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What is a Web Host?

A Web Host is simply a company that provides you with server space for your website. This includes all of your web pages, graphics, scripts and files.

When your web address is typed into a browser, your web host is being contacted to locate and display the requested page.

Free Vs. Professional Web Hosts:

All Web Hosts are not created equally. There are a number of free hosting services available on the Internet. However, if you're designing a website for business purposes, you should NEVER host your website with a free host.

In order to establish credibility, you must be willing to invest in your own domain name and professional web hosting. Websites hosted on free servers are not taken seriously and will suffer a serious loss of business.

Your visitors may feel that if you don't have your own domain, you may not be a credible company. They'll simply take their business elsewhere.

Not only is professional credibility a great reason not to host with a free service, but many Search Engines won't even index a site hosted on a free server.

In addition, free hosting services don't need to have a reason to shut your site down. You may get up one morning, try to access your site and instead of your site loading, you may receive an error message. There goes all your hard work, your website, your traffic, your Search Engine positioning, your customers -- all gone.

Free hosting services aren't interested in your business or how hard you've worked to design your website and create a steady stream of traffic. Their main concern is their business. That's why they're doing it. They display banner ads on every site they host.

If you're serious about your business and you have a sincere desire to succeed, having your own domain name is a must. It's not a luxury, it's a necessity. Businesses using the free services are not taken seriously. Having your own domain name is just as important as a professional looking web site. They go hand-in-hand.

The cost to register your Domain name ranges from $9 - $35 per year, very reasonable and well worth every dime.

Selecting a Domain Name:

When trying to select a good domain name, there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration.

Try to select a domain name that contains your most important keywords, as some Search Engines place relevancy on them.

Although there are many new domain extensions available, .com or .net is still the best choice.

Example:

yourdomain.com

yourdomain.net

Keep in mind, it's usually best to select a web host prior to registering your domain name. Most quality web hosting companies will register your domain name for you.

Guidelines:

- Try to select a domain name that contains your most important keyword.

- Try to select a domain name that will be easily remembered.

- Try to avoid using abbreviations or anything that will be difficult for your visitors to remember.

- Try to keep your domain name as short as possible.

Take your time and select a quality Domain name that will grow with your business.

Selecting a Web Host

When selecting a professional web host, your first consideration should be the company. Check out their background. Talk to some of their customers and ask them if they've been satisfied with their service.

- Do they offer fast connections?

- Do they have a back-up system in place to protect your data in case there is a power outage?

- Do they require you to make payments in advance?

- Do they require a long-term contract?

- Do they charge set up fees?

- How is their customer support? Test them.

- Do they provide you with free access to a secure server for order processing?

- Do they offer shopping cart software to process your orders?

- Do they provide you with an online Web Site Manager?

- Do they provide you with an online support manual?

Ask for references. Talk with some of their customers and ask them if they have been satisfied.

Here are some basic features you should look for when selecting a web host:

- 24/7 reliable tech support

- Your own domain name (www.yourname.com)

- At least 10GB of monthly transfer (traffic)

- A minimum of 20MB - 50MB of server space

- Unlimited true POP email accounts - name@yourdomain.com

- Unlimited email aliases

- Email forwarding

- Unlimited auto responders

- Your own unrestricted CGI-Bin

- Access to SSL Encryption for secure transactions

- MySQL Database

- Perl

- htaccess password protection

- Server Side Includes (SSI) support

- Design (and upload to) your site using Netscape or other HTML editing software

- Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions for those utilizing FrontPage

- Unlimited free access to your server via FTP/Telnet

- Easy access to your log files

- Statistics on visits to your site

- Referral Program

When selecting a web host, you must look at the entire picture prior to making your decision. You may find a host that charges $5.00 - $15.00 a month to host your site, however, their technical support may be poor, or your web site may be slow or down a lot.

A lower monthly payment may look appealing, but how much is it actually going to cost you in lost sales? Most likely much more than the amount you'll save.

Every individual when it starts surfing the net for choosing its hosting partner get confused by variety of offers. Most of the beginners usually fall into trap of free hosting, cheaper hosting and other stuff that lead them to land in no man’s land later on. All there efforts and time goes in vein and he has a nightmare to restart working on things again. There is no doubt that every one out there on internet look for cheap or free hosting, it is very much important to make decisions thinking of long term prospects. Here are some reasons why:

1. Free sites or free hosting does not have any guarantee; there is a chance to be removed tomorrow. The most important reason I like to highlight that, it leads your site permanently removed from search engines too. There are billions of sites are coming up day by day. The popularity of site is much depend up the maturity of it and it place in search engines natural ways, once you get your site deleted from there it is very hard to bring back the new things again as the vacuum was immediately filled by others.

2. Free hosting or free sites are usually supported by advertisements and other stuffs. You have created a free site in sub domain and also find good free hosting. You have done offline and online promotions to your customer’s friends and other people who are known to you. Here you are falling in a trap, by promoting the ads and other stuffs of free hosting provider. Also the persons who have book marked your site will not find it again once it is removed by the host.

3. There are hell and heaven difference between a top level domain and a free sub domain. Domains are unique and represent the status of you. No other competitor of yours can steal your name and in matter of time your clients will memories the name. Where as any one can have any amount of free sub-domains, imagine your fate when your competitor starts doing that.

4. Imagine a good client found you on web and become interested it your product and services. Before hiring your services he definitely like know more about you or he will do a research first whether he should consider to contact you. If you hold a free hosting site the first impact of your will go in his mind that you are not a serious seller. To prevent this you should consider a personalized top level domain and consistent hosting services.

5. When you find a hosting company offers services extremely low price, consider twice before choosing. Do a small research to find out why it is so cheap, even below the industry standards. I always follow the principle that “Quality Never Comes Low.” When it comes to provide support or services it involve some cost in manpower and other stuffs which a company need to meet day today. Don’t fall in trap of fly by night operators, always begin with established and trusted providers in industry.

6. Other mistake usually most of the beginners do is, not keeping there backups at there own, but rely on hosting service providers. Imagine the host’s server went down or free host removed the site, you are all stuck and have no option to start again from scratch, which is extremely painful.

7. The most common mistake comes to my knowledge is, beginners are not clear about there requirements. It is obvious that no one knows what is required in future, but if your requirements are clearly documented it will be easier to analyze choosing the hosting services that suites your needs. Always consider that there may be a possibility of shifting from static site to a dynamic one or you may require using certain scripts. It is an ongoing process and if documented properly can help you a lot in near future.

Oops! Seems enough negative thoughts? Don’t get the wrong idea – consider following points also before taking the decisions:

1. Not all free hosts are bad or decisive, there may be an excellent host which is up-coming and can provide wonderful services. They may offer free hosting to promote there services so that they can have customers in there portfolio. But remember those are limited time offers and will be closed soon when they get there desired portfolio filled.

2. Cheap and affordable web hosting may turn to be a great deal, if you carefully compare some of the affordable type plans with some of the more expensive ones, you may discover that there are lots in common between them in reality. Here you always try select which host can have better server; updated software’s and provide you quality support in practical terms.

3. Not all the free websites are going to be removed without notice or provide a bad reputation for your company. There are services from giants like Google’s Blogger or Yahoo’s Geocities will help you to increase your link popularity if used effectively.

4. Also consider reading my previous article (a novice one) “choosing the right hosting solution” . example search term “how to choose the right hosting” which will give you an opportunity to read other articles written by experts in the industry.

Finally, when you choose a host – always think that it is the best friend of your site. When you make a friend in real life you always consider lot of things before choosing and also overlook minor mistakes to keep a long term relation. A web host is a real friend for you as it provides your business keep running online 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.