Written By One Of The Foremost Experts In Web Application Security – Robert Hansen – Who Has Spoken At The Pentagon And Works With Many Of The Fortune 500. 50% Commission, 300+ Pages Of Extremely High Quality Content On Digital Loss Prevention.
Website Fraud Loss Prevention.
Web Host asked:
Web Hosting:
Be Aware That Cheap Options Are Not Always The Best. Choosing the right business web hosting provider is important if one wishes to get the best possible solution. A good provider will enable the business to grow its business by taking advantage of features such as numerous web marketing tools and be able to get advice as well as information from the service provider’s partner sites.
Advantages In Choosing A Good Plan
The webmaster or webmasters that create the business web hosting services should be top notch professionals having years of experience in dealing with different ecommerce challenges and, should be able to give specific answers to different business queries. One should also exercise restraint and not jump at cheap web hosting accounts that may look cheap at first but, which require paying extra and thus adds to the costs by having expensive upgrade fees, later on.
Another important aspect one should consider before getting one’s business web hosting solution from a provider is the type of connectivity offered. The Internet backbone should not be just a single link but, must include an intersection of multiple Internet backbones which should ensure high speeds, reliability as well as constant connectivity.
A good business web hosting service will provide features such as hundreds of professionally designed website templates, unlimited tracking of popular ads being clicked on the website as well as provide a forum that will supply and help in sharing information as well as be able to strike deals and, also have access to exact answers and contacts that are required on a daily basis.
There are three web hosting options available and these are shared hosting, UNIX or Windows shared hosting and dedicated servers. The most widely used type of web hosting is shared hosting in which a number of websites are hosted on a single server. On the other hand, UNIX based servers would suit users that do not use more than HTML pages as it works out to be a bit cheaper. However, for those that need to use programming languages called Active Server Pages or need to connect to a database one can consider a Windows server. Finally, dedicated servers are for users that want or need total control of their server and are willing to pay extra for such features from their buiness web hosting service.
Bluehost Hosting asked:
Now after advantages the biggest disadvantage of hosting on own web server is the uptime reliability. If one’s web server get powered down for any reason then his/her website will also get offline. Generally webhosting companies have methods and networks to prevent this failure from affecting one’s website. Also if the system goes down they have a mirror location where one’s site is invigorated and doesn’t experience much downtime. There are several web hosts, which do not practice this method, or any other fault tolerance. One can imagine how worse can happen if a blackout or power outage occurs and his/her web server gets down for hours or even days. It will surely lead to destruction of whole business. There are several hosting companies providing mirror web hosting for a small charge, but there is doubt in their reliability. Thus only experience can make one play safe in hosting business else its all on his/her fortune or God.
Hosting one’s own server is not at all a money-saving experience as sometimes it even costs more to host on one’s own server, when one totals the up keep and maintenance. Thus the benefit of hosting one’s own server is usually a better platform for one’s customers, because it is no longer a shared server and it provides the ability to make global changes almost immediately. In case one’s customers are requesting for more performance or specific applications, then he/she will be able to apply this immediately. Customers generally like to know that one is in control. If one informs his/her customers that the server will be down for maintenance from 6 a.m. – 7 a.m. then it would be considered best only if one’s server is down, not from 5 a.m. – 10 a.m. It’s better to know some explanations or excuses in advance as one needs to give explanation to his/her customers in such a situation. Thus as a conclusion it can be concluded that it will benefit one to host his/her own web server as a web business, this helps him/her and his/her customers.
Hosting Web asked:
The one who is planning to have an economic web hosting plan, knowing what services he/she requires, the amount that he/she should pay for them can help one pick out hidden costs that could launch one’s selected cheap hosting plan into an expense that one just can’t afford. The following are some of the points to keep in mind while selecting a cheap web hosting for personal or business web site.
A La Carte Pricing
One should not be pulled in by impossibly low prices. Due to intense competition and due to resellers ,the prices of web hosting have came down to just bottom, still one should expect to pay for quality, dependable, professional web hosting services. A la carte prices can give an impression that a web hosting plan is incredible good deal, but one should be prepared to know exactly what he/she needs and what he/she will be paying for it. When one add in setup fees, upgrade fees and additional monthly fees for things like scripting support, a mySQL database and php support, one can end up paying far more for his/her affordable plan. Thus it’s better to opt for a little expensive plan but which is without any hidden costs.
Read the Fine Print
One should read through every little entry in the comparison chart to see for what one is being charged for, and what fees he/she might incur if he/she will go over his/her monthly limits. In case there is anything not clear or is not listed properly, one should immediately email the company to ask what they charge for particular services and if there’s a setup fee. Thus it will tell one more than just how much the services cost. Not only will that one also get an idea about the effectiveness of support and help of the provider.
Is Unlimited really Unlimited?
One should be very careful while selecting host reading glasses away yet. If a host provider is offering plan with ‘unlimited traffic’, then one should be very sure to check what does unlimited mean for them .Mostly web hosting providers use ‘typical usage patterns’ to define what unlimited means. If one’s web site becomes popular enough to exceed what’s normal for other web sites of one’s size, then he/she has to be prepared for paying extra for bandwidth and in that case the word ‘unlimited’ is just meaningless.
E-Commerce Ready Sites for Cheap Prices
Often one gets attracted with the above given article. But one should check to see what’s actually included in that cheap e-commerce ready site. Does it include access to their secure server, or will one have to purchase his/her own license? Is there a good deal on bill-collecting services and credit card access, or will one have to arrange by him/her own? Thus one should be very sure to know what he/she is getting for his/her money so that he/she can plan his/her web hosting expenses in a better way.
Generally there are lots of justifiably good web hosting deals to be had, but just like any other purchase, it also requires one to do his/her homework in a better way to make sure that one gets the most affordable, most professional and best web hosting deal .
Web Hosting asked:
One cannot deny the fact that, the reach of internet is vast and through out the world and when it comes to marketing scenario the customer is consider being ultimate. He/she is an individual who comes to the market with well defined objectives and requirements. Thus it is a challenge for a hosting provider to aim customer’s well defined objectives. Web host needs to move straight forwards with the certain strategy focusing on the futures such as price, uptime, reliability, support etc.
A few time ago there was a research conducted about the selling aspect of the hosting industry. Can a low priced host perform well? How nice it will be if a low priced host will propose features like maximum bandwidth and disk space. At the end the conclusion was that the largest host would be the low priced host with the maximum bandwidth and disk space, with an outstanding support and placing advertisements all over the client’s site. It can be useful for several people, but the Return of Investment (ROI) may consume the entire life-time of a person.
The web hosting industry contains majority of SMEs. For them large investments in marketing may not provide results as per expectations. Still one can find several web hosts in the market who have flourished themselves from a mere reseller hosting system to a thousand servers within a little spare of time. It is quite surprising that the number of hosts selling at low price was zero. They had done nothing but created a niche market for their purpose.
One web host concentrated merely on resellers and termed it as private label reseller programs. They gave out additional amount of disk space and bandwidth and demanded for additional charge. Their merits – slighter customers, advanced cash turnover and comparatively smaller support requests as the resellers takes care of their own customers. Another web host concentrated merely on webmasters. In fact, Webmasters usually possess more than one site. Hosting cannot be considered their main business and they demand a reasonable solution. In addition to it, the majority of webmasters have the technical knowledge and in comparison they require a community where interaction with other webmasters is possible.
Everyone knows that in a little span of time identical things take the place in market and adopts the standardization of industry. This is again test the way to effectively control the market by the host. They can take the step to concentrate on merely on certain services of hosting. For instance, email only hosting. This can be very helpful for the people for whom email is highly decisive. The user may go for the emails on another server which is totally dedicated to emails only. Thus, if by chance the prime site faces downtime, they still have an alternative route to get the mails. One can take backup hosting as another suitable example. At this juncture, the web host would backup the whole information related to a site in a frequent period of time.
Web hosting provider can also concentrate on definite languages and software which are very well-liked. There is not majority of hosts offering Java Servlets, Postgresql, and Zope. If one takes the example of only Zope hosting then it definitely escort all the Zope developers to apply and as well as propose the Zope community a web hosting provider who is specialized in field of Zope hosting.
Everyone knows that price of broadband had declined by the time, it also created a ray of optimism in the mind of web hosts that due to this the market of application hosting also gets popularity. One can find new market of large and small corporate who never thinks badly in keeping their data in secure networks. All requires is to log into their servers and access their data from any part of the globe. They search for the applications like Compiere or rather a groupware where user can easily access, share and pile up the data online. If there will be a requirement for paying premium for such services the Corporate would never mind. But, web hosts have to promise protection and dependability in such situations.
Merging some of the additional features in the offered package will definitely attract the customers to that hosting provider. It can include few of the software’s also.
One can put forward hosting services along with a post nuke, gallery and phpBB forum all packaged into one. Due to this the customer will receive both opportunity and time to concentrate on what he/she requires to do instead of wasting time on thinking the way to implement a CMS system or picture gallery.
There are many sites offering software such as ikonboard, eZpublish, phpShop, Zope, A-Cart etc along with their hosting package. After selecting the ideal one as per requirement user can create scripts to automate the process of installation. Thus, one can save the time wasting on ordering new things.
At the end, user needs not to take any step like investing a huge amount of money for the purpose of advertising with search engines or rather with web hosting directories. All requires is to advertise on the elected software’s home page and remain present on their forums/mailing lists to assist the client.
Web Hosting asked:
At present condition there is no head to stand in front of Voice over Internet Protocol VOIP) and internet telephony in common. This technology has reached to a sort of crescendo right across the overall internet world within a little span of time and currently stands as a red flag in front of old well established phone companies across the world and in the land of communications and telecommunications in the manner which everyone knew. In the course VOIP has effected web hosting in several ways, as mentioned below:
a. One of the important contributions of VOIP is that it has located demands on web hosting which was absent earlier. It requires not only stable and extremely reliable link but also requires brilliant service from a web host as supportive for effective output. It is a fact that now-a-days corporate world has swiftly embraced VOIP, saving immense fortunes in phone company bills and associated costs and has intended that the hosting enterprises which are better had only got advantage from it.
B. while dealing with non-VOIP web hosting it is quite a simple task to get rid from careless and unreliable services. Specifically with VOIP, and most important where most corporate companies needs communications lines to be left open every time, careless or poor quality web hosting enterprises are immediately found out and stopped. It is a fact from the early days of web hosting where many web host servers were located in cellars somewhere and school dorms. It was driven by majority of people to opt it as a hobby which was for them an extremely profitable part-time work that needs no attention from the busy schedule and vigilance could be given by the user in the free time.
These people restricted to that level of service because the Internet was a latest thing launched in that period of time. In addition too, due to lack of sufficient knowledge in those days majority of people were not very much concerned about it, it is best to left the user alone fully understood the impact of web hosting. Thus just being not able to get through a website was not really considered a big issue.
One can say that, today’s webmasters have progressed a lot, as these days webmasters flows money and valuable time like water to magnetize some amount of traffic and bear tension very soon as traffic unable to reach their site for any reason. This means they are not only losing the money but also diminishing their repute in front of public.
Web Hosting asked:
Anyone cannot deny an old age saying, “One gets what he/she pays for”.
When one talks about some aspects of life, and business, there is quite strength in this statement, but not much when it comes to web hosting industry. Many a times, one will not get what he/she deserve to get or invest the money for.
For instance, there was a client paying $600.00 a month for his web hosting account.
After observing his requirements the conclusion was that there is nothing extraordinary in the features required by the client, which can be available in the basic hosting plan i.e. below $5.
What can be the conclusion regarding this client? It is that he is not only overburdened by the huge monthly charges but also not receiving the basic support required by him.
No doubt, an acute example, but a horrible incidence which several users needs to counter in their life span.
Many years ago, there was no trace of web hosting existed in the industry. Almost entire websites were hosted via local ISP’s. If one talk about average basis, the monthly charges for hosting a website was $20.00. Usually, if any user asks for any technical query to ISP, their opinion would be to purchase a book or rather go for a class to sort out the query.
It was somewhere around 1996, when few of the “web hosting” companies emerged in the market. Their commitment was strictly on to hosting websites. That time they can easily offer a hosting package around $10.00 a month. In addition to it, they can easily provide technical assistance to meet user’s necessities.
With the emergence of the year 2005 new type of hosting termed as cheap web hosting raised in the market providing hosting services at a very low cost of even less than $5.00 a month.
Normally, cheap web hosting companies are latest companies in the market. This is due to the reason that it is quite daunting for the older companies to decline their cost as they possess a huge customer base which is ready to pay higher prices. This can adversely affect their expansion which cannot be a positive deal for many of the companies.
Thus what way low priced hosting companies provide hosting packages at such a cheap rate?
One of the reasons for this is that servers, hard drive space and bandwidth are quite cheap as compared to many years ago. This is one of the triumph cards for the web hosting companies.
Other reason is that cheap hosting providers adopts diverse business structure in comparison to older companies. Certainly, Web hosting business is severely competitive. Recently, the basis of competition is the tools and features provided to the user. When one talk about this sort of strategy the major draw back is that every user doesn’t require all the features provided by the concern hosting company. Several hosting providers deliver free backup services for all their clients without any biasness. Off course, Backups are expensive, and it is not required by everyone, but every user is compelled to pay for it due to concerned package offered to them.
In contrast, low priced hosting companies might offer user the basic features that is applied by everyone, but put forward weekly backups as an available but additional feature, putting the cost of backing up restricted to those users only who really demands it.
Certainly, sweet to hear, but what when it comes to service? Will the user receive swift and proficient customer support just in the monthly charges of $4.00?
The reply will be, unbelievable but generally is YES.
Certainly, one cannot expect all the cheap hosting providers to deliver an outstanding service. In contract one cannot expect very good service from the hosting providers who demands large amount for their service.
Still the success of a cheap hosting provider lies in the fact that how well it can maintain the trust of customer. A hosting provider full of abilities and potential will try their level best to care their present customers.
Web Hosting asked:
It is a matter of fact that if user has decided to use cheap web hosting then he/she should know about his/her actual requirement of disk space in advance. User should have actual knowledge of area of website, no. of pages, video files, music files, etc. required by the user. Next, the cheap hosting company to which the user is dealing with should possess the knowledge of the correct demand of the site. If user is having immense amount of visitors, then cheap web hosting may not be the actual choice. Next point depicts the quantity of email accounts required by the user. Cheap hosting companies are not much lenient in this facility. At the end, the user should know the actual amount he/she can spend from the pocket. Hosting companies providing service at the cheaper rate are not much technically fluent in comparison to expensive hosting.
One can easily locate the list related to top 10 cheap hosting providing companies on the website. They are ranked according to their price, quality, and service satisfaction. Such companies are priced in the range of $4.95 to $19.95 per month. The cost of their service can change according to user’s expectations and requirements. In such services available disk space can be in the range between 3000MB to 5000MB. The variety of bandwidth can be from a small quantity of 40GB to an extremely immense quantity of 300GB. If this available option is not sufficient for the user then he/she should look for an alternative choice rather then low cost hosting. The majority of low cost web hosts put forward free set up. This will make the route quite smoother for the user. One should be very careful while dealing with a low cost host, providing unlimited disk space because in several cases the real output and promised output are quite different.
One cannot deny the fact that still there are large segment of people who are not much convinced with the cheap web hosting, they can find the alternative of free web hosting. It still deals with a price, however. In the market there are several companies offering free web hosting to any user who subscribes to their particular internet service. The user may still need to pay for the internet service, but the hosting service provided by the company is absolutely free. This is the best possible limit to be reached in case of cheap web hosting.
So, user should consider all the available alternatives and should choose which thought to be the ideal one.
Web Host asked:
Even for a layman , its important to know the concept of web hosting. Visiting any website shows a web page that is downloaded from the web server onto the user’s web browser. Generally, web site is made up of many web pages and web page is made up of texts and graphic images. Now these pages are then stored and made available for the visitors on web servers.
So for a layman if his intention is to have is own web site, then the first step would be owing a host provider so as to host the website on web server. As soon as the website is online on the server, online users can browse that website through Internet. All this job of providing host facility is with the providers called web-hosting providers.
Any established web hosting provider can host even thousands of websites example, iPowerWeb is a popular web hosting company that hosts websites in amounts of lakhs i.e. 3 lakhs. Due to this reason only these hosting companies needs large number of web servers for storing the website. Thereafter all these web servers are connected to Internet and are kept in a physical center ‘data center’. As these web servers needs to be fully operational all the time so data centers are made fully secure having 24/7 environment and given protection from fire, HVAC temperature control, virus detections, computer data backup, redundant power backup and complete disaster recovery capabilities.
Now after knowing what is web hosting it is also important to know the different types of web host which are summarized below:
Shared Hosting
As the name suggests, in shared hosting several websites share space on the common physical web servers. A physical web server can host thousands of websites at one time depending upon the web host. With so much pressure on web servers it tends to make one think that due to over burden perhaps the performance of web server gets affected. But that thinking is totally wrong as for this reason only web servers are equipped with high-end powerful computer so as to support large number of websites to some extent without any problem. However but it is even possible at time of over burden on web servers that the response is badly effected.
In order to get rid of this problem reputed and experienced host providers constantly keep on monitoring the performance of web servers and keeps on adding new web servers when and where required. As many websites share a same physical web server the cost is generally low with start from mere $5-$20 per month and they also have to accept slower server response time.
Dedicated Hosting
As against shared hosting, in dedicated hosting a specific web server is allotted to one customer only. Due to one server the customer is having option to host his single/multiple web sites, can modify the configuration of software, can handle greater site traffic and can even scale the bandwidth when it is taken as necessary. It is because of this facility that dedicated hosting charges good amount which starts from $50 and can range even upto$200 to $500 monthly. So dedicated hosting is regularly used by extremely important web sites having high traffic.
Co-location hosting
The only difference between dedicated hosting and co-location hosting is that here in this case customers can own the web server hardware whereas in case of dedicated hosting customers can just rent the web server during the hosting period. So Co-location hosting provides more flexibility to its customers in respect of control and maintainence. Here in this case 24/7 server monitoring is also possible which can evade the problem of slow response. Because of all above benefits co-location hosting charges good amount depending upon monthly bandwidth and rack space required which is as high as $500 – $1000 monthly.
Reseller hosting
The third type of hosting is reseller hosting where the provider offers web server storage space to third party at a discounted price, who again resell it to his own customer. Normally resellers include web consultants like web designers, developers or system Integration Company who after charging commission which is even upto 50%(taken as discount) can resell the web hosting. Resellers can set up their own hosting company and can decide for their own pricing structure with establishing their own branding.
In case of reseller hosting for reseller’s customers, the reseller is the web host provider. When some technical problem arises like down server or any access problem then in that case the resellers have to settle all with actual web host provider. However this is not the effective way as it leads to unnecessary waste of time due to various channels involved in the communication process like first customer contacts reseller and then reseller contacts actual web host provider and same is with the response it also comes back from the same process, so the problems pertains for a long time. Thus reseller hosting is not considered a good option unless user is having his own personal website or he is having an alternative for poor support from reseller.
Now with growing competition market is having abundant of resellers who are selling their services at a very low price. Due to this and other factors like even some web-hosting providers provide their own toll free numbers to their resellers for co-branded technical support, this makes the decision more difficult to choose which is the right choice.
Thus it is more important to act wisely and to not get attracted with marketing techniques employed by resellers like professional outlook of their website and other strategies like proving technical support in their own name which is actually provided by the provider and not by them but they tend to present it in such a way that they are providing that support.
The general distinguishing feature between resellers and hosting company is firstly the hosting price and secondly the company’s information including their balance sheet example iPowerWeb.com get their company’s information published where they mention their financial strength, their offices and highly equipped data centers. As against this resellers lack these assets and for price what they quote is generally below $5 per month whereas providers charge between $7 and $10.
Thus considering all these facts it can be concluded easily that due to a minute difference of several dollars one must not get struck in the web of resellers and must go for best facilities instead of getting harassment afterwards.
Blue Host asked:
Many people heard saying “Penny-wise and Dollar-foolish”?
Choosing cheapest web hosting is not a good deal. If the user will only consider the money factor then he will have to regret later on as he will not get all the required facilities and the package he has chosen will then prove havoc.
If any user launches his website earlier in the “dark ages” of 1997 at that time he was charged $150 per month for hosting and data transfer charges. Then his web host keeps a close eye like an eagle over the number of files he uploads and always sends their heavily built invoices earlier with each passing month.
This is the claim not by just one person but by many people. Then suddenly a whole industry of “bargain” web hosts sprang up all over the web.
At that time cheap web hosting providers grows very rapidly as users welcome them very cheerfully. Now one can easily get the hosting facility by just spending $4.95 per month, as against $150 per month that he was paying for the same service earlier.
Just 5 bucks per month sounds really very interesting, until one realizes the amount of data transfer (number of page views) and bandwidth (the amount of data transfer his host allows in a 24 hour period) he gets for that cheap price harshly confines his capacity to do business.
This recognition – As soon as one recognized this fact as well as after understanding how data transfer and bandwidth gets calculated, one tends to recognize the disadvantages that he was suffering due to cheap price.
If any user exceeds the bandwidth limit allotted, then his bargain host will just shut down his site without any warning or else will send a huge bill.
Later on the webmasters who are truly professional realize that they’ve made a mistake by selecting a cheap host as their site suddenly gets shut down in the middle of a big promotion because of huge traffic. At that moment as one’s business is totally dependant on web site it seems like as if his whole business stops moving.
There are some cheap hosts providing good service, but one has to take utmost care and caution especially in the matter of bandwidth as it effects a lot afterwards when one’s business grows.
By just paying $24.95 per month one can get to host up to six independent websites with a single account. One gets unlimited data storage, unlimited email and a variety of other higher end services, but their bandwidth policy seems really hard to understand. So one should think again while hosting a bargain web host.
