Posts Tagged ‘web hosts’

Can Free Web Hosting Work for Your Site?

Saturday, November 28th, 2009

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Do you think that free web hosting might work okay for you? Many people these days have a passion or interest they want to express, and going online with a web site is a great way to do it. Never before have we had the ability to reach the world so quickly and easily. While you can use any of the free social media sites to do this (such as My Space), getting your own domain and hosting is often a better option.

Anything you put on a free social network site really isn’t yours. You are subject to rules and regulations regarding what you can post. There is nothing wrong with having standards, and this usually isn’t a problem for most people, anyway. The biggest reason to have your own site is ownership. If you spend a lot of time building content on a free social site, it can all be wiped out if that site changes the rules or decides there is something about your site they don’t like. It happens.

With the price of paid hosting down to reasonable levels, it makes sense now to consider it. You can register a domain for under $10 a year, and set up paid hosting for about the same amount per month. These paid packages have plenty of disk space and bandwidth allowance for most average webmasters, usually with room for multiple sites if you’re inclined to create them.

Despite the low cost of standard paid hosting, some people still want free web hosting. If you are just putting up a site as a hobby, or a personal blog or diary for fun, free web hosting might be a great option for you. If you are planning to sell anything from your site, or promote some sort of business, don’t even consider free web hosting.

Looking at the bright side, free web hosting doesn’t cost a dime and there is no commitment. It isn’t all wonderful, though, because somebody somewhere has to pay for it.

In most cases, the hosting provider reserves the right to run ads on your site, usually on the top or side margins. This won’t disturb your content, but can make viewing it annoying to others, and make your pretty design and setup look pretty lousy.

It isn’t unusual for pop ups to be a problem on free sites. Pop up blockers don’t get them all, and they can be a nuisance to your site visitors.

Free hosting is for small sites that don’t get a lot of traffic, and don’t use a lot of video or file transfers. Don’t plan on having more than a small, simple site with these hosts.

Your website address will the hosting companies name plus something you create, for example “petejohnson.freewebhostingcompany.com” - not exactly a personalized or glowing expression of you or the impression you want to make on the world.

Remember that free hosts are counting on making money from the ads on your site. They hope you’ll bring in traffic that will click the ads and buy something. They then make money from the click, or from the sale. It’s a great deal. Problem is, if it doesn’t go well, the host can shut down at anytime and all your work and effort is gone forever.

Unless you are just totally broke or don’t care if your site is full of ads, I suggest that you avoid free web hosting completely. Good quality hosting is so affordable now, and you have complete control over your domain and content with it. Go with free hosting if you must, but understand the pros and cons.

Getting your own website up and running is exciting. When trying to decide on a web host, you have quite a lot of often confusing choices. Find out if free web hosting is a plan that will meet your needs.

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Keep These Items In Mind When Choosing A Web Host

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

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It is essential today to have a website for personal and professional goals. A website allows internet users from around the world to find information about your products and services, make purchases, or simply to read your personal blog. A website is also a great way for people to find and connect with you on a business or personal level. However, before your website can be available for viewing, you must first choose a web host. There are dozens of companies on the internet that offer web hosting services. Selection of a web host should be chosen with care. It is essential that you select a web host who can accommodate your specific needs. For example, the bandwidth you need for a personal website will be considerably lower than for a commercial business website. Below are five tips for choosing a web host.

1: Beware of Unlimited Resources Many web hosts offer what they refer to as “unlimited” file storage and “unlimited” bandwidth. Put simply, this means you can upload as many files to your account as you’d like, and there is no limit to the amount of visitor traffic your site can receive. This certainly sounds like a good deal, but the truth of the matter is that many hosts oversell on this promise and their service quality suffers as a result. This isn’t to say ALL hosts using this model are bad; some of the bigger names in the game do it just fine, but be aware of any smaller companies trying to compete.

2: What hosting packages are available? Will it be easy to upgrade if you find you need more space or added function later on? Web sites actually take up less disk space than most people think. A several page site with a few graphics takes less than 5MB. Unless you have a huge product database and will be selling online, you probably don’t need that 500MB package.

3: Windows vs. Linux Servers This issue is a little more advanced, but it can still apply to many people. Lots of web hosting companies only focus on providing Linux or UNIX operating system-based servers, which may or may not include the ability to run scripting languages like ASP. If you know that your website will require applications often associated with Windows platforms, don’t assume it’ll be compatible with any random host. Check to see if they offer Windows hosting first.

4. Secure Server. If you will be selling products or services on your website it is essential that your website offers a secure server (SSL.) A secure server ensures that personal information collected through your website is safe from hackers.

5. Payment Plans. Web hosts offer monthly, quarterly or annual payment plans. Oftentimes the annual rate will be less expensive overall than the monthly or quarterly plans. Ensure that you research the various rates offered and select the best price from the web host that supplies all of your requirements.

So there you have it. Those tips should have you well on your way to becoming a safer shopper when it comes to purchasing your new web hosting service. Just remember, if there’s anything you’re unsure about with a particular host, just keep moving, because the choices are nearly endless! Good luck!

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Should You Be Concerned About Bandwidth When Choosing Website Hosting?

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

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When you get into looking at web site hosting, it can really be confusing. There are lots of strange terms and the plans and features available can make you dizzy. Which kind of website hosting plan is the best to choose?

Probably the most confusing term in web hosting is bandwidth because it mean a variety of things. First, it can mean the size of the Internet connection that is connected to the web server. Second, if could also mean how much data transfer is allowed by your provider. Third, it could relate to how much room a band uses when they are performing on stage. Alright, I’m just kidding about the last one but some of those amps can really take up space.

When you are talking about web hosting, bandwidth will primarily relate to data transfer. The physical Internet connection to the server is also important. Let me talk about that for a second. You can think of an Internet connection like a water pipe in your house. You would want a large pipe connected to your server to that it can handle traffic easily and not get backed up or overloaded. Make sure your website hosting package can handle those traffic spikes when you get them.

Your data transfer (bandwidth) is how much data goes through the pipe. It’s kind of like a water meter on your house that the water company comes out to check. How much data goes through depends on the traffic your web site gets and what kind of data you are sending through. If your site is just text and jpeg images, then that’s not very big data chunks. If you have audio and video files or large PDF files on your website, then those are larger files and when a website visitor requests them, that’s more data being transferred from the server to their computer.

The two kinds of bandwidth that you can get with a website hosting package are allowed bandwidth and unlimited bandwidth. The plans that give you a set, allowed bandwidth limit will charge you if you go over that amount. Unlimited bandwidth plans do not charge you for an overage because there isn’t one.

Website hosts with fixed, allowed bandwidth do often give you some advantages. For instance, they sometimes offer some kind of management and they will have better uptime and be more reliable. You should be able to login to some sort of web control panel where you can see how much bandwidth you currently are using for that month. Some hosts will let you pre-pay for some bandwidth for a reduced cost if you think you may go over for that month. Pre-paying would be cheaper than having a bandwidth overage.

Hosts with unlimited bandwidth plans are often cheaper plans but their reliability is typically lower. These kinds of website hosts will sometimes just fill up servers with sites and want volume to make their profit. This type of web hosting is just fine for a lot of sites that are not mission critical. The costs for unlimited bandwidth, unlimited domains, unlimited space web hosting is often pretty low ” under $10 per month.

The bottom line with web hosting is, you get what you pay for. If your website is important for the daily operations of your company, then you will want to go for a website hosting package thats not the cheapest. More expensive web hosting plans may or may not offer unlimited bandwidth in their plans. Its an important thing to look at when choosing plans. If bandwidth is not unlimited, then be sure to find out how much bandwidth overages will cost you.

So good luck looking for a website hosting plan and the right size band on stage!

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