A web host is the server or computer where the websites store files, graphics and essential data. The web host provider acts as the site for a collection of web sites all over the world. All the web-hosting client does is upload the websites to the common web server. This web server is maintained by the Internet service provider, which ensures fast and constant access to the Internet. This World Wide Web, which is a collection of sites, can be accessed by anyone through the network.
There are many companies that provide web-hosting services. Many providers offer an extensive range of the virtual hosting plans to meet personal or professional needs of the client. Low cost web hosting service does not mean cheap hardware.
A professional web-hosting provider needs to be of a high quality with custom-built servers. This will ensure that the website is hosted on unswerving hardware which provides fast and optimal performance. The host should ensure that the servers are connected to multiple bandwidth providers. So even if one of the connections is down, the others will provide the necessary connection to the host?s website. This will ensure that the down time to the hosts website is minimal.
A web host has to ensure honest and truthful hosting service to all its customers. Good web hosts ensure that they do not oversell their bandwidth and clutter up the same server with a large number of accounts.
low cost web hosting provided by the web host for a specific fee and to the agency to host their website on the host?s server. It is advisable to ensure that the quality and performance of the host server should not be affected by the low price quoted and that there is no compromise on hardware quality.- by Alison Cole
Cheap Hosting does not necessarily mean nasty hosting…
There are some extremely professional & reliable hosting providers out there who provide both cheap & dependable services packed with many features. The trick however, is to be able to identify a cheap hosting company from a cheap & nasty hosting company…
How to Choose a Cheap Hosting Company Without Getting the Nasty Part
Whilst 2 different web hosting companies may appear to offer the same value service with similar benefits & features, the type of service they deliver may be totally different.
The thing is you don’t want to find out about a company’s shoddy service once you have signed up, paid over your hosting fees & have thrown your lot in with them. Or worse still is that what appeared at first to be a reliable hosting company, they disappear overnight without trace.
A web hosting company that turns nasty has to be one of the worst things to happen to a website owner – you’re left in the dark with no live website, no email facility & if you don’t have backups of your website & databases – you are left with nothing at all, ie you have to start all over again…
Perform Theses 6 Checks to Ascertain the Credibility of Any Web Hosting Company
So this is what you can do to ensure that you don’t fall prey to an unscrupulous web hosting company…
Trust Factor – Profile Is the hosting company well known with a profile. For instance you would probably choose a well known name over a name like ‘Joes Cheap Hosting Service’ The higher the profile of the company, ie the more well known it is, the more trust you will have in its services & be safe in the knowledge that you won’t be let down.
Presentation – Website The company’s website will give you a feeling of the level of their professionalism. Also have a look at its page rank which will give you an idea of its popularity & integrity Look for contact details, 24/7 live support and so on.
Reliability (Uptime) Most web hosts will ‘guarantee’ 99.9% uptime – check for proof
24/7 Customer Support Test out their customer support & see how quickly you get a response
Features Obviously you need to compare various features in terms of your needs. Things to consider would be;
Disk Space (Min 600gb)
Bandwidth (Min 9,000gb)
Number of Domains Allowed – Unlimited
Email – POP3 Accounts – Unlimited
Pricing
Site Builder – Included
Instant Backups
AWStats (Real Time Updates) – Website Statstics
ECommerce Features – osCommerce
Latest cPanel with Fantastico Features
45 Day Money Back Guarantee
Free / Instant Setup
MySQL Databases
CGI
PHP 5
Ruby On Rails
This list is not comprehensive but should be the minimum provided by any reputable web host.
Search Online for Bad Reviews Do an online search (by the company name) for bad reviews & comments.
Finally remember that if you sign up with a reputable web hosting company you will not have to settle for bad service, downtime, poor quality & less features.- by Mark Bellinger
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In order to start your on-line business, you need to know a little about designing your own website. Even if you prefer to pay for others to do the design, you’ll be more flexible if you could at least learn how to do some content updating and uploading. Knowing some basics of web design is essential in running your on-line business so you don’t have to rely on others to do some little changes for you. Learning website construction would also bring advantage to you as the owner if you need to optimize your site for the search engine. But even after you have successfully designed your first site with all the needed features and functionality on it, your next important step will be choosing a reliable and suitable web hosting service to host it. In order to ensure the success of your on-line business, it is necessary for you to choose a web host that does not compromise any of your site’s functional features.
When choosing a good web host, research is the best thing you can do so as not to fall into problems running your own business. First, it is very critical that you choose a web host service that guarantees your site’s visibility 24 hours a day. Don’t worry if performing a research about some web hosts will consume you a lot of time because it is very critical that you do it. You can start by typing into Google’s search bar the name of the web host company followed by the word “review”. If that web host company has not been good to their customers or have frequent downtimes, you will surely find comments about them in forums and blogs. Doing your own research beforehand enables you to find out more about their technical support, their uptime statistics and the quality of the server where your site will reside in the future.
It is very important that you choose a web host that can provide a 24-hour support to ensure that any technical problems will be resolved at the earliest. Customer service, though it comes free with your web hosting account should be dependable and available at all times. Who would want a web host that cannot provide support in times when you need it?
If you will be running a site that has different multimedia contents, your host should be capable of providing you a higher bandwidth for your business. Multimedia contents such as animated graphics, flash based contents, video files and music are contents that require high bandwidth and adequate amount of space for storage. You may want to look at the storage capacity and allotted bandwidth that comes with a web host’s hosting plan to ensure that everything will run smoothly for your business. You should know what type of contents or data you are going to present in your site so you can carefully choose a web host plan that is right for you.
If you are a non-technical person, choose a web host that can be managed through a user-friendly control panel. Make sure that simple tasks like script installation, mailbox administration, domain management, subdomain and FTP set-up can be run through a simple user-friendly interface. There should also have an available instruction how to perform each task either through video presentation or a step by step procedure.
If you have a limited budget, I’m sure that you will find a web host that will suit your price.
Because of the competition, many web hosts have made their hosting plans very affordable for everyone. Today, there are lots of cheap web hosting that offers good service. Many of these cheap web host services also include multiple domain features as part of their offer so you can actually build multiple sites using one hosting account.
So if you are serious about building your business online, the first and foremost requirement is a good web host. Building a small business web site hosting, involves winning the trust of your customers first and to do it, they must see that your business is something that they can trust themselves. It is only possible if you make your business visible to them at all times.- by J.F. Lucero
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What is Web Hosting?
Web hosting (webhosting) is a service provided by companies that will help you host your web pages so that other internet users can find them on the internet. Webhosting companies will usually provide some ways for us to upload our files to their hosting sites.
How do other internet users find my site? The importance of Domain Name.
On top of uploading your files to a webhosting companies, You can register for a domain name. Other internet users will find your site based on domain name that you have. If you are not particular about having individualized and meaningful domain names, you can find lots of webhosting companies that provide you with free subdomains.
An example of free subdomain is easyaffiliatemarketingguide.wordpress.com the main domain is actually wordpress.com and easyaffiliatemarketingguide is what i registered with wordpress. Wordpress is a place where you can get a website started in a very short period of time, within a couple of minutes, it is one of the most popular site which support Web 2.0. The only draw back that i can see is that there are some restrictions on advertising and more advance functionalities if you website is hosted with them. Read more about how to use wordpress to support your internet affiliate marketing efforts in my other articles.
If you would like to have your own domain name like www.tzeyong.com you can register for a domain name at any of the domain registrar available. Most top webhosting companies will provide you with free domain names. So make sure you check out and decide which company you want to go with for your webhosting before registering a domain name.
What to look out for in webhosting companies? Six main criteria of choosing the right webhosting company.
1. How much disk space is available?
This would really depends on what you want to have a website for. Is it for a company? Or is it your personal site? Are you going to upload lots of multimedia files and photos? Or are you mainly using it for text based pages? This would ranges from 10 Gigabytes for personal text based pages to 300 Gigabyte for businesses.
2. How much bandwidth is provided?
For all the different webhosting plans that a company offer. You will have to decide on the bandwidth that you requires. This closely relate to your disk space usage. If you are planning to have lots of multimedia on your website. It would be better to get a plan with higher bandwidth allowance. Typlical bandwidth limits starts from 300 GB for a basic webhosting plan up to 3,000 GB for a business webhosting plan.
3. What kind of support will be provided?
Because you would need to remotely administer your website. It is important to consider the kind of support that your webhosting company has. Is the support 24 hours, 7 days a week? What are the forms of support? Toll free phone? Email support is a norm nowadays.
4. Reliability of the webhosting service?
What is the uptime promise? With todays advancement in server technologies, uptime of 99.9% are often provided by some of the web best webhosting firms.
5. Pricing of webhosting plans?
With the number of webhosting companies increasing, webhosting plans now are very competitive. Most basic plan offerred by webhosting companies ranges from $5 to $10 per month. Anything more than that would be kind of a rip off.
A very important point about price plan for your consideration is that it is a recurring fee that you need to pay per month (or annually). Some webhosting companies would give you very good discount initially, however, if the monthly fees are higher that the rest, in the long run you are actually at the losing end.
6. What are the freebies that the webhosting company is going to provide?
This is actually a very important point. No matter what is the purpose of your website, the bottomline is that you would like to draw traffic to your website. There is no easier way than using pay per click advertising through search networks. Some top webhosting firm will actually give you free credits vouchers to be used in the search network.
Another consideration is if the webhosting firm supports the latest web technology. In recent years, Web 2.0 has slowly became the de facto standard which good webhosting firm will support. – by Tze Yong Koh
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It is a common thing to find folks moving their sites from one server to the other because of poor service quality. Making a good choice at the beginning can save time,money and even traffic. I found a document about the cheapest web hosting which I propose you check before deciding on where to host your website(s)
There are several things to consider before opting for a web hosting service provider. These include:
1 – The Cost (Cheap services may not mean the best in the market.
2 – Server Technology
3 – How much disk space
4 – Stability
5 – Domains offered
6 – Customer Service
8 – Backup in different geographical locations
9 – Other benefits like free scripts
10 – Search Engine Optimisation facilities
11 – Type of webmail,Email addresses,Email disk space and many more
12 – Read a few reviews
The more stable the service,the more the confidence you get from your client. You should not put your site on a server because the guy is your friend. Give your site visitors top quality service and they will reward you. Think of the guy who downloaded a trial version of your software yesterday. Few days after, your site is unreachable just when he returns to purchase. You are the loser. So why not read about the best PHP web hosting now and be informed before taking a step.
DO NOT FORGET!
One of the greatest things you should go for is customer service. No matter how great a server is, inadequate customer service will one day land you into trouble.The rapidity and efficiency with which your problem is solved are factors not to be neglected
UPTIME
Contrary to DOWNTIME, this is a period of time when your web hosting server is functioning and available online.
ARE YOU A WEB DEVELOPER
It will be horrible to buy space on a windows server while your scripts are written for Linux and associated applications. Make sure you get the right server for your website. If you develop on frameworks (SYMFONY,ZEND and a host of others), make sure to check for compatibility.
MULTIMEDIA CHARACTERISTICS
Check for Streaming,Flash,Macromedia Shockwave,MIDI File Support,etc
There are a host of other points to note. Make sure over 95% of your questions are answered correctly by your choice. If you are totally blank, contact an expert.
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The web hosting industry is a competitive market. Naturally, when you get into such a competitive niche you see companies that are struggling. Sometimes, they are struggling so much that they will tell you what you want to hear just to make a few bucks off of you.
These people are the “Unlimited Bandwidth and Unlimited Disk Space” companies. If you have not heard it elsewhere, please allow me to be the first. There is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth. Typically the way it works is that a large corporation will rent out small chunks of the bandwidth they are capable of providing to smaller companies. These smaller companies turn around and do the same to the web hosts. These web hosts, again, do the same separation method and sell these small “chunks” to you based on your needs.
These unlimited web hosting companies are banking on the idea that you will never use more than what you might would have used if you were using a package from a web host that does not offer these types of promises. There are several problems that can be caused when running into these types of promises.
A severely unmonitored web hosting company can end up having a customer use up all the space that they were allotted by their datacenter. In this case, every person using the server (all clients under the web host) will have their websites go down because the datacenter will either shut off the server when the web host exceeds their limit. If that does not occur then they will charge the web host with huge bandwidth fees. The end result will quickly lead to the web hosting company being upside down in their profits and they will likely be forced to close the company. The end result being the same, your website being offline.
If the web hosting company that offers the myth of “unlimited bandwidth” does monitor well, they will shut your website down if you do exceed what their own limitations are for your website. They will not risk having their server shutdown or losing their other customers simply because you are using too much bandwidth. Therefore, no one actually provides real unlimited bandwidth. It simply is not possible.
As for web space (commonly referred to as disk space), the same concept applies. When you buy a computer, you probably always look at the specifications that it has. One of the primary ones will always be your hard drive. Servers are exactly the same way; each server can only hold a certain amount of capacity. Just like bandwidth, they are banking on the idea that you will only use a very limited amount of web space (most websites do).
If you fill their web server up, more than likely they will not resort to adding another hard drive to keep you as a $4.00 per month customer. They will tell you that you need to find another web host or pay extra for all the space you are using. These companies simply cannot stay in business at this rate. There is a reason why all of the biggest web hosting companies have limitations on their shared plans. It is not because they simply want to; it is to protect every single client they have from the dreadful downtime you want to avoid when you are a web host. As well, reputable companies will always want to be forthcoming in what you are allowed to use. Every web host has limitations on your usage, it is simply a matter of if they are willing to show them to you or not.
If you are running an online business, be sure to go with a reputable host that does not offer these unfulfilling promises. When choosing to run an online business such as ecommerce, you will want to ensure that your website stays online. One way of doing this is to simply stay away from companies that make false promises. – by Travis Tracy
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Coldfusion web hosting is a server-side scripting language which is similar to PHP or ASP. A product of Macromedia, it is considered as a complete web application server for not only basic hosting, but extends to developing and delivering scaleable e-commerce applications especially for business websites. Mostly, this hosting environment is utilized in small and large businesses, and also for some advanced personal uses. It is due to the fact that in a short space of time, users will be able to create robust Web applications coupled with advanced data integration.
Since it is a server-side technology, ColdFusion hosting works by having a web server to process and deliver web applications, rather than just plain web pages. The language used is called ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) which includes tags for querying databases, outputting text and interacting with different web services. The language uses tags and attributes, similar to XHTML, for the codes that interact with the website and its back-end functions. CFML is relatively much simpler than languages like C++. However, a strong understanding in HTML coding and relational database design is still very important.
From a web developer’s point of view, ColdFusion hosting requires less learning time and fewer code lines compared to ASP, PHP or JSP. Developers can develop their application locally using various tools such as ColdFusion Studio and only move to the real server when fully ready. The capabilities of ColdFusion hosting encompasses shopping cart-enabled web store,back-end support for interactive Flash applications and to the extent of building a global network for a company.
In terms of cost, due to the expensive cost to set up a ColdFusion server and engine, the price for this type of hosting is normally more expensive than the normal UNIX and Windows hosting. However, with the unrivalled advanced features that it provides, and the availability of shared server, the hosting price has come out to be very competitive.
Overall, ColdFusion hosting is a technology that helps to build powerful web applications and services. Its biggest advantage over other hosting types is the simplicity that it offers to develop websites that would otherwise be more complex if coded in ASP, PHP or JSP. In short, ColdFusion hosting delivers powerful web capabilities using an easy-to-learn and highly productive server-side scripting environment. – by Mer Amer
How to Host and Maintain Multiple Websites With Minimum Cost?
Sometimes when you have a lot of websites, you will feel frustrated and have difficulties to manage them. Here is the simplest, fastest and most efficient method to overcome the problem, which is using the same web host to host them.
Many web hosting companies available in the market which offering different packages with different pricing. You can also host websites on your own by buying a high performance server and switch it on for 24/7 but this method required a high start up capital for subscribing a high bandwidth line and you probably need specialists to maintain (updating, data input and power backup) your server frequently. So, engaging web hosting companies to host your websites still the easiest and cheapest way.
Here are some guidelines for you to choose a good web hosting provider. The prior criterion is customer service. You can easily check the quality of web hosts’ customer service through articles, forum. Good companies win a lot of testimonials and awards.
Apart from customer service, the second thing you should consider is check through promotional packages which available in the market. Due to great competition, a lot compact packages which offered in affordable price. These packages are actually offering lots of stuff like high bandwidth, domains and sub domains, free domain registration, bigger web space. Some even include reseller account feature. This feature allows you to easily manage several websites. Some reseller accounts have the billing manager to manage payments and have Private Name Servers that you could use to customize your reseller account.
Another essential feature that you can’t miss out is quality control panel. This feature is to let you easily customize your control panel. This is important as customization able to allow you input and output other features in the future like changing passwords and create email accounts. – by Phil Anderson
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Free domain hosting.You can usually get hosting for just a few $$ these days, but still, what is the point when you can get it for free? There are hundreds of free hosts out there that can save you a lot of money and offer a top service and have a great up-time record.
When looking for a free host you should really spend some time sifting through all the offers and choosing the best one for you and your website.
These are some of the things to look out for when choosing a free host:
Space – How many MB or GB is the free host offering you?
Bandwidth – How much monthly bandwidth can you consume?
Advertisements – Will the free host force ads onto your site?
Languages – Depending on the language you have coded your website in you will need an appropriate host that supports that language (PHP, ASP etc)
Databases – Does the host support your required database? E.g. MySQL – If so, how many databases do they offer you? How many databases will your site require?
Email – Does the free host offer you email? Can you setup multiple email addresses? If so, how many?
Up Time – Does the site have a good up-time record? Spending a lot time designing/coding an amazing website would be completely wasted if the hosting servers kept going down and no-one could visit your site!
If you take the time to do a little research before choosing your free host then you can certainly save yourself a lot of money. Consider all of the items that are mentioned above, and as long as they meet your requirements of a host then go for it! One major thing to look for is regarding forced advertisements. You may have a great looking site but your free host may force a large banner along the top or bottom of your site and completely ruin the design. Try and find a host that does not force advertisements, there are plenty around! – by James I Davidson
Free Web Hosting – A Viable Option?
Free web hosting is something that many people choose when first starting out online for one reason and one reason only – the price. But is free web page hosting worth it, in either the short or long term?
The rise of free web hosting services in recent years proves that there is without doubt huge demand for no cost hosting and there has been no shortage of companies and marketers keen to tap into what is seen as such a lucrative market.
The first companies offering free hosting were able to do so by using advertising revenues to offset their costs and usually, to turn free hosting into a profitable venture for themselves.
For you, the consumer, such a tempting offer was hard to resist. The reality of building a site on a free hosting account however, often turned into a rather frustrating and sometimes worthless end user experience.
The early pioneers were often hastily set up and after they had raked in the money, users often found themselves high and dry when the free hosting provider went offline overnight, never to return. The fact that users were not out of pocket may have cushioned the blow, but all the work customers had done was invariably lost, along with the time invested.
For those who signed up with a more stable free hosting company, the downside was usually the ads that they were forced to run on their websites, over which they had no control. These were usually not remotely relevant to the content of the site, and usually so intrusive that visitors would be scared away pretty quickly.
Add to this the fact that free web hosting users were usually stuck with a subdomain name and found it almost impossible to achieve any kind of worthwhile results in the search engines results pages, and free web page hosting started to look far less appealing.
Many free web hosting services also left a lot to be desired in the reliability stakes with sites often being offline and unavailable to internet users. This was annoying for many, but to anyone trying to run some kind of online business it was disastrous.
Because of all these things, you will doubtless have read in many places that free hosting is really not worth the price you pay, particularly if your site has any commercial aspirations.
I would not disagree with this even today, because anyone operating a business online usually needs far more than most free web hosting plans can offer. However, the choices in 2008 are far greater than they have been in the past.
Several free hosting providers now offer PHP and MySQL and some pretty decent storage and bandwidth numbers. There are even services that give cPanel access and the ability to host your own domain name.
For many people, particularly those on a very tight budget, perhaps free hosting is still worth a look. If you are just looking to host a non commercial website, or perhaps just a place to host marketing squeeze pages and the like, free hosting might well be a viable choice.
As with most things, if you get them for free, there is usually a trade off, but the free web hosting industry has certainly improved in recent times and consumer choices are more wide ranging than they once were. – by Maurice Snell
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When working with application hosting or a managed hosting company it will be in your best interest if they fully understand scalability and how it can best benefit you and your company.
Simply defined, scalability is the use of scalable code with infrastructure. It is imperative, for scalability to be of maximum benefit, that infrastructure and scalable code be carefully planned to work with and enhance each other. If you are not a computer genius (and not many of us are), even this definition may be hard to completely understand. The good news is this: you don’t have to be a computer genius! Instead, hire a managed hosting company who employs a great number of computer aficionados.
What you will need to have is a basic understanding of the premise so you are equipped to ask the right questions and get the level of service you deserve. You desire your online presence to be reliable and accessible, don’t you? When traffic to your site is extremely high is the exact time you don’t want your site to be unavailable — this is the very time you need accessibility most. You absolutely cannot afford for your server to be overwhelmed and/or shut down for any period of time. In this high-tech, lightening-fast world in which we live, minutes of unplanned downtime could cost many thousands of dollars. The best managed hosting companies recognize this and take every precaution to keep this from happening.
A scalable system (scalable code working with infrastructure) will increase efficiency in proportion to the resources available. It is the responsibility of the managing host to be certain those resources remain available. If they are not, it could result in lost revenue and unhappy customers, damage to your reputation and other negative consequences.
Under the best circumstances, your infrastructure has been planned with and is fully understood by your hosting provider. They know everything about your business; when it ebbs and flows, what time you are most likely to receive the most traffic, etc. In order to provide consistent reliable service they make certain your needs are met at all times. If you experience an unexpected, huge burst of traffic to your website it could become overwhelmed if the proper steps are not in place. How can this be avoided? The top managed hosting companies are ready for just about anything. They have multiple servers available to host your website. This is where the importance of scalability is clearly seen. If the first server is overwhelmed, shutdown or otherwise negatively impacted, a scalable system will allocate extra processors from the second server, third, fourth, fifth, etc. until all of your websites demands are met.
Your managed host provider will have analyzed your market and technology trends well in advance. Once having identified the scalability issues, they can work (in advance) of any projected bottleneck.
Proper planning, along with excellent service by your managing host provider will supply many layers of protection to your business. Scalability is just one of the ways they will ensure your needs are met and your customers receive the very best service available. – by Romain Baudry
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When it comes time for you to set up your web hosting, you want to make sure they offer Cpanel. Cpanel, or control panel as it is sometimes called, is one of the most vital and useful tools for webmasters. The purpose behind it is to allow the user to manage the various facets of his own website with ease, allowing average Joes to set up and maintain websites and basic programs with ease. Even the most complicated tasks regarding website administration is made easier with Cpanel hosting.
There is no doubt that cpanel web hosting companies have simplified the process of website creation and administration. There was once a time when there was a select, specially educated group of people who could manage intricate facets of the internet. Now, with the way that technology has advanced, even the most inexperienced of web users can manage all facets of their internet presence.
With Cpanel hosting, many tasks can be made easier, even those you would never think of. Blogs are easy to create and maintain as well as the building of mailing lists and the management of multiple email accounts. Everything is in one place and easy to access, all because of the presence of a good Cpanel interface. That is why Cpanel hosting is vitally important.
Cpanel not only provides users with increasingly efficient ways of managing their own websites these days, it also has to ensure security. Web phishers and hackers have now discovered a way to use Cpanel to their advantage and get into sensitive places without permission. Make sure your Cpanel hosting companies are more diligent than ever in their pursuit of computer security.
There are many affordable Cpanel hosting companies on the market if you take the time to look at them. In today’s competitive marketplace, there is more to consider than how simple your hosting company makes your website administration. Security is also an issue, as is efficiency – and with the state of the economy in world these today, price is more important than ever before.
When buying web hosting, make sure that Cpanel is included. Down the road you will be very glad you have it. – by Tim R Brown
Windows or Unix (Linux) Web Hosting – Which is the Best Choice?
This question is asked by people that are new to web hosting and web design every day. This question is the single most important decision you will make when looking to purchase web hosting. Unix (and Linux variants) and Windows are the two main operating systems powering web servers today, and each operating systems has its own unique features, and this brings their own advantages and disadvantages.
In this article I will outline the advantages of each operating system, and a short comparison of the two operating systems.
Before we get to the comparison of the two operating systems, you must know that the operating system you use on your desktop is not relevant to your choice of operating system used by your host to serve your website. Many people feel that if they use Windows on their desktop, they should also choose a web hosting provider that also uses Windows. This is simply not the case, for example if you used Microsoft Frontpage to design your website, typically Unix operating systems will have Frontpage Extensions installed to allow you to use Frontpage to its full potential.
Unix Overview
Today most web developers choose Unix systems to host their websites, everyday Windows loses more ground to Unix in market share in the web hosting market, why is this the case? The number one reason this is occurring is price. Web hosting providers typically use free editions of Unix based Linux operating systems such as Debian, Red Hat, or Free BSD, this alone reduces the end cost of a web hosting plan to the consumer due to there being no licensing fees incurred like there is with the Windows operating system.
The free editions of Linux are released under what is known as the GNU license, this license has no costs involved, and also allows access to the source code of the operating system to allow for modification and optimization which is very important, this allows the host to optimize the operating system to their hardware requirements, and also allows quick fixes for any security issues that may come up.
Typically Unix web servers are the most stable, with the flexibility required to allow upgrades and expansion. Almost always Unix servers that are setup for serving websites are configured in text mode which uses fewer resources, they do not run a graphical user interface which allows the server to devote as much of its own resources to the websites it is hosting. Unix based operating systems support the following. PHP, MySQL, PostgresSQL, Perl, CGI-BIN, Ruby on Rails and many more.
Windows Hosting Overview
This of course is the most widely known operating system, and as you know, you pay to use the Windows operating system on your desktop, and this is no different when it comes to using the Windows Server operating system. The Windows Server operating system does support some technologies that Unix currently does not. Only Windows hosting plans support scripting languages such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Cold Fusion, Active Perl, C++, C#, and Visual Basic.
Only Windows Server operating system will run Microsoft applications such as Microsoft Access Databases, Microsoft SQL Databases, IIS. If you are planning to use any of the above languages or database types on your website, you will need to purchase a Windows hosting plan.
The Comparison
Performance – In low server load conditions Windows and Unix have similar performance, but under high server loads, Unix is superior to Windows.
Stability – Unix copes much better than Windows with high server loads, this leads to less reboots required on the server to maintain optimal performance, and in turn increases your websites uptime.
Compatibility – If you develop a website under Unix, typically it will be easy to run on a Windows server, but the reverse is not as easy, especially if you have used a Windows based language. Avoid using a Windows programming languages if possible, in the long term you may wish to move to a Unix based server, and this will not be possible without a major redesign of the websites code.
Price – Any server hosting a website requires an operating system, and the associated licenses to use that operating system. Windows 2003 Server and applications cost a lot of money to run, typically the cost of the software is on a per user basis, and as the users on a server increase, so does the licensing costs. On the other hand, Unix and its Linux variants are freely available to download, and are also free to use and operate.
This is why Unix based web hosting is almost always the cheaper option.
Final Words
Unix hosting typically offers more stability, better performance, more compatibility, and lower costs compared to a Windows hosting plan. I typically recommend Unix hosting for the reasons stated above, I only ever recommend Windows hosting if your website has been developed using ASP, .NET or another Microsoft application. – by David J. Smith
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Choosing a budget web hosting services company can be overwhelming. In fact, choosing any web hosting company can be a challenge due, in large part, to the fact that there are so many of them. Do a search for “web hosting” with the quotes around the keywords on Google, and it’ll return over 5 million documents! That doesn’t mean there are 5 million web hosting providers but there very well could be at least 1 million! That’s a lot of web hosts. How can you choose one that meets your need?
What is Budget web hosting anyway?
Budget web hosting is generally defined as any hosting service that is below $10 per month. The budget comes from the low price. Now, most companies in the budget web hosting category only offer one year plans. Most budget web hosting companies however, will quote you the monthly fee you would pay if you divided the annual fee by 12 months. Keep that in mind when you are comparing one company with another. The other thing to look out for is the setup fee. Do they charge you a setup fee to get started?
Evaluate your general impression of the company.
The first place to start evaluating budget web hosting companies is their front page. Does their website give you a sense that they are professional? Is it easy to find all of the information you need? Take a look at their contact information. Do they list a physical address, an email address and a phone number to contact them? If they don’t provide any contact details, that has to throw up a red flag. If you run into problems setting up your website, and you have no proper contact information, how are you going to get service from that company?
Do they have a toll free support number?
Does the budget web hosting company provide a toll free number for you to contact them? If they are based in Atlanta, Georgia and you are in Seattle, Washington, you don’t want to be paying long distance to them if you need to get them on the phone about a concern you have. A toll free number also speaks to their willingness to deal openly and honestly with their customers.
What kind of guarantee do they offer?
Choose a budget web hosting company that offers a good guarantee. Most budget web hosting companies don’t openly publish their satisfaction guarantees. If you have to look in their terms and services agreement to find out where they stand with regard to giving you back your money if you are not satisfied, you should look elsewhere.
What is the uptime guarantee of the site in question?
Uptime guarantee refers to the amount of time the server is live and serving your web pages. An uptime guarantee of 99% means that the host guarantees that their servers will be up and operational 99% of the time. Over the course of one year, 99% uptime would represent a downtime (the one percent) of around 87 hours in a year or an average of 7 hours per month. An uptime of 99.9% would involve only 8 hours of downtime for the entire year.
What kind of after sale support can you expect?
While there are many other factors you could consider, the final one I will deal with is after sale support. What kind of resources do they make available for you. Find out if the budget web hosting company offers free scripts. Do they have any marketing tools they can make available to you? What kind of support for setting up your account can you expect from the budget web hosting company? All of these factors must be taken into consideration.
Just because a company offers a budget web hosting service, doesn’t mean you necessarily have to compromise on features, quality or service. All three will only be found, however, if you make sure to do your homework to find a budget web hosting company that is a good fit for you. – by Joe Duchesne
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