | Published: August 28, 2009

Before you even consider looking for a web hosting service for your websites, you first have to work out what your bandwidth requirements are likely to be, both initially and for the foreseeable future. Bandwidth will be determined, among other things, by the size of the website as well as whether it is graphic intensive (lots of images, flash animations, video, etc). Obviously a site that is rich in video and audio will be more bandwidth hungry than a purely text based website.

In a nutshell, bandwidth can be described as the amount of data that is transferred over a specific internet connection in a particular amount of time. Web hosts tend to decide the bandwidth limit on data transferred each month. For the most part though, website owners haven’t a clue how much bandwidth they will require in any given month. By assessing the following though, you should get a fair estimation as to how much bandwidth you will require for your site.

The first thing that should be done is try to estimate the number of visitors your site will have in a month, and try to find out the number of pages that will be accessed by these visitors. By then estimating the average size of each html page on your site, including image sizes, you can work out the bandwidth by multiplying the number of visitors by the average html page size (including the images). Multiply the number you find by the total number of pages on your site and this final figure should give you an approximate bandwidth figure (monthly) for your site.

Nevertheless, the above figure is all well and good, but it is very obvious that not all visitors are going to visit every page of the site. It would therefore be practical to assume that only a small percentage of visitors would actually access all pages, but as a rule of thumb you should go for hosting that offers, at the very minimum, the bandwidth you find using the above method.

Once you know your approximate bandwidth considerations, you can approach a web hosting service and look for the package the best suits you. Bandwidth though, should not be the one and only consideration for choosing a new web hosting service. Other aspects such as the ability to upgrade packages, customer support and uptime should all play a major role in your decision.

Another point you will want to look at before you make your decision is the credibility of the company you are planning to deal with. Most of the bigger and well-known services give you exactly what they have offered, but other smaller, lesser known services may not, for example, to offer you unlimited bandwidth, despite what they say. When you think you have found the ideal service provider for your situation (if it is not one of the larger companies), then be sure to check them out first. You can do this by searching for reviews on Google or in forums.

Posted in Web Hosting | Leave a comment

Web Host Reviews are Vital for the Consumer

By admin | Published: August 28, 2009

For anybody thinking about setting up a web presence, whether it is an ecommerce venture or just a personal site, they will have to give a thought to web hosting. They will have to acquire the services of a reputable web hosting company, but actually finding one could prove to be a difficult undertaking as there are countless services offering hosting.

As all of these different web hosting services promise you the earth, it can be very difficult, not to mention confusing, in choosing the right one for your circumstances. But contrary to what you may think, there is a method of narrowing down your search and selecting a suitable host. This comes in the form of web hosting service review sites. Many people actually forego this process and jump right in without making any comparisons, but this is wrong and could come back to haunt you at a later stage.

Going through these review sites and reading all about the various web hosting services will give you a different perspective about the whole decision process. You will obviously be able to garner a better opinion as to the quality of service each particular host offers, and because these reviews come from third party sites, you will always get an honest, non-biased review of the host in question.

When you look through the different reviews, you should see such information as price, bandwidth offered, disk space available, email addresses, etc and you will be able to compare all this relevant information against each company to see who is offering the better deals. You will also be able to get a good idea as to each particular services reputation through any comments or reviews by different users.

A service will have to obviously be reliable as well as dependable before you even consider taking up web hosting with them. Be sure to look up the uptime stats offered by each company. Although none of these will be able to offer a 100% uptime rate (this is impossible so steer clear of any hosts that make this claim), 99.9% uptime is achievable, so give preference to these hosts. If a service cannot guarantee uptime, you run the risk of alienating any visitors or clients to your proposed site, and it doesn’t take much for a visitor to click out of your site and onto one of your competitors.

Reliable customer service and support is a must, and should be taken seriously in your quest to find the perfect host. As you will never know when the need arises for their assistance, it will be nice to know that they offer 24/7 support. Most reputable companies offer this service, usually by means of live chat. Avoid any hosts that offer support via email only as you will never know when you will receive an answer.

At the end of the day, price is always going to make a difference as well, but most reputable services tick all the right boxes as well as being fairly cheap, often only a few dollars per month.

Posted in Web Hosting | Leave a comment

Web Design and Your Homepage

By admin | Published: August 28, 2009

Your websites homepage is quite obviously the most important page of the whole site. Or is it? It is probably the page that will be viewed the most on your website, but it is also the page that can make or break the site as a whole. It will either grab the attention, or scare people away. On the same theme, it is important to realise that if your homepage is good, but the rest of the site is poor, then the site will fail. If you think of your homepage as the door to your site, then you are on the right track. Although the door will need extra attention, the interior should not be neglected either.

Most web designers put major effort into the homepage, and for just reason. This page has to be good enough to catch the attention of your visitor; you have about three or four seconds to do this before they click away. The content of the homepage should successfully summarise what the rest of the site is about and allow visitors to click through to these other areas.

Make sure the page is simple and clean in design. Navigation links should be placed at the top or otherwise on the left-hand side of the page. Make sure the fonts are easy on the eye and of a comfortable size to read. Text and foreground colours can also make or break a site, so be aware. It is little things like these that are often the most important, so don’t overlook them.

Once you have caught your visitor’s attention with the homepage, you then want to concentrate on keeping them on your site. You only have a few short seconds to let them know what your site is all about and trying to convey. If you are offering something worthwhile and relevant, then you will find people staying longer on the site, and even returning at future dates.

Another thing you have to make sure you do on a regular basis is update the site. Keeping your information up to date or adding new articles or content is a sure fire way of keeping your returning visitors happy. Try to still keep the homepage relevant and relatively clear of clutter, but make sure all visitors are aware there is new content available and make it easy for them to locate this content.

The techniques listed above are just a small way in which you can get, and then keep, visitors to your website. At the end of the day, the goal of your website, whether it is ecommerce, business or informational, is to attract people to it, and hopefully make them loyal visitors in that they return regularly. If you try to keep a visitor in mind when you design your site, and try to think like they would when they visit or what they would do, then you are well on your way to designing a great site.

Posted in Web Development | 1 Comment

Unlimited Bandwidth and Hosting

By admin | Published: August 28, 2009

When looking at hosting that offers unlimited bandwidth, you have to be very careful. This is because some web hosts out there do not do a very good job at keeping their promises and end up losing their customers a hell of a lot more than just a monthly subscription. Others do manage to provide an excellent service, so it’s not all of the companies out there, just a few. Therefore, before choosing web hosting that offers unlimited bandwidth, it would be prudent to carry out some research beforehand.

One of the first things you should find out before signing up with a host, as silly as it may sound, is what type of bandwidth is being offered to you. This is because there are actually different bandwidth speeds and a lot of the low cost web hosts you low cost bandwidth. What does this mean for you? Well, for a start it will take longer for your website to load up and make an appearance on your screen. Although you may be told that the server has a 1000 MBPS speed at its data centre, this in no way means that your unlimited bandwidth will be as fast.

Another thing to check out before purchasing this sort of hosting is the company’s website. The more well-designed sites will belong to the more reputable web hosts, and therefore the more trustworthy. If the site looks unprofessional or amateurish, time to move on. There is no point in being offered an unlimited amount of bandwidth and then find when you hit a certain amount your account is suspended until the following month’s quota kicks in.

At the end of the day, although the price of bandwidth is dropping at a steady pace, it is still not free, so it has to come from somewhere. When you are being offered bandwidth, make sure the company offering it is a reputable one and not a bunch of scammers. Another point to bear in mind is that some companies tend to overload their servers with hundreds, even thousands of websites, so although the bandwidth may be classed as unlimited, the loading up of the sites from this server will be very slow due to the vast numbers on the server.

Another thing that you could find with the less reputable web hosting companies that offer unlimited bandwidth is that if you happen to violate some of their (often very strict for no reason) terms of service, you could end up being without hosting for days or even week’s until you manage to find another provider and get all your files moved over.

While having unlimited hosting may sound great, in reality most websites do not require this at all and you would be much better off trying to find a host that although may offer less bandwidth, do guarantee a higher uptime. You will then be able to host your website with no fear of it ever becoming inaccessible.

Posted in Web Hosting | Leave a comment

The Benefits of Cloud Hosting

By admin | Published: August 28, 2009

To discuss the benefits of cloud hosting, you must first understand what cloud hosting, or clustered hosting as it is otherwise known, is. To put it simply, cloud hosting uses the techniques used in cloud computing. That is, utilising a pool of resources that are instantly available such as bandwidth and memory and piecing them together to serve as a whole.

Thinking conventionally, a computer is a piece of equipment that has been physically created, sold and then used. Although these computers could be networked, essentially they are working as individual entities and each device utilises separate commands at any given time. This may be all well and good, but there comes a time when the capabilities of the single physical computer are outgrown, meaning a more advanced or bigger computer, or groups of computers, will be required to carry on where the old one left off. Sometimes though, a larger computer isn’t always available so some sort of load balancing has to be implemented.

Although using a load balancer can be good, there may still be some scalability issues to contend with as each separate device is classed as one single entity, or in the case of a network, as one single server. To overcome this problem, these computers not only have to be connected physically but also in a way where they connect logically to other computers in the outside world. In essence, creating one very large pool of computing resources.

After this somewhat complicated overview of what cloud computing is, you can deduce that cloud hosting works along the same principles – a large pool of servers offering hosting as one entity. A cloud hosting service could have literally hundreds or thousands of servers acting as one and your website would then be able to access all or any of them at any particular time. Because of this, issues that are normally faced by single standalone servers such as traffic spikes leading to bandwidth issues, as well as things like disk space and memory problems, no longer becomes an issue for the host. This is obviously much better for the consumer as they are then guaranteed their websites will run seamlessly with no downtime problems due to bandwidth or disk space concerns.

When somebody uses cloud hosting as their preferred method of hosting, it is in much the same vein as traditional hosting. You can upgrade or downgrade a package as required and all the necessary resources will automatically be allocated to your account as normal. With cloud hosting you will never have to worry about your website outgrowing the resources available on the server – these will evolve and grow with your website, automatically adjusting the hosting capacity accordingly. Although it does sound a bit like science fiction, the fact of the matter is that cloud hosting is an option for website owners to consider when making a choice on their hosting needs.

Posted in Web Hosting | Leave a comment

Small Business Web Hosting

By admin | Published: August 28, 2009

Small business web hosting makes up a large segment of the web hosting industry, and there are many companies offering this service. And each of these companies can offer services and prices that vary dramatically from each other. From simple to advanced, and from cheap to expensive, the choices are huge. For many individuals, pricing is almost always the deciding factor when choosing a service, but this shouldn’t be the case.

The best thing to do before looking for a web host would be to set a cap on what you are willing to spend on a monthly subscription. You have to be bit realistic though and realise that if you set it too low then the quality of any service is going to be low as well. If you set your budget at a reasonable rate, you should be good to go.

When you actually pay for web hosting, it’s good to know what you’re actually paying for. Well, in a nutshell the main thing you are paying for is the “rental” of disk space on the host’s server which will then allow you a gateway to the web itself. This is what allows you do set up your online presence, whether it is an ecommerce venture or a showcase for your business.

It’s important to realise that any online business must be secure and “up” all the time. A decent web hosting service will give guarantees as to uptime, disk space, security, etc. This way you will be able to factor for anything your business/potential business will require. Most good small business web hosting services will have software included in their packages that will allow you to let your online presence run almost automatically, 24/7. This is vital in keeping customers as well as attracting potential clients as well.

There are services online that actually offer free or really cheap small business web hosting, but you have to ask yourself whether your businesses reputation will suffer by using such a service. Will using such services tarnish your reputation or cheapen your businesses name? Only you can decide that. On top of this, a lot of these cheaper or free hosting sites are often found lacking in features that allow for the smooth running of a business or ecommerce site.

When it comes to paid services though, you still have to be vigilant. Be sure there are adequate features available from the service as well as decent bandwidth and disk space for your files. Also be sure that you will have the opportunity to upgrade should your business growth necessitate this; you don’t want to find that you are stuck with nowhere to go.

Lastly, one of the most important issues you should address before choosing a host is that of server security. Can the host guarantee a secure environment, and are the servers updated/upgraded as necessary to avoid security risks? Are SSL certificates available or able to be installed to offer your clients peace of mind? These are just some of the things you should be looking at before choosing your ideal small business web host.

Posted in Web Hosting | Leave a comment

Managed or Shared Web Hosting For You?

By admin | Published: August 28, 2009

Among the most popular types of web hosting that are around today, managed and shared hosting are the two front runners. Here is a brief rundown of both these types so you can make an informed choice when choosing between the two.

Managed Web Hosting is described as the kind of hosting that is well secured, strictly controlled and software updated regularly. This type of web hosting is the norm for web servers that have to be guaranteed 24/7 uptime and are often a great choice for almost anything apart from personal websites.

You will find that on a standalone single server, the difference in cost between shared and managed is quite small, especially for larger businesses. Shared webhosting maybe a more cost effective means in normal circumstances, but managed web hosting is more reliable. Clients will always find that their sites load faster with this method of hosting and security issues tend not to be a major problem as the site is hosted on a single server.

More often than not, bigger entities go for the managed form of web hosting because it offers them reliability and speed and an environment where all their private data can be kept safe away from any potential hackers. Although the costs can sometimes be a little high, those without budgetary constraints usually prefer this type of hosting.

Shared Web Hosting is a more popular method of hosting, which entails many websites being hosted on the same server. In a nutshell, many different websites files, images and audio are all maintained on the same server. This type of web hosting is extremely popular due to its low cost, but because of its very nature of sharing user’s data, large businesses or ecommerce sites usually steer clear of it. Apart from this, it is sufficient hosting for most purposes.

Although almost 70% of website owners utilise shared web hosting, there are obvious disadvantages when compared to other types of hosting. The most obvious is of course that of security issues with hackers especially a major threat as if they can get through they can affect all the websites on the server. As well as security issues, there is the problem of slow loading websites due to the number of sites, and therefore visitors, on the server. These considerations are not major ones though if the websites hosted are informational only, and not ecommerce sites requesting financial transactions.

The main thing to do before choosing between managed or shared hosting is to sit down and work out what the requirements of your proposed website will be. Compare what each type could offer your website and weigh it up against the budgetary requirements, then see if the cost is worth the expense. Diligent comparisons between the major companies that provide these services will stand you in good stead for many years to come.

Posted in Web Hosting | Leave a comment

Small Business Web Hosting

By admin | Published: July 31, 2009

Small business web hosting makes up a large segment of the web hosting industry, and there are many companies offering this service. And each of these companies can offer services and prices that vary dramatically from each other. From simple to advanced, and from cheap to expensive, the choices are huge. For many individuals, pricing is almost always the deciding factor when choosing a service, but this shouldn’t be the case.

The best thing to do before looking for a web host would be to set a cap on what you are willing to spend on a monthly subscription. You have to be bit realistic though and realise that if you set it too low then the quality of any service is going to be low as well. If you set your budget at a reasonable rate, you should be good to go.

When you actually pay for web hosting, it’s good to know what you’re actually paying for. Well, in a nutshell the main thing you are paying for is the “rental” of disk space on the host’s server which will then allow you a gateway to the web itself. This is what allows you do set up your online presence, whether it is an ecommerce venture or a showcase for your business.

It’s important to realise that any online business must be secure and “up” all the time. A decent web hosting service will give guarantees as to uptime, disk space, security, etc. This way you will be able to factor for anything your business/potential business will require. Most good small business web hosting services will have software included in their packages that will allow you to let your online presence run almost automatically, 24/7. This is vital in keeping customers as well as attracting potential clients as well.

There are services online that actually offer free or really cheap small business web hosting, but you have to ask yourself whether your businesses reputation will suffer by using such a service. Will using such services tarnish your reputation or cheapen your businesses name? Only you can decide that. On top of this, a lot of these cheaper or free hosting sites are often found lacking in features that allow for the smooth running of a business or ecommerce site.

When it comes to paid services though, you still have to be vigilant. Be sure there are adequate features available from the service as well as decent bandwidth and disk space for your files. Also be sure that you will have the opportunity to upgrade should your business growth necessitate this; you don’t want to find that you are stuck with nowhere to go.

Lastly, one of the most important issues you should address before choosing a host is that of server security. Can the host guarantee a secure environment, and are the servers updated/upgraded as necessary to avoid security risks? Are SSL certificates available or able to be installed to offer your clients peace of mind? These are just some of the things you should be looking at before choosing your ideal small business web host.

Posted in Web Hosting | Leave a comment

Simple Link Building Pointers

By admin | Published: July 31, 2009

In an attempt to get higher rankings in the search engines for any of your sites, link building is one of the most important aspects of trying to do this. It is today considered to be one of the most important aspects of SEO (search engine optimisation), so it is sensible that any budding webmaster or online marketer should include link building right up the very top of their to-do SEO list. If you happen to be fairly new or inexperienced in the link building department, below are a few pointers to help you on your way.

Writing articles is a great way of building links. How, you may ask? Well, once you have written an interesting and relevant to your content article, you can then submit it to any of the hundreds of article directories on the web. The beauty of this is that these directories allow you to add an author’s box at the bottom of your article, in which you can add a link or two back to your site(s). The more articles you can write and distribute the more links you can potentially acquire.

Another technique is submitting your URL to web directories. Although there are many reasons for and many reasons against this technique, the general consensus is that quite a few of these established directories will benefit you in the long run. Could you spend your time more efficiently doing something else rather than spending hours submitting your site to numerous web directories? That’s for you to decide.

Another thing you can do is analyse your main competitor’s websites and try to find out where their links are coming from. There are many tools available online that let you achieve this. Once you know where all the links are originating from, you can try to acquire the same.

You can also try to get links from other quality sites that are directly related to your niche. It is well known that a link from a site that is relevant to your topic holds more weight when it comes to SEO than unrelated sites. These sites are easy to locate, and just by typing in your keyword to Google will bring up all the sites relevant to that keyword. From then it would just be a case of politely requesting a link (or link exchange) from the site in question.

Blogs are another way of increasing the links to your site. Nowadays blogs are highly regarded by the search engines, especially Google. Blogs that are updated regularly are even more so. Either creating your own blog in order to promote your site (or thereby linking to it), or trying to get a link from a popular blog, are sure to help your cause no end.

The above are just a couple of simple tips you could follow to start off your link building endeavours. The more experienced you eventually become, the more avenues will open up for you.

Posted in SEO | Leave a comment