Multi Site Revolution

Are there times when choosing cheap web hosting is better than more costly service? Absolutely! The wide availability of web hosting companies means that cheap web hosting has to be more and more competitive. This translates to enhanced services and support that used to be considered advanced or added costs to a service plan.

Only a few years ago, cheap web hosting was exactly what it sounded like, a bargain-basement arrangement for space on a server and an FTP site to load applications, data and graphics which the individual or company would then have to handle. Such simple forms of cheap web hosting are almost a thing of the past. Informed consumers and professionals should be aware that some companies still make these “bare bones” arrangements available, but they are no longer a good way to go. Instead, cheap web hosting will generally offer space on a shared server along with a nice arrangement of useful applications and services.

What kinds of services or arrangements are available in cheap web hosting packages?  Today, many cheap web hosting providers can actually offer their clients such niceties as domain ownership for the life of their account, enormous quantities of disk or storage space, site builder software or applications, diverse operating platform compatibility (including Linux and Windows among others), email accounts, e-commerce applications and assistance, spam and security protection and the server maintenance and updates necessary to fast downloads and network stability.

Clearly this is a far cry from the earlier versions of cheap web hosting, but just as the old saying states “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”, and a bit of research into each company is a very wise choice.

There are many Internet locations in which to seek out information about potential cheap web hosting candidates, including each company’s own website, and a good method of acquiring accurate and impartial information is through web hosting reviews. Just like any other consumer good or service, a cheap web hosting company is open to both positive and negative feedback from its current, and past, clients and their opinions provide other consumers with excellent information.

Visitors to CompareWebHosting.com can gain access to a wide range of information through the directory’s comparison generating options. For example, a consumer seeking cheap web hosting will be able to indicate their individual needs, such as e-commerce or virtual server requirements, and receive a comprehensive list of pre-screened, reliable providers.

You might have heard advices saying that you need to pay more to get a high quality business web hosting. That is not true. Cheap web hosting package does not mean low quality. With the right guide and tips, you can get as low cost as $3.95/month with tip-top quality products and services. This article will lead you how to select a reliable and cheap web hosting package.

A Word on Free Web Hosting

Using free web hosting is ideal if your web site is meant for hobby or other non-profit purposes. However, if it is meant to start home based business, you should get your own domain and have full control on it. For more details, please read article : What is Free Web Site? ¡V The Free Web Site background .

Important considerations when selecting web hosting provider.

(Remember, getting cheap web hosting package does not need to compromise on its quality.)

Reliability

You should expect your web site to be up at all time. Down time should be a rare occasion. Technically, it should be up at least 99% of the time. Frequent or prolong down time could be harmful to your web site in a few ways.

- Search engines do not like lost links. They are likely to panelize those sites which contain loss links. The implication is that those sites that provides back links to you may suffer if your site is down often. Thus, many established web sites, and web directories would install link checker software to auto-check whether the sites they link out are still valid. If your site is down for a period of time, it can be interpreted as your site no longer exists and the link will be removed. Thus, you can loss your back links.

- You may loss loyal visitors who bookmarked your page. They may remove the bookmark.

- It will leave a bad image to your potential customers. They will loss confidence in your site if they always encounter site-not-found problem.

Speed

Online visitors are not very patient. If your web site is loading slowly, they will just leave.

Cheap web hosting packages normally come with shared server and on tier-1 connection. However, they may not be slow. It depends on the server¡¦s speed and how heavy it is loaded. Some hosting companies provide multiple servers with Load Balancing System. Its speed could be comparable with the dedicated server. So, look out for these features.

Security

Look out for the security features the hosting company provides. Good web hosting providers should help to protect your site from virus or spammers attacks. You should expect features such as Firewall protection and Spam Assassin are included free of charge.

Some web hosting providers also provide free backup facility for you to backup your sites, which is very desirable.

Capacity

You should consider the capacity given by the plan before you sign up. Features relating to capacity are:

- Disk Space

- Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth)

- Number of sub-domains

- Number of File Transfer (FTP) Accounts

- Number of Domains (with dedicated IP Addresses)

Sufficient capacity enable you to develop many web sites by a single plan or even function as a host for a free-web-hosting site.

It is essisental important to consider all these features together as a group. (Be aware of some tricks web hosting provider use. For instance, they may offer you with many or even unlimited sub-domains but do not give you enough Disk Space or Bandwidth to support the volume and the traffic. You may end up having to buy additional Space or Bandwidth from them which can cost you dearly.)

- Disk space

Unless your web site requires big, complicated graphics or animations that take up a lot of spaces, usually a few megabytes will be enough to set up… However, to create more web sites using sub-domains, space requirements will need to multiply accordingly.

- Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth)

Data Transfer represents the amount of data can be transfer to and from the hosting server per month. If you web page take 1 megabyte space, and you have got 100 visitors (ie. 100 times of downloading your page) in a month, you would have used 100 megabytes of Data Transfer.

This is important. The success of your web site depends on the popularity and the volume of your visitors. If your traffic exceeded your bandwidth, your web hosting provider will ask you to buy extra bandwidth, or you will face the consequences of having your site brought down.

You should expect at least 10GB of bandwidth to give allowance for future grow. Do not believe in ¡§unlimited data transfer¡¨ promises! Web hosting providers have to pay for it. There were cases reported that some webmasters got charged for being exceeding the ¡§unlimited bandwidth¡¨ usage. There is always catches somewhere to hidden their charges. So, to avoid the hidden cost, do not follow the ¡§unlimited¡¨ promises.

You need to consider the Bandwidth needs especially if you are planning to share your host plan with a group of people.

- Number of sub-domains

Sub-domain works like an independent web site. The difference is that it does not have its own IP address. To the search engine, this site belongs to the registered domain site with the dedicated IP address.

- Number of File Transfer (FTP) Accounts

Having FTP Access enables you to transfer files in and out of your web site easily. You can also build your web site with your own site builder software and publish it thru FTP access.

Some web hosting providers also provide you with multiple FTP Accounts. You can create FTP Accounts; assign them to different persons, with the access to different directories or sub-domains. With these features, your family members or friends to build their web sites under your account without extra charge. You can also run your web site as a Free-Web-Hosting provider.

- Number of Domains (with dedicated IP Addresses) hosting in a package

Some web hosting providers offer plans with multiple domains (with dedicated IP addresses). This can really save cost thru economics of scale. One strategy to promote web site is to build multiple sites and interlinks them. If the IP Address is different, search engines will consider the links as external back links. (Be aware of some hosting promises with multiple domains but only allow 1 dedicated IP Address. Those are not real domains since search engines recognize web sites by the IP Addresses.)

Technical Support

It should be 24/7. Mode of support at least should have Toll Free Phone Line and the Ticket Logging System. More ideally if they have Live Chat System. Personally I find Live Chat most helpful. International toll free line support is required if you are located outside the hosting country (usually means outside USA).

How established is the Web Hosting Provider

This is another important consideration. Competition in the hosting business is very fierce. If hosting companies can¡¦t make profit, they are likely to close down within first 3 years. Web sites that hosted with them will also disappear with them. Check to ensure the web hosting provider is established for more than 3 years (or better still, 5 years) will lower this risk.

Other Facilities

Following are some other handy facilities to look out for:

- Email facilities

You should be given the access to create your email accounts under your domain name, such as yourname@yourdomain.com. Helpful email facilities include Auto-Responder (to automatically reply emails to the senders.) and catch-all (to receive all messages to your domain with non-valid accounts.) etc.

- Site Builder

A free and easy-to-use site builder will be very helpful if you are not familiar with web site building.

Follow the above guideline and put in some efforts to search, you will be able to find some high quality and affordable web hosting providers. I strongly suggest you also read my article on hosting review and recommendation :
Web Hosting Review. It will save you some time of searching or at least you can make comparison with the hosting packages you find.

* Copyright 2007 by Jonah Leow, tophomebusinessprograms.com. All rights reserved. You may publish the article provided you retain its full content including the links.

Choosing a perfect web hosting company is the most important factor. Your online business will affect lots if you choose a wrong web hosting provider. There are many things you should take care while choosing a web hosting company. Here some things you should ask your self before signup to any hosting provider:

What is the motive of your website?
How much traffic you expect from your website?
Is it provides online shopping facility or simple informative website?
Which programming language you use while developing your website?

These are the few general question that will help you lot in choosing a perfect hosting provider. If you own a website and your dream is just provide information to your website visitors on different topics then you can signup for any shared web hosting provider. If your website is related to e-commerce then you need a web hosting company that support shopping cart, payment gateway, paypal integration, etc. Also it’s better to have a dedicated IP address.

Scripting language is also an important aspect while selecting a web hosting provider. If you developed website using PHP (Hypertext Pre-Processor) then you need a Linux web hosting provider. If your website developed using ASP, .Net or FrontPage then you need a Windows hosting server.

Also it is recommended to go through all feature lists before signup. Here are the list of general features that you might looking from a web hosting company

• Disk Space (Web Space)
• Bandwidth (Data Transfer)
• Domain Hosting
• FTP Account
• Dedicated IP
• Email (POP / SMTP)
• Web-Mail
• Shopping Cart
• Payment Gateway
• CGI-BIN Scripting
• Customer Support

There are thousands of web hosting providers are available today, therefore it is quite tough to find a good web hosting company. There are lots web hosting directories are available on net that will help lot in finding a web hosting company. Web Hosting Directory collects all information behalf of their visitors and helps them to choose a perfect web hosting company. You can pick up any category you want and they will list different hosting company with their plan details.

Everything in this day and age is linked to the internet in some way, shape, or form. If you want your ideas to be heard or you want to start up your own business, then you are going to need a web site. This is the best way to get your information out there. However, not everyone is able to afford the top of the line web hosting, thus, people like to use cheap web hosting. The important thing to remember is that cheap web hosting does not always mean bad web hosting. In fact, for most people, cheap web hosting offers everything that they would ever need and more. Today we are going to talk about the people and companies that are likely to use cheap web hosting, and why they choose that over other types of web hosting.

First of all, one group of people that are likely to use cheap web hosting would be people who are looking to start up their own non-business web site. Whenever you go online, you see a lot of web sites that have been made by your everyday normal people. Most of the time, these web sites could be information on a subject that the person loves, or it could be a fan web site honoring a certain person or company. No matter what it is, these people want to put up a web site so they can talk about their ideas and feelings. Of course, they do not expect to make any money doing this, thus, they do not want to have to pay for very expensive web hosting. So they go with cheap web hosting.

Another group of people that are likely to use cheap web hosting is people who are starting up their own business. When you are starting up your own business, it takes a lot of money to get off the ground, meaning that you do not always have a lot of extra money to spend on web hosting. Thus, finding some cheap web hosting is a great way to save a little money, but still allows you to get your web site up and running to promote your business.

Last, but not least, the other group of people that are likely to use cheap web hosting are the smart people. These are people who know that there are web hosting companies out there that offer all the features that they need, and they do it at a good price. When you first start searching for web hosting companies, you are always going to come across a lot of them that try to overcharge. However, if you search just a little bit, you can always find a cheap web hosting company that offers the same things as the big web hosting companies.

Cheap Hosting Options

Clearly the appeal for paying a low price for your web hosting requirements is universal, however as the old saying goes ‘you get what you pay for’.

So what makes cheap hosting bad and expensive hosting good?

Well the rationale is that the more you pay the better the support, technology, features & benefits you will receive as opposed to a cheap web host where you should therefore receive bad support etc.

Lets examine what can really go wrong by with a hosting company

3 Pitfalls of Hosting With a Cheap Hosting Company

Poor Support

Prompt online or telephone around the clock support is so important because if its non existent when you need it most, ie when your site is down for some or other reason, you will suffer a thousand deaths.

No Back Ups

If your hosting company suffers a hard disc failure & without having performed regular back ups, at best you will have a major headache in having to re upload all your files & images and at worst with no backups of your own you will have no website, ie you will have to start from scratch.

No Added Value

With a good web hosting package you would expect to get certain features over & above the allocated amount of web space and bandwidth such as easy to install scripts and so on.Whilst the above pitfalls are often associated with cheap hosting packages they can also be present with the more expensive packages.

What this means is that pricey web hosting does not necessarily mean that you will get the best of everything – in fact with some cheap hosting options you can get fantastic service, support & features.

For instance it is possible to get cheap hosting with the best, inter alia, of the following;

What is the Minimum to Expect From a Web Hosting Package?

24/7 Support

Chat Support, Phone Support, E-mail Support – all non-outsourced at any time with quick response time

Free Website Builder

Not all hosting companies offer this benefit but it is possible to get it even with a cheap hosting package

Free Website Templates

Again not all hosting companies offer free website templates but a great selection can be had even with some cheap hosting package

Free Easy Install Scripts

Some cheap hosting packages provide more than 50 free scripts that can be installed via the control panel easily & quickly.

Some of the scripts include online shopping carts, image galleries, forum scripts, etc which can be added to your website with a click of your mouse.

In conclusion, the moral of the story is that whilst a cheap hosting package can be the cause of many problems so can the more expensive packages.

Cheap hosting therefore does not necessarily mean that it is not up with the best in terms of support, features, benefits & value.

So if you come across a really good deal, do some research in terms of the company’s track record & profile – it could be the best & cheapest hosting deal you will ever get.

Web Hosting can be a scary situation initially when trying to host your very first website ever. How does it work at all? What will it cost me? Where do I start? Questions over questions. The first step you need to take is to find a web host. There are fortunately tons of hosting companies out there and competition is always something which works in the favor of consumers. While it is true that there are thousands of hosting providers on the market, it doesn’t mean that all of them are a good choice for the beginner or one in need of cheap web hosting.

It’s almost safe to say that the majority of web hosts are awful in terms of server stability as well as technical support. Unless you find a web host based on a recommendation, your chances of picking a bad web host are very high. Making your choice when a lot of companies are competing for your business is never easy.

Cheap Web Hosting – What Does It actually Mean to You? What do you have to look out for?

If this is your very first website ever and you’re only creating it as a hobby, “cheap web hosting” is probably what you are looking for. Well, cheap can be meant as very affordable or low in quality. You want cheap web hosting that means affordable. But when you search for cheap web hosting it is hard to determine who is really an affordable web host and who is just after your money.

Since I am familiar with web hosting I kind of act as a one-stop source for all my friends and family whenever it comes to web hosting. My biggest problem with that is not actually helping out, but to make sure that I recommend companies I personally would host with as well (I have a dedicated server and are my own web host). Over the years I have seen web hosts come and go, but some companies stay and they stay for good as they figured out how to run a web hosting business that puts the customer first. They combine that with low prices, lots of features and the result is cheap web hosting – the kind you are looking for.

Read more about cheap web hosting options before picking a new web hosting company. The list of available companies is huge and it is easy to make the mistake of picking an unreliable web host. Make sure to pick a web host that offers a money back guarantee. Do not pay via PayPal as it is easier to force a chargeback through a credit card. Most web hosts – even if they provide bad service will issue a refund, but some companies are really bad to deal with.

When finally having found a reliable cheap web host life is usually good. You can submit the occasional support ticket to test response times, but in general I concentrate on my website(s) once they are on a stable web hosting server and let the web host do what he can do best – serve your website to the Internet.

Choosing the right host from the wide variety of web hosting providers that are out on the market today can be a hard job for the inexperienced web site owner. Your web site is your face or the face of your entire company to the whole internet world, and a slow, unreliable, boring site is the quickest way to turn away a potential customer. All lot of web hosting services claim to be the best, but a little research by you or a third party reviewer is all it takes to see that not all of them deliver on the promise. Here are some of the hosting providers that have consistently ranked among the best in the industry.

Dedicated to taking the confusing guess work out of weeding through the whole herd of current web hosting providers, FatCow is a New Mexico company that dedicated to removing all of the industry jargon and confusing price structures from the process. Earning their rating as one of the best values for the money in the industry, FatCow offers one, multiple-tiered hosting plan that can be tailored to fit the needs of any user. For as little as $3.50 monthly, FatCow customers can get unlimited gigs of disk space and data transfer per month, plus access to a website builder free of charge (essential if this is your first website), a helpful e-store builder, hit counters, surveys and polls to get feedback on the site from your viewers, and a plethora of user-friendly wizards for making your site even more interesting with open source applications.

If you’re tired of web hosting providers that start out by bragging about their low prices only to find out that to add on everything you want in a hosting service, it will cost you twice as much? Host Monster is committed to providing quality, professional web hosting with no hidden fees. As a consistent front runner in the web hosting industry, Host Monster also offers reliable, non-outsourced customer support that is guaranteed to understand your question and get to work finding a satisfying answer right away.

Even if you don’t have a domain name already purchased, web hosting providers like BlueHost can help you get started. For new clients BlueHost offers a package with a free domain name, a free eCommerce cart, free blog, forum or message board, a site promotion package and 24 hour a day customer support, all for around $3.95 monthly.

If you’re interested in affordable web hosting services that are friendly to the environment as well as your wallet, consider the hosting services of award winning GreenGeeks. Most people don’t realize that it takes an enormous amount of energy to keep the servers of the internet up and running. GreenGeeks draws the energy for its servers from renewable sources, in addition to offering reliable, powerful hosting solutions with no limits on web storage, data file transfers, number of domain names possible on a single account and a web site builder all for around $6.95 a month.

www.45n5.com If you can have your web site and web hosting be down for a few hours move along. If you need your web hosting to be up as close to 100% of the time this hosting video is for you.

www.4bluehost.com – get signed up with an additional $15 amazon gift cert or 1 of 2 books I highly recommend that can literally change your online marketing and dare I say, your life? Bluehost is one of the best web hosting companies I’ve worked with. I don’t promote other hosts at this time because I’ve been so happy with BlueHost. When it’s good, it’s hard to want to go elsewhere. www.4bluehost.com

For your professional website, you need secure and reliable web hosting services. The right and effective web hosting packages surfs, update and download your website in the smallest span of time. There are many kinds of web hosting services that have enough flexibility among them for specific business needs. Understanding the required and beneficial web hosting packages can help you to get your business on winning path against their competitive.

These different web hosting services are flexible, fast and easy to get setup. The web hosting packages shared hosting on secure and reliable Microsoft Windows 2003 and IIS web server. The web hosting providers also offer Microsoft standards such as ASP, ASP.NET, MSXML and SQL Server. These servers are perfect for any business application. Web hosting services also include virus & spam protected email.

Web based Email Packages

The web hosting companies also offer web based email packages with a variety of features including anti-virus, communication tools, email security and many more. They allow website owner to easy access all website email accounts from anywhere to the internet and a web browser. Web based email packages provide the spam filters that reduces the amount of junk mail in your inbox. Web based email packages can also include email forwarding, email encryption, email threat protection, message templates, auto-responder, DNS Manager etc. These web based email packages offer the best value for all type of businesses.

Find the best Web Hosting Packages

Finding the best web hosting packages for your website can be sometime complicated. The web hosting services have different criteria from small to large websites. Getting the right and essential web hosting packages is very important to run your business site on the web all the time. Several aspects need to be considered in getting the business web hosting package that really works for your enterprise.

There are many affordable web hosting options available for smaller business that cannot spend much for web hosting services. Check the bandwidth, disk space, and uptime guarantees among the various web hosting packages according to what exactly your business needs. You can review the background, feedback and history of number of web hosting provider companies. By comparing one hosting provider against another helps to make the right web hosting packages decision for your business.

Benefits of Web Hosting Packages

Every business over the web needs reliable web hosting packages. Get web hosting packages benefits including:

• Web hosting packages also provide spam protection service.
• Improves web site performance and availability.
• Attract high traffic and support large files and graphics.
• Offers most up-to-date security measures.
• You can choose unlimited disk space.
• Get website security and reliability benefits.
• 24×7 customer support.

Fiverivers provide professional web hosting services for all business websites. Our web hosting packages helps every business to get high-powered service at an affordable cost. We are confident in providing highest level of support with 24×7 email support, web based email, and web based control panel services in all web hosting packages. Our Web hosting West Midlands services offer maximum guaranteed uptime and highest customer service with secure backups.