Affordable Shared Hosting

Cheap web hosting for beginners

ASH Blogger — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:45:04 +0000

The online website real estate has increased teremendously in the modern day. Web sites exists on virtually any topic imaginable, and the requirement to start up a site is not having a lot of money. If you are looking to start up a personal or business website, you can really afford it now with the many cheap web hosting providers offering their services. Many may wonder if a cheap provider can give you what you need, and in this very competitive industry you definately can get what you need and then some.

Many of these providers give package deals which sometimes include a free domain name. The domain being given extra for free with their hosting packages let’s them promote their service as a cheap domain hosting service. For anyone starting out to create their own site (personal or business), this is a great deal. You will not find a free domain name with all providers, as some will choose to offer you a lesser price on the domain purchase, sometimes as low as two dollars. The thing to watch out with the ones giving the free domain name, are that they may discontinue to renew your domain if you do not renew the hosting with them, and this could lead to potential problems.

Within the hosting packages itself, even the ones providing affordable web hosting will offer bandwidth and disk space numbers that will be far greater than the average customer will need. It then only comes to what type of language you need to support. Depending on the applications you intend on hosting and the language they are written in, you will decide if PHP or ASP is the proper language you need. If you are simply looking to host static HTML files with no database or programming behind them, then you may opt for the cheaper Linux shared hosting package.

Upon making your final selection, you will want to pick hosting that exceeds your bandwidth and disk space requirements, and supports running the files you plan to use. Since most providers with cheap hosting solutions can accomodate this, you would only need to purchase the higher costing solutions for special configurations.

Jim’s Three Essentials to Domain Name Address Registration

ASH Blogger — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:44:31 +0000

When it comes to building a business in the online world, you will definately come into branding questions and your primary way to get yourself branded online is through domain name registration. What this does is gives you a name online that your potential customers will remember when wanting to visit your site. Google.com is probably the most famous domain name you will know of today. When you decide to get your domain name, you will want to know three things about the whole process.

Spelling of your Domain Name

Ensuring you spell your domain name correctly avoids frustration of paying for something you did not want. Customers sometimes register it quickly and overlook checking this simple fact. Then when they get their web designer to set it up, the web developer will find out that they do not own the domain they think they own. A short window does normally exist where you can actually return the domain name if this happens, so catching it early is key.

Registration of Multiple Top Level Domains

When it comes to domains, you will be able to find multiple TLD’s (or top level domains). Everyone knows that the .com is the main extension every average person knows about and this is what they are after. The .net or .org domains are hardly registered in addition to ones such as .ca or .us, which are country code specific. Company branding and branding all variations of your domain name is the reason you want to register multiple top level domains. If anyone forgets your website and by mistake puts a different domain name extension, it will still redirect to your site (provided you make the correct setup). Doing this will also prevent cybersquatters using your name for their gain.

Enter in Valid Contact Information

ICANN regulates domain names and requires you to enter in valid information when signing up for a domain name. You put yourself at risk of losing the domain name if you do not. No one wants to risk losing the domain name that identifies their company online, and their really is no reason to put invalid information here.

Follow these simple ideas when you go ahead with buying cheap domains and your start to branding your business online will have a great start.

Website checklist for beginners

ASH Blogger — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:59:07 +0000

There are some main ingredients and some optional parts to getting a website up and running. In this article, we will discuss the essentials you need to at least be viewable on the internet. Main components are having a domain name and web hosting for your files, the actual physical files like HTML, that make up the design of the page and the option to secure your content against non encrypted attacks. Let’s take a look.

Registering a Domain Name

When starting up your website, you need a domain name to help people remember how to get to your site. A memorable domain name is something like google.com, which everyone knows. Upon getting your initial site up and running, you could choose the route of a cheap domain name provider to help start your web business. Their features are quite similar to the bigger companies, if not the same, and are a great cost effective solution.

Web Site Hosting

Your web site files need to be stored online for people to get them. If you have an image, a PDF file or flash presentation, for others to see it, there has to be a location always ready to show those files. This is where you can look for a cheap domain hosting provider to help you. For a relatively inexpensive price of less than five to ten dollars a month you can get your web files hosted for others to see.

Web Site Design

Your web site will be designed with a variety of HTML files, Images, Videos, Flash and PDF files. A web developer can create this for you or you will do it yourself. The better the skills of the person doing it, the better your site will look like.Web hosting sitebuilders or Dreamweaver may be used to get your site up and running quickly. Again, quality is directly in relation to the tools used and skill level of the person doing it.

Secured Hosting Service (Optional)

Having your hosting secured is an optional practice for most sites as there is usually just static data. For those sites, that are collecting more precious information, especially credit card data, will want to buy ssl certificate to protect their users data. With collecting any credit card info or sensitive data, you must use a web certificate to make your site change from http to https. The transformation to an https site is what makes the site use the certificate to encrypt the transmitted data, so it is kept away from prying eyes. For these sites, you definately need it, but not for regular information web sites or blogs.

The three requirements have been listed that you need, with the fourth optional secure option. Once you have decided on that, you can further dwelve into finding other web site solutions including a possible content management system you may want to use.

The differences between a Managed and Unmanaged Server

ASH Blogger — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:07:32 +0000

Virtual Private Server hosting in simple terms is the process of a web server designed to operate as a server that hosts your web site files. The server loads up the web site contents to all people accessing your domain name, if set up as a web site server. Different server hosting plans exist, and they range from shared hosting servers to semi-dedicated and dedicated servers. Dedicated servers come in two choices: managed and unmanaged server hosting.

Managed Virtual Private Servers

Managed Web Hosting Servers come assisted by the service provider. As with all virtual dedicated servers, you are given administrative access, however a managed dedicated server has the added benefit of the Operating system security patches being installed onto your server. This ensures all patches are installed in a timely manner. The managed services will also handle initial web server setup, security scans for viruses, and emergency services. If you are unfamiliar with servers and how to apply patches and troubleshoot problems like memory useage, then this choice is for you. When looking for these hosting servers, they may also also be called an assisted service plan.

Unmanaged Dedicated Server Hosting

Unlike the dedicated servers where everything is managed for you, these are completely controlled by you. If you have an issue with your server, you will need to troubleshoot. Many dedicated server service providers do still provide support with unmanaged dedicated hosting. Support is required for hardware failures and other network problems within the data centre. After all, you can connect to the server, but you do not have physical access to the server, so you are unable to fix hardware failures.

The purchaser’s knowledge of server configuration will help pick if a managed or unmanaged dedicated server solution is required. Many dedicated hosting plans exist with different price points, but knowing if its managed dedicated server hosting or an unmanaged dedicated server will assist you in determining if the price warrants the service being provided to you. As with all purchases made, the higher the price directly relates to the value of the server purchased, but not always.

Even affordable web hosts offer addon domain hosting

ASH Blogger — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:45:46 +0000

As long as the hosting business has existed, they started with the ability to have only one site hosted per account. As technology has improved as well as structures, a shift has been seen in the offerings from those allowing you topurchase web hosting. They are now offering packages which include a set number of addon domains, and some allow unlimited add on domains. A wise choice is to still not host too many domains within the same account, however anyone looking to host a small network of sites can save big money doing it this way.

An add on domain is as the name implies added on to your existing hosting account. A main domain will always be hosted for the account, and then normally within a subfolder on that account, your addon domain will be hosted. So when you connect via ftp the first folder you see will be for maindomain.com files. You will then create a subfolder or the hosting will create the subfolder for you (typically related to the domain), such as addondomain.com folder, will have your second domain names files. Now if you type maindomain.com, you will see it as its own site, and the same for addondomain.com. Your visitor will not know it is hosted on the same hosting as it will appear separately hosted.

Affordable low cost web hosting solutions are popping up everywhere, and typically their medium based packages will offer the add on domain in the package. Every provider is different and make sure to double check their features listed. Once you find the provider you want to go with, you then rinse and repeat with as many domains as the provider will allow you to add on. You do have to remember not to delete these subfolders or your site will stop working, and it may get messy with too many subfolders for addon domains.

Now that you are able to host multiple domains within one account, enjoy your savings.