Web Hosting – All You Need To Know

The internet has become an information backbone in our age, but computers led to growth of the internet since it enabled transmission of information from one point to another. However with the entry of sophisticated phones into the market, it led to the creation of mobile webs which allowed these devices to also access the web. Currently in the world there are more than 5 billion mobile subscribers with most of these subscribers having internet browsing capabilities. Thus website designers have to put in mind the mobile users who have smaller screen size compared to computer users. When websites are not mobile web friendly websites the content is degraded when viewed in a mobile device. Therefore businesses should always consider to have a mobile friendly websites so that they can reach a larger number of potential clients without degrading the content and information.

Information degradation also happens because most mobile web browsers will always try to access and display content from your site whether they are mobile friendly websites or not. Most search engines have an option of choosing results to show only mobile websites when using a mobile browser. The result would be ranked according to their being mobile friendly websites which come first . Being among mobile friendly websites would improve your chances to be on the results when search is done either on the computer or a mobile device. Most websites which offer money transfer services and the bigger players in the internet businesses are on the forefront of advocating the use of mobile friendly websites. This is seen by their use of mobile friendly website in addition to computer friendly website.

While most mobile developers may argue that creating an app may be easier for a mobile device, it should be noted that the apps cannot be used on two different platforms unless the developer creates two different apps. Mobile friendly websites may solve this problem especially for businesses that do require minimal functionality on their websites. The mobile friendly websites can be used on any device that has a web browser. With the current internet speed available on mobile devices especially on smart phones it enables mobile users to view a great variety of content from their mobile phones. This include live music and video streaming therefore advertising campaigns can be carried out from your mobile friendly website which can have audio and visual content. While it may seem complicated to make your website mobile friendly its easy and can be done by a professional mobile website designer or by you. This is due to the large number of tools available on the internet for converting websites to mobile friendly websites. These tools include WPtouch, MoFuse, Mipping Mobilizer, Mobify, Wirenode, Wptap, mobiSiteGalore, WordPress Mobile Pack, Zinadoo, Winksite, MobilePress just to mention a few. These tools can be found online, some for free and some at a small fee.

With this in mind and the large number of smart phones being sold the world over businesses should consider having mobile friendly websites. This applies to both large and small businesses which want to cover a wider market and have a large advertising platform. For more information on mobile friendly websites why not visit the link in this article.

When buying hosting for your web site or blog you want to be certain that it will be reliable and will enable you to provide a good user experience for your visitors.

So what exactly should you be looking for in reliable web hosting? Well the following should be considered:

Loading Speed – Your visitors will want your pages to load as fast as possible. If they are slow visitors may give up and look elsewhere, or if they do wait they are less likely to return in the future. As far as ranking on Google is concerned slow loading is a negative factor because they want their users to be happy.

This should not be a problem with the major hosting companies but with very cheap or free services it is more likely, as overloading a server is a way of keeping costs down.

It is also worth considering the location of the web server and the location of your target audience. Ideally they should be geographically close, as pages will load a bit slower for users on the other side of the world from the server.

Uptime – No host will guarantee 100% uptime (at least not on an entry level package) but downtime should be limited. If people try to find your site and get an error message they will probably not try again. You should look for an uptime guarantee in excess of 99.9% with some financial penalty if this is not met. Clearly with free hosting this is not possible.

Resources Available – Some packages have a fixed limit on resources like disk space and bandwidth and others are sold on an “unlimited” basis. You do not want your URL to display a message saying that the site is unavailable because you have exceeded your bandwidth allowance. This should not be a problem if dealing directly with any of the major hosting companies, as limits are set they are well above those a new site is likely to need. However, if dealing with a reseller, be careful about bandwidth limits.

Support – Most users of hosting require help at some point. If the problem is urgent you want assistance immediately, particularly if the problem relates to the availability of your site. The major hosting companies will have 24/7 technical support by phone, chat or email but resellers and free services usually offer much more limited support.

Some hosting companies are now partnered with CloudFlare which makes it easy to serve you site via their network. This speeds up loading for users distant from the server, improves security and takes a load off the web server. For full information on this see “Use CloudFlare To Significantly Improve Site Security and Page Speed”.

If you are new to hosting I would definitely recommend that you sign-up with one of the major hosting companies which will provide the reliability and support that you need.

Our current recommendation is HostGator.

If you want to set-up and control your own blog you will need a blog hosting service. Of course you will not find this specifically, so you need a web hosting service that is user friendly for the type of blog you want.

Before signing up with such a service you might just consider if a free blog on one of the big blogging sites like Google’s Blogger or WordPress.com would meet your needs. These allow you to quickly create a blog but you do not have the flexibility that comes with hosting your own. Read the rest of this entry »

To set-up, control and run your own website or blog you need webhosting so that you can load the site on to a web server with a good internet connection. It is technically possible to run your own web server but there are a number of difficulties which make this impractical for most people (for more information look at Home Hosting). The best way to go is to sign up with a company providing webhosting services.

So What is a Webhosting Service?
A Webhosting service means the provision of a web server with a high speed internet connection on to which you can load your site. To do this you connect to the web server via an FTP client and transfer files as necessary. The hosting provider deals with all maintenance of the server and its connectivity so you don’t have to worry about anything other than maintaining your site.

Most hosts offer tools to help you build a site easily but you need to aware that these often lock you in because you cannot easily transfer the site to another host. Most also offer easy installation and set-up of third party tools like WordPress (if you are setting up your first website you are recommended to use WordPress). Read the rest of this entry »

If you are new to web hosting you may be confused by the types of website hosting services available and the numerous suppliers to choose from.

To keep it as simple as possible, for most people a basic shared hosting Linux package is what you need. Shared hosting means that many user’s web sites are hosted on a single server. There are disadvantages to this but it has the overwhelming advantage of providing website hosting services at a very low price.

Unless you confidently expect your site to become very busy very quickly shared hosting is the best way to start. You can always upgrade later if necessary. The exception might be if you are setting up an eCommerce site (i.e. selling things) when you might think the better security provided by VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting is worthwhile. Read the rest of this entry »

If, for whatever reason, you decide that you need to change your Website Hosting Provider you need to plan the exercise carefully. There are three basic scenarios:

If you are starting an online business it is essential that you sign up with a top web hosting service.

By using a well established and reliable provider you should have few problems and will be able to offer a good service to your customers through your website always being available and loading quickly. Google are now taking loading speed into account when generating their search results so if you will be aiming for a good search engine ranking, top web hosting is even more important.

Forget about free hosting, you will have to pay for top web hosting to get the standard of service you will need. There are quite a few top web hosting providers which fit the bill (and many more that don’t) and by searching the web it is easy to find sites listing their 10 top web hosting providers (or similar).   However, this can still be confusing because there is no consistency about which providers are considered best and reviews usually empathize certain features of each package, making a detailed comparison difficult.

To get through this and choose the best top web hosting provider for you it is necessary to be clear about what you want: Read the rest of this entry »

If you are setting up your own website or blog you will need to sign-up with one of the many web hosting services (if you are in a hurry, our recommendation at present is HostGator)

This will give you space on a web server, with a fast internet link, where you can host your site. There are number of types of web hosting services available and for more information on these see our post on web hosting.

Before signing up with one of the web hosting services you should do some research on domain names. Most web hosting services will register a domain name for you but you need to understand: Read the rest of this entry »

Whilst looking at customer feedback on web hosts, I have read many web hosting comments.

Given the number of customers hosting companies have I think it is safe to say that most people are happy with their web hosts. However that are still many negative web hosting comments and I think that many of these are caused by unrealistic expectations and failing to read the terms and conditions.

If you go for free hosting you have to take the service as delivered. If you buy from a reseller you may get a good deal but be aware that support may be an issue (a small reseller cannot practically provide 24/7 support).

I would recommend going for one of the top hosting companies but even here there is a limit to what you can expect for $5 per month. You should certainly expect your site to load quickly and to see little downtime whilst support is available 24/7 in case of problems. However web hosting comments indicate that the following are areas which generate complaints: Read the rest of this entry »

This video runs through the process of changing website hosting provider and is based on the scenario where the domain name is registered with a third party (i.e. not with the old website host). In this scenario it is surpringly easy to change website hosting provider without any user, or the search engines, noticing any difference.