Web Hosting – Webmaster Tips

The step-by-step guide to choosing the best web hosting provider

May 18, 2023June 19, 2021 by Webmaster Tips

How do you choose the best web hosting provider? Do issues of price, bandwidth, server upgrades and disc storage matter nowadays? In this article, we have outlined things you must look for when deciding if a web host provider is good or not. We have divided this article into easy to understand checklist.

Step 1: Understanding Your Site Hosting Needs

Before choosing a web host, you must ask yourself what kind of services you need from a web host. You must know the kind of website you are building, determine if you need window application or a special version of the software and how much traffic you are targeting. If you are a newbie, the general rule of thumb is to start small with a good shared hosting account because it is easy to maintain, affordable and sufficient for new sites. You can also upgrade to dedicated hosting or VPS at the later stage.

Step 2: Consider Sign-Up Fees, Renewal Prices and Refund Policy

Some web hosts offer attractive hosting packages when signing up with them but charge higher renewal fees. You should avoid enticing package sign up prices and consider the entire picture of costs associated with that web host. Unless you want to switch to another hosting company after a year, which is unlikely, you should try as much as possible to avoid companies that charge higher renewal fees.

Another thing to consider under price is the refund policy. A good hosting company should live up to its promises. If you sign up with them as a trial user and decide to cancel your subscription, a good company should return your money in full. Always check if that company is charging any cancellation fee. If yes, how much are they charging?

Step 3: Hosting Control Panel

You should choose a web hosting company with an easy to use and functional hosting control panel. It doesn’t matter whether it is a Plesk or cPanel control panel, the one you choose must come with all functions and be user-friendly. Without an easy to use control panel, you will be left with no choice but to seek help whenever you are performing even a simple server change.

Which Web Hosting Providers make it Easiest to Transfer a Website?

May 18, 2023March 3, 2020 by Webmaster Tips

If you are running a website—a small, personal or a larger business site—a time may come when you want to move to a new host, and you may need a good guide to transfer a website. It is possible that your site has outgrown the current hosting plan you have. You have probably been disappointed by the support or service you are receiving from your hosting provider. You could even simply want to move as you have found a better price deal.

Finding a Good New Website Host

On any single day, website owners in their thousands are transferring websites from one hosting provider to a different one for a variety of reasons. For a website owner, this is usually a very daunting undertaking to go through. The first step towards transferring a website would be finding a suitable web hosting company.

Today, there are endless hosting providers you can select from. You will, however, need to be extremely alert as you select because you certainly will not want to keep on hopping from one platform to the next one so frequently.

There are huge, big and established hosting companies that are going to show up whenever you carry out a Google search—certainly, you’ve come across names such GreenGeeks, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, BlueHost, Web Hosting Hub and Hostgator, just to give a few examples. Besides these leaders, there are smaller companies in the thousands, ranging from the extremely cheap to some which are fairly expensive.

5 Things to Consider when Choosing a Drupal Web Hosting Company

May 17, 2023December 28, 2017 by Webmaster Tips

Deciding to use Drupal as your CMS of choice is a great decision. It’s open source, extremely customizable, and search engines like it. Now you have to find a Drupal web hosting company to fit your needs. Here are five things to consider when choosing a Drupal web host.

1. Does the Web Host Have Proper Support for a Drupal Installation?

In this case, “support” represents two different things. The first thing is the platform. Make sure that the web hosting account you choose has the actual equipment and software to support a Drupal installation. Drupal requires the following:

• An Apache, Nginx, or Microsoft IIS web server

• At least 15 megabytes of disk space

• PHP support

• MySQL or other database support

The more recent the version of Drupal, the more recent the versions of PHP and database software you require. In most cases, if the web host offers Drupal, then it likely meets the requirements.

I would check which versions the web host offers, and match it against the requirements from the official Drupal site to be sure. Even better, you can look for hosts that fine-tune the database and PHP settings specifically for Drupal.

The second kind of support you are looking for is tech support. If something goes wrong with your Drupal installation or if there are any problems, you want a host that can actually help you. Just because a web host offers Drupal, it does not mean it can help you troubleshoot Drupal related issues.

There is a lot of documentation online, but sometimes it’s far easier, and quicker, to just speak with your web host and see if they have a solution for you. So make sure the host you choose has a knowledgeable team.

How you can sell web hosting as a value added service to your design clients

May 17, 2023June 30, 2017 by Webmaster Tips

With all of the new web design companies that are finding their way into the business these days, you need to have all cylinders on full blast if you are looking to build and maintain your own company in this modern web business landscape. One of the best options that many competitors do not offer is an option to host with the same company that is doing the design. This reseller hosting is a bit more difficult to implement, but well worth it when it comes to customers.

– How can I sell my reseller hosting options?

The first thing that you need to do is make it known to your audience how important web hosting is to their process. There is nothing wrong with placing a short video on your webpage about your distribution services. However, you must inform your audience of just how important these distribution services are in the first place.

Let them know just how difficult it is to achieve a consistent presence on the Interne and about all of the potholes they can expect with different options that are on the market currently. Detail exactly what you will offer in the form of hosting services, whether those services will be shared hosting, VPS hosting or dedicated server hosting. Explain the difference between these different types of hosts and also explained to your audience exactly how your service will be more stable than the competition.

– Make sure that your audience has all the information that they need to make an informed decision.

Many other web hosting platforms try to keep information and statistics out of the hands of their audience, preferring to make them purchase the service through ignorance. None of the people who are on a shared server will know how many other people are on it. These web hosts will not detail the security measures that they take to protect the data stream of their clients, nor will they explain how to get in touch with any customer service agent should anything go wrong.

What’s the Truth Behind Shared Website Hosting?

May 17, 2023December 12, 2016 by Webmaster Tips

Known as the most popular type of hosting by far, shared website hosting is used by about 95% of website owners. Even though this type of hosting is very popular, most people don’t really understand it.

Rarely will you hear the truth behind the phrases used with this type of hosting, such as “unlimited” and “affordable”. Before you make your hosting decision, it’s important to really understand what you are getting. Here’s the truth you need to know about shared website hosting.

What is Shared Web Hosting?

Shared hosting is a type of website hosting that places multiple websites on a very large server. They share the resources of this server in a “first come, first serve” way. With multiple websites on the same serve, hosting companies are able to offer very affordable rates, which makes shared hosting very economical.

Hosting servers can cost anywhere from around $150 per month all the way up to thousands of dollars a month. However, when you get shared hosting, you will pay between $5 and $11 per month with a good hosting company.

So, What’s the Catch?

We all know, when something sounds too good to be true, there’s usually a catch. The catch with most shared hosting companies comes with the marketing. They will claim to offer unlimited resources, such as bandwidth, disk space and domain hosting. However, there’s really no such thing as unlimited hosting since the limits are whatever the server can possibly provide.

Shared Hosting

May 17, 2023September 25, 2016 by Webmaster Tips

Shared hosting is perhaps the most common type of web hosting service used by everyday web owners and developers. As the name suggests, shared hosting offers affordable web hosting services by hosting hundreds – even thousands – of websites on a single, shared server.

Shared hosting services can come in different forms. Some service plans offer unlimited disk space and monthly bandwidth, while others may have limited resources that customers can use. Both types have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Shared hosting is suitable for all kinds of websites. Personal blogs, static websites and even a corporate site or an online store can be hosted using a shared hosting plan without problems. Most shared hosting plans are also capable of handling large amounts of traffic as long as you stay within the allocated monthly bandwidth quota.

Although shared hosting plans are very appealing and affordable, they do come with limitations. The server is used by multiple accounts, so the performance of your site may be affected by other websites operating on it. If another site is experiencing a spike in traffic, for example, your site can also be affected.

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting bridges the gap between shared hosting and dedicated servers. You get a set of server resources virtually allocated to your account, but the server is still shared between multiple VPS accounts. A huge advantage offered by Virtual Private Servers is the compartmentalisation of server resources; VPS accounts will not be affecting each other, even when they are hosted on the same server.

VPS hosting is slightly more expensive than shared hosting, but you get a substantial boost in site performance in return. You can also host more websites on a single account without having to worry about running out of bandwidth or the sites becoming slow under heavy traffic.