Hostgator Web Hosting Review

Hostgator is a large privately owned hosting company operating from multiple state of the art facilities in Dallas, Texas. Hostgator was founded in 2002, since then they have grown rapidly and currently host over 400,000 websites. They are also widely considered to be the worlds leading provider of reseller hosting accounts. At present they supply hosting to over 10,000 individual reseller account customers.

Hostgator offers many different web hosting packages, and cater to a broad range of customers. From the first time webmaster who needs simple, stress free hosting for their personal site; all the way through to large corporations, who require specialist dedicated hosting services.

Hostgator's hosting packages can be split into three groups; standard shared hosting plans (suitable for the vast majority people), reseller hosting plans (these are mainly for individuals and businesses that wish to "resell" their account resources to customers of their own), and finally dedicated server plans (these accounts give customer their own server, so they don't have to share its resources with anybody else). Very few of us will every need a dedicated server so this review will concentrate on the shared hosting plans that Hostgator offer.

Features

Hostgator's three main shared hosting plans are named: "Hatchling" (the entry level plan priced at $6.95/month), "Baby" (this is the most popular plan, and it is likely to satisfy the requirements of a very wide range of clients), and "Swamp" (much the same as the "Baby" plan, but with increases in bandwidth and disk space, priced at $14.95/month).

For a full list of features and a side by side comparison of all hosting plans you should visit Hostgator's website here. Below is a review of the most important features of the "Baby" plan, this is probably the most suitable package for most users, and it is our favorite plan.

Disk space 100GB - This amount has been recently upgraded by Hostgator from 5GB to an enormous 100GB. All users are likely to find it impossible to exhaust this quantity of disk space.

Bandwidth 1000GB/month - Also increased is the bandwidth allocation, from 75GB to a seemingly excessive 1000GB. Again pretty much zero chance of utilizing all that, but it's nice to know that you definitely won't be facing extra charges for going over your limit, even if you have a very busy website(s).

Site Studio website builder - This is a great free program that allows you to build your website from scratch. You have over 500 templates and color schemes to choose from. You need no HTML experience, or code writing knowledge. It offers the simplest possible way of designing a professional looking website in a very short space of time. However, there is no need to take my word for it, as Hostgator provides us with a demo version of the software on their website!

Unlimited add-on domains - This really is the stand out feature of this hosting plan (the "Hatchling" plan only allows 1 domain), and enables you to host as many websites as you like on a single account, at no extra cost. All your websites then share your account resources. This allows you to make full use of your massive bandwidth and disk space allowances, and host multiple websites at a fraction of the normal cost. Fantastic!

99.9% Uptime guarantee - This basically tells us that Hostgator is a serious host offering a reliable service. If uptime drops below this figure in any given month then you don't pay for that months hosting, it's as simple as that! We would never consider using a host that did not offer a solid uptime guarantee; this is purely because there is only one good reason why a host will not offer an uptime guarantee - unreliable uptime!

30 Day money back guarantee - This has become a pretty standard feature in the web hosting community, though it's nice to have for added peace of mind.

Instant setup - Most hosting providers take 24-48 hours to setup your account but Hostgator promises to have you up and running in under 15 minutes (they do not charge a setup fee either)!

Unlimited MySQL databases - This is very useful because each Fantastico (see below) script requires its own MySQL database.

Fantastico DeLuxe - This impressive program allows you to instantly install over 50 scripts via your control panel. Scripts include blogs, forums, galleries, shopping carts, and more.

Unlimited e-mail accounts - Permits you to have as many, or as few, different e-mail addresses as you like.

cPanel control panel - At the heart of any web hosting experience is the control panel, thankfully Hostgator uses one of the best units around, a cPanel. It's well laid out and easy to operate. It contains many features and offers good performance. Best of all, there is a full working demo on the Hostgator website, so you can test it out yourself!

Customer service and technical support

Hostgator gives us 24/7 phone support, and live online chat. The fact that you are offered two options to receive instant technical support at any time of the day is great. Our experience has always been very good when contacting Hostgator, their operatives are very polite and most importantly they seem to know their stuff when dealing with technical issues. However, we always recommend contacting them yourself prior to signing up. Ask them a question and see if you're impressed by their response. This always tells you a lot about a company!

Performance

The performance from Hostgator's servers is excellent! Hostgator place much tighter limits on the number of websites sharing the same server compared to most other shared hosting providers. This gives greater reliability because less strain is placed on the servers; and it also greatly improves the speed at which your web pages run.

Server performance is another one of the key areas where Hostgator distinguish themselves from the crowd of other web hosts.

Our verdict

Overall there is so much to like about the way Hostgator does business, they really do seem to have a good grasp on what the average customer requires from a web hosting provider. Rarely do you come across reports of unsatisfied Hostgator clients, and after hosting with them ourselves we now know why! Reliability, performance, and uptime from the servers is first rate, also customer service is way ahead of most other web hosts out there. However, the area where Hostgator really excels is value for money. At just $9.95/month for the "Baby" plan (which includes unlimited domains); anyone looking to host more than one website has a pretty easy decision to make. The other great thing about this package is that you do not have to sign up to a contract. You pay on a month-by-month basis, which leaves you free to cancel your account at any time without losing money. So to sum up, we don't really have any bad things about Hostgator; at the prices they charge, we truly feel that they offer an exceptional service. Keep up the good work Hostgator!

What Is A Web Host And Why Do You Need One?

A web host is an internet service provider who has one or more servers on which you are permitted to upload files and have them viewed on the Internet. You need one because operating a web server that serves files to the Internet isn't as simple as installing a program and running it. You will most likely have your own domain name and in order for that domain to be visible on the Internet it has to be properly configured on Domain Name Servers (DNS) which tell the rest of the Internet where your domain can be viewed. It's like a massive telephone book except that instead of having peoples names and telephone numbers it has domain names and IP address numbers. If you plan on running any scripts such as blog scripts, address books etc, then the web hosting server has to provide support for that as well. I'm not going to go into all the technical details, but suffice to say that you should now be able to see that web hosting isn't like running your Microsoft Word program. It requires technical knowledge and expertise in several Internet protocols and procedures.

How About Free Web Hosting?

Have you ever heard of TANSTAAFL? It stands for 'There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch'. If you decide to place your web site on a free host then keep in mind that you don't generally get any guarantees as far as performance goes and your website will probably be 'embellished' with advertising that is placed there by the free host. Most free hosts make their money through the advertisements that are placed above, below or within your web site. That's not a very professional look if you are trying to promote a business. It's fine for hobby or personal sites, but how seriously would YOU take a business if you could see that they were hosted on a free web host?

So How Do I find The Right Host For My Site?

Most guides will tell you to look for things like a minimum of 500MB of hard drive space, some random amount of bandwidth and blah, blah, blah! Let's break it down to the basics though. There are basically two types of sites. Little ones and big ones. Yup, it's that simple. Well, perhaps we should also say little ones that hope to be big ones some day. If you are just starting out then the chances are that your first site is going to be a little one. Let me define 'little'. It's a website run by an individual or a small business person who wants to sell a few bits and pieces, or put up a few affiliate links, offer advice etc. Most of my sites, I would class as 'Little' ones. Little, in hosting terms, can be a web site with several hundred pages, some videos and some downloads. Big, on the other hand, is a web site with thousands of pages, archives of old pages etc. Sites like CNN, Microsoft, Apple for example are BIG sites. If you plan on going that big then you need to be hiring your own IT professional to oversee your team of webmasters and designers!

Anyway, enough of that ... the first thing I'm going to say is CPanel.

Why Should I Use CPanel?

Every hosting account has some sort of control panel. Some are very good and some are very very bad. CPanel just happens to be one of the very good ones and is used by many of the largest internet hosting companies. Like anything it has a learning curve but the latest CPanel has a whole lot of videos to show you how to do things like add email addresses, password protect some of your content and do all of the things you might need to do with your hosting account. There are also many good guides and videos elsewhere on the Internet. Another advantage of using a hosting company that has CPanel is that if you ever need to change hosts then you will more than likely be able to change to another host that has CPanel and avoid the learning curve. On the other hand, if you use a host that has their own control panel then you are back at square one.

Unix Is Better Than Windows

Bill Gates and some of his followers would tell you otherwise, but the reality is that there is much greater support for Unix based web hosts than Windows web hosts. Unix has been around a lot longer than Windows and has always been the primary operating system that Internet servers have been hosted on. Most of the Internet protocols such as TCP/IP were developed on Unix and Unix servers tend to be more stable than Windows servers. The only time you would want a Windows web host would be if you were going to upload a script that was written specifically for a Windows server.

So ... we've learned that we are going to have a 'Little' web site and it should be hosted on a Unix web host with a CPanel control panel. You're probably wondering about those other numbers and factors though. Unless you have lots of videos and files that you will be offering, 250MB should be more than enough disk space. The same goes for bandwidth ... it's relative to whatever you have on your web site. Web pages are small. Videos and some files are big. If your site is mainly web pages with pictures then 1GB (1000MB) of monthly bandwidth will be much more than you would ever need. Keep in mind that most hosts will allow you to upgrade, so if you outgrow your space or bandwidth allowance you can generally have that increased for a higher monthly fee.

So How Do I Find The Ideal Host?

Ask in online forums, ask your friends, and do a search on your favourite search engine for terms like 'best web hosting' and then use the combined results to assist in making your decision. Look for hosts that have a CPanel control panel and always aim for at least 250MB of space and 1000MB of bandwidth.

Web Hosting Choices - Finding A Quality Web Hosting Provider

There are now so many I'd be afraid to count them. Every man and his dog owns a web hosting company. Everyone seems to have a server, be it running on a dial up modem providing very bad service and speed to running in a multi link network operating centre with environmental control, armed security guards and escorted entrance. Wow. But with so many providers out there all differing levels of service and products, how can you know which to go with? Well, I'm glad you asked. Here are some simple questions and rules to adhere to while shopping for your next web hosting provider.

You need to know about their uptime policy. What uptime level guarantee do they offer? This is quite important. If you can't offer anything better than 98-99% at least then steer away! Is this high? Not at all. It's a standard in the hosting industry to offer at least 99%. The high end ones offer 99.999% uptime (roughly meaning that out of an entire year, they are only allowed 5.39 mins downtime total!), while others would offer simply 99% of 99.something%. Uptime and availability are very important. Especially if you had just started a new marketing campaign or been handing out a lot more business cards recently and these new potential clients enter in your website address into their browser and your web hosting provider has overcrowded their systems or has gone down, what will happen? Well simply, it will time out, they wont be able to visit your site and would most likely visit your competitor's site, which has stayed up trouble free all this time! Is it worth risking your business to a less than competent hosting provider? I didn't think so,

Bandwidth is important. This is major. Without bandwidth your visitors wont be able to visit you, or even if they do, their visit will be very slow, which could translate into an image in their mind of your business matching (ie: being equally slow!). Another factor in this is bandwidth capacity. If you expect a lot of visitors (and if you aren't, I'd suggest you're in the wrong business!), you'll want to be able to accommodate them all. I suggest starting at a minimum of 1GB (gigabyte - this is how bandwidth capability and monthly allowance is measured on the internet). This will be enough to start out with. Also make sure that your website isn't cut off if you go over this limit! Most providers don't cut you off, but you need to make sure they wont! If you have a burst of traffic, and the limit is reached, new visitors wont be able to reach your site! Most providers will let you go go the limit, but bill you extra in accordance with how much you exceeded the standard allowance in your hosting plan. This is fine. You can always upgrade later as you build your site and online presence.

Storage is the next major point. You need to know you'll be able to fit everything for your site into the allocated space. IF you run out of space, you wont be able to fit any more web pages or images in. This is a Bad Thing(Tm). You need to make sure you have at least 5MB for personal sites, 10-20MB for basic business or 50MB for advanced and corporate websites.

But how about contact? You also need to know about email accounts. How many are you allowed? If you are a sole trader, you could probably get by with just one and having what they call a catch-all facility enabled. This means that no matter what people send email to (e.g.: sales@yourdomain.com, webmaster@yourdomain.com, etc.) it will reach you. However, as you introduce more and more services or hire people to help you in the general running of the business, you'll want to provide individual and separate email accounts to each activity, ie accounting, sales, manager, etc. Make sure you're able to easily add what they call POP (Post Office Protocol, the internet language used to receive email) accounts to your web hosting package. At least 5. And demand that they have plenty of storage in case you are sent emails with attachments. Or several emails with several large attachments. I'd recommend allocating at least 20MB to each email account for starters.

E-commerce is a big industry buzz word right now. But it's very important, especially if you're considering offering products and services on your website. You'll need to know that your web hosting provider can fully accommodate you here. Things to ask about are shopping carts, what software they offer, digital certificates and credit card processing. There are many expensive solutions out there, and there are many free ones. Please don't think that the free ones are lower quality or less useful than the expensive ones because that would be misleading. I used a completely free one for many months. The only reason why I stopped using it was because I took the online store down because of job transfer. The offer unlimited number of categories and items. If the software your hosting provider is offering doesn't offer an unlimited number of categories and items, with pictures, review capability and credit card payment processing integration, then walk the other way. These features are way too important and could be all that separates your online store from looking amateurish to professional. It's not worth gambling on. For payment processes, try to choose someone local (the currency conversion would eat up a part of your profit) or someone with reasonably low fees, but probably not the lowest. I know that PayPal integrates into osCommerce (free shopping cart and ecommerce software) quite well and they make a decent combination.

What about if you want to run a mailing list? You'll need a database. Actually you'll need a database for your shopping cart too. Don't forget that! Your hosting package should include at least ONE (1) database. Preferably MySQL or PostgreSQL. They are very proven database packages that are free to use. But with the mailing list, you may want to keep a list of people that have visited or registered at your website and wish to be notified of updates and changes (keeps 'em coming back!) and/or to start a free newsletter. Everyone loves freebies. It's human nature. You can use one of many free and commercial mailing list managers. Ask your hosting provider which one they use and how to set it up. Hopefully they'll be a free facility in your hosting package as they are very simple to use and set up. I use one on my site that I designed myself. Works quite well. I also recommend MailMan or any other open source package.

You know another great way to keep your website busy and customers coming back for more? Run a public discussion board or forum! This allows you to interact with your website visitors and helps build up rapport with them. This is important. Make sure your hosting provider either has these facilities, can set up for you, or if not, download and install one yourself. There are many excellent quality free forum packages out there. I use them everywhere. Choose one that uses a database to store it's information. Obviously you'll need a database for this too.

But what about website maintenance? Well, you could go one of three (3) ways here; 1) Do it yourself, 2) Hire a webmaster to maintain everything on behalf of you or 3) Have a Content Management System (CMS) installed. Let's look at each one in turn. Do it yourself? I'm not against this, in fact, I encourage it, or at least, in the beginning, to become familiar with HTML, CSS, PHP and all those other internet programming acronyms. They'll all important and you'll need to become familiar with them, or learn them to a level where you would be comfortable in using them directly to manipulate your website. However, there are time restrictions. You may not have the time to invest in learning these language. After all, learning foreign human languages is hard enough, how much harder do you think trying to learn a foreign computer language would be? Your main job will be to run your business, as that is what you do best! Do you really want to distract yourself from your sales and customer service to worry about your website? Some people leave website maintenance for when they have the spare time, others have rotting websites that never get maintained properly. How could we address that? Well, we could Hire a webmaster. A webmaster is someone who is paid to support, maintain and keep a website up to date. They really do require quite a bit of attention. No one likes a dormant boring and sleeping website, especially if that is how theirs is described! The webmaster you hire should have references to support this work, be well versed in internet technologies and languages and have a few certifications to back it up, plus many samples of their work. But you will need to pay them. However, if you 're unable to do that just at this moment, you can try using a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS is an automated piece of software which allows you to log into a control panel, select which page you wish to modify, enter or edit your text in a form and press submit. This requires you to have knowledge of how to use a website copy (a web page's text content) to tell your customers the benefit of what you're presenting them. It requires sales skills (which you already have attained in running your business) and some text formatting skills. Some of the best CMS packages are very pricey, while others are quite cheap, to the point of being free. I've used many free ones to evaluate them and can assure you that free ones are equally and functionally as good or equal to commercial variations.

But what about getting your website up in the first place? You'll need to make sure that they offer unlimited FTP (File Transfer Protocol, an internet language that allows you to transfer files from your computer to your web space for public viewing) access and web-based file management (in case you need to do some emergency updates away from your main computer, or your holidaying and want to do a little website maintenance from your beach side holiday house on your laptop). Many free web hosting providers offer just web-based upload facilities and this is cheap. You need to make sure you can upload via FTP, if not for you, then at least for your webmaster (if you hire one). It makes everything so much easier and saves so much time. A web-based solution usually only allows you to upload a few files at a time, and you have to manually browse for your files to select them and marked them to be uploaded. With FTP, you just click on your website folder on your computer and drag-and-drop them into your FTP program. Wham! All uploading in a fraction of the time it might take otherwise!

Well, sure, these are all great conditions and rules to keep a look out for, but what if you run into a problem? Well, you'll need support. And plenty of it. Make sure your web hosting provider provides you with a phone number, an emergency phone number, a fax number, an email address, an emergency email address and possibly a residential or postal address. 24 hour support is a plus, especially if it's 2AM and that one last file just refuses to be uploaded, and your website is being non-responsive. If they do not offer 24 hour support, then they should at least offer a special support email address where there is a guaranteed response time, usually within 1-3, maybe 6 hours tops. You'll need it. Even if just for assurance. You'll never know when you might need it.

Well, that about does it. Stick to these simple guidelines when shopping for your web hosting provider and you hopefully wont be caught by a shark. There are many that are out there with overloaded servers trying to make a quick dollar, and there are ones that offer great quality services at competitive rates with great customer service. They are rare, few and far between. But once you find that Great Hosting Provider, stick with them and they'll reward you in many ways for your loyalty and support. Happy hunting for your next (or first) web hosting provider.

How to Find a Good Web Host?

Usually when someone contacts me online, one of the most frequent questions I get asked is this: "How do I find a good web host?" or "Which web host do you use?"

This is one of those essential things you will need in order to earn that online income. You will need a web site and you will need a web host; somewhere to place that web site.

Sure there are countless marketers who work without a site but most have at least one main site which acts as their online calling card; where people can find them on the web. Of course, you can always use the social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter... but that's like operating your office out of Starbucks!

Instead, a well designed site is just more professional and business like. It also means you're serious about your online business.

Picking a good web host is not easy. I have had numerous different web hosts over the years. Most of them have been very good and served their purpose, but I have had some bad experiences too -what long term webmaster or marketer hasn't? Something always goes wrong eventually, especially if you have a lot of sites and many different web hosts.

Sometimes having a web host can be downright scary. Several years ago, the web host that I had my main site on was first sold and then went bankrupt. One day your site is running fine and the next day the web host is completely gone. Shut down. Your site and all your files completely gone. Vanished. Your host can't be reached. Total blackout!

Fortunately, I had my site backed up on several systems and since that experience I always back my sites up on several computers and I go even further by copying them onto DVDs should those computers crash. If you have a site, I always suggest you back up your site files and make it redundant. The very worst can happen to you.

Overall quality and good 24/7 support should be your first objectives in choosing a good web host. You want a site that's fast, easy to use, rarely down and has good support that you can reach at all times, should something go wrong.

You need to check exactly what features your web host is offering and for what price:

- How much storage space?
- Daily traffic limit or transfer?
- Email system? How many accounts...
- What type of server Linux or Windows?
- How many other sites will be sharing your IP address?
- Do You need SSL or a secure site?
- Are sites/files backed up? How often?
- What are the support hours?
- And of course the Price?

But don't always try to get the cheapest price hosting, keep in mind, you always get what you pay for. A cheap web host won't save you money if it's a poor service and your site is always going down. So don't always pick the cheapest web host.

Match up your hosting service with the type of site you will be running; a simple HTML site will have or make simple demands on your hosting service. So a shared hosting service may be quite adequate to meet your hosting needs. For SEO reasons, you should always check the location of your site, I have found which country your site is hosted in, plays a role in your rankings, especially in Google.

However, if you have a site that's extremely interactive with forums, discussion groups, get large bursts of traffic or you're running a lot of server-side scripts and programs; then you may need a more robust hosting service to meet your needs.

In this case, you might need a dedicated server to handle just your site. Many web hosts offer this service and it's worth looking into if you have a site with extreme amounts of traffic or if you're running forums, affiliate programs, email services... from your site. Most of my own sites are very simple and I have them on many different web hosts. Mainly because of my own experiences, I just don't want to have all my sites on one host... the old "don't put all your eggs in one basket" reasoning.

At the moment I am quite pleased with all my web hosts... many of my sites are on GoDaddy and I find them OK for simple sites like mine. I also find it convenient because they are also a domain registry so I can easily use them to buy my domains. Although many experts suggest you should always keep your domain registration separate from your hosting service because if your host should suddenly vanish, it is only a simple matter of moving your site to a different host. If your host controls your domain, this can be a major problem. Always keep control of your domain in your own hands, but you probably already knew that.

Another web host I use is Bluehost which is very good, can't remember the last time my site was down. They are very popular with around a million sites and my only concern is that they may become too popular and their services will be spread too thin. However, I have had very few problems with them and you can always reach their support.

I also have a site with Ken Evoy's SBI (Site Build It), but I created that one mainly to get access to the enormous resources connected with SBI. It is slightly more expensive than some of the ones listed above, but SBI is an overall online marketing system that in my opinion can't be equaled on the web. Well, perhaps the Warriors group could give them a run for their money, but it's the community of like-minded webmasters with SBI which makes it special. They are always ready and willing to help you out, doesn't matter if you're an experienced pro or a complete newcomer. Several years ago, I took a very close first-hand look at the hosting service provided by SBI. You can find my opinions/review on SBI located in the resource box below.

There are countless web hosts you can choose from when picking a web host. But do your homework, check around to the different forums and see how everyone is rating the web hosts they are using. First-hand experiences are the best judge of whether or not a web host is good and reliable.

Although moving a site from one web host to another can be a real pain, especially if you have a large scale site, but if you're not totally satisfied with a web host and are having serious problems -- simply change your hosting. Just make sure you're not going from bad to worst.

Still, finding a good quality web host will be a major chore, no matter how you look at it.

Perhaps, in the final analysis, nothing beats checking with your friends and fellow webmasters you trust. Ask them which hosts they're using and if they're satisfied with it. Nothing beats first-hand experiences when it comes to choosing a web host. Just make sure you're comparing oranges to oranges, that is: make sure you have similar site requirements as your webmaster friends. If you both have similar type sites, then finding a good quality web host can be as easy as having a friendly chat over a cup of coffee.

SEO Web Hosting and C Class IPs

Webmasters try to avoid being penalized for their search engine optimization attempts by making it appear that everything is occurring naturally, especially the very important inbound links from other sites.

The goal is to make it look like a bunch of different, unrelated sites, are linking to your desired website. Often times the goal is extended to a whole group of websites, all working in concert to help each other win the search engine optimization race.

Even though the webmaster in fact controls all those websites, the relationship must be hidden. A first and most obvious way of doing that is to have unique or at least substantially different domain whois data. Domains owned by the same person, linking to each other, would be enough to raise suspicion. Using different whois privacy services can be a partial solution to that sort of problem.

The role of IPs

Each website in the end points to an IP, where it is hosted. In the background, all domain names actually point to an IP. Typically, a good number of websites will be sharing the same server, and the same IP. That's because most websites have limited needs, and it doesn't make sense to have them hosted on a dedicated server, nor on dedicated IPs.

However, you will often hear people swearing that having a dedicated IP bring you extra SEO points, or that it is safer to have a dedicated IP, so that you don't get penalized by unsavory websites you share the IP with. The only minor truth to sharing IPs has to do with email spam. If for some reason a good amount of spam originates from an IP, it may result in it getting blacklisted. However, this has nothing to do with search engines, it has to do with email deliverability.

Search engines are well aware of this, it is entirely expected and normal, so using shared hosting will not by itself be a worry for your SEO efforts at all.

Interlinking from different or same IPs

Normal webmaster behavior would involve linking to third party sites. Say you write an article and you see a great website/page that relates to what it is you're writing about. It makes sense to link to it so that visitors get extra information there.

Chances are that the other website will not be hosted on the same server as your websites though, so its IP will be different. Things will not be that way if you own this other site though, if you are using the same host/IP to host it.

Now, as long as this happens on a small scale, it's not a problem. It can fall under what normal behavior and normal editing processes are about. You may for example refer to your prior work to make a point in a new article. It's to be expected that something like this will occur.

However, if you refer to half of all your prior work to make a point in each of your articles (or on each of your website pages), things go well outside what can be considered normal. Search engines can detect that sort of abnormality, and put a weight on it.

To try and trick the search engine, you can host your website on different IPs. This is a step forward when it comes to making it seem like the websites are unrelated (management wise), however, when your web hosting provider gives you additional IPs, they may be grouped together really close like say x.y.z.122, x.y.z.123, x.y.z.124 etc.

SEO professionals don't want that, because it's not really what you'd expect from sites hosted by different hosts. They want different looking IPs, often referred to as different C-class, meaning that at least the "z" in the IP should change (if not x and y as well). While IP classes have been obsolete since 1993, the term got revived by SEO professionals, and SEO hosting has come to be synonymous to different C class IP hosting. Using more appropriate terminology though, you would be looking for different /24 block IPs.

The IPs themselves are assigned to organizations, and there is a whois system for IPs as well. If all the IPs are assigned to the same entity, it may be enough for the host to question this oddity. Quite a few SEO hosting services won't be able to properly protect you from this.

Can this use of disparate IPs really do the job and hide the real connection between the linked sites? In theory, yes. In practice, the effectiveness will probably be limited. The unnatural interlinking pattern that basically turns your websites into a web ring, can be algorithmically detected, and will be enough to raise a search engine's suspicion. The more websites in the ring, the more the ability to distort search engine results ranking, and the more likely the search engine is to take drastic action.

It makes perfect sense that the number of websites involved in this sort of scheme must play a role, and Matt Cutts, Google's official voice, confirms this to be the case in his video blog and in his blog.

Can SEO hosting help?

To a degree, I believe it can. We need to keep in mind that search engines must be all about probabilities, about giving a score for all sorts of different factors. In this way, SEO hosting can probably make the difference between having your websites penalized for using black hat link building techniques, to not having them penalized, but only in a more or less narrow range of involved websites.

For the average webmaster with 10-20 websites built over a few years time, relatively heavy interlinking of theme related websites should not be a problem. Once you go to hundreds of websites, not to mention thousands of them, I doubt that SEO hosting will make much of a difference. You will actually have to come up with linking techniques that mimic, quite close to perfection, the way a normal article writer would link to other resources.

Link to your other sites/pages only when it makes sense to link to them. If you have a page about tomatoes, it probably doesn't make sense, to link to your page about the birth of galaxies.

Search engine optimization is all about helping the search engine find the right content to serve its visitors with the information they are after, and, only indirectly, helping yourself. If you fail to take this approach, sooner or later, the always evolving search engine algorithms will catch up with you anyway.

Web Hosting: Which Is The Host With The Most?

So you want to publish a web site do you? Welcome to the club. These days it seems that almost everyone has a web site of some kind, and thousands more continue to be launched every day. It's challenging enough to design a site and fill it with interesting content, but when all is said and done another challenge still remains - where to host it?

A popular choice for newbie webmasters, and even experienced ones, is to secure a free hosting plan with a company such as Yahoo! Geocities, Tripod or Angelfire. While these are easy to setup and free of charge, they do have limitations. Most free hosts don't offer all the nice features that paid hosts do such as FTP access, CGI-BIN, or your own personal domain name. Instead you're stuck with minimal features and a generic URL such as [http://www.freewebhost.com/marcswebsite]. This somewhat limits your web site‘s potential. Most free hosts also require you to run banners or pop-up ads on your web site to make it worth their while - these banners and pop-ups can obstruct the view of your web page and ultimately annoy visitors and drive them away. Lastly, most free hosts have a daily bandwidth limit that is very small, so if you do get a lot of traffic you'll most likely exceed the allotted bandwidth and your site will be temporarily disabled. Overall I would recommend free web hosts for people that are new to web hosting and want to get a feel for how it works. I'd also recommend them for web sites that are personal in nature (such as an online journal) as well as web sites that don't plan to generate any revenue. Free web hosts are a great stepping stone to paid web hosts - I myself starting building web sites 4 years ago using free hosts, and today I run several high traffic web sites that are hosted on paid web hosting plans.

Now it's time to get into the good stuff - paid web hosting. Web hosting companies that charge money for their services are plentiful on the Internet, and feature a wide array of hosting packages at various price points. First we begin with so called "budget" web hosts, who claim to offer you the world for only $1 per month. Having used numerous such companies I feel I must tell you to proceed with caution here, as these companies aren't all that they are cracked up to be. Many claim to offer 24/7 e-mail support, which in my experience turned out to be 0/0 e-mail support. My e-mails were either never answered or answered a week after I sent them. Even when I got a response it was generic in nature and completely unhelpful. Also, expect frequent outages with these budget web hosts as they rarely even have their own web servers - often they are reselling space on someone else's web servers over which they have no control. One budget web host I used went down unexpectedly for 6 days, and they didn‘t even bother to notify their customers. As a result, my web site was down for 6 days and I lost most of my visitors as well as my hard-earned search engine rankings. Lesson learned: if the reliability and success of your web site is important to you, budget web hosting might not be the answer. However, this is not to say that all budget web hosts are bad - 1dollarhosting.com is one of the leaders in the budget web hosting arena and has quite a good reputation.

The next type of paid web host is what I refer to as a "mid-range" web host, meaning that they offer prices and service that will satisfy the majority of web sites out there. Mid-range web hosts like PowWeb, Your-Site.com and iPowerWeb offer packages ranging from $5 to $8 per month and provide the tools that most webmasters will need to run a web site, such as: CGI-BIN, tons of e-mail addresses, FTP support, visitor statistics and more. These hosts do have monthly bandwidth limits, but the limits are quite high, and most web sites will never reach them. However, if your web site features hundreds of file downloads and gets decent traffic you may be shocked at how soon you'll reach those bandwidth limits. When you do, your site may be temporarily shut down or you'll have to pay bandwidth overage charges, which can get pricey. Overall though, mid-range web hosts will be satisfactory for 90% of the web sites out there, and generally offer excellent uptime/reliability. In fact, many web-based businesses are successfully run using a mid-range web host. However, as mentioned previously, web sites that offer large files for download or sites that get a huge amount of traffic may find that a mid-range host doesn't quite suit their needs. These types of web sites may require "high-end" web hosting solutions, the next topic in our discussion.

High-end web hosts typically service web sites that are extremely popular, have a high amount of traffic, and/or require pretty much 100% uptime. Most businesses rely on high-end web hosts to host their web sites. Rackspace.com is an example of a well known high-end web hosting company. Pricing for high-end hosts varies, but typically runs from about $50 per month to several hundred dollars per month. Many high-end hosts give you your own dedicated server (which they support) that is reserved just for you and your web site. The mid-range hosts I discussed earlier typically host many different web sites on the same server - this is known as "shared" hosting. High-end web hosts offer stellar reliability, bandwidth, and just about every tool you'll ever need to run a successful web site. Another feature that some high-end web hosts provide is "co-location" hosting. In this scenario, YOU configure and provide the web server, but you get to plug it into their data center/network. This can be very nice because their data center usually has a fiber-optic connection directly to the Internet, offering blazing bandwidth and stellar reliability. People who run web-based businesses or extremely popular, high traffic web sites are good candidates for high-end web hosting.

Hopefully this brief overview gives you a good picture of the various types of web hosts that exist, and which one might be right for you. When you begin your search for a web host, always keep in mind the old adage "You get what you pay for" because it really does hold true in this case. Before you make the commitment to host a web site be sure to take some time and analyze what you want out of the web site, and decide which factors are most important to its success. Answering these questions will get you many steps closer to choosing the web host that's right for you.

Web Hosts: The Basics

Before you start searching for a web host, you must familiarize yourself with the terminology used in this field. The following terms are also considered key factors in deciding the suitable hosting plan that meets your requirements. You can start learning what does each term mean and how does it affect your selection.

Web Host

A web host, also known as web server, is a computer connected to the internet. This computer is more powerful than normal PCs and is set up to serve up websites. Your website content will reside on this computer, which will give people who surf the internet a way to access your website.

Web hosts can be categorized into three main categories based on the price range and common features for each category:

1. Free Hosts: limited in space, bandwidth and other features. Suitable for personal websites or for temporary usage. Usually enforce pop-up, text or banner ads. They do not provide the best performance and/or reliability. They provide minimum or no customer support. If you register for a free host, your domain will be something like yourname.freehost.com or [http://www.freehost.com/yourname].

2. Shared Hosts: most websites are using this type of hosting. Suitable for personal, small and medium businesses. Prices range from $1 to about $25 a month. Features also range from very limited space/bandwidth to semi-dedicated servers. Your website has its own top level domain (e.g. [http://www.website-hostings.net]) The number of websites on a server affects its performance and availability, more websites usually means less performance. Servers hosting less number of shared websites are more expensive, but more reliable. Some companies allow customers to host multiple websites with different domains under a single account.

3. Dedicated Hosts: A full server dedicated to a single customer. Usually used by large businesses and very active websites with thousands of daily visitors. The customer will have full control over the server, and can create as many websites as he likes. Customer can have his own hosting company run on a rented dedicated server. Prices depend on the specifications and services provided with the server, starting from about $100 up to about $800 dollars a month.

4. Colocated Hosts: very similar to dedicated hosts, but the customer owns the server hardware instead of renting it. The server will be housed in provider's data center. Prices are a bit higher than dedicated servers.

5. Reseller Hosts: providers offer web server storage to customers, who then resell the web server storage to their customers. Providers usually offer resellers a discount price.

6. Other Hosts: there are few other types of hosts such as email hosts, media hosts, data hosts, etc but these are out of the scope of this article.

Domain Name

www.website-hostings.net [http://www.website-hostings.net] is an example of a domain name. It's a name that points to where your website is physically located. The actual address of your website is a set of numbers that looks like (70.86.135.242). This address is unique for every web server. Domain names are just pointers to the real addresses. It's easier to remember the domain names than the IP addresses.

Space / Storage

The amount of web server's disk space available for customer's website files, images and databases. It can be as small as 5MB in some free hosts and as big as 300GB for some dedicated servers. Space prices reduced significantly during the last few years. Customer can find hosting plans offering 3GB of space for less than $10 a month.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the amount of data transferred from web server to clients' internet browsers. Each time a person view a page data is transmitted from the server to that person's PC. Audio, video and images contents consume much more bandwidth than text. Bandwidth can be as low as 100MB a month in some free web hosts and as high as 2000GB a month in some dedicated servers. Customer can find hosting plans offering 75GB of monthly data transfer for less than $10.

Server Type

Usually means the operating system than runs the web server. Common types are Windows, Linux and UNIX. Server type determines the server side scripting and database types. Windows usually runs ASP and ASP.NET with Access or SQL Server databases. Linux/UNIX servers usually runs CGI, PHP or JSP with mySQL or Oracle databases. Windows servers are usually more expensive than Linux/UNIX servers.

Databases

As you have seen in server types, there are different types of databases. The most commonly used is mySQL because its an open source GPL (free) software and can serve a lot of online applications' requirements such as forums, content management, mailing lists, etc. MySQL, however, has some limitations in its features. Complicated large business sites will need more powerful databases such as Oracle or SQL Server.

Server Side Scripting

Most new users prefer to use PHP as server side scripting. The reason is that there are hundreds of open source (GPL) PHP scripts that can meet a lot of webmaster's requirements. Similar to mySQL, PHP has some limitations in features required by advanced websites, which makes some senior web developers prefer to use ASP.NET or JSP. Other developers still prefer to use Cold Fusion, CGI, ASP or PERL.

Email

Most hosting plans include the feature of having some email accounts with customer's domain (e.g. admin@website-hostings.net). The number and size of email accounts depends on the hosting plan. Free plans do not usually have this feature, small plans give about 10 accounts where big plans do not limited the number. Those email accounts are usually web based and accessible through POP3 clients as well.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

A standard way of transferring files across the Internet. Most webmasters upload and download their websites contents using FTP. The upload or download processes are usually performed using FTP client software. To access their web servers, webmasters need FTP username and password. Some hosts give more than one FTP account to their customers. FTP can by anonymous as well, but its not recommended for security reasons.

Control Panel

Most web hosting companies provide their customers with a control panel, a web based application that helps in managing websites. Common functions in control panels are: managing email accounts, providing statistics, managing FTP accounts, managing domains and subdomains and managing databases. The most commonly used control panel application is cPanel. Some companies develop their own control panel application.

Uptime

An important feature of web hosts is their uptime, which is usually measured in percentage. A server that goes down for an average of 30 minutes a day will have an uptime percentage of about 99.98%, which is acceptable for most small to medium business websites. Anything less than this percentage is not suitable for a business website. Mission critical sites cannot tolerate frequent outages, thus they may use web monitoring services to notify web administrators immediately when an outage happens.

Price

With the wide range of options available for customers, the price is also ranges from 0 to $1000 a month. Most personal, small and medium websites shouldn't cost more than $15 a month. It's not recommended for business website owners to go for very cheap plans (less than $5) because this price usually means a compromise in the quality of support and reliability of the server.

Ten Common Web Hosting Terms Explained For Newbies

If you want to have an online presence these days it is impossible to do so without your own website or blog. While many blogging platforms such as WordPress.com are free to use they do limit you in the sense of what you are allowed to do. Therefore it is recommended that you consider web hosting. The biggest issue new computer users face is a lack of knowledge about the technical terms used by web hosting companies. The "fear" or "insecurity" of the unknown turns many users away, which is a shame really because they are cutting themselves short.

To help you understand common web hosting terms we have written this article so that you can take advantage of the offers like a pro - even as a total newcomer to the Internet.

Web hosting: Web hosting is like having your own online home for your website. Without a host you would be hard-pressed to be found online because it is the real estate on which your website (online home) is situated on. While you can host a blog or website for free on many online platforms you are extremely limited in your options.

If you are a business or entrepreneur you really want to have your own self-hosted website because the Internet is massive right now and will only continue to grow. You simply can't afford to be missing out on potential sales and customers due to the steady traffic the web provides.

When you purchase web hosting space, you can then upload files and images to your online real estate, effectively creating a website that will be available to millions of people worldwide.

Domain name: A domain name is your WWW address on the web. While the web host is your real estate, your domain name is your address, much like a physical address. But instead of a street name and number you are given a domain name (www.yourdomain.com).

Most web hosts provide you with a domain name of your choice once you register for an account. Alternatively you can also buy them from a domain name registrar.

Database: A database is simply a file which contains organized and structured information such as other files, pictures, music and more. The purpose of a database is to allow users access to information in a secure digital way by means of a login. A typical example is a self hosted WordPress blog which requires a database to function.

The owner would then be able to login to the admin section of the blog while readers can browse it with the help of the Internet without needing to login (unless the blog is made private).

MySQL: MySQL is the world's most popular database for open source, meaning everybody can tweak and twiddle with the software however they deem fit. MySQL stands for "Structured Query Language." These days most good hosts use MySQL databases due to their ability to deal with web languages such as PHP (which is code to laymen) but provides a more dynamic setup.

Disk Space: This terminology refers to the "virtual floorspace" you are given by your web hosting company. The hard disk space sits on the computers of your host, acting as your web server. Depending on the size of your website you might need more or less space. Many people start out with a small account and then gradually increase it if the need arises. Most users will never even use the amount of disk space given to them by their web host.

Bandwidth: The best way to imagine Bandwidth is to compare it to the amount of visitors and traffic you receive in your home each month. The more traffic your website has, the more data will be used. If your homepage is 40KB in size then each visitor to your website will use 40KB of data. This multiplies by the total amount of visitors you have on your website each month and then some because your own visits count as well.

If your allotted usage of Bandwidth is exceeded in any given month you will usually be charged extra by your hosting company. A good way to monitor your usage is by using the web stats program in your cPanel admin.

cPanel: A cPanel is simply said your control panel into which you as a webmaster can login and perform website maintenance tasks. In short it is a UNIX based web hosting interface.

Web Stats: Your web stats give you important insights into your website visitor's behavior. While nobody should waste hours each day studying their stats, it is certainly useful and recommended to make it a habit to check-in at least once a week to see what brings visitors to your site and what repels them.

By monitoring your stats (from within your cPanel admin) you can gain clear insights in regards to your website which is essential for growing any site.

FTP: FTP stands for "file transfer protocol." You need an FTP client to upload files to your online server (your host). You can access FTP features from within your hosting account's cPanel or else you can download free or paid FTP software directly to your computer to save time.

POP 3 Email: A POP 3 email account is a common by-product of many web hosting packages these days. It will allow you to create one or unlimited email addresses depending on your package, which you can then forward to your computer by means of POP 3. Instead of having to read your email online after login into your account, you simply read in in Outlook Express or a similar program on your machine.

Best Web Hosting Tips for Blogging

Let's explore becoming a blogger and the proper use of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn advertising on your blog and website. Facebook and Twitter have very specific instructions for using their logos, but it seems that on the Internet, very few people are following those guidelines. If you have any questions, you should ask your attorney. Having said that, there are common practices that webmasters and bloggers are using to promote their brand on these social media sites.

It is not legal to take someone else's brand and alter it. But the Twitter and Facebook logo are everywhere and that is what has made these social media sites so famous. Facebook and Twitter both have trademarks on their logo and their iconography. For example, Twitter's trademark is the little blue bird. They have their name and logo trademarked, therefore, you can not alter them.

Their guidelines are important so pay attention to those guidelines in relation to their name and logo allowed use. Legally you can not take their brand or trademark and alter them. Both Facebook and Twitter do allow, however, certain kinds of things. Facebook allows webmasters to use the "F" in a square and use it on your branding and include text, for example, "Fan us on Facebook". They do not allow you, however, to use the F in a different color or FB in a different color. These are their general guidelines. Twitter, on the other hand, does not want you to put a T in side of a blue square. So what you as a webmaster need to ask yourself is whether or not you want to comply with their general guidelines. If you have any questions, it is best to ask an attorney or read their guidelines on the Facebook or Twitter website.

It is not recommended, for example, to use a little F or a little T on any of your online branding at all. A little T that says "Follow us on Twitter" or a little F that says "Fan us on Facebook" could actually cause your website to lose valuable traffic because all this does is encourage visitors to leave your website. It sends people away from your website to the social media giants. Instead, what is recommended is to employ the widgets that are available for webmasters to put on their site so that visitors can like you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter without leaving your website. The old way of doing things is sending someone away from your website. The new way is to keep your hard-earned visitors at your website. By using these widgets, visitors can become a fan or a follower without ever leaving your website. Keep visitors on your website while at the same time encouraging them to be fans or followers. It's a win-win strategy.

Your Blog and Your Web Hosting Account

Content marketing is a well-known successful way to market a business online without spending a great deal of money on advertising. Blogs are a main way to attract leads and educate prospects. With some companies, all their leads come from their blog and they do not need to do any advertising whatsoever. Instead of spending a great deal of money on advertising, these companies post 500 word articles to their blogs on a daily or weekly basis. Many business owners have been able to leave their 9-5 jobs because of blogging. These companies use blog posts as their number one strategy for advertising. Build a strong following by blogging. It is a great way to start without advertising and spending a great deal of money on a start-up. Blogging is a cost efficient way to build a company online. With your own web hosting account, you will have blogging software that makes it easy to get started blogging and posting your content on your own website or blog.

Traits of Successful Bloggers

What are the traits that someone should have to become a successful blogger? Start with the notion that there are five roles that people play. Every person has at least one of these traits or roles.

Five Traits of Successful Bloggers

Are you a dreamer? You are a visionary and you want to tell people about it.
Are you a good storyteller?
Are you a teacher?
Are you a persuader? Every person has an opinion.
Are you a curator? A collector of ideas is a helpful trait for blogging.
The idea is to take that one trait that you have, recognize it, and build on it. Some people have more than one of the above traits, which is also good. An example is to take your trait and incorporate real-life events into a blog post. Successful bloggers have one trait and everybody does have one of these traits. If you have more than one or even all of these traits, it is even better. Some people have a natural tendency to blog. Ask your friends or family members to tell you which of these traits you have in your DNA. You will get some interesting feedback.

Do You Need to Be a Good Writer to Be a Good Blogger?

When people think of writing, they think of Pulitzer Prize winning books. That is not the case with blogging. With blogging, you need to be a great conversational writer. Do you have an easy, natural way to get your point across? If, for example, you can sit down with a person and have a drink with them and enjoy a good conversation with that person, you can be a blogger. As a blogger, you wouldn't talk to that person like you are in a board room, but rather you would talk to that person like they were your friend. You need to be able to communicate in a way that builds rapport and relationships.

How Is a Blog Writer Different Than an Article Writer?

A blog writer is looking to start a relationship that is very personal. Your own opinion is infused in that writing. Even the structure of blog writing is different than articles. Your blog articles need to be intimate and give the reader a feel for who you are. It is very personal. Be a conversationalist. Have a dialogue that is easy for people to follow. Speak in every day terms and your blog writing will resonate with people. If you have trouble starting a blog article, you can always talk it out and record it, then transcribe it back into text format.

Technology That Can Help You Write

There are a lot of great technology options that can help you to write. Text-to-speech tools like "Dragon Naturally Speaking" let you talk and have it transcribed. If you have an iPhone, Siri will do it. Use your voice to write the article and save time. This technique is also helpful if you have trouble writing because it makes the task more of a conversation, rather than writing. This is exactly what blogging involves.

It is not just about text. Video blogging is another way to advertise using blogging. Writing is only one way to express yourself on a blog.

How Do You Decide if You Have What It Takes to Be a Blogger?

Do you have an obsession with a topic? This goes beyond with a passion for a topic because if you are talking or writing about your topic every day, you must be borderline obsessed with the topic, otherwise you might not be able to sustain yourself on your topic. You don't want blogging to be a chore so choose a topic that you are obsessed with.

Are there others like you? If you start a blog about a certain topic, you need to have an audience that is interested in your topic.

Assess whether you have a marathon or sprinter mind-set. Successful bloggers have one of these two mind-sets. In some cases, a successful blogger can take years. Define your craft, take time, put yourself in a zone of kicking out content, refining it, and realistically looking at what your vision is for your blog in two years. Expect nothing to happen for two years because blogging definitely takes time to become successful. In the beginning, don't expect any re-tweets or comments for a while. For the first three years, you can literally have only one or two hundred visitors visiting your blog. When you finally figure out essentially the kinds of blogging strategies that "work" in your industry, that's when you will see results. Eventually, it is very possible to have several hundred thousands of visitors to your blog which can lead to a completely sustainable business of your own as a result of blogging. It doesn't have to take you that long to be successful. In the early days of blogging, no one really knew what they were doing. The good news is that now there are many strategies outlined on the Internet that can give you a head start. No point re-inventing the wheel.
Tips on How to Create Content

Stick with it. Know that you are fighting the good fight. Train your brain to notice potential topics by writing down every idea that pops into your head. It doesn't matter if you are writing these ideas on post-it notes, index cards, or on your iPad. Just let your brain learn that every good idea is going to be noticed and used in some way.

Turn content creation into a habit. Set aside some time for at least a couple of weeks when you tell yourself that it is your "time" to create content. Make a daily appointment with yourself. If you are a night person, set aside a couple of hours, for example, between 10:00 and midnight. Turn content creation into a habit. Content creation during your most productive time of day will help you to kick out some great material because it will become a habit.

Done is better than perfect. Some great bloggers are such perfectionists and are constantly refining and refurbishing their content, but because they are never done with it, the content stays in their draft folder forever. You don't want your content to stay unfinished. Just get your content out there. Get leverage with yourself by telling people how much content you plan on releasing. This will give you added motivation to deliver on what you have promised by increasing the frequency of your blog posts. You will feel like you need to follow through. Get content out on a regular basis, but be careful with the word "regular". Be reasonable. Find your tempo and stick with it.

How Do You Find Ideas for Topics to Write About?

If you are super passionate about a certain topic, your friends and colleagues will ask you questions about it. Take notes of those questions because each one can be a blog post. Every time someone asks you a question, pay attention to it. Look at the news section at local book stores or other stores, such as Walmart, and take note of the headlines. What are the headlines and how are the other writers leading up to those headlines in their articles? Crack open the magazines to see how others are addressing news or general topics. It adds fuel to the fire and gives you quick ideas.

Multi-purpose your content. If, for example, you give a presentation somewhere you can take that presentation and multi-purpose it into two or three blog posts, possibly even more. Metaphors are important. If you like to do something, you can use metaphors and write about them in many different ways. You can talk about a topic many different ways.

How Do You Draw People to Your Blog?

To get more readers, you need to be relevant. The daily news is your friend. Look at what is being talked about and find a way to connect it to your topic. This draws people into your blog. Tap into the trends of the moment. Hang out at the watering hole, like forums or other blogs and find out what the audience is being fed. Find out where the audience is hanging out and join in. Be helpful to that community and a fixture in that space. See what people want and jump in. Find out what people want, then write about it. People will see your advise and eventually, people will notice you and come to your blog.

Content hubs are websites that collect a certain type of content and use that to attract an audience. For example, SlideShare is a content hub that collects presentations. They have a really large audience of people looking for presentations. Re-purpose your content and put them on those content hubs and your audience will grow exponentially. You will bring in readers from many different sources.

When you write special reports and package them up in PDF format, take them and turn them into online special reports. Every page can be a blog post. Because the pages are interlinked, Google will see it as relevant and not only index it, but list it higher in searches. That type of content can become very successful. Drip the content out over time and Google will take notice of your interlinked content. If the content is focused on one theme, it will do really well.

Email and Blogging

The connection between email and blogging is very important. Email is critical to a blogger. If you have an email list, you can get people back to your blog on a regular basis. When people join your opt-in email list, you should email those people to let them know whenever you have a new blog post. When things are on your mind, email the people on your list. It builds a relationship. Building a maintaining an email address list is absolutely necessary to build your success over time. If you have a blog, get an email opt-in form on your blog immediately. Most of the people that come to your blog are new after a new blog article is posted because RSS (really simple syndication) has a pull and draws people in. So, the advantage of capturing those visitors' email addresses is that you can re-seize those peoples' attention and mobilize them. Write a special report and a good piece of content and people will join your email list. By capturing names and email addresses, you can build a loyal following. When you have something to sell, your email list makes all the difference in the world. Some bloggers say that their email list is what feeds their family. Create a product and offer it to your subscribers.

Your voice is unique. Everything that you have to say is important. There are a lot of bloggers out there, but you owe it to yourself to try. With all the blogging tips and strategies online, you can get up the learning curve very quickly and become a successful blogger.

Web Hosting and Blogging

Which software should you use for blogging?

WordPress is currently the most popular blogging platform. In many cases, you can get it for free with your web hosting account. And it is easy to install. For example, some web hosting providers offer WordPress installed with just a few clicks of your mouse inside your web hosting control panel. Don't be intimidated by the technology. WordPress is easy to use and easy to learn. There are no barriers that are holding you back. So, start blogging and start today building your email list to build a loyal following. And when you ask yourself why you are working so hard to crank out content. Well, it's because you are a blogger.

Web Hosting - A Guide for Beginners

So you're looking to learn about web hosting and what it has to offer or you may not know much about web hosting? There is no shame in not knowing this information. Everyone has to start at the beginning at some point. On that note, lets begin learning about web hosting.

First off, what is web hosting and how does it work?

Web hosting is the business practice of providing space and bandwidth on a high-powered computer server that is connected to the Internet at very high speeds. Hosting companies maintain large networks of high-powered web server computers in a physical location known as a data center. These computer servers are connected to a very fast, and generally redundant, Internet connection. The data centers have primary and backup power, a fast connection to the Internet, and a security monitoring staff.

The web hosting companies provide a share of disk space and available bandwidth to a customer for a monthly fee. Once the customer is signed up, they can upload files to their personal space on the web server and the information is then viewable to anyone interested on the Internet. The monthly fee the web hosting company charges is much less than what it would cost to run a server out of your own home or data center. This is the reason these companies exist. They take care of all the hardware, software, and other technical needs for you.

Types of web hosting

There are many different types of web hosting offers, but the main three are shared, reseller, and dedicated. Each type of hosting is for a different purpose.

Shared Web Hosting

Shared web hosting is the most popular form of hosting. Shared hosting is a portion of disk space and bandwidth provided to you by the web hosting company on a high-powered server. There are many other web sites hosted on this server, and the hosting company is likely to have quite a few of these servers in a large data center. The resources of the server are shared by as many other websites as are allocated to that computer.

Shared web hosting is the best form of web hosting if you are looking for a great price and don't have more than a couple thousand daily visitors to your site.

Reseller Web Hosting

Reseller web hosting is a popular, low-cost solution to starting your own web hosting business. There are two types of reseller hosting, private-label and a reseller of services.

The private-label is the best type of reseller plan because it allows you to retain full control over your customer's websites. A private-label plan allows the reseller to keep the full monthly payment of the web-hosting customer, but the reseller must pay a monthly fee to the larger hosting company for the reseller space. The more hosting accounts a private-label reseller can sell, the higher the profit for them. Private-label hosting allows you to host many more websites than if you were using shared hosting for each. This is a great solution for someone who has many sites they need to host in one location to save money.

The reseller of services plans resell the regular web hosting plans of a larger web hosting company, but you get a discounted price for providing the customer and earn a monthly fee for as long as they remain a customer. This plan does not allow control over customer web sites and you only keep a portion of the potentially monthly revenue.

Dedicated Web Hosting

Dedicated web hosting is the most powerful and cost effective solution of hosting a busy web site without resorting to buying your own equipment and paying hundreds of dollars per month for a fast Internet connection. Dedicated hosting consists of single server with no one else hosting on that computer. This allows for the greatest of configuration options. Anyone who has a busy website will find dedicated hosting is the necessary choice.

Web Hosting Considerations

Wondering about all the other information listed in web hosting plans? In this section, I will explain the most important considerations in choosing a good web host.

Price

The price of web hosting services is one of the most important. There are many hosting companies out there with cheap hosting packages, but they may be lacking in other areas. Don't let the price of a hosting package fool you. There are some hosting companies out there who have great prices and the other features are just as good. Price may be one of the most important decisions of a web hosting plan, but there is much more to consider in choosing a quality web host.

Disk Space / Storage Space

Disk space is the amount of physical storage space a web host gives to you to store your web files. Hosting companies these days have plans with disk space being measured mostly in terms of gigabytes, but some are still offering plans in the megabytes for storage space. Depending on your needs for file storage space, you may need more or less. Generally the more disk space offered, the better.

Bandwidth / Data Transfer

The amount of bandwidth available can make a big difference in choosing a quality hosting plan. In general, the more bandwidth a hosting company makes available to you, the better. This means you can support more traffic to your web site as your business grows. Be wary of web hosting companies that offer unlimited or unmetered bandwidth. While many of these are legitimate offers, there are some out there who are overselling their bandwidth in hopes the average user won't use much.

Customer Support

In any business, it is very important to provide exception customer service. Web hosting is no exception to this. Many of the hosting companies are available all day and night in case you have a problem with your web site, but there are some who are just available specific hours of the day. If your web site goes down in the middle of the night when they're not available, this means lost revenue for a business. You should make sure the web host you select is always available for support.

Money Back Guarantee

Most web hosting companies will provide a thirty-day money back guarantee. Some will provide one even long, but be wary of the ones who offer no money back guarantee. I would not purchase web hosting services from a company who does not offer at least a 30 day money back guarantee, unless they have proven themselves to be a leader in the industry and have an excellent reputation.

Operating System

An operating system is a piece of software that controls the interaction between the computer user and the physical hardware of the machine. A vast majority of all web sites on the Internet run on the Linux operation system. Linux is generally much more stable than Windows. Stability is critical in running a web site. For this reason, I prefer to host my web sites on the Linux operating system. Some sites have specific requirements that only the Windows operating system can satisfy, but there are always alternatives to those requirements.

Backup

A good web hosting company will have a regular schedule to backup the data on all the web servers. The more often the data is backed up, the better. At the very least, a web hosting company should backup web site files daily.

Control Panel

The control panel is the point of contact the web site administrator will have between the host server and their own machine connected via the Internet. It is essential to have a well organized and easy to use control panel interface. My favorite control panel is cPanel, which is one of the leading web hosting control panels out there today. Plesk is another good one, and many companies will create their own control panel for you to use. Most web hosting companies will provide a link to a demo of the control panel they use with their hosting plans. The control panel used is a matter of preference, but it should be user friendly.

Email

Email is essential part of communication on the Internet. Most web hosting companies out there will give you more email addresses and more space to hold email messages than you will ever need. What you need to watch out for is the companies that have decided to be a little strict on their email accounts and only offer a small number or a small amount of message space.

Uptime

Uptime is a term used to describe how often the average web site hosted by a company is available online. No company should be expected to provide an exact 100% uptime. This is impossible due to things such as hardware, software, and power failures. A vast majority of the companies are very good with uptime, and they guarantee it. It is still a good idea to be conscious of the uptimes posted by the company. If it is not at least 99.5%, it is probably not worth hosting with that company.

Statistics

As a webmaster, it is nice to know how many visitors you've had, where they came from, how long they stay on your site, and how much bandwidth they've used. This information is collected by the web server and is placed in a log file. A statistics software package can read this data and provide meaningful information to the webmaster. The information gathered from these logs can be very valuable in improved services to the viewers of the web site.

FTP

FTP stands for file transfer protocol. It is a way of quickly uploading or downloading many files to and from a web server. Most web hosting companies will allow their customers access to their web hosting accounts via FTP. FTP is very useful and is a great feature to have when paying for a web hosting account.

Scripting

Since the World Wide Web began, many scripting languages have been created and have evolved into the dynamic and interactive environment we enjoy today. A scripting language is a way of adding functionality to a web site, whether it be to calculate numbers or to load information from an external database. Scripting languages have made electronic commerce possible. Some of these languages include PHP, ASP, JSP, Coldfusion, VBscript, Javascript, and Perl. I won't go into the details of these in this article for the sake of complexity. If you know how to use these languages, you should know what to look for in a web server for them.

Databases

A database is a place to store data that can be used in a large variety of ways. Databases are used on the Internet for applications such as shopping carts, message boards, and product catalogues. The more databases the web hosting provider allows you to create, the most applications you can deploy on your web server. Databases are used by the more advanced web master, but information is freely available online should you be interested.

Conclusions

Web hosting can be a very difficult decision with the many thousands of hosting companies out there. It is critical to find a plan that fits your needs and to have a good hosting company. I hope this article was useful in making your decision about which company to host with. Happy Hosting!

The New Houston - From Green Energy to Web Hosting - Houston Is on a Roll!

Bike Share kiosks in downtown. Electric vehicle charging stations at the grocery store. Over 15 miles of new rail lines being constructed. Wind turbines and solar on rooftops. Solar-powered mini-offices at schools and parks. E-cycling and polystyrene foam recycling. Urban gardens surrounding office buildings. LEED-certified historic buildings. Complete Streets in urban neighborhoods. Accessible and recreation-oriented bayous.

What City is this you ask? Houston, and not only is Houston going green, this great city has become a technology mecca with many web hosting firms developing strong relationships in the city.

Look at the testimonials of a company closely, especially those featured on their site. Many web hosting companies offer cheap plans on their site, but there are few that are located in the great state of Texas, and even fewer with a long history in the City of Houston.

For some companies, this may be easy to spot, for others it may be more difficult. In either case, do not take web hosting companies at face value. Get reviews from independent message boards not affiliated with the web hosting company, then choose a host with a strong foundation in Houston.

The New Houston.

When looking for a web hosting provider, a good indicator of a professional firm is a regularly updated blog on the provider's website. Although it may be overlooked, a blog indicates that the provider is willing to maintain communication, whether it's about server issues, upgrades, or new features that are on the way. Also look for professional responses to comments left for the provider by other users.

Innovation, creativity and a black gold rush spirit dominated industrial Houston at the turn of the last century - putting Houston on the map as an economic leader.

Don't choose your web hosting provider based solely on price. Although using a cheap or free web host may save you money in the short run, these hosts might not offer the disk space or bandwidth you need. Price should be only one factor in your final decision so that you ensure that you get what you most need.

Today, Houston is at an historic juncture. Decision-drivers for the city and the region are no longer only economic. There is an emerging recognition that the city has the building blocks to be one of the most livable, equitable and sustainable places in the nation, and lead the next revolution: the green revolution.

If you are going to obtain a shared web hosting solution, conduct some research on the websites that you will be sharing your server with. You should definitely avoid sharing servers with websites that participate in spam due to the fact that if any of these websites receive an IP address ban from search engines or internet service providers, your website will be banned along with them. Adult websites in particular tend to participate in these kinds of activities.

What are these building blocks? Recently, Forbes Magazine placed Houston as the number one city for young professionals. And young professionals drive innovation and use new thinking to solve old issues. Houston has a business-friendly environment and a plethora of large companies conducting business in new ways. Houston has high average incomes and a concentration of graduates from elite colleges from across the country. Also, for the first time in thirty years, the Kinder Houston Area Study revealed a significant increase in the number of residents who support mass transit and prefer a less automobile-dependent, more urbanized lifestyle. And Mayor Annise Parker's forward-thinking and innovative approaches and initiatives are putting Houston on the map as a national green leader.

Avoid free web hosting services. These services support themselves by placing advertisements on the top of all the websites they host. These advertisements may annoy your visitors or make your site appear unprofessional. In addition, some free hosts may restrict the amount of commercial content allowed on the websites that they host.

What's most exciting about Houston is that few people think it will lead the green revolution. But this sleeping giant is starting to awaken. Houstonians love a good challenge and love to save money.

You can almost always save money on your web hosting by paying in advance. Discounts for multi-month and yearly packages are common. However, you don't want to lock in with an unreliable host. Try out a new host for a month or two before you lock in a long-term commitment, and check out the cancellation and refund policy beforehand.

At the turn of the last century, rich resources made Houston a national economic leader. At the turn of this century, rich resources will do the same. Texas has, by far, the largest installed wind power capacity of any U.S. state. The City of Houston capitalized on this and has been recognized by the EPA as the number one municipal purchaser of green power and the seventh largest overall purchaser in the nation.

Don't be afraid to change your web host if they are not providing you with the services that you need. There are currently thousands of web hosting providers in the market. So, if your current web host is giving you shoddy service and charging you extortionate monthly fees, it is in your best interest to change your web hosting provider today!

The City has a robust partnership with the University of Houston's College of Architecture's Green Building Components Program. Their innovative faculty has designed the first movable solar powered office/generator, and the City, through a grant, has purchased 17 of these units for emergency preparedness and other uses. Houston also recently received two large grants to reduce the cost of solar for residents and test out new types of rooftop solar technology.

Since there are so many web hosting companies to choose from, it can be difficult to ascertain which web hosting provider is the best one for your business. One of the key qualities you need to look for in a web hosting company is whether they have enough resources available to provide its users with reliability and stability. You don't want to get involved with company that has more website customers than their servers and staff can handle.

Houston does not only create cleaner ways to use energy, Houston actually uses less energy. The City knows about energy efficiency: over 80 City facilities are expected to achieve guaranteed energy use reductions of 30% with paybacks of, on average, less than ten years.

If you want to run an online business, you should know that your web hosting service is going to represent your main investment. Even if this service seems costly in comparison to the other expenses related to your business, keep in mind that the success of your site will greatly depend on a good host.

The City also wants energy efficiency to be part of the urban fabric of Houston. Through our Residential Energy Efficiency Program (REEP), led by the General Services Department, the City has helped 13k Houston residents weatherize their homes, resulting in 12-20% kWh reduction and $60-125 savings each month. On the commercial side, the award-winning Houston Green Office Challenge and the City's partnership in the DOE's Better Buildings Challenge are encouraging building owners and property managers to find innovative measures to reduce their energy and water consumption and decrease waste.

The minute you start seeing things that you don't like with your web hosting company, you should be gin looking at other options. This does not necessarily mean you are going to switch right then, but in case you need to, you will definitely be well-prepared and ready to move on.

We also know that equally important to encouraging high performing buildings is looking at our codes. In January 2012, the City, with leadership from the Public Works and Engineering Department, set the bar high by adopting the Houston Residential Energy Code. This code makes Houston's standards 5% above the state code for residential energy efficiency standards, and also requires all new residential buildings to be solar ready. And Houston is poised to adopt another 5% increase above state code this year.

When looking at prices for web hosting, make sure you are looking at packages that correspond to e-commerce websites. If you want to use your site to sell products, you will need a host that supports certain features such as databases or shopping carts, perhaps at an extra costs not included in basic packages.

It's not just about energy efficiency. Houston also embraces green buildings. Currently Houston is number four in the nation in the number of LEED certified buildings with 186 certified projects. That's up from #7 just a year ago.

Carefully investigate the customer service capabilities and reputation of a web hosting company before singing up. You should have 24/7 access to customer service, including technical support for example if you are looking to transfer a data base or experience down time. Look for online and always available customer service to meet all of your web hosting needs.

One of the most impressive pieces of the green revolution is the emphasis on public transportation and new transportation technologies. Under the leadership of METRO, Houston will soon have three new rail lines, adding over 15 miles to the system.

Establish how much you can afford to spend on web hosting. You can get discounts if you subscribe to web hosting for a while year instead of paying a monthly fee. Perhaps you should start with a monthly subscription to see if the host you have chosen is reliable and switch to a yearly plan later.

Houston is at the forefront of the electric car movement. Houston was one of the first cities to receive EV cars for a City fleet, which now includes 40 Nissan Leafs and plug-in hybrids. And with partners such as NRG launching the first private investment in public EV charging infrastructure, Houston is leading in electric vehicle readiness.

When searching for a good web hosting company, you will soon discover that all of these companies are not created equally. Some of the less reputable companies will host up to a thousand websites on a single server! With servers that are so overloaded, their customers can experience reliability issues, as well as, reduced traffic capacity. Before choosing a hosting company, do some research. Good web hosting companies only host between 200 to 250 websites per server. By doing this, they are ensuring that their bandwidth and storage space are not overloaded.

In addition to electric, CNG is offering cleaner, cheaper fuel for additional options: In a partnership with Apache, the Airport's new parking shuttles at IAH are being powered by natural gas.

Have a secondary plan for web hosting. In the worst case scenario that you must leave a web host, you want to make sure your site is down for the least amount of time possible. Make sure you predetermine where you would go and the steps you need to take to make the transition as seamless and quick as possible.

With the launch of Houston B-cycle, the City's bike share program is now a reality with 3 stations and 18 bikes in downtown, with $1 million in committed funding to grow to 20 stations and 225 bikes by the fall of 2012. This grant-funded program offers a transportation alternative for citizens and will help address pollution issues, traffic congestion, and rising oil costs.

Uploading new content to your site should be easy. To be successful, you will have to add more content regularly and fix mistakes quickly: choose a web hosting service that allows you to make changes easily and to upload your content to their servers quickly. A good host should also make new content available within a few hours.

And the City, under the leadership of the Houston Parks Board and the Houston Parks and Recreation Department, recently won a $15 million highly competitive U.S. Department of Transportation's 2012 TIGER grant. This project will assist in eliminating gaps in Houston's bike grid: the project includes building 7.5 miles of off-street shared-use paths, 2.8 miles of sidewalks, and 7.9 miles of on-street bikeways.

Don't pay for features and services that you don't need. It can be tempting to sign up to the best web hosting package a company offers, however, if you are not going to be using all of the features that the package offers, you are basically wasting your hard earned money. Remember, web hosting companies make it very easy for you to upgrade your package and add additional services to your account, but often make it difficult for you to downgrade a hosting package.

And the dream and vision behind the Bayou Greenway project is becoming more of a reality. This proposed linear park system is unrivaled in its breadth and scope.

Prior to signing up with a web hosting service, consider the fact that you may want to add more sites in the future. This will keep your options open if you start with a company that allows for multiple site hosting. Consider the approximate number of sites you may add, as some web hosting companies will allow for unlimited add-on domains, and look for your best option.

Finally, sustainability must encompass urban agriculture. The City Gardens and Farmers Market Initiative supports urban gardens and markets: the City has planted numerous new vegetable gardens (some of which are highlighted in First Lady Michele Obama's new book, American Grown) and, with its partner Urban Harvest, has encouraged the sale and purchase of local food by starting a weekly farmers market at City Hall, with over 40 vendors.

Do a whois search on your hosting service. Find out when their site was created and how much traffic it generates. You should know that up to 95% of web hosting services do not survive more than a year. Choose a service that has been around for years and used by many webmasters.

In addition, the Mayor's Council on Health and the Environment created an obesity task force to look at the importance of healthy eating and exercise. The Healthy Houston initiative will review and implement sustainable food policies for Houston to create work, school, and neighborhood environments conducive to healthier eating and increased physical activity. And under the leadership of Councilmember Stephen Costello, Houston is working to minimize food deserts and increase food access.

When deciding upon a web hosting service, take a close look at the specific plans they offer. Price is not the only factor in deciding a monthly plan; check to see that you understand exactly what you are getting for that fee. Examples of what to look for include the number of sub-domains you are allowed, as well as how many email accounts are allotted to you.

These initiatives are helping to make Houston a growing, thriving, modern, green city of the future, a destination for visitors, a magnet for new residents and a city well positioned in the global market.

If a web hosting provider offers you a deal that seems to be good to be true, it probably is. No provider can offer unlimited storage space or unlimited bandwidth, so if a host claims to provide these, they are most likely scamming you. Look for a host that offers more realistic services.

The New Houston is here, and it's on a roll.