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Best Cheap MySQL, PHP Hosting: Top 3 Web Hosts

Dean — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:23:32 +0000

Looking for best cheap web hosting plans including MySQL & PHP? First take a look at some important features which must be considered when choosing your web hosting company:

Reliability and uptime: Hosting uptime refers to the percentage of time the host is accessible via the internet. It is very important your service be uptime (functioning and available for use). It means you can access your account whenever you want to update your web pages, and users can enter your website whenever they refer to your site address. If your hosting service is not uptime it can be catastrophic!

Disk space: Web hosting space is the amount of room that the web host provides to store your HTML, graphic, video/audio and other files. This figure is most commonly stated in gigabytes. If you don't know how much space you need for your website, you can choose a web host with unlimited disk space, which allows you to build as many web pages as you want.

Bandwidth: Bandwidth (or data transfer) refers to the amount of data that is accessed by your visitors. Web hosts define bandwidth as the total amount of data access from your server over a month's time. This figure is most commonly expressed in gigabytes. If you don't know how much bandwidth you need for your website, you can pick a web host with unlimited data transfer, which allows you to support as many visitors as you want.

Ease of Control Panel: It is important that the control panel is easy to use and all information can be accessed easily.

If you are a beginner it is generally hard to you to pick the right web hosting service. There are many websites which display a couple of web hosting companies as the best and leave people confused without being helpful. To make things even more confusing, some hosting companies are cheating and lying to their customers!

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All Web Hosts Presented On ThreeHosts.com Include MySQL & PHP:

Threehosts.com is a reliable website to help you have the best choice. Their experts have been evaluating web hosting service providers for years, and now they provide you with the most reliable results. They present the information in an easy to understand format that helps the consumer make the best choice within just a few minutes. This is their purpose, to help you make the right choice the first time.

There you can reach the three reputable companies that are leaders in the web hosting industry. They are all easy-to-use and affordable.

http://www.threehosts.com/mysql

Taxonomy of Web Hosting Terms

Dean — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:20:28 +0000

Almost every one has the knowledge of present internet scenario! How fast it is!!? A bud of web pages nurture to trillions of pages on the Internet, providing several hosting plans to choose from under which comes affordable web hosting, Cheap Web hosting, ASP Web Hosting, Budget Hosting, Dedicated Servers, eCommerce Hosting, FrontPage Web Hosting, Hosting With Templates, Managed Web Hosting, PHP Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, Shared Hosting, Unix / Linux Hosting, Virtual Private Servers, Windows Hosting, Co-location Hosting and few others.

Above mentioned are the few web hosting terms which reflects several faces of web hosting. The entire highlighted web hosting plans and terminologies can be categorized in terms of cost, programming languages, operation systems, Web servers, and functionality.

Broad description is given below:

1. Cost:

Web hosting plans are mentioned and divided between affordable web hosting, budget hosting and cheap web hosting. Cost of web hosting is the prime aspect that several small budget site holders are looking for. On displaying the cost of Affordable web hosting, budget hosting or cheap web hosting plan one will come to know that it is less than $5 a month.

2. Programming Languages:

When a user wants to make his/her site dynamic and interactive, he/she should search for hosting plans that support the programming languages that user have command over. Usually applicable languages are PHP, ASP, JSP, PERL etc. Hosting plans assisting such programming languages are called PHP Web hosting, ASP Web hosting, JSP Web hosting or PERL Web hosting.

3. Operating Systems:

After selecting suitable programming language(s), user still has sovereignty to choose the operating system that can host the concern websites. Moreover, as everybody that ASP is restricted to Microsoft Windows, further programming languages, PHP, JSP and PERL; work not only on Windows, but also on UNIX and Linux. Hosting plans assisting particular operating system is termed as Window Hosting, UNIX hosting or rather Linux hosting.

4. Web Servers:

Talking about web servers, Apache is the most widely supported Web server in Web hosting industry. It operates only on Microsoft Internet Information Server or IIS server. For JSP hosting, Web logic or Web sphere is the main requirement. When ever there is any discussion related to Web servers, the main attraction is server performance. There are several solutions available like Managed Web Hosting, Shared Hosting, Dedicated Servers, or Virtual Private Servers (VPS). Out of these shared hosting is the cheapest plan, and one can host as many sites as he/she likes with a Reseller Hosting option. The cost of VPS is just $50 a month, and Dedicated Server plan costs from $50 - $100 or more per month depending upon storage space and bandwidth of the hosting plan.

5. Functionality:

In the market, one can find several hosting plans which either makes the site creation simple or rather offer assistance for the protection of online transactions. Creating a simple website can be a game of certain hours if the hosting plan selected by user supports assorted templates.

Thus on the hope that this article will definitely serve its users we wish best of luck.

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The True Way of Assessing a Potential Php Hosting Company

Dean — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:20:26 +0000

PHP is a server side scripting language and its syntax is similar to that of Perl. PHP is the tool that can be used to have dynamic and interactive websites. One of the useful features of PHP is that it can be connected to MySQL and other popular database programs and can use its own open source libraries developed for the users. However it is important to keep in mind that one should use a PHP hosting provider that meets your requirement. If you are hunting for a web hosting, you will have to check very carefully the benefits and disadvantages that are attached to it. Also, your main consideration should be to ensure that your database will be supported with a PHP hosting server.

Choosing the right PHP web hosting company for your own website or your blog, is not considered as an easy task. There are so many PHP hosting companies advertising their services on the internet and they all try to prove that they are better than the other. In such a situation, it can be difficult to choose the right one for your website or blog. If you choose the wrong host, you will start having problems and then you may think of moving your website to a new host which will be considered as a painful and time consuming task. The important features that you need to look into, at the time of assessing a potential hosting company is as follows:

1) Check the bandwidth that is provided by the hosting company:

Bandwidth refers to the total amount of data that your website can deliver on a monthly basis. Before you select a hosting package, ensure that the particular hosting package has enough bandwidth for your current website traffic and also for the coming future.

2) Should have sufficient hard disk space:

The disk space is that amount of space which is allocated on the web server in order to store the entire files. Ensure that your potential PHP hosting package is capable to offer the required disk space for your current website.

3) Consider ad-on domain facility :

There are many people who are one domain on a single hosting account. However, there are those who want to run many websites or domains by using a single hosting account. In order to avail this type of facility, you must ensure that the hosting package which you intend to purchase should provide you with an add-on and parked domain facility.

4) Check for sufficient databases:

PHP hosts has put a limit on the number of database that one can use. You should ensure that your present chosen hosting package has enough databases for your requirement.

5) Check for uptime performance:

Uptime deals with the amount of time that the web server will be able to deliver your website to readers. The uptime should be 99% for an ideal web service host. Advance planning towards choosing the right host will not only save your time and money but it will save you from facing and anxiety in the near future. If you pan yourself then you don’t have to suddenly switch your websites platform. Some PHP web hosting packages are less expensive. It all depends on the features that you want to pay for. You must know how to choose a hosting package that has all the attributes according to your needs.

Web Hosting Rating is source of information of Dedicated Servers and Security Issues.

Understanding Php Hosting

Dean — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:20:23 +0000

PHP hosting is a server side scripting language used to create dynamic web pages. In other words PHP can be considered as a computer programming language that is designed for producing dynamic web pages. PHP generally runs on a web server using the PHP code for input to create the output of web pages. PHP is considered to be the main language used by many web masters. It is the most popular dynamic web programming language and these days you will easily find many websites that use scripts written in PHP language for various purposes, from building websites to shopping system. With PHP you can do various types of programming.

In order to be in a position to use PHP scripts, you should use a particular web host that provides this feature. When you hunt for the right web host, make sure that the hosting company supports your PHP scripts. One should be aware that there are certain scripts that are available in the market, can run well only with the latest PHP version. In such a situation, if you want to solve this compatibility issue, you should approach those types of hosting providers who provide two PHP versions. You may have to customize or change certain scripts that are intended for the older PHP version environment.

You should also take the PHP modules into consideration. The concerned PHP modules are required by your scripts to be installed. Ask your hosting provider about the modules which are required by your scripts to be installed. If the hosting provider does not provide the required modules, then at least ensure that you are allowed to install them later. You can make use of PHP on a server by running PHP in CGI mode and using it as an apache module. By running PHP as an apache mode, the interpreter will be loaded as a part of Apache. This will lead to a faster execution of your PHP script. Before you manually install PHP script, you should check the list of scripts that is provided. If you are unable to find your required script, you then have to try using it from another source.

One should consider certain important facts about PHP support web hosting. You should mainly ensure that your database will be supported with a PHP hosting server. Also, be aware of the fact that since PHP is based in Unix, you will be unable to use windows developed applications, such as Active Server Pages (.ASP), on your website. A window server should be used for allowing .ASP to run and function correctly. Ensure maximum availability of features for your website so that there is scope for development and growth towards your web pages. There is so much of competition for ecommerce in today’s market. Hence one should ensure that every new option are explored before hand in order to avoid paying more that what you already decided towards your monthly hosting charges. You can also look out for a host that provides a shopping cart, SSL certificate mailing list software and unlimited databases. If you get these facilities within your hosting charges then you don’t have to pay extra as additional applications when required. It is better to get equipped with the required facilities, before hand. However, see that all the required features are made available to you at a reasonable price.

Web Hosting Rating is source for web hosting provider selection for both windows and Linux web hosting

What’s So Great About PHP Hosting?

Dean — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:20:21 +0000

If you are looking to find a web host for your website, then you are probably being faced with many different choices. Unfortunately, most of these choices aren't always so clear that we can see when they're unreasonable or unnecessary. Free web hosting nowadays has many different features that might attract you.

But what is the difference between a typical Web Host and PHP hosting? There are many things that will separate the PHP host from the more typical hosts. First, by programming in PHP, your website will be able to take advantage of all sorts of great things. If you want to have your website allow users to log on under their own user names, then you can use PHP scripting to do this. This will ensure that you will be able to offer each of your visitors a unique and personalized experience when they visit your website!

Keep your eye out when looking for cheap PHP hosts, though. Sometimes, you might find that a service will offer you cheap hosting, but charge more to allow you to use MySQL. MySQL is a database that PHP scripting can connect to and store or retrieve information from.

But you may still be asking yourself, "Well, what's so much different between a PHP and a typical Web Host?" Well, all of this interactivity that you will be able to get through your PHP hosting provider simply isn't available with the typical Web Hosts. So if you want to allow people to do more than just look at your website and the things you have on it, then you should definitely go for some of the cheap PHP hosts that are available on line!

If you have spent much time browsing the web then the chances are good that you?ve already used PHP without even knowing it.We offer a unique variety of Internet marketing opportunities that can help your business establish a strong online presence. Our web marketing campaigns are built on time-tested and proven techniques that deliver real results. We will strategically market your business toward specific audiences, with content and media created to deliver appropriate messages to niches and specialized interest groups.

Getting New Web Hosting Service for your Web Site

Dean — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:17:06 +0000

Due to Various inefficiencies of Old Web Hosting provider like poor technical support, down web server, inability of old provider to met with your requirements, expensive web hosting service, an Online Business owner decided to go for a new Web Hosting provider. Because of all above-mentioned and many more not in the list you would opt for new web hosting service. So the next step is to transfer your web site from current web host to new web host which can be done by following the under mentioned steps. Transferring of Schedule For transferring the old web hosting, planning should be done in advance, atleast one month before so as to ensure smooth transfer, as transferring in less than one month can led to inaccessibility of your web site.

Registering new web hosting service.

Once the above step is complete, user must go for a new web hosting service and must sign it accordingly within 24 hours so as to enable new account earliest.

Taking Files Backup.

As soon as you created a new web hosting account, you should take back up of all your web files for the new provider. Generally you already have all files of your web site on your local computer still it is beneficial to backup all your files from old web server. Further including HTML files, backup of any script file, database file and even of server logs file should be taken. Thereafter create a directory structure similar to directory structure on web server and then load the file in their respective directory.

Uploading of files

You will receive a notification email from your new web-hosting provider after the notification of your new web hosting account. Information needed to set up a website including FTP server information all will be provided within that email. With the help of that FTP information user can now FTP his new web-hosting server and can upload all his files. First the user should create a directory structure and then can upload all his files in their respective directories. User can also install any script file or databases if used in his website and also should setup his email accounts with the help of administration panel.

After finishing of uploading of all the files and installation of script files or databases temporary URL can be used to test the new site. This temporary URL can be obtained from through notification email from new web hosting provider.

Testing of new website

The new website can be tested online by using temporarily URL directory. As different web hosting server require different server environment to work, that's why user needs to verify all the scripts like CGI, Perl if they are working as per the requirement or not. Further all the hyperlinks should be tested in the normal web pages so as to confirm that no broken links are there. Your website hosted on the old web hosting provider is continued to be operational, even when you are testing through the temporary URL directory. Transferring of domain name After finishing of testing new website on the temporary URL and verification of its perfect execution, next step is to contact the new domain name registrar so as to change the old domain name server to point the new DNS of the web hosting provider. There after the user will get DNS information through email after he finishes the successful registration with new web hosting provider and also would get the information from website of his new web hosting provider. The purpose of Domain name servers is to control how to resolve the domain name. Commonly the domain names are in following format:

NS1.THE-NEW-WEB-HOSTING.COM

NS2.THE-NEW-WEB-HOSTING.COM

Some domain name registrar requires the IP addresses of the DNS. In this case you have to provide the IP addresses of your new DNS. For example:

NS1: 216.193.194.212

NS2: 216.193.207.106

DNS record to change and propagate through all the WHOIS servers takes typically 24 to 72 hours. Whois tools such as whois.com can be use on Internet to monitor the status of DNS transfer. New DNS will be displayed once the transfer is complete. Even minor modifications are possible like the user can upload his own file or picture to the new web-hosting server. When the user checks his homepage through the normal domain name he can notice the new home page, which makes sure that transfer of DNS is successful. Final Testing Now, your website on the new web hosting provider is officially transferred and online. You should repeat all the tests to ensure it is fully functional.Thereafter you can go ahead to terminate your old web hosting account after the final confirmation is received.

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Using Active Server Pages (ASP) Web Hosting for Dynamic Content

Dean — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:16:57 +0000

These days, businesses and individuals who are running an e-commerce site or even just a product information website are finding themselves having to devote a lot of time and energy into producing dynamic content that is visually impactful. The availability of ASP (Active Server Pages) and ASP.NET technology and web hosting allows for more dynamic web pages which can present your products or services in the best possible way. ASP gives your website the verve that it needs and provides great web page options that help a website look and function better Choosing ASP.NET web hosting is a surefire way to take your website to the next level and insure you have a robust presence on the Internet.

There are many advantages to using ASP for your website. The most obvious one is that your content will look great and feel more dynamic and eye catching. This is great if you are trying to attract potential customers to your website to buy a product or service. Having a dynamic web page will certainly help you sell more products because you are presenting them in their best possible light and are using the advantages of ASP to your advantage by creating pages that attract customers. ASP is also easy to learn. Even if you are not the most technically adept person, it is usually built in to most Windows programs.

A website that is enabled with ASP is easier to maintain. Since there are fewer html files with an ASP enabled site, there is little need for html knowledge if you want to update the content on your website. ASP allows you to create dynamic web pages and you will marvel at the results. One of the benefits of using ASP for dynamic web pages is that ASP is processed by the server, so it does not matter what kind of browser your user or potential customer has. They will see the webpage in the fashion that it was supposed to be viewed at, with all rich and dynamic content that is sure to jump off the screen at you.

When you are looking for an ASP web host, it’s important to consider many factors. One of the key factors is reliability. Since the server processes ASP web pages, any server issues can create problems for your website and could mean downtime. Try and find a provider that has as little downtime as possible. You also want reliable service so your website maintains its dynamic look no matter what. You should also find a web host that has the most current software and hardware in place. Older software and hardware can be unpredictable and lead to server downtime. The most important thing with reliability is that your website is up for the majority of the time and can be hosted and viewed in the dynamic way that you designed it for.

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Webhosting: Enlightening on Dedicated Web Hosting

Dean — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:16:55 +0000

Looking at the cost involved ranging from $150 - $1000 per month why is that dedicated web hosting such a huge punch on the business web hosting market? Is paid web hosting worth it?

Now what is dedicated web hosting? Dedicated web hosting is having one single server rented to a single customer by the webhosting provider. Virtual dedicated servers and co-location web hosting are two similar solutions relatively familiar in the web hosting industry. In virtual dedicated server hosting plans one does not get an entire computer just for oneself this means that the virtual server shares the resources of a web server computer with other customers of the web hosting provider. There are many similarities between both Co-locating web hosting and virtual dedicated servers but the main difference is that, in co-locating web hosting the customer owns the web server computer and web-hosting provider only houses the web server computer and sells bandwidth to the customer whereas in dedicated web hosting the web server computer belongs to the web-hosting provider and is only rented by the customer.

When single web server is rented to a single customer it is called real dedicated web hosting.

For businesses that work with high traffic, dedicated web hosting is the idyllic way out. Application required for its operation and functionalities of web site falls under ones specific control.

There are many advantages of dedicated webhosting:

• Concerns regarding the maintenance, the security, and the reliability of ones web server are all handled by hosting provider.

• One doesn’t have to bother about maintaining the hardware and the connectivity of the computer as it is on rent and not been purchased

• One is freed from replacing the component or solving the problem, as everything is provider’s responsibility

• One gets compensations as part of the Service Level Agreement (SLA) by most o f the web hosting providers.

• In the occurrence of failure one may get reimbursement with the cost of ones hosting plan for a month or a fraction of it, depending upon the severity of the failure.

• When compared to having to pay for the component and for the technical support required for actually replacing the component, while web site in not online all these advantages seems quiet good as at the day end one will just be paying for functional hardware.

Imagine the business with all the resources being saved on the above maintenance issues. One can choose between “managed” or “unmanaged” service levels as the costs of administering and maintaining the web server one has taken on rent will vary depending upon the web hosting provider.

One can choose “managed” dedicated hosting which means one will have access to “control panel” if one is uncomfortable with the technical expertise required by the management of a web server computer. All the essential tasks required to be performed by the proper functioning of ones web server via a simply point-and-click user-friendly interface are allowed by control panel.

This way one can setup, administer and maintain all the web sites on web server without knowing or typing any command lines nor having any in depth knowledge of the operating system.

Those with great degree of technical expertise in mastering a root access to the server can go for “unmanaged” option. “Unmanaged” option offers complete server administration, thus having possibility of configuring every service on the web server. But if necessary services are not configured properly it may result in failure of system. Due to these reasons unmanaged dedicated hosting is recommended for only people having solid server administration background or for web developers who require custom applications for their web sites, or a customized environment. Thus people having dedicated server computer’s stability will not be prone to the plagues affecting shared web hosting solutions.

Imagine-

-errors in programming usually made by the beginners,

- Or overload i.e. server being crowded with applications and components required by the other customers

- Or in a shared web server when the processor time and the installed memory are both shared by the software applications needed by the other users.

Instant support is provided to its customers when required by the dedicated web hosting whether managed or unmanaged which is not possible on a shared hosting plans where one will be facing delays and possible additional technical support fees.

If one is having prompt support service from ones side then the customers will be happy and at the same time there will be growth in business. For those doing business in web designing advantage to have his own dedicated server is priceless not because he will be able to offer pure hosting services, but because he will able to offer them packaged with the web design activity also. When one is having access to web server for 24 hours, then within minutes one can modify a website for a customer or upload a new one.

If complete web presence solution, design and hosting, is offered by the studio to a customer there is chance of that customer being regular this is an added advantage.

The benefits of a good dedicated web hosting are:-

• Businesses solutions being translated into sales growth

• Better customer relationship results to improved company image

• Reduced cost compared with in-house web hosting solution, and so on.

• One can run a better business and better business gives good profit.

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Php, Mysql and Asp.net in Web Hosting

Dean — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:16:46 +0000

Choosing between LINUX web hosting and Windows web hosting is a daunting task. You should know the language of your website, before determining which platform or which type of server you need. Linux web hosting is best suitable for a simple HTML site or an ecommerce site or a site with any other programming-database feature created in php-MySql. If your site is in ASP, or ASP.NET, then you need to be on Windows servers.

Now what exactly are ASP.NET web hosting, PHP web hosting and MySQL web hosting? Let us delve further into these terms.

ASP.NET web hosting: Marketed by Microsoft, ASP.NET is a division of Microsoft’s .NET platform and a successor of Active Server Pages (ASP) technology. ASP.NET is a set of Web application development technologies that programmers can use to build dynamic web applications, Web sites, and XML Web services.

ASP.NET web hosting cuts down the number of codes and makes building web application much easier. It gives more flexibility to the choice of language by supporting multiple .NET languages. In ASP.NET web hosting, as the source code and HTML are together, the pages are easy to write and maintain. Because of the built-in configuration information, registration of components is not necessary. ASP.NET web application is faster and can face a large number of users with a consistency of performance.

PHP web hosting: PHP is a recursive initialism for PHP : Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP is a reflective programming language or a general-purpose server-side scripting language used for web development, i.e. creating dynamic and interactive websites. It can be planted into HTML code. PHP is frequently used together with APACHE on various operating systems mostly LINUX.

PHP acts more like a filter, running on a web server, taking inputs from a stream or file containing text and PHP instructions and displays a different stream of data. PHP is deployable in most operating systems, web servers and platforms free of cost.

MySQL web hosting: MySQL is a multi-user, multithreaded computer language designed for management and retrieval of data, database object access control management and database schema creation and modification. It is a SQL database management system with 10 million installations. It is popular for web application, for open-source bug tracking tools and acts as the database component of WAMP, MAMP and LAMP. MySQL is closely related to PHP and Ruby on Rails. Most of the well known sites like WordPress run on a combination of PHP and MySQL.

Now that you are more familiar with ASP.NET web hosting, PHP web hosting and MySQL web hosting, it may prove fruitful in your selection of server type.

As a web hosting bend of mind, E2webhosts.com likes to host web spaces to the bloggers or any small organizations that are in need for web spaces and some nice designs and layouts for their upcoming business and that too, at most affordable prices. Also it likes to share any information, news or views about web hosting fundamentals, low cost plans and choices.

Web Hosting, Defined

Dean — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:16:44 +0000

Web hosting may be defined as renting space on a web server in its simplest form. One should keep in mind that a website is a collection of files linked together by HTML code to display text and graphics on a computer. However website is not complete here until and unless it is displayed on the net. To make it visible for the world it has to be housed on a computer somewhere that has access to the Internet. This is not possible by just a computer rather special device is required termed as web server. A web server may be defined as a computer set up with special software that allows it to receive requests from the internet for the website files it has stored on it and to send those files out over the internet so that the requesting computer can display them.

Web server in addition to making site visible performs several other functions as well like it provides the ability to create email addresses based on one’s domain name and even helps in sending and receiving emails with them. There are several types of software installed on the web server that allows one’s website to run programs, create and manage databases, display video, etc. One must note that almost any type of computer can function as a web server, but it's the software that's on it that makes it a server.

When one goes buying a web hosting, the monthly fees to be paid includes cost for maintenance and upgrading of the server's hardware and software, the cost of keeping it online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a secure data center with a fast and powerful internet connection, and cost of professional proving these services. It is surprising to know that it is possible to turn one’s home or office computer into a web server if one really desires, but it is just not economical. Therefore it is better to outsource it. There are several kinds of web hosting available which are discussed below:

Kinds of web hosting:

Shared Hosting – Through a shared server one can save a high amount. If one talks about the drawbacks then Spamming and blacklisting from different search engines are the key problems. Such problems arise due to the reason that several sites are assign to one particular IP address. One should demand for a separate IP address for his/her website (on additional monthly charges) to secure the user from such problems.

Dedicated Hosting –Dedicated servers are best for big, highly trafficked websites, which will require large amounts of server resources to run. One of the downsides to shared hosting is that the server’s resources are divided across all the sites it’s hosting and answering page requests for. If you are in a dedicated environment you can better monitor your server resources. The downside is that dedicated servers will run you generally $50 per month or more. Shared hosting can be purchased for as little as 5$ a month. Most small or medium sized businesses will have neither the website size or bandwidth requirements to make dedicated servers cost effective.

Server Co-Location - If one wants to have full control over every aspect of his/her web server, he/she might very well choose to buy one and maintain it himself/herself if he/she is having sufficient knowledge. Still there are possibilities that one is not having enough resources to keep his/her server completely safe from power outages, roof leaks, thieves, unwary employees and other problems and in addition it is not possible for him/her to keep it on the internet on a fast, high-bandwidth connection through out. Thus he/she needs a data center to provide those services for him/her.

Co-location is the center providing facilities like physical security on rental, continuous electrical power and a fast, reliable Internet connection for a server that one owns. However, the data center is not responsible for any of the hardware or software maintenance of a co-located server, rather user his/her self. Thus it is a cheaper alternative to dedicated hosting if one is having the necessary expertise and time to run a web server by own.

There are several web hosts offering UNIX hosting and Windows hosting.

UNIX Hosting

There are several web servers in the world running mostly on UNIX. UNIX is an operating system originally developed for servers and networking. Till now many different versions of UNIX have been written by programmers around the world under the open-source protocol, which means that the code for the operating system is openly available so as to enable programmers to customize and make improvements when and where necessary. The two most popular forms of UNIX are Linux and BSD that comes in several varieties, like Red Hat Linux, Debian, SuSE, and FreeBSD. The best part of UNIX is most of above mentioned versions can be obtained free of cost, making UNIX hosting cheaper for a web host in comparison to other operating systems. Other plus points of UNIX are that UNIX hosting platforms are generally considered to be stable, secure, powerful and fast. That is the reason why most web programming applications can be performed by software that is available for a UNIX platform.

Windows Hosting

Another very popular operating system developed by Microsoft is Windows operating system, Windows Server 2003. Like every thing useful it is having price and can be obtained by purchasing a license, which in turn increases the cost of operation for the web host and usually results in higher hosting prices. This is considered a negative point as compared to UNIX. Plus points of Windows include it is mainly user friendly however it is generally considered to be less powerful and secure than UNIX for operating in a network environment. There are several scripting languages like ASP, ASP.NET, and Cold Fusion, which will only run on a Windows server, as will the Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access database programs. Thus the above are some of the most popular scripts for certain web programming applications, and if one is thinking of using them while building his/her site, he/she will first definitely need to find a Windows host.

Before searching for a web host, it is essential to know some important terms used in hosting. They are discussed as under:

Storage or Disk space –As one’s website is a collection of files being offered on the Internet for viewing, it is necessary for storing them somewhere for retrieval and take up space. For each and every web server there is a limited amount of hard disk memory, which is divided up and offered to hosting customers. Different package levels are there, so as to enable to pay more for more space and vice versa divide specifically that space up. If one’s website expands its space then the user needs to buy extra space from the web host.

Bandwidth or Data Transfer –One of the crucial parts to verify is bandwidth. There are several sites, which loose their host due to excessive downloads causing budget going beyond their expectations. Occasionally, host even charges in hundreds of dollars for the additional bandwidth. One should confirm about this before dealing with any of the host. Usually, ideal-hosting providers deliver initial bandwidth of 25 to 50 GB to the users.

Uptime –It is a universal truth that if one talks about perfect web servers then they are the one, which would be up, and running and offering web pages to the world round the clock, whole year. But, it is also true that web servers are mere computers, and like any other computer, they may fail or needs repairing or updating. Often web hosts gives 99% uptime guarantee, and if they fail they refund a certain portion of user’s money depending on the amount of excess downtime they experienced.

Traffic Statistics – By traffic statistics we mean those programs that track visitors to one’s website. These programs are capable of telling how many times a user visited one site, how many visitors were unique and how many came back more than once, which pages were most popular, from where the visitors came to one’s site, what search terms they used in the search engines etc. In addition they offer several types of information which are useful for marketing one’s website to a target audience. There are several web hosts offering some sort of traffic statistics software with their hosting packages.

CGI Scripts – There are several web hosts offering a variety of free CGI scripts with their packages. CGI Scripts are the things like hit counters, guest books, form mail programs, message boards, and other programs that enable one website to perform commonly desired functions. Most CGI scripts are written in common programming languages like Perl, PHP or ASP.

Thus one should take care and keep all the above points in mind while selecting a web host.

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