Web Hosting

Hosting Multiple eCommerce Domains

Running just one online business can be a hassle, as there are many administrative tasks that need to be dealt with on a daily basis. When you try to add several more businesses on top of that, things can become disorganized quickly and it is easy to get disheartened when things do not go your way in the beginning. Nonetheless, it would be foolish not to expand your business by diversifying your revenue streams with multiple websites. Therefore it is almost imperative to host multiple eCommerce domains if you are trying to steadily progress in the world of online business.

One Business vs Multiple Businesses

Of course, you could concentrate on building one business only, but just imagine how many opportunities you are letting go by taking this approach! Focusing on one business endeavor will never be as profitable as focusing on two, or three, and in the online business world, having a business means having a website for that business. While it is most definitely the the preferable course of action, hosting multiple eCommerce websites is not always an easy task, and there some things you’ll need to know to minimize the difficulties you’ll encounter.

Choosing a Hosting Plan

Perhaps the most important aspect of building and managing a website would be your hosting account. Your hosting account is what will show your site to the world, and it is also what lets you control every aspect of your site through an administrative interface in your control panel. Since your hosting account will come preloaded with many of the tools that will let you manage your site, you’ll need to know what these tools are, and you’ll need to know how to pick the best ones. One of the most important tools you’ll be using is the control panel, so make sure you choose an eCommerce hosting plan that includes a simple control panel like cPanel.

SSL Certificates

Another extremely important aspect of running several online websites, is the SSL certificate. SSL(Secure Socket Layer) protocol is a secure data transfer protocol that is used to ensure the confidentiality of data sent from one computer to another. The SSL certificate is posted on your site to let your customers know that their financial data is safe when shopping with you. Without this certificate you will lose the trust of many potential customers, as many of them will elsewhere thinking your site is not secure. If you’re going to have many eCommerce sites, often defined as more than ten, then you may want to consider purchasing a wild card SSL certificate which can be used on all of your websites.

Multiple Hosting Accounts

Keeping your site’s performance optimal is also very important, as many people will not shop on a site that has pages that are slow to load. This means you’ll need adequate server resources for each of your sites. Don’t be fooled by the hosting plans that claim to offer unlimited disk space and bandwidth, as this is often not the case. It may be wise to have multiple hosting accounts (one for each website), since you may be using plenty of server resources for each site.

Content Management Systems and Site Design

Content management systems are the root of the success behind almost all major websites. Without a good CMS most sites would cease to exist, as many site owners simply don’t have the skills necessary to design a site without the help of a friendly template-based user interface. With content management systems complete novices have been able to make incredible looking websites in just a few minutes time. In previous years this was not possible unless you had advanced site design skills. The secret behind the convenience of content management systems is the amount of themes that are readily available, which are complete designs that can be uploaded and activated instantly.

Theme Selection

There are a variety of content management systems available on the market today, including but not limited to WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. Since the popularity of each content management system varies, there are a different amount of themes available for each one. WordPress is by far the most popular out of all mainstream content management systems, so there are many more themes available for WordPress. You can find cheap and high quality themes for WordPress on sites like Theme Forest and Dream Templates, however there are also sites that offer WordPress themes for free.

Uploading the Theme

Once you’ve found a theme for your content management system you can easily upload it and activate it. In the WordPress interface this can be done within the “Themes” section of the Appearance module on the left side. Simply click on the “add new” button and then click the upload option. After uploading the theme you’ll be able to activate it, at which point it will become visible on your site. The best part about a WordPress theme is that it can be changed without the content of the site being deleted. Therefore, if you ever decide to change the design you can keep all of the pages, categories and articles that are currently on your site.

How Themes Work

Many people fail to understand how the design of an entire site can change without changing the content of the site. This is because the site’s content and the site’s design are kept in different MySQL databases. A theme is a basically a collection of HTML pages that are brought together using PHP, and the design of each HTML page is modified with CSS coding. The colors and placement of every element in the theme can be changed by simply editing a few snippets of code in the style.css sheet of each theme.

Conclusion

While most people are convinced that site design is reserved for those with web development experience, there are options available for people with no technical knowledge at all. WordPress provides a venue that novice webmasters can use to get a site setup and operating with no special skills or monetary investment. If you’ve been struggling to learn HTML just to put up the simplest site then you should know that all of your problems could be solved with a simple WordPress theme.

Hosting Providers Diversifying: NetGrey.com Takes the Lead

Web hosting providers are a dime a dozen. As a result they must differentiate their service from the various other providers available to consumers. Some take the cheap hosting route; others offer a diversity of features. ZNET Technologies is now adding PHP hosting to it’s repertoire of hosting products.

There’s a fast growing customer demand for open source technology and PHP hosting would continue to help those working in Linux and UNIX environments. PHP web hosting is a fairly new type of hosting service. It is one of the most widely-used scripting languages allowing users to easily create dynamic web pages and forms. Although the language was initially created for Linux hosting, it’s evolved to be compatible with most operating systems.

Due to the diversity and popularity of PHP hosting, ZNET Technologies has launched NetGrey.com. This site will be packed with features in an easy-to-use development environment while utilizing the most recent PHP language. This hosting is slated to become the leader in server open source scripting.

NetGrey.com will give users access to a variety of features including PHP modules, Pearl libraries and key applications. The PHP modules will cater to various PHP scripts and Pearl libraries will be available for use during web development.

Key applications will offer progressive technologies such as:

• PHP online forums
• PHP templating engines
• Blog/wiki script support
• Content management system support

With the addition of these features, websites have the tools to become a much more interactive experience for the user. NetGrey.com PHP hosting will feature support for such online boards as phpBB, vBulletin and Invision Board. Also PHP templating engines like SmartyPHP will be available.

ZNET Technologies has even added extensive blog/wiki script support for popular blogging software such as WordPress, Media Wiki and b2 Evolution. Finally, with the corroboration of content management systems such as, Joomla, Mambo and Drupal, more content can be stored for quick access.

The hosting plans will give the client many different options based on need. NetGrey.com does offer unlimited domain hosting, unlimited disk space, unlimited data transfer, free website builders and all sites will be e-commerce ready.

ZNET Technologies has taken the first step toward future web hosting services. By offering a diversity of products, ZNET will reach a wider customer base, beginning with open source software that will appeal to many customers. In the future, we may see further expansion of web hosting services by this organization.

How to Obtain a Free Web Domain

Although registering domain names is a cheap and easy process, many people simply don’t want to make an investment until they are sure they know what they are doing. Thus, the search for free domain names seems to be ever-present, and there are frequently new providers springing up that offer free web hosting and domain registration service. Unfortunately, many of these “free” service providers are far from free, and almost all of them have a monetary motive. However, there are ways to get websites, and even web hosting for free. The following information should help you get a free domain, or sub domain for free.

Free Sub Domains

Perhaps the easiest way to get your own domain is to register a free subdomain of a larger site such as WordPress.com or webs.com. These sites let you have a domain that is not only free, but also bears their reputable name. For example, a free sub domain at webs.com would look like – freesubdomain.web.com. There are also free hosting companies that offer sub domains like this as well, such as awardspace.com. These free subdomains will register as a real site with Google, and technically it is your domain.

Earning Domain Names

Another way that you can get access to a free domain name is through a rewards based system in which you fill out surveys in exchange for rewards points. There are sites that will let you fill out several surveys in exchange for a domain name. This works because the site that gives you the domain is not a registrar, but rather an affiliate marketer that earns a commission from every survey that you fill out. Thus, after you’ve filled out the survey the affiliate site then has enough to purchase you a domain as the middle man of the transaction. Nonetheless, it is a viable way to get a free domain name.

Using Web 2.0 To Get Free Domains

You can also use web 2.0 sites like blogger.com to get a free subdomains. Blogger.com will give you a blogpsot domain, that in fact will rank quite well in Google in many cases. For example, if you register your blog with blogger.com, your domain would appear as mybloggerdomain.blogspot.com. Since there are so many web 2.0 sites out there, it can be very easy to build a substantial network of web 2.0 properties in a relatively short period of time. Using these free domains you can create a network of sites used to funnel web traffic efficiently within targeted niches.

.Info Domains

Although .info domains are not free, they only cost around a dollar, and provide all of the advantages of a .com site without the higher cost. Surprisingly, many times .info domains can rank just as highly as their .com counterparts. If you purchase a .com domain with Godaddy you will receive a .info domain for free, so it is possible to get free .info domains. You can also get free domains from many web hosts, as many hosts include free domains with their plans.

A Review of the cPanel Preference Menu

The preference menu within the cPanel software interface is an area to change various settings allowing for further customization. This permits clients to view different features in a more comfortable environment.

When first entering the Preference Menu, there are two options:

• The Getting Started Wizard
• Other Features

The Getting Started Wizard presents a plethora of options which are the basic choices when first setting up a new account. These selections include:

• Language
• Introduction to Web Hosting
• Web Disk Accounts
• New Email Address Setup
• Set Default Address
• Webmail
• Contact Information and Preferences
• Style
• Manage SSH Keys

The Language area allows for clients to change the default language setting. The Introduction to Web Hosting section contains information to assist the client with creating directories, retrieving files and using the file manager, web disk and FTP accounts. Web Disk Accounts is an application that assists with the manipulation and management of the website’s files.

New Email Address Setup allows the client to create new email accounts. Set Default Address requires the client to set an email address that will receive mail sent to an invalid address. Webmail is an email client that permits the webmaster access to all email accounts through a browser.

The Contact Information and Preferences area lets the client setup their contact information. The Style section is another method of customization allowing the webmaster to choose from several cPanel styles that change the interface. Finally the Manage SSH Keys area simply generates SSH keys that confirm specific computers can access the website’s data through an SSH session.

The second option is the Other Features area. Within this selection are several sections including:

• Video Tutorials
• Change Password
• Update Contact Information
• Change Style
• Change Language
• Shortcuts
• Branding Editor

When clicking Video Tutorials, an area opens where the client can watch tutorials on three different categories: cPanel 11, Branding and Mail. The Change Password selection allows the webmaster to change their password. Update Style and Change Language are two customization areas that can also be accessed from the Getting Started Wizard.

The Shortcuts area is a method allowing the client to create quick shortcuts within the cPanel interface. Finally, the Branding Editor permits webmasters to create, edit and manage header and footer images within each theme to create website branding.

The cPanel Preference Menu offers many options for customization and improvement of the website and interface. These areas are helpful to both novice and veteran clients. Due to the numerous convenient functions, cPanel has become the most popular control panel available.

A List of Content Management System Goals

When maintaining large websites, intranets or e-commerce sites that have a good amount of media and content, its common practice to utilize the numerous features of a content management system. When running a business, content management systems should be shaped around the business needs and goals of the client.

On that note, there are a few basic business goals expected from a content management system that each company should add to their list. The following are a few of the most common goals:

• Increase flexibility of the website
• Support marketing
• Support sales
• Increase website audience
• Reduce customer support costs
• Improve knowledge sharing
• Improve staff efficiency

As websites expand by adding new products, services and business strategies, the website must also adapt to these changes. A content management system can easily support these website design and infrastructure changes including updates of any or all pages to support a new logo or symbol.

The internet has become a vital tool for marketing departments. It adds a new channel to target consumers. Content management systems can support current brands and their identity while delivering new marketing material. Content management systems can provide additional sales material to enhance website sales and reach more customers than ever before. These systems are also built to support the current website.

Content management systems will help a large audience access the website. With more users accessing the site, sales will likely increase. All customers will benefit from the website including those that do not speak English. Furthermore, since more accurate information will be presented to the users on the site, customer support costs will drastically decrease.

Knowledge sharing, such as direct staff communication and peer-to-peer sharing, can sometimes become difficult at many companies. The content management system can provide both the environment and resources to accomplish improved communications. This helps to streamline decisions and implement changes much more quickly.

Finally, staff efficiency will increase due to identified key business processes that add sufficient information. The system will provide the staff with the exact information they need, when required. Consequently, employees will save time by avoiding unproductive searches for information, in turn, decreasing costs.

Although there are many goals a business should set when decided to implement a content management system. These are the most important as they improve flexibility, increase marketing tactics and sales, increase traffic to the site, reduce costs, develop better communication and improve staff productivity.

Is Colocation Hosting Right For You?

Finding a reliable web hosting solution for your online business is absolutely imperative, especially if you plan on expanding your outreach in the near future. Reliability usually equates to privacy, and so most serious webmasters opt for dedicated hosting plans, as it allows them to lease their own private server. However there are other options that will let you do the same thing and more with the added convenience of server management and server security.

The two alternatives to managed hosting are colocated web hosting and managed web hosting. Managed web hosting is very similar to dedicated web hosting, however instead of dealing with database and server administration yourself, the web hosting company takes care of it for for you. Colocation hosting is similar to dedicated hosting as well, however your server will be stored at a special facility, and you can even purchase redundancy for your servers.

What is Redundancy?

Server redundancy is very important for any online business that experiences high amounts of daily traffic. When you purchase server redundancy you are actually leasing extra servers that are pre-equipped with your website’s databases. This means you’ll be fully covered if one of the server’s crashes, since your site’s data will instantly be replaced with one of the redundant servers you are leasing. Colocation web hosting is one of the few web hosting solutions that gives you the option of server redundancy.

What Safety Features Does Colocation Hosting Offer?

Aside from server redundancy, colocation web hosting also gives you the assurance that all of your web servers are completely secure. Colocation hosting companies store all of their servers, including yours, in a data center facility that is specifically designed for server safety. The employees of a colocation facility are specially trained to deal with any problems that may arise and the entire facility is monitored by 24 hours surveillance. The servers are stored on ultra secure server racks and every room is fireproofed and equipped with extinguishers. By using a collocation web hosting company you can rest assured that your web servers are always safe regardless of the circumstances.

When Is Colocation Hosting Necessary?

Although colocation hosting is most often used by larger companies, anyone can use colocation hosting. If you have any concerns about server reliability, or if you would just like to be assured of the reliability of your online business, then you may want to consider colocation web hosting. One factor that will play a substantial role in whether or not you decide to purchase a collocation hosting plan is the startup cost. Unlike other hosting plans, you will need to purchase a server and you will need to pay for the technical support that goes along with it, unless you know how to set up a web server yourself.

If you want the safety of a collocation web hosting plan but you don’t have the money to purchase one, then you may want to consider a managed or dedicated hosting plan instead.

A Comparison of Domain Registrars and Web Hosts

When domain registration began, only one source offered this service, NSI. Despite the monopoly of selling top-level domain names, they remained in place until the late ‘90’s. Around this time there was an influx of domain registration companies that began to directly compete with NSI.

Currently, there are hundreds of domain registrars that are accredited by the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Over the years two types of domain registrars have emerged, domain registrar only services and web hosting providers.

Domain Registrar Only Services

Domain registrar only providers simply offer domain registration without any type of hosting package. There are still several available, but are seen as a dying breed. Clients want convenience so many find it a hassle to register the domain name at one site and find storage at another.

Domain registrar providers are more catered to advanced users. This method is often utilized so domain name registration and maintenance can be separated between storage space and domains. This is helpful for those that are building a large domain network.

Web Hosting Providers

On the other hand, web hosts offer the convenience of domain registration as well as hosting plans and packages in an all inclusive deal. Clients usually need both so this adds the extra ease of use function to their business model. There are many more web hosts than domain registrars.

Also, web host clients can search for available domain names directly from the hosting provider’s website. Once selected, within a day or two the domain name and hosting package are automatically setup; all in a few easy steps.

Redirection of Domains and Servers

Those that have an all inclusive plan may want to create a redirect to separate space from the domain name. This can be manually accomplished by redirecting domains to website content hosted servers. This is offered by web hosting providers so customer service can walk the client along, step-by-step.

Comparison Summary

Generally, domain registrars offer lower prices for each registered name. Also, depending on the need, separating domain name and server space can be beneficial. Those looking for an all inclusive, easy-to-use system should look toward web hosting providers. This will allow them to spend more time on developing content and creating the actual website.

As the internet expands and technology progresses, domain registrars will become a thing of the past. Web hosting providers are making the registration, creation and maintenance so easy that this is the most appealing option to most users. Due to an easy to use interface and excellent customer support, web hosting providers are at the forefront of website development technology.

How to Find a Secure Web Hosting Company

Running a successful website is a complex process that has to be learned over months of trial and error, and in many instances true monetary success is reached only after years of hard work and dedication. A lot of work is put into the creation and management of websites, especially sites that are designed to boost the sales of a particular product or service. Targeted market research and countless design revisions give birth to a final draft that is capable of bringing in residual traffic and income with little additional effort. However, once this goal is accomplished, it can only be sustained through a strict maintenance and supervision of the successful site. One of the most important aspects to consider  when trying to create continual results in a competitive niche is security, as it could be the difference between all or nothing.

Finding the Right Web Hosting Company

There are literally hundreds of web hosting companies in the internet industry, with even thousands more being subsidiaries or resellers of these companies. Finding the right one can be compared to finding a needle in a haystack, as the meticulous process of elimination that occurs in the pursuit of  an optimal web hosting account can seem endless. There are review sites everywhere, and it seems as if everyone promises the same level of service and features – unlimited. While there are very few opinions online that can be trusted, there are forums in which you can find reliable information about the security practices of web hosting company.

Testing Web Hosting Services

Although it is somewhat easy to find a reputable web hosting company, some companies rely upon the popularity of their brand to bring repeat business, instead of providing quality services. Thus it is imperative to test the security measures tat are used by your web hosting company. Obviously doing this without any expertise can be difficult if not impossible, so if you want to know if your web hosting company has what it takes to stand up against DDoS attacks then you can contract the help of a professional web security agency. This kind of service is generally recommended for larger corporations or companies.

The Real Test

The ultimate test occurs when you have actually been using the web hosting company for a while and you have not experienced any server down time or lagging pages. This field testing will show whether or not your web hosting company is worth their weight in gold. If you consistently experience slow loading pages, and your site is showing errors when certain pages load, then it may be time to switch to a new hosting company.

Conclusion

Although it can be difficult to find a secure hosting company that lives up to their promises of unlimited functionality, they do exist, and can be found on many of the most popular web hosting forums.

Search Engine Optimization and Meta Descriptions

Search engines use web crawlers, also known as bots to index the web with maximum speed and efficiency, cataloging every web page they come across. As the bot scans a web page it collects HTML code from the source of the page, updating the search engine database with information pulled from this code. Certain parts of the code hold precedence over others, and some of the segments within the code can have a substantial impact on the search engine ranking of that page for a particular keyword.

For example, heading tag is used to describe the heading of a piece of content, which usually depicts the topic of the article. This, if a search engine picks up a heading tag that appears as <h1>This is a Header Tag</h1> then the bot will conclude that this article must be about one of or a group of words contained in that heading tag. Obviously the outcome of this algorithm will differ depending upon the overall structure of the page, but in general this is how HTML tags work.

What are Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are basically short summary paragraphs that describe a web page and it’s content. When you search for a site in the search engines, the small description that you see below the site link is known as the meta description. This description serves not only potential site visitors but also the search engines themselves, as they provide insight to the nature of the page itself. The reason why meta descriptions are so important in search engine optimization is because they greatly affect the ranking of a site or page or a particular keyword. For example, if the meta description contains a sentence pertaining to “meta tags” then the search engine would therefore recognize the page as being related to meta tags. Thus if, a meta tag contains a selection of keywords, then this page would likely rank highly for these keywords.

How are Meta Descriptions Created

Meta descriptions are formulated from the first paragraph or a section of the first paragraph on the page. Which means that the user does not really have a lot of control over what their meta description looks like. This means that the first couple of words of a web page are the most important part in regards to their search engine ranking. However there are other ways to create quality meta tags that are not actually contained on the page itself.

Meta Description Plugins

One of the ways you can create a meta description for your page that does not contain the first couple of sentences on your page is to use a plugin for WordPress called Headspace. If you use the right plugin then you can create a meta description based on whatever text you would like. This can be especially helpful for users that are trying to optimize a page for a keyword without stuffing the keyword in the beginning text of the content.

Four Reasons to Utilize Grid Hosting

Grid hosting is a similar concept to multiple server hosting that involves not renting web space from a single (shared) machine but from a host on a cluster of nodes acting as a grid. Collectively the resources from each server create a virtual machine.

In many situations, the resources on a single server will become limited due to the number of users hosting their website. Grid hosting is much more flexible as the website can utilize the resources of many different servers in the grid cluster adding power and performance from each machine.

Reliability

Since the website will be spread across many different servers, the reliability of the web host improves. If one server or node goes down, another will immediately take over to ensure as little downtime as possible. When a shared or dedicated server goes down, it takes much longer for the recovery servers to engage.

Additionally the servers that are receiving many hits and traffic will ask for assistance from the idle servers since all hardware is interlinked. This also improves speed and reliability by utilizing all available resources especially those not presently working on a task.

Maximized Uptime

On that note, grid hosting offers some of the highest percentages of uptime. Since the website is hosted across several machines, the data is mirrored across all nodes and thus migrated to a different station in the case of under performing hardware or damaged equipment.

Long-term Hosting

Another benefit of grid hosting is the expansion capabilities. Unlike shared hosting, more resources can easily be dedicated to those sites that are developing. This upgrade is usually fast and easy with no specific technical staff to move the site to another server.

Access to top notch applications

Like most other web hosting services, grid hosting providers offer a plethora of web applications to accompany the plan package. Consequently it’s easy and only takes a short time to add and remove applications from the server. This allows for complete customization and maximum expansion abilities. Grid computing helps with the addition of applications by providing monitoring tools that show an overview of all working processes.

Modern grid hosting offers many benefits including reliability, maximized uptime, a potential for long-term hosting and access too many high-end applications. Most users would agree that reliability and uptime are the main attractions toward using grid hosting as their preferred method of hosting.