HIGHLY RECOMMENDED WEB HOSTING

Okay. So you have designed your website and want to publish it or you have every intention of designing but you need to make plans for the hosting first. Whichever is the case, there are questions that need to be answered before you choose a web host.

Hosting a website is like opening an office. Your site is actually an internet based office or home where friends and visitors can visit, get to know you better or make business deals. So just like choosing a befitting home or business environment, you need to choose a good web host for the success of your site.

Who is a web host? A web host is an individual or business organization that maintains a web server that runs 24/7, 365 days. They use special hardware and software applications that make information stored on their systems to be accessible to the entire world via the internet. Web pages, documents and applications are stored in their computers and can be viewed or downloaded by visitors.

So how do you choose a good host? There are thousands of hosting companies out there in the world. Many new ones are opening daily, each with its own (often mouth watering) promises on what it can and cannot do. But before you pick out one, stop!

Is it really the best for you?
What makes it good?
How are you sure that their server is up to the task?
Are they scammers?

Ask those questions. There are lots of bad hosts out there. Do not fall into their trap. Before you pay them you should check out their offered services, read their terms of service and if possible, try their demo Control Panel. Most good hosts have demo C Panels where you can test their features before buying.

Secondly, look for hosts who offer you unlimited or large amounts of bandwidth. That is the most important. Bandwidth is the life blood of your site. If you exceed your monthly bandwidth, your site will become inaccessible for the rest of the month.

Why is bandwidth important? Bandwidth is the calculation of the number of bytes downloaded by any visitor to your site. For example, when visitor A watches a movie of 200MB uploaded on your site, he is actually using up 200MB of your bandwidth to stream the movie. Bandwidth is so important that you cannot do without it so choose a host that offers you unlimited bandwidth. That way your site will always be open.

Third, we talk about space. Unless you plan to host a relatively small website you should look for a host that offers you large amounts of space. Many hosts offer unlimited space but I must point out to you that there is nothing like unlimited space. However hosts advertise unlimited space but actually provide limited space that can never never be exceeded by you based on their calculation.

Another thing to go for is to use hosts that offer you additional domain hosting. Select a host that allows you to host multiple domains on one account. This allows you to host as many websites you want without paying any extra cost! You only need to register the domain names.

These are the most important features you need to check out. Additionally, make sure you choose a host that offers you 24 hour support so that if there’s ever a problem you can be confident it will be taken care of immediately. Extra features you need to check out are: MySQL Dtabases, E-Commerce features Data Back up.

If you are thinking of starting up a new business or adding a new application to the internet it can seem very daunting. Many people may be put off because they do not fully understand what it is that they are getting involved in and how it works.

Your website or internet application needs be hosted on a server which will support your website and help it to run smoothly. The domain name is what tells the browser where your website is hosted and how to get there, so that when your domain name is entered into the browser it redirects to your website.

You can choose from many different TLDs (top level domains) such as .com, .co.uk, .net and hundreds of others, but these three are the main ones. If your business is aimed specifically at the UK then you should opt for a .co.uk domain because these are favoured by search engines for UK searches. If you intend to trade internationally then a .com domain would be beneficial.

With your own domain name you can also have your own email addresses. This looks much more professional for customers and clients than using free email accounts provided by Hotmail or Gmail.

It is best to avoid domain names such as .biz or .info as these are not as professional and are not as widely known by Internet users.

Customer service is the most significant and primary factor to be consider, when choosing a web hosting provider, especially when your website face downtime problems. Make sure the website hosting company offers you a 24×7 customer support for all you hosting issues so that their sales and technical team will be available anytime you need assistance while working on your website. Also, make sure your web hosting provider offers you the following support services with the package.

Self-Help Support

Your web hosting provider should provide you the possibility to search on your own readymade solution to the problems.

Online Documentation

Online documentation is a kind of support offered in the form of on-screen help areas displayed in each dept. of the users web hosting control panel. They provides you useful online tips on working with the control panel features and prevents you website from any possible issues, even if you used it in an improper way.

Hosting Tutorials

This is an important support option which can help a newbie to manage the hosting account and will explain the exact way to use all the web hosting features. Most of the web hosting providers offers these how-to video tutorials in a Youtube style videos, as they are very user-friendly. The hosting tutorials includes videos about how to use your control panel features, from creating an email account to setting up a word press blog on your domain, FTP configuration, Site builder, managing database and much more!

Ticket Support

Basically, this is an email type support, which has an email like interface, allowing you to post email support queries to your web host support team directly. When a staff member receives your ticket he promptly reply to your request and the system tracks the progress of your request. This support is a technical assistance provided to the user and monitored round the clock.

Live Chat Support

Live chat is a new technology widely used for online support nowadays, allowing to have a real time chat session in between you and sales member of your web host. This support method is perfect for asking general inquiries about the hosting packages and their services as well as for the billing purpose.

Phone Support

Phone support is the best and preferred communication method amongst most of the web hosting providers. This option is recommended for pre-sale inquiries and to avoid the technical and billing issues.

Your web hosting provider should understand the importance of support service to the clients and their websites. They should offer you a excellent quality technical support 24×7 and must have a friendly support team that will offer you with an exceptional customer support for the success of your business.

When selecting a web hosting provider, determine the way you would like to receive the customer support for your hosting problems. Be careful, and take you own time to review the support services listed above. After all, an excellent support service is what you need to run your website smoothly by avoiding the downtime issues.

With so many people going online across the world, web hosting has gained profound significance on the Web. Sometimes, a single server is not able to suffice for all the requirements of a website. Clustered hosting appears as a feasible option there. Different servers host common information that enables a large number of users to access the required information at one point of time.

Clustered Hosting means a group of numerous servers sharing the processed power, programs etc. This leads to better utilization of resources and increased redundancy. It’s structured to eradicate the intrinsic errors of shared hosting systems. All the servers are grouped together to share the common work load.

All the websites in clustered web hosting have their specific service redundancy that optimizes well the consistency of their servers. These websites consume & share the power from the server pool. When the client’s account gets modified, the information is transmitted to all the servers in the cluster.

There are multiple tiers of security in clustered hosting, and involves good routing, in-built firewalls, streamlined switching structure, proxy tools, etc. All this has an edge over traditional hosting types. As this type of hosting is driven by data so it does not involve any manual inputs.

Clustered hosting enables the user to tackle varied security issues, load balances etc. with great use. It spreads the load of hosting across varied servers. Hence, there are reduced instances of one service affecting the performance of another service. For instance if one website is witnessing a heavy inflow of web traffic, it won’t cause an adverse effect on the performance of other websites.

Clustered hosting helps to get over the network threats, which are often passed on from one server to another and destructs the hardware. Most of the good webs hosting providers in the market today such as LimeDomains, FatCow, HostGator etc. offer clustered hosting at quite affordable prices in the market.

Now that you know what clustered hosting is, you must formulate a strategy how you can utilize this hosting technology to best address your website requirements.