By Fei Lim
It seems that about everyone either has their own website or is on their way to getting one online. If you're still contemplating how to get your website online, all the free web hosting options may send your head swimming! "Absolutely free web hosting," "No strings attached ever," "Get your site online today!" These promises abound on the World Wide Web. What's a person to do? How do you choose? Not to worry, with a little information you will understand the good, the bad and the myths that surround free web hosting.
First of all, let's look at a few myths surrounding free web hosting.
Myth Number 1: You will not have 24 hour support available with free web hosting. Not necessarily true! Yes, some hosting providers will not offer 24 hour technical support. But, with a little digging, you will find a provider that offers around the clock support.
Myth Number 2: Your website will have much more down time and crash often with free web hosting. Maybe. But again, this depends on who you decide upon as your provider. Find a provider that prides themselves with offering excellent service to all their clients and it will serve you well.
Myth Number 3: Free Web hosting providers will inundate your site with ads. Now this one has the most merit. Until just recently a free web hosting account basically guaranteed an attack of ads on your site. But, with the increasing number of providers offering free hosting, you can now find a provider that promises to keep his or her ads to a minimum.
Before we get into the bad, let's cover the good about free web hosting.
For starters, it's free! If you are developing a personal page with relatively few images, free may just suit you well. Using a free web hosting provider gives you the option to put a site up that you normal would opt not to. An increasingly popular item to host online is a resume. You could also publish a wedding or baby site. Some providers also offer the use of an online web site builder. For a basic site, free hosting is a very good price.
Now for the ugly side of free web hosting. Unless you do your homework, you could very easily end up with sub-par service. Your site may be frequently down. Security measures may be lax, which could allow others to hack into your site. The provider may not offer back-up services and you more than likely won't have access to the root menu.
The silver lining: since there are many providers offering free web hosting you can find one that more than likely offers what you need. If developing a small site, feel free to give free web hosting a try. If it doesn't work out, fire your provider. Either move on to another free provider or pay the small fee for monthly web hosting service.
Flizard Technologies offers a variety of web hosting plans. Flizard Technologies is the most affordable web hosting company in Canada.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Fei_Lim
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
6 Tips Of A Good Web Host
By Alvin Phang
Previously in my other host, I realized due to overwhelm of people visiting my website it slowed down recently as I was using quite a cheap web host which then later I decided to migrate over to HostGator.
There are various things you must know before you decide which web host you should go for.
1. Support is the No.1 Key
Why support is because I had my website down quite a lot of times, but because there was no way to contact my host either then submitting a ticket I could not get to them when I have some urgent launch sometimes on my websites.
So it VERY important to get a good host with great support and HostGator actually not only have a LIVE Support 24/7 but also a free Skype line where I can call them through Skype for free for support which is SUPER GREAT!
2. Price
My previous host cost me about US$39 per year, which is fairly cheap but what I did not like with that host was there was no online support but other then that the services were great. Because I am now more seriously in my online business I would need online support.
HostGator had what I wanted with support and they only charge about US$9.95 per month which is super affordable with the great features they had in the plan!
3. Features
There is one thing about web host not many would know is that, if you sign up with a plan that only allow you to host 6 domains you are been cheated by what you actually should have. It is because in their WHM panel they can simply change the 6 to unlimited but they choose not too and some even worst they only restrict you to 100 emails.
What you want to look for are unlimited features in all areas. There are some things you need to look for
- Unlimited Emails
- Unlimited Add-On Domains (adding more domains on the same account)
- Unlimited Database
- Fantastico (A set of great script a MUST HAVE)
- Support PHP files
- Unlimited FTP Accounts
- 30 Day Money Back Guarantee (If they don’t have this means they are not confident in their services)
- No Contract
- 24 x 7 Support
- Diskspace of at least 10 GB
- Bandwidth of at least 100GB
I am currently using the Baby Plan by HostGator which have even better features that I mentioned above for only US$9.95 per month you have 100GB of space and 1,000GB of BANDWIDTH which is A LOT!
4. Location of server
Some people are not aware that the location of the server really matters a lot! I think especially after the Taiwan Earthquake a lot of server were down due to lousy rerouting of servers on the Internet Network.
You can go to http://www.dnsstuff.com do a trace route of the server and see the number of hops to reach your computer.
What the table shows in the website above is the number of computer terminal it takes to actually route to your computer to get to my website.
The lesser there the better the web host is, there are some lousy hosting takes up to 24 hops just to reach your computer! Where as HostGator is sometimes 7 hops only! or 14 hops! Which shows the server can connect to the user faster!
5. Disk Space
Having a web host is like having your personal C Drive but it is on a virtual drive on your web server. Example if I sign up a host that give me 100GB like HostGator. What that means is that I can store 100GB of information to be shared online with my visitors. The more the Disk Space you have the better as you can store more stuff online.
6. Bandwidth
Alright this topic some people actually got confused this with Disk Space. Bandwidth is basically the number of information you can download from your server which is normally calculated by kb.
This is a break down of what is KB, MB and GB.
1,000 KB = 1MB
1,000 MB = 1GB
So when I say 100GB it mean 1,000,000 KB which is a lot. Why? One word document for example is about 50kb. If lets say you have a word document you want to share online name as GatherSuccess.doc which is about 50KB
I put a link for GatherSuccess.doc on my server at 50KB and I have 100GB of bandwidth it means that
1,000,000 / 50 = 20,000 visitors can download my document file for the month.
Bandwidth will be reset every end of the month by the web host, if you overshot the bandwidth most of the time they will just charge you what ever excess you use.
If you are looking for a web host I strongly recommend HostGator as it’s very reliable and they response to you in an instant.
Alvin Phang is the owner of http://www.GatherSuccess.com For further information on looking for a great web host you can check out lots of reviews by clicking here.
Previously in my other host, I realized due to overwhelm of people visiting my website it slowed down recently as I was using quite a cheap web host which then later I decided to migrate over to HostGator.
There are various things you must know before you decide which web host you should go for.
1. Support is the No.1 Key
Why support is because I had my website down quite a lot of times, but because there was no way to contact my host either then submitting a ticket I could not get to them when I have some urgent launch sometimes on my websites.
So it VERY important to get a good host with great support and HostGator actually not only have a LIVE Support 24/7 but also a free Skype line where I can call them through Skype for free for support which is SUPER GREAT!
2. Price
My previous host cost me about US$39 per year, which is fairly cheap but what I did not like with that host was there was no online support but other then that the services were great. Because I am now more seriously in my online business I would need online support.
HostGator had what I wanted with support and they only charge about US$9.95 per month which is super affordable with the great features they had in the plan!
3. Features
There is one thing about web host not many would know is that, if you sign up with a plan that only allow you to host 6 domains you are been cheated by what you actually should have. It is because in their WHM panel they can simply change the 6 to unlimited but they choose not too and some even worst they only restrict you to 100 emails.
What you want to look for are unlimited features in all areas. There are some things you need to look for
- Unlimited Emails
- Unlimited Add-On Domains (adding more domains on the same account)
- Unlimited Database
- Fantastico (A set of great script a MUST HAVE)
- Support PHP files
- Unlimited FTP Accounts
- 30 Day Money Back Guarantee (If they don’t have this means they are not confident in their services)
- No Contract
- 24 x 7 Support
- Diskspace of at least 10 GB
- Bandwidth of at least 100GB
I am currently using the Baby Plan by HostGator which have even better features that I mentioned above for only US$9.95 per month you have 100GB of space and 1,000GB of BANDWIDTH which is A LOT!
4. Location of server
Some people are not aware that the location of the server really matters a lot! I think especially after the Taiwan Earthquake a lot of server were down due to lousy rerouting of servers on the Internet Network.
You can go to http://www.dnsstuff.com do a trace route of the server and see the number of hops to reach your computer.
What the table shows in the website above is the number of computer terminal it takes to actually route to your computer to get to my website.
The lesser there the better the web host is, there are some lousy hosting takes up to 24 hops just to reach your computer! Where as HostGator is sometimes 7 hops only! or 14 hops! Which shows the server can connect to the user faster!
5. Disk Space
Having a web host is like having your personal C Drive but it is on a virtual drive on your web server. Example if I sign up a host that give me 100GB like HostGator. What that means is that I can store 100GB of information to be shared online with my visitors. The more the Disk Space you have the better as you can store more stuff online.
6. Bandwidth
Alright this topic some people actually got confused this with Disk Space. Bandwidth is basically the number of information you can download from your server which is normally calculated by kb.
This is a break down of what is KB, MB and GB.
1,000 KB = 1MB
1,000 MB = 1GB
So when I say 100GB it mean 1,000,000 KB which is a lot. Why? One word document for example is about 50kb. If lets say you have a word document you want to share online name as GatherSuccess.doc which is about 50KB
I put a link for GatherSuccess.doc on my server at 50KB and I have 100GB of bandwidth it means that
1,000,000 / 50 = 20,000 visitors can download my document file for the month.
Bandwidth will be reset every end of the month by the web host, if you overshot the bandwidth most of the time they will just charge you what ever excess you use.
If you are looking for a web host I strongly recommend HostGator as it’s very reliable and they response to you in an instant.
Alvin Phang is the owner of http://www.GatherSuccess.com For further information on looking for a great web host you can check out lots of reviews by clicking here.
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