Web Package Hosting - Researching Different Alternatives
By Brian Thorn
One of the best ways to find a good web host package is to listen to what others say about companies that provide web hosting. Whether you're a business owner or an individual, you are likely looking for reliable web hosting at a competitive price. Finding the company that can best meet those needs can be a real challenge. But once you've found a company that does provide the service you expect with a price you can afford, you'll realize that the time you spent doing research in an effort to find a good web host package was time well spent.
Obviously, online sources for web hosting are one of the most convenient ways to search for the service you want. Any search engine will offer plenty of results on how to find a good web host package. If you don't consider yourself to be computer savvy, you might also want to talk to friends and colleagues who have experience with web hosting and web hosting packages.
For a good list of reviews of web hosting service providers, you might start with a site such as the Web Hosting Inspector site (www.webhostinginspector.com). By following the links to their reviews, you'll find a list of web host service providers. The reviews on this website are broken into sections with ratings given for each. Even if this site doesn't include a review of the company you are considering as a web host, you might try using their categories to create a rating system of your own. Comparing bandwidth, web page space, reliability, customer service and speed, along with any factors you personally consider to be important, will help you find a good web host package.
Remember that you are a potential client and any web hosting company should view your questions as important. Whether you know a lot about web hosting or you're a novice with little idea of how the process works, a company should be able and willing to answer your questions promptly. If the company isn't able to quickly communicate answers to questions, you should question their ability and willingness to provide reliable customer support once the company has your business. As you consider how to find a good web host package, remember your first impressions.
As you work through the process of finding a good web host package, you should also keep a log of your search. While it will probably be easy at first to remember that you've already looked at Company A and discarded them because their customer service seemed weak, or that Company B didn't offer free set up as part of their web hosting package, it probably won't take long for the names and your impressions to begin to run together. Keeping track of which company you were and were not excited about following up on should be an exercise requiring paper and pencil (at the very least). Tangible numbers are a good indication of which companies will and will not likely be good web host providers, but remember to include your first impressions of the company as well. Was their website easy to navigate? Did they answer questions? Do they provide other services that you might need in the future? All are good questions to ask as you consider how to find a good web host package.
About the Author
Brian Thorn is a professional writer for WebHostPacks. For more information and tips about hosting visit: web package hosting and cheap package hosting in the web.
How To Get Your Own Website For Under $15 A Year In 3 Simple Steps
Yes in today's article I'll show you how you can have your own personal or even a business website for under $15 bucks a year plus that includes a one year of domain registration and hosting with all the bells and whistles.
For some people just thinking of designing a website and creating their online presence is a hectic thing. That was just a thing of the past. Almost every individual in I.T. field should have a site where they can showcase their skills and build credibility.
Before we start creating our first site, we have to know certain things that make up our actual website. There are several elements involved in a site. Every website on the net needs to be hosted. Just like a file or a document has to be in your hard rive before you can view it on your screen. Same way, a website needs to be hosted on a server. We also need to register the site with a domain registry so anyone can access our site. Then comes the easiest part, we will need a template to design our site.
So how can you build your own website for under fifteen bucks a year? The answer is simple. First lets design our site. For that go to (http://www.freewebtemplates.com) and select one of their free templates. Some free lancers and web designers submit these but have a link on the template at the bottom to use their free template. Of course if you already know how to design a site, then you don't really need this.
Once you've downloaded the template that you like and modified the HTML with your favorite editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver.
Hint: Go to download.com and click on HTML editors to download the free one's.
Save the modified template as index.html in a new folder on your desktop. Make sure to put all the images in that same folder.
Second step would be to host our site out there on the Internet. For that the best low cost and reliable host that I've always hosted all my sites is (http://dayanahost.vb7.net). Their hosting is rated #1 for low cost and reliable hosts on Hosting Rated Sites. For only $5.99 per year, they provide you with 10MB of disk space, 1GB of Bandwidth for transfer, 2 POP3 email accounts, 1 MySQL Database, 2 Sub domains e.g. something.yoursite.com and lots of other features.
Once you have the hosting setup, all you have to do is just upload the template that you saved on your desktop through some FTP program (e.g. WSFTP) to you're your site.
Our third and last step in building our website is to register our site on the Internet. For that you would need to go to (http://www.godaddy.com) and get your domain registered for only $8.95 a year. They also provide you with my features like free ownership change, domain forwarding and domain locking. Once you've registered the domain and updated the name servers field provided by the hosting company (http://dayanahost.vb7.net) then your site should be available on the net in the next 48-72 hours.
Let's see our total costs now:
1- Web Template = $0
2- Hosting Cost = $5.99
3- Domain Cost = $8.95
Total Site Costs = $14.94
So that's all there's to it. You get your own personal or business site in 3 steps and for less than 15 bucks.
Best Web Hosting Resource
By Aff Dan
The first thing you should do before beginning your search for a reliable web host, is to make a list of your specific web hosting needs. How much space will you need? How much transfer allowance? How many emails? Will you need a database? Will you need a shopping cart? Will you need a merchant account? Are you going to set up a forum or chat feature with your web site?....etc
After all, the Reliable We host should first be a host that meets your specific needs. But there are some things that every web host should have in order for you to consider using there services, and they are listed below.
Technical Support and Customer Service
This should be the number one consideration. To find out how good is a web host technical support, go to some web hosting forums and ask or search the forum to see past comments about the web host.
Send them a question by email and see how long they take to respond. You want to know if they'll be there when you need them. Some offer 24-hour support and a few will respond quickly.
Up Time and Reliability
You'll want to make sure that your web site is accessible. Ask your web host whether he quarantees a certain percentage of uptime. Many web hosts will guarantee your web site to be available 99.5% of the time. Ask about the hardware used, the connection, and what safequards are in place to minimize downtimes.
Reasonable Price
Your web hosting company should offer you a reasonable price for services and flexibility in payment methods and schedules. Look for hidden costs when comparing prices. You will find that some hosts charge a setup fee. Don't rule out a web hosting company just because of this expense. Some of the best companies charge a setup fee to help in covering the cost of having high quality technical support available.
Bandwidth
Some services give you a small limit on the amount of material that can be downloaded from your site each month and charge you large amounts when that limit is exceeded. Some offer huge traffic allowances for the same price. You may not need more than a hundred MB a month now, but why put yourself in a position where you have to move when your traffic takes off? Plan ahead and allow for growth. Make sure you have at least 1 GB of data transfer. Always stay away from web hosts that say that they offer Unlimited Bandwidth Because there is NO SUCH thing called unlimited bandwidth
Disk Storage Space
Look for a host that offers sites of 100 MB or more. This may sound like a lot, but will give you room to grow. Some web hosts offer 20 to 50 MB of space and charge as much as hosts offering 100 MB or more. They then charge you $5 to $10 more a month for every 10 MB you add on when you discover you need more space. This doesn't necessarily make them a bad hosting service, but it is something to consider when comparing prices.
Server Speed
You want a server that is reliable and fast. There is a free tool available that allows you to evaluate this before making a decision. Net Mechanic will measure the speed of access for all facets of access (network speed, DNS lookup, connect time, download time, and absence of timeouts). The download time statistic is the most important single item to compare. Collect your list of candidate web hosting services and run side-by-side tests of all the candidates. Sample during peak and non-peak times for optimal comparison.
Basic Features
Lots of features is another measure of a good web host. Some web hosts will offer only minimal features and then charge a monthly fee to add on any new features.
Multiple Domain Names
If you have more than one domain name,You can host them using one web hosting account. Some web hosting companies may charge you extra cash for this kind of service. Others will not charge you. You only need this, if you have more than one domain name.
Mail Forwarding Accounts And Email Autoresponders
Make sure the Web hosting company allows you to set up mail forwarding -- the ability to forward you email somewhere else. I have several web sites and have all my email forwarded to my ISP service so I can read it all at once. It would take me a long time to downloard all my mail from each of my accounts. It's a great time-saver.As for autoresponder,its a program that automatically sends your pre-written message to people who email you. An example: If someone sends an e-mail to [email protected] , a message from me will automatically be sent to them. This is a very useful tool in marketing your business as people are sent information immediately and without you doing a thing.
Mailing Lists
A mailing list is a discussion group that is email-based. They are useful as a promotional tool. You can also use a mailing-list program to distribute your ezine.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
It allows you to transfer files to and from your Web site quickly and easily. This service should be provided. Only some free hosting services don't offer FTP. I would be really be worried if a hosting service doesn't offer this basic service.
Anonymous FTP Accounts
This function allows you to set up an FTP site that people can access to download files. If you are distributing software or giving away free ebooks, this is a great tool. You can also have files transfered directly from your Web site, but it's sometimes handy to have an FTP site as well. FTP sites can resume interrupted downloads. If someone is transfering a file, and their ISP or phone company cuts them off half way through, they can come back and continue the transfer where they left of. This works great for large downloads.
A Secure Server, Also Referred To As SSL Server
This is a must if you plan to take orders online or transfer sensitive information. The secure server allows redit-card information typed into a form to be encrypted before being sent from the user's Web browser to the server. You may have to pay an additional fee to use the secure server. You don't have to have a secure server to take orders online, but you may lose a lot of orders if you don't provide this for your customers.
CGI Scripts
You can use CGI to take information from a form and send it to your email account and some shopping cart programs use it as well. A good Web hosting service will have a library of CGI scripts you can use. Find out if you can add your own CGI scripts. Don't get a service that won't allow you to do this. You may regret it in the future even if you don't use them now.
Advanced Features
Does The Web Host Provide Advanced Features Such As Database Access, Java Applets, RealAudio/Video, PHP,Password Protection...etc If You Need Them !?
Backups
A good web host will backup your web directory daily. This is pretty standard throughout the industry. If a host doesn't provide this service, don't even consider using them. Some hosts will even do redundant backups to insure your web site is not lost.
A Guarantee
With so many hosting services out there, make sure you choose one that offers a guarantee. Services that offer a moneyback guarantee are confident that you'll be satisfied with their service. Look for at least a basic 30 day money back guarantee.
Flexibility
The ideal web hosting service will have lots of options and upgrades to accomodate future growth of your web site. You may need to add ecommerce to your web site (shopping cart, storefront, merchant account), or more web space, a forum, or you might just need to have your own dedicated server. A good company will have all these resources available to you if you need them.
About the Author
Brian Williams, Editor
Best Web Hosting Resource
http://www.marketingtops.net
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