Posts Tagged ‘Web Hosting’

Top Hosting Companies – North America

July 18th, 2011

There are many web hosting companies around, but the top hosting companies share common characteristics that make them the best of the best. The features they offer put them on top of the field. These features assure their clients that what they pay is substantial to the service they get. Discussed below are some of the common characteristics of these web hosting companies. By looking for these characteristics, be prepared for great services that will make your business soar to greater heights.

Adequate Customer Service : Web hosting companies banner their 24/7 technical support. While this is true for most claims, there are instances when the contact details they provide are too busy to be reached. What if you need their service abruptly and you cannot penetrate their hotlines?

Dynamic Marketing Efforts : The best web hosting companies do not stop their services when they have provided server support and necessary bandwidth allocation to their clients. They assure that the websites of their clients which they host will get the necessary hits by providing different marketing tools. Premier web hosting companies assure that their clients’ websites get noticed with promotional newsletters and banner links.

Reliable Uptime : Websites draw clients to your business. Thus, your website needs to be present in the cyberspace 24/7. The top hosting companies in the USA adhere to the 99.9% industry standard when it comes to uptime reliability. By choosing one of the premier hosting companies, be assured of very least occurrences of downtimes due to server-related problems. By availing the services of the premier web hosting companies, be confident that your online presence is felt at maximum gauges. With this, reap the benefit of higher investment returns.

Optimum Data Security : Data security is one of the top concerns of online businesses. This is due to high incidents of unauthorized data access like hacking. The best hosting companies employ the latest and the best in server security. They have firewalls, antivirus, filters, and other anti-hacking tools. By picking the services of the premier web hosting companies, be complacent that your data have the least susceptibility against unauthorized maneuvers.

In summary, the stiff competition among web hosting companies revolutionized the way web hosting services are provided. The best web hosting companies spearheaded cutting-edge changes by offering services that are beyond web hosting.

The money you will spend for their services will return several times more due to uninterrupted online presence they provide. Unless you want your fingers get calluses from dialing, go for cheap web hosting services and get a handful of aspirin for headaches.

William MacMahon is a professional writer in the web hosting industry. Visit WebHostingMadness.com to read his reviews on the top hosting companies each month

An Explanation of SSL Certificates

June 17th, 2011

What is Secure Web Hosting and SSL and what are their benefits:

Internet is no longer a safe place, as information passed on through online can also be read by other people. There are a number of malevolent people known as hackers, who can easily reveal the confidential information that visitors exchange with your website. They can even obtain these types of sensitive information such as, passwords or credit card numbers. It is also possible that these hackers present a customized version of your website, which is hosted on their server to your innocent customers. In most of the cases, this is done to collect some confidential and important information from them. To fight against these hackers, a special Internet protocol called Secure Sockets Layer or SSL was created and thus secure web hosting was born .

Since 1994 when it was developed by Netscape, the SSL has developed into a security technology that is now recognized as an standard across the world. It works in a way to ensure that a secure link between a server and a browser. All OF this adds up to making sure that any information that is passed between parties remains secure. The security can be seen the padlock emblem that appears on screen. Many e-Business companies appreciate this opportunity to safeguard the information of their customers as well as ensuring the confidentiality of any transactions that take place

Learn about the SSL Certificate:

If a web server wants to use the Secure Sockets Layer protocol, it will require an SSL Certificates provided by the Certification Authorities (CA). You will have to complete several questions about the identity of your company and website, while you choose to trigger SSL on your web server. The web server then constructs two cryptographic keys i.e. a Public Key and a Private Key. The Public Key is not a furtive. It is placed in a Certificate Signing Request or CSR, which is a data file that contains your details. You then require to submit the CSR. The Certification Authority validates all the details that you have provided in the CSR throughout the SSL Certificate application process. It further allocates an SSL Certificate that contains all your details and thus allows you to use SSL. The issued SSL Certificate is matched to the Private Key by your web server. This will enable your web server to establish an encrypted link between your website and the customer’s web browser.

None of these actions are witnessed by the visitor. They will be able to see they key symbol that will inform them that SSL encryption is providing a level of protection for them. If they wish to find out more details about the SSL certificate they can click on the lock icon which can be found in the right hand bottom corner of their screen. It is usually with people who can be held accountable and firms who are legally registered that these certificates are provided to.

The usual information contained within an SSL Certificate will usually provide country, state, city, and address, name of the company and the domain name of the site. The expiration date of the certificate will also be included as will further information about the Certification Authority that holds the responsibility for issuing the certificates. If the browser of the visitor connects to the secured site, the SSL certificate will be unable to retrieve the SSL certificate from the site. A quick search in the veracity of the sites SSL certificate will be undertaken and that it has been allocated to the website claiming it is for. Another check will also be undertaken on the date of expiry for the certificate. If for any reason the certificate does not pass all the questions asked of it, there will be a warning displayed to the final user.

There is no doubt that the golden padlock has been accepted by many customers. It is viewed as a symbol of trust for the site. There is little doubt that the e-Business company can use this as an ideal opportunity to encourage trust and additional expenditure from customers and also turn visitors into customers. There are numerous shopping carts or sites that take information from customers and a large percentage utilize the SLL certificates. Nevertheless, users should recall that if confidential information is sent by email, this information is not naturally secured.

Functions that are new to users:

There is an improved version of SSL v2 and it is called SSL v3. This version offers support for authenticating certificates and it now has SHA-1 based ciphers. It is true that some flaws were in SLL v2 such as when cryptographic keys were indistinguishable in addition to the authentication process for messages. There was also no provision in the previous version to secure the handshake process which meant that a downgrade attack from the “man in the middle” could occur with no one being any the wiser.

Another improvement has come with the Transport Layer Security taking over from the Secure Sockets Layer. The TSL has been clearly influenced by SSL and has taken many uses and styles that are synonymous with Microsoft and Netscape browsers in addition to a great number of products utilizing Web server capabilities. Today, it is common for SSL to utilize public and private key encryption that is able to provide a digital certificate.

SSL Certificate, do you need one:

* If privacy of others and yourself as well as a need to have trust in your site is important, then the purchase of the SSL certificate is vital.

* If you have an online store or accept online orders through credit cards you will need an SSL Certificate in order to safeguard the confidential information of your customers.

* It is also advisable to get an SSL Certificate in case you have offices, which share confidential information over an intranet.

* If you process data like date of births, addresses, telephone numbers, licenses or ID numbers then as SSL certificate is required to process this securely.

* If in case your business partners log in to private information on an extranet, an SSL Certificate helps you to protect them from hackers.

Some helpful information about purchasing SSL Certificates:

* The Certificate Authority market is quite diverse, but it is better to purchase an SSL Certificate that meets your requirements as well as budget. You can find a number of Secure Sockets Layer Certificate in different price range. The Open Directory Project identifies 22 third parties and offers over 20 root certificates that are included into Firefox and Internet Explorer. However, due to its price, it is dominated only by a few major firms.

There was a survey undertaken by Netcraft in 2005 which set out to find the largest vendor that offers SSL certificates. This was followed in January 2007 when Security Space set out to undertake a similar project. This latter survey listed a few firms as being highly rated. These sites include Equifax represented by its GeoTrust subsidiary (www.equifax.com), VeriSign which was represented by the Thawte subsidiary (www.verisign.com), in addition to GoDaddy/Starfield (www.godaddy.com), Digicert (www.digicert.com) as well as Comodo (www.comodo.com).

In fact, depending on the measurement methodology, these six vendors as a whole have occupied approximately 95% of the total market. The Verisign holds the largest market share of around 72%, followed by Comodo which holds around 18% share, Geotrust with 3.43% of the total market share. Entrust and GoDaddy obtained approximately 2.5 % and 1% respectively. The other vendors hold 3 to 4% on an average.

About author: Gregory Trune is a professional writer in the web hosting industry. Visit WebHostingMadness.com to follow his search for the best hosting companies each month.

Process Of Having All The Good Domain Names Taken

April 25th, 2010

Decent available domain names are becoming harder to find these days. Nearly 25 million “.com” names have been registered, and over 23 thousand are purchased every day. It also means that you’re more likely to win the grand prize lottery then find a great domain name.

Owning a domain name that helps to successfully “magnetize” a flood of incoming traffic is like gold to any online business. But the increasing scarcity of domain names that are simple to remember, short and suggestive have turned them into red hot commodities.

Just take a look at some of the recent domain name acquisitions:

1) business.com sold for $7.5 million

2) asseenontv.com sold for $5 million

3) altavista.com sold for $3.3 million

4) loans.com sold for $3 million

5) autos.com sold for $2.2 million

6) wallstreet.com sold for $1.03 million

7) forsalebyowner.com sold for $835,000
8) drugs.com sold for $825,000

9) cinema.com sold for $700,000

10) art.com sold for $450,000

11) engineering.org sold for $199,000

12) fruits.com sold for $160,000

13) perfect.com sold for $94,000

However, while some of these domain names may have been sold for millions, corporate buyers backed by large bank accounts are not alone in the domain name game. Even entrepreneurs are making a great living in purchasing and selling their own domains.

Not a day goes by, that a domain name sells for as less as $100 or as much as $1 million on public auction sites. For example, eBay.com recently featured actual bids for as little as $500 for “golegs.com” to as much as $20,000 for “arlington.com” — and thousands more drifting anywhere in between.

Some people seem to know where to get these “nuggets of gold.” In fact, a small handful know about an untapped goldmine that lies discreetly tucked away in the dark corners of the vast Internet. And the awareness of this source has helped these “lucky” individuals earn either outrageous fortunes or monstrous levels of traffic for their website.

The goldmine to which I’m referring is the pool of recently expired domain names. While only a few knows it exists, regardless it is expanding with every passing day. There are literally tens of thousands of unclaimed, non-renewed and expired domain names that become available on a daily basis.

An expired domain name is one that was registered previously but was not paid for in time for the renewal date, thus returning it to the listing of available domains. There are many probable reasons for non-renewal (e.g., forgetful owner, no more interest in site, no longer in business, no longer active or didn’t pay for whatever reason).

However, you may be asking, “Sure, but I’m never going to find good domain names before some other person snatches them up.” For a long time, being “lucky” also meant being alert for the numerous domains that become available, and being quick in registering them before anyone else does.

New tools are becoming available, making the process of searching, finding and registering great domain names much easier. In fact, some of them assist you to become aware of the near expiring domains, giving you an advantage over your competitors that permits you to grab names seconds after they’ve been dropped.

Nevertheless, a compelling domain name can help an online business become more visible, credible and accessible. And it will help someone earn a rather large fortune. While in the past, finding one was very prohibitive, with the help of tools that are now at your disposal, you now can be a part of the gold rush, too.

Want to find out more about Domain Names, then visit domain-names.nu on how to Purchase Domain Name for your needs.

Sidestep Forfeiting Your Web Hosting For Websites

March 1st, 2010

Web hosting is a necessary component of any website. Without proper hosting then the website will be completely unavailable. Most people know this, but beginners usually don’t. Web hosting comes in many different forms and from many different companies. Losing your hosting plan can be extremely bad for traffic and money earning potential.

Before committing to any hosting plan you should be extra careful when reading the terms of service and privacy policies. If you break those rules set in place by the company, you are at high risk for having your service terminated. This can be potentially dangerous if you run a business or have already built up a strong website. Do yourself a favor, and read the terms of service to avoid being canceled on.

Another thing to consider is your pricing. If you know you cannot afford a certain plan each month or year, find a different service or get coupon codes. Price is the second most common problem for webmasters that lose their hosting plans.

If the hosting company has an auto-renew set up then you should also be prepared to have your credit card information up to date at all times. This is extremely important. Without the up to date information you risk your monthly renewal, or yearly renewal, expiring on you. Most companies try to contact you through all contact sources, which is why you should always be sure that you are up to date.

Advanced purchases can be hugely beneficial if you can afford them. These will ensure that you at least have hosting for a number of months without running into financial problems or other things that would make you unable to pay. Paying for many months of hosting in advanced isn’t recommended, but a few months at a time can keep you safely hosted.

The most important thing for webmasters with multiple large websites is to have back up hosting. This hosting will kick in when and if your other hosting fails on you. This can prevent information loss and database loss, so always have a back up plan to prevent issues with your websites in the future.

In Conclusion

Web Hosting is affordable, but if you lose your hosting without warning you could easily lose plenty of traffic and valuable posts stored on your sites. Be sure you are protected from those mistakes and that your website will stand strong even if something goes wrong.

Learn more on website hosting and email hosting.

Looking Through Windows Virtual Private Servers? Use These Tips

October 31st, 2009

It’s important when you’re in business that you get the best and that means you need Windows Virtual Private Servers when you work on the Internet. Here’s where you’ll get all the functionality of a dedicated server at any a portion of the cost. These VPS Web hosting applications are the great at providing the isolation that you need so that you can get on with the business at hand.

So the question remains. How does the savvy Internet based business go about getting one of these Window Virtual Private Servers? What are the things that the average business owner needs to look for so that they can be sure of getting the Windows VPS hosting they need?

Here’s a quick checklist that can help you in your search.

Start with reputation. Remember that the windows VPS professionals that you’ll want to get in touch with should have a great track record of past satisfied customers. You should be able to see enough of their testimonials on the firm’s website to make a solid decision. If you can’t find any of these on the site, a search of the company name can offer up some information.

Look at the features they have to offer. Remember that it’s nice to have options no matter what kind of application you’re looking at. When you see a Windows VPS service that has things like an outstanding control panel to offer, you know that you’re dealing with an affiliate that is serious about getting and keeping your business.

Make sure they have a great customer service department as well. These are important not just if things go wrong, but if you’ve got questions. Most businesses and consumers alike will tell you that it’s great to hear a person’s voice at the other end of the line.

Make sure they have other tools as well. You need to be able to grow your business and that means that you need to find a VPS web hosting environment that can grow with you by offering expanding resources.

When you run an Internet bases business, it’s often a great idea to get all the best in innovation. That means that you need to get the Windows VPS hosting that streamlines you operation while making sure that all of your mission critical data is safe.

Vince Patrick is an expert when it comes to Windows Virtual Private Servers. He knows all about getting the best in VPS Web Hosting as a solution.

Choose Windows Web Hosting For Your Business

October 27th, 2009

If you will be starting your own business, it will be very beneficial if you will be posting a website for it. This will not only be a good promotional venue but also something that will help you have a medium of communication with your clients. With this, it would be better for you to find a windows hosting service that will host your website.

You will see a number of hosting services online but nothing will beat the benefits that Windows web hosting services can do for a business. The major reason for this is that it is supported by Microsoft so you will not have any problems in terms of reliability.

The huge number of effective softwares today was made by Microsoft. With that fact, you can be assured that all the needed applications for your website creation will run perfectly well with a windows host.

Along with its high sense of compatibility with any other kind of hosts but still the service that windows hosting serves will secure your server from any possible threat of system crash. Just bear in mind that updates play an essential role in keeping your website to run smoothly at its peak.

Also, Microsoft is known in being meticulous in terms of security. Because of this, you can be assured that your website and its server will be free from threat of being hacked or invaded by a malware.

By searching the internet, you can certainly find a number of Windows web hosting providers. And since your are already looking at the internet, you can browse on them and compare their prices to get the best service online with the best value that you can afford.

But of course it is very much essential that you look for the windows hosting service that offers reliable and round the clock customer service. With this, you can be sure to get a resolution for any of your website and troubleshooting queries for your site. You might find this helpful in fixing a few programs or do some updating.

Keep in mind that the key for you in getting the best windows web hosting service is by searching on the internet and comparing them. By doing this, you will certainly find the provider that will be able to give you the things that you need in terms of hosting the website.

Windows host is quickly becoming a popular choice for organizations and individuals who need webhosting packages. To learn more about Windows hosting, come see our site today!

Search Engine Optimization is Essential for Online Success

October 6th, 2009

If you want to achieve online success, your business website needs to be search engine optimized. This is the key to getting your website listed on the search engine results pages-and the key to being successful online. Without SEO, your website won’t be recognized well by the spiders or achieve high algorithms and you won’t get the traffic you need to succeed.

Free traffic is by far the best, and if you are unsure how to use pay per click advertising such as Google Adwords properly, it could cost you a lot of money to correct inadequacies in your SEO. Only 1% of those that start in internet marketing actually make any money: largely because they do not know how to promote their website.

Of course, this isn’t the only reason those businesses fail-and every business does not necessarily need a website-but if you do have a website, then you definitely want to study SEO to be sure you can get the highest position that you can when someone searches for keywords applicable to your business.

Essentially, SEO is the way you tell the search engines what your site is all about. It is a complex combination of things and includes using relevant keywords that match the content on your pages. Ideally, these keywords will also be words that are searched for in the search engines frequently.

While well written content and a good looking website are very important, these factors alone are not what get you listings on Google and other search engines-and, of course, that is the key to getting free targeted traffic to your site. What will get you a high ranking on Google and similar search engines is successfully manipulating the algorithms of those search engines so that your key words achieve a high degree of relevance.

An algorithm is basically a fancy formula used to calculate relevancy. Algorithms don’t consider web design or graphics. Rather, they look solely at your site’s source code and the text on each page, granting a higher relevance to the text that appears in certain places, such as headings. In this way it determines if your web page content is truly relevant to the search terms.

Spiders crawl the websites on the Internet, and you want to lead them to where you want them. When the spiders crawl your site, here is where website design and layout and especially the linking structure and navigation within your site come into play. SEO here looks at the more complete picture, not just heading tags and meta tag keywords.

Unfortunately, most people don’t really understand how to optimize their websites or what SEO really is. If they did, they might be more inclined to take action. Effective SEO can really make a difference between the online businesses that succeed and those that don’t.

However, there is more to search engine optimization that simply reading about it. You have to see it in action, and fully understand what you are doing when optimizing your website.

Some web developers and other still think having a two to three percent keyword density on each page is the ideal. Unfortunately, they are behind the times. Search engines are smarter these days, and they’re looking for contextual relevance-not just repetition of words and phrases for the sake of including them. Keyword density is no longer the main goal.

The search engines have changed the way they rank sites. As a result, good SEO must also change. SEO is only effective when it gets results. And the desired result is to match your website with the components and relevant measures the search engines are currently measuring and factoring into their rankings.

SEO search engine optimization wil make all the difference to the success of your site, and likely even that of your business. Don’t just read about it: see it in action and understand it.

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Free Web Hosting and the Online World

October 3rd, 2009

While the devil is in the details as the old saying goes, every Internet business developer knows that web hosting, a domain name, and web traffic are essential for online business.

Fortunately, these days quality we hosting and domain name registration are available at very reasonable cost. While it is extremely important to chose a web hosting firm that will be around for the long haul and that offers web hosting services that are very close to 100% reliable, it is no longer necessary to pay big bucks each month for quality service.

There are quite a number of firms that offer shared server accounts that offer unlimited hosting accounts for as little as $10 a month. That is a tremendous savings over the rates of a few years ago where you would have expected to pay around $25 a month per domain.

This is not stripped down service either. For your $10 a month you get full featured and easy to use control panels that even a compete novice will quickly learn to use.

There is another happy story when it comes to domain names. A little searching on the Internet will turn up a good number of domain registration firms that sale domain names for as little as $5.00 to $10.00 a year. When looking to purchase a domain name one should consider the ease of use of the management console.

If at all in doubt purchase just one name to get started and check out the back office before purchasing another. Some firms have much better organized management tools compared to others so a little caution can save you time and trouble later on.

Traffic is the third and probably most misunderstood essential. The quality of traffic can very tremendously. Your traffic must be quality traffic comprised of folks that are actually looking for whatever it is that you are marketing. Traffic that comes from traffic exchanges, or traffic brokers is usually not quality traffic.

Traffic that is generated by “freebies” and incentives is not usually going to be quality traffic. A lot of traffic and no sales is an extremely frustrating and losing proposition.

Quality traffic comes from having good information on your web pages. Content is truly KING but it must be content that offers useful information to those who visit your web pages. If you have quality on topic information and use on topic key words wisely within your content traffic will develop.

However, you must be prepared for a long term effort to develop a successful web business. It takes time for the search engines to index your important pages and you must always be working to improve your content and pages. Search engines do not favor “dead” web pages so fresh content is important.

There really is no such thing as legal fast money on the Internet. You must have quality web hosting, your own domain name, quality traffic, and original content to make a go of it. Again, I stress that quality traffic means a flow of folks who have an interest in your products and/or services, not just a traffic count that may be high but is composed of only causal surfers looking for freebies.

A relatively small number of folks who will purchase your items provided your website makes a clear presentation as to why you offer a solution to their problem, and who trust your site to be an honest one, is far more likely to produce a successful business than if you bring loads of not targeted traffic to your web site.

You can generate such traffic by using PPC advertising and by having quality content on your website.

Making a good living from an online business is not easy as some less than honest Internet “experts” proclaim but developing a niche market and serving that market well can be very profitable and worth the effort.

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Why You Need Business Web Hosting

September 18th, 2009

One of the main modes of promotion today is done through the internet. You can see websites opening daily in order to promote their products or just attract people to read on their websites and be possible contacts. And these website promotions are very much possible with web hosting.

You might be wondering about the term web hosting. This is described as service and server being given to clients. These are going to be their online business’ website place where the files needed for it will be kept. If you notice, providers for this type of services are also increasing in order to match the growing needs of clients.

Usually, the service and help of an IT expert is taken to manage the account of the business. These professional people can be hired separately or sometimes the web hosting service company itself has this included in their package.

However, you should not settle for anything else in choosing the web hosting services. You have to make sure that their servers are very secured. In this way, you can control the people who have access to your account and prevent your website from being affected by a virus.

If you are not going to get a professional in terms of information technology, better choose business web hosting services that have a very easy to use control panel for you to handle. In this way, you are not going to be stressed by maintaining your website at the same time cutting down on IT professional’s fee.

The next factor that you need to count in this service is its reliability. You will notice many newly established websites that are already down after several days. You have to make sure that your website is always up or else you will lose your important clients since they cannot communicate with you through the site.

If you are worried about the cost, you can easily log online and check for the best possible price that you can afford. There are a number of companies offering this service that can give you different prices and services.

To acquire a reliable web hosting service means possessing an effective tool for businesses to become well promoted in the Internet world. Take the time to surf the Internet and search for the best companies there to help you with your site. You can surely find something that will be worth your investment.

Business web hosting is a huge factor in determining the success of your online business. That is why it is very important that you locate the top web hosting company that fits your wants and needs.

Beware of the Unlimited Bandwidth Web Hosting Providers

August 17th, 2009

If you have a website, one of the most important things you need to know about is bandwidth. Basically, bandwidth is the amount of data you can transfer at one time.

The less bandwidth there is, the slower the pages take to load, regardless of the amount of visitors to the site. With more visitors, each visitor is going to have to wait his or her turn if you don’t have enough bandwidth to accommodate everyone. When selecting a hosting plan, you have to consider the bandwidth you will need.

Be careful when someone claims they provide unlimited bandwidth or monthly transfer. Anyone claiming unlimited bandwidth is simply lying. There’s no such thing as Unlimited Bandwidth.

I have not seen the option of unlimited megabytes per second. There are various web hosting companies which don’t have access lines of its own but even then promises clients that unlimited bandwidth can be provided, how is it possible?

With high bandwidth site that have unlimited plans, most of the time they will be disconnected. When they are disconnected, no refunds are given. Typically, the web hosting company states that the website has violated the acceptable use policy or else their terms of service.

When researching what source you will use to serve your website always read the terms of service for any hidden policies. More information about the so-called Unlimited disclaimer can be found in the fine text.

When getting started, monitor your usage for the first three to four months to get a good estimation on how much time you would need from your web hosting service. These factors must be considered while estimating. How many users will access your web site? How many pages to be access? How big are the graphic and HTML files?

More bandwidth will be needed when you download large multimedia, computer programs, and files. One bandwidth concern is using Flash on your website, as it consumes a lot of it. Virtual reality, as well as full length 3D presentations, will require a greater bandwidth than other things.

It’s not precise, but it still will give you something to work with till your site’s been online for some time and real traffic stats are generated. Do not go for the trap that the companies try to get you into with the unlimited bandwidth.

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