Is Dedicated Hosting Right for Me?

While there are advantages and disadvantages to both, what you want to do with your website will play a large part in helping you decide which direction to go with your hosting options.

1. Costs - If you're thinking about a dedicated server, the cost may be the first thing that you consider. Dedicated hosting costs runs substantially higher then shared Web hosting costs (can run between $100 and $1,000 per month), and you have to decide whether a dedicated easily hosting server is worth the extra cost.
2. Greater Reliability - One of the advantages to hosting with a dedicated server is reliability. Compared to shared hosting where there are many sites on the same server, you will experience much greater stability from a dedicated hosting plan. With a dedicated Web server, there will not be nearly as many variables that can create an unstable hosting environment.
3. Greater Security - A dedicated hosting plan will also grant you immunity from problems arising from installed applications that come from your server neighbors. When security and consistency become more important issues for you and your website, you will realize the importance and value of having your own dedicated server. Realize though that most online stores use shared hosting.  Generally speaking, if you are needing extra security beyond the norm, your IT person will recommend it.  Otherwise, shared hosting is no more susceptible to security problems than dedicated hosting.
4. Traffic & Speed – This is the most common reason for needing dedicated hosting.  Factors such as navigating from page to page and accessing the database could reveal major differences between a shared hosting plan and a dedicated hosting plan. However, with that being said, for the most part, shared hosting plans at good hosting companies can match or exceed most average dedicated hosting speeds.  The key is average.  If your site gets spikes in traffic, or if you are running speed tests and finding frequent slow load times, then dedicated hosting may be worth the upgrade.
5. Potential Cost of Lost Business - You should weigh the risks of losing customers as it compares to the sacrifice of hosting a dedicated server.  This includes everything from simply navigating to download files from your website. This cannot be overstated, especially if your website is one that is trying to make money. We have seen companies that use shared hosting, which are generating millions of dollars per year, so shared hosting is not all bad.

Do I Need to Have More Technical Experience When Using Dedicated Hosting?

Absolutely, yes.  With dedicated hosting you will have the ability to completely manage and control your server. This may at first seem like an advantage, but unless you have the technical know-how, your best bet is to take advantage of what is called managed dedicated server hosting. While this is more expensive, you will be saving yourself future headaches by having somewhat more experienced, technical help whenever you need it.

If this is your first time using dedicated hosting, and do not have an IT person who is very experienced with administering servers, this will undoubtedly be your best option. Without managed hosting you will be at the mercy of your own knowledge and experience when it comes to servers.  The amount of support that comes with managed hosting varies.  Quite often they won’t tell you much other than the absolute basics of maintaining the server.

How Is a Dedicated Server Better/Worse Than Other Types of Hosting Like VPS and Shared Hosting?

Among the many advantages of running your own dedicated server is the ability to handle security, maintenance and stability of your own system. This is better if you want complete control over this, but it will definitely require more effort on your part (or someone you’ve hired) to keep up to date with security releases and patches. 

On the same note, at least when you apply these updates, you are in control.  It’s normal in shared and VPS hosting for the hosting company to roll out updates, and as a result, many sites on a server can break due to incompatibilities with the upgrade.  With dedicated hosting, at least when you break it, you know it’s your fault.  This may be a good or bad thing, depending on who you are.

What Types of Dedicated Hosting are Available?

For the most part, it is divided into two types:

• Un-managed
• Managed

Some companies break it down even further:

• Fully Managed – (Clients don't manage anything) - This includes monitoring, OS upgrades, software upgrades, rebooting, and security patches.
• Managed – (Clients can do some tasks) - This level includes a degree of management, critical updates, and limited support.
• Self-Managed – (Clients perform most tasks) - This level includes basic monitoring and some maintenance.
• Unmanaged – (Client performs all aspects of management) - Hosting company provides little to no support.

But the truth is, these terms are vague, and not standardized, so when shopping for dedicated hosting, you will simply want to compare features, service, and prices.

Self serve, or just regular dedicated hosting, comes with basic support.  Managed hosting means they are installing server updates (usually not very often), and in theory, are generally more pro-active in monitoring your server’s uptime.  Managed is quite a bit more expensive, and a good analogy is babysitting.  Although there is someone there who should be taking care of the servers, they aren’t always paying attention or doing a good job. 

What Do I Look For In a Dedicated Host?

Shopping for dedicated hosting requires the most technical understanding when compared to VPS or shared hosting.  Here are some things to keep in mind:

1. Uptime – This depends much on the network where you are hosting.  Most hosts do not want to, or cannot tell you what their actual uptime is, so listening to what our users have to say can be very useful.
2. Support – This is probably one of the biggest differences.  If you can always call the hosting company, and they answer (without putting you on hold), chances are their support is decent.  The other half of support is, how good are they when it comes to fixing  or resolving problems.  In our experience, this is what differentiates dedicated hosts.  Some have hired really experienced employees who can help solve problems quickly, even if they need to escalate your support request. Switching dedicated servers for this reason is not uncommon.
3. Features – Features are sparse on dedicated hosting.  However, having “root access” may be important if you are installing software or other systems on the server than need root access.  Check with your IT person, or whoever manages the software you plan to use.  Some dedicated hosts have some monitoring, backup, and security tools, which make managing a dedicated server a lot more fun to say the least.
4. Power – Just like VPS hosting, most of what you are paying for is the power of the server (or server hardware), as well as the bandwidth.  It is easiest to simply take note of general numbers and then compare them across hosting companies.  The server’s power comes from a few key components.  Servers are not unlike home computers in how they are built, although the hardware is more specialized for hosting:
   • Processor / CPU – This is the central brain of the computer, and is usually an Intel or AMD processor.  Much like a home computer.  Names like “Xeon” “Pentium” “Opteron” are various models within these brands, and for the average person, mean very little.  Again, if you are unsure, simply compare a couple companies you are interested in, and then tell the sales person what the other company is offering specifically.  They should know if the other setup is faster than the one they’re offering.  Often they come in dual processors, quad processors (or sometimes more).  Having 2 or more processors can be important on a super high traffic site.  As an idea, we had one experience where we had 2 servers, each with 2 processors, and that could support 1,500,000 hits per day (mostly to a database), with some strong peak periods.  One dual processor server simply wasn’t enough to handle it. By the way, to reduce confusion, “dual processors” or in other words having 2 processors, is different than a “dual core” processor.  A dual-core, quad core, etc… processor is just a different type of processor that has gotten popular in recent years.  Dual and quad-core may offer some benefit over single core processors, but in short, having two dual-core processors is much more powerful than a single quad-core on your server.
   • Memory / RAM – This component is generally matched to be in the same class as the processor.  Sometimes, if you run heavy software applications on the server, you may find that you need to upgrade the total amount of RAM on your server.  This is usually the biggest bottleneck in dedicated hosting, with database powered sites.  Your hosting company can usually let you know if this is the case.
   • Storage / Hard drives – This is where the server stores all your website files, and the software needed to be able to host the website.  This is generally important if you are storing lots of files for your website users.  The other key factor in hard drives has to do with backups.  Keeping a mirrored drive on your server usually means minimal downtime if the main hard drive is to fail.  Hard drive speeds can also make a difference.  High speed drives means a faster site; generally speaking, the higher the RPM’s the faster.  SCSI drives tend to be way more expensive, but still can out-perform most regular ISE (SATA/PATA) drives.  Companies often opt for the cheaper option, because differences are not so obvious for the average site.
5. Bandwidth – Generally, bandwidth is rarely a problem on shared hosting because users use up their other resources (e.g. CPU time) long before they run out of bandwidth. But with dedicated hosting, you may need to keep an eye on it.  Bandwidth is generally cheap.  If your site is making money, then this is usually not much of an issue.
6. Server Software – Since you or your IT people will likely be involved, then knowing what sort of server operating system the host offers is important (e.g. Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, etc…).
7. SLA – This is the host’s promise to refund you actual hosting costs if your site happens to go down, and you are actually monitoring it (which few people do).  In our experience, this amounts to very few dollars and cents.  Not only because downtime may amount to a few dollars, but usually, you have to monitor your own site to ensure it’s online, as well as not be your own fault, or due to high traffic.  SLA’s are not really important in our opinion, and are standard with most hosts these days. 

Also keep in mind that sites with questionable usage and content may need to find specialized hosts, or approval processes. For example: adult sites, potentially illegal content (music/video file sharing), IRC (due to potential malicious/DDOS/hacking use), etc...

When in doubt, just read our hosting reviews, as well as those from our users.  Chances are, we can save you a lot of time and headache when it comes to finding a great dedicate hosting company.  Once you found a good company, then have them help you customize your hosting plan with them.

Finding FrontPage hosting is not an easy thing to do these days. With all the options available from hosting providers, and all of the open source software, FrontPage hosting is taking a back seat to some of the other more popular hosting services. We recommend that you check for the level of customer support provided by your Frontpage hosting provider if you are completely married to the idea of a Frontpage hosting server. A good place to look for this information are forums, message boards, and hosting reviews.

As we mentioned before, one of the main features of FrontPage hosting is what is referred to as WSIWYG, or what you see is what you get. This refers to the fact that as you are creating your website page, you can see how it appears without using difficult HTML. Overall, this makes it much easier to create and change pages on your website, however, this leads to less flexibility especially if you are an experienced website program. For beginners, HTML can be difficult to learn if you don't have a programming background or enough time to properly implement it.

With FrontPage hosting, you could potentially have a website up within a few minutes. You can add widgets that show the time and date interactively, embed a search tool that will search the words on your web page, place a ticker in your website that shows the number of visitors coming to your site, etc. The list of things you can do with FrontPage hosting does not end there. There are options for e-commerce integration and shopping carts, and a full list of features, tools and and applications that can be added on quite easily with the FrontPage software. Not to mention that such a hosting set up will run flawlessly with other Windows and Microsoft applications. If you already use a lot of Microsoft software, Frontpage hosting might be exactly what you need.

Just do yourself a favor and perform the due diligence necessary to know which hosting company is going to suit your needs of reliability, customer service and affordable hosting packages.

Included in the Plesk package are third-party applications which are not included in the plus code base. These packages are designed to interact in a streamlined fashion, and add to the flexibility of the interface. Examples of the software include billing applications and multiple server support.

Plesk version 8.x is the most recently released level of control panel software that includes over 50 new features. The software is heavily favored by both hosting providers and users alike. Thus is available on shared servers as well as Plesk dedicated servers, furthering their penetration into the website hosting market. Their comprehensive server management software is designed specifically for resale in much the same way that a reseller hosting account would be set up.

With Plesk hosting, you to start your online business with a shared Plesk hosting account, a reseller hosting account, or a Plesk dedicated server. The process should be able to be completed quickly and easily, and if there are any problems their customer service and help information is easy to access. Adding to the simplicity factor is the fact that Plesk is available for both Windows servers and Linux servers. You'll be pleased to know that included in the hosting package is the Dr. Web antivirus software, which is well known for its industry-leading frequency of security updates along with an exhaustive database of viruses.

You will need to renew your quest software every so often, but the company, SWsoft, makes it very easy to upgrade. Additional license keys can also be purchased for use on multiple computers. Simply connect to the company's website, select your operating system, enter your IP address and the rest is automated. This way, you can stay up to date with the most recent versions of the Plesk hosting software. Now you will hit the ground running, with software that smoothly integrates your web hosting interface with all of your websites.

The cpanel web-based administration interface allows you to manage most all aspects of your domain. From cpanel you can access website related e-mail, website statistics, your site log, and track your bandwidth among other options. Usually, from this control panel you can also upload and download files to and from your web hosting server via FTP. This is the reason that that the cpanel interface is probably the most user friendly administration interface currently available.

From the control panel you can control and count data, domain and subdomain redirects, and e-mail autoresponder forwarding as well as website directory permissions. From the cpanel hosting window there is not much that is out of your control. You can directly edit your webpages through an HTML editor or code editor, create new databases and attach them to different directories, or enable Apache server handling. From Cron jobs and automated tasks to moving files from one directory to another to search engine submission, cpanel is your personal control center.

With the relatively recent addition of Fantastico, cpanel now offers the ability to preinstall CGI scripts, shopping carts and forums all with the click of a button. It takes no genius to realize that this type of functionality can be crucial in saving you hours of valuable time and frustration in the beginning, when you need to install such add-ons as content management systems such as Joomla and Wordpress, or smaller applications. Make sure that cpanel hosting is offered with the web hosting package that you end up purchasing.

When it comes to choosing your own hosting environment, which one works best for the programming languages that you will be using is of primary importance. For instance, PHP will need to be run in a UNIX environment, whereas ASP will be run in a Windows environment. Python, PHP, Perl and Ruby on rails are all run in the UNIX environment.

UNIX is synonymous with reliability and high performance. Even still, its source code is available entirely for free. Additionally, add-ons come mostly for free in the UNIX environment as well. For more technically oriented websites and companies, this open-source environment is one that is preferred. It is possible to run very complex and customized websites with much smaller budgets using UNIX hosting. Overall, UNIX hosting is significantly cheaper than Windows hosting.

Sticking to the cost differences and the fact that UNIX is generally more affordable, you should easily be able to get a UNIX hosting plan that is significantly cheaper than a Windows hosting plan. UNIX hosting providers generally use this fact to pass on savings to their customers as well as provide additional services because the cost of providing hosting is cheaper than in a Windows environment. This can mean increased customer service and attention to the individual compared to a Windows provider. So you should be sure that the potential thousands of dollars extra that you pay for your Windows hosting is really worth it for you.

One of the major disadvantages of UNIX hosting, especially in a mobile world, is that you can only enable mobile access to a UNIX account via telnet, or sometimes SSH. Of course, you want to be well aware of the strengths and weaknesses between Windows and UNIX before you embark on launching your website.

At the end of the day, running multiple applications, dealing with various types of multimedia, and running your site with a certain infrastructure make a large impact in how your website is run and maintained. Among some of the limiting features of Windows hosting are that if you want to run a Microsoft website you'll have to use Windows hosting. If you are running a Microsoft website you are also going to have to use a Microsoft database like SQL Server. While SQL Server is robust and reliable, it has a large learning curve, so you better have experienced database administrators to run your website. While this may be the case, some of the benefits that Windows platforms are known for are their high level of interactivity and easy access to the database for the programmer.

If you are not dealing with such a robust database like SQL Server, some webmasters would even say that Windows hosting is easier to handle than Linux hosting. One of the downsides though, is that if you start off hosting your website under a Windows platform and then decide to make the conversion to a Linux server, the transition is going to be next to impossible. That being said, it's not exactly any easier to make the conversion the other way either. Bottom line, the platform that you decide on should be the platform that you end up using for the long run.

Some features that Linux is known for is its stability and reliability. This means that customers with websites hosted on Linux servers will have little need to worry about website security. This is a great deal of pressure off of your shoulders, especially if you're running an e-commerce website or one that values private information. Obviously, this is something that every customer is looking for. It's not like Linux is lacking in terms of interactivity either.

Basically, unless you know that you will be using many Windows-based applications, Linux offers more overall flexibility in the event that you alter the direction of your website.

??There are a lot of things to worry about when making plans to run a successful website. The choice of servers and server languages is an important decision where you don't want to make a mistake. This is because of all the things to worry about, your infrastructure is one that is most difficult to change retroactively. That being said, the advantages and benefits of Windows hosting are made more evidence if you also plan on using Windows applications such as front page, ASP.net, MS access or applications like Sharepoint. Although many of these applications can be run on Linux, your website will not experience the same fluidity as it would if you were hosted on a Windows server. It is, however, important to note that while hosting on a Windows server would be ideal in these situations, the cost of such a setup can be quite high in many cases. So, before using this technology, you want to look for a hosting package which suits your needs and is affordable.??

If you are looking to create a business website, Windows hosting is considered ideal because of the many features that it offers. Windows servers allow you to make heavy use of scripts that can run both server-side and user side, such as ASP and Javascript.

Windows Web hosting offers a wide range of benefits and add-on applications, so it's ideal for both those new to the arena of website infrastructure, and those who are very experienced and need advanced programming languages and database interaction to run their complex websites.

When building a web application driven with Java, you will most likely use JSP or JSF standards with your hosting. Chances are these standards will utilize shared JVM Private servers.

The difference between public and private JVM servers is essentially the same difference between shared hosting and dedicated hosting. With a shared JVM server, you are not given access to all of the levels of administration, whereas with dedicated JVM Java hosting, you are given the flexibility to tinker with all levels of Admin. Most likely, given that Java programmers tend to be more experienced, you want to host your Java application on a private JVM server.

When developing Java applications, most programmers enjoy working in an environment that can be completely controlled to obtain the best results. With this infrastructure, you can develop a library with all the classes that you want. You can also use this development environment to change the settings for individual JVM files as well as the way that they interact with the Web server. This way you can determine the mapping involved in the Java application or even install a different version. In addition, your development environment will not be affected by shared Java servers. Often times, when using a shared JVM, you will find that the server admin doesn't have the same consistency with respect to global classes that you would have with a dedicated Java hosting server.

The probability of crashing a Java application server is high. Java programmers often run into security problems when running common JVM environments, whether they take necessary precautions or not - it's just the nature of the game.

If it's a custom application utilizing a popular Java framework, our advice is to invest in private JVM hosting that will provide you with the most stable development environment possible. Although a fully dedicated Java hosting solution may be better, cost restrictions of such a setup would be counterproductive. In any case, the search to find one that would suit all your needs would probably not even be worth the time.

Because it is a server-side technology, Coldfusion hosting works on the backside of websites, helping to deliver connectivity between the user interface and the database. The language that Coldfusion runs on is known as Coldfusion markup language or CFML. CFML contains custom tags that search the database, interacts with the network, and exports relevant text. Working in conjunction with XHTML, CFML is pretty simple to implement relative to C++ if one has a strong understanding of basic HTML code and relational database design.

On the server side, Coldfusion hosting also requires less of a learning curve when compared to ASP or PHP. So the simplicity of Coldfusion hosting is definitely one of its larger upsides. Coldfusion developers will have a bunch of related applications built specifically for the Coldfusion environment, such as Coldfusion Studio. Additionally, Coldfusion extensions include a ready-made shopping cart that can be used to set up a website store, and backend support for interactive flash applications, which come in handy being that they are built on the same Adobe platform.

The one setback of Coldfusion hosting may be the cost. Setting up the Coldfusion server gets to be a little pricier than traditional UNIX and Windows hosting. However, as mentioned prior, some of the advanced features, facilitated implementation, and built-in applications make this type of hosting competitive at the price.

Overall, there are a great many advantages to using Coldfusion hosting as a powerful technology that helps build interactive Web applications and services. Most would say that the biggest advantage over other types of hosting is the ease of use in developing these interactive websites. This way, you can almost be assured that development with Coldfusion hosting will guarantee a dynamic and reliable Web user experience.

PHP hosting has become extremely popular with the implementation of ecommerce websites. Ecommerce websites require custom database setups filled with fields of information and columns. PHP is able to pull out exactly the pieces of information from mySQL databases with the use of its simple and flexible commands. The community of PHP users is both large and dedicated, providing you with plenty resources to get feedback and technical support from others who've experienced similar problems to the ones that you will have. In terms of value, flexibility, and large-scale and implementation, you will be hard-pressed to find a better host than one that hosts some form of PHP. For e-commerce sites, users will find key features such as SSL certificates and unlimited databases that run shopping cart functions.

One of the advantages of using PHP is that it has many features that can be easily incorporated into today's dynamic websites, including easy output of PDF files, flash video incorporation, and manipulation of images. PHP also makes it easy to deal with cookies so that certain amounts of user information can be used to provide a better browsing experience. The ability to save small bits of data via a server-side cache and simple tags are just a few of the convenience factors of using PHP.

 

Another factor that is key to the growth in popularity of PHP's acceptance are the user-friendly benefits that it provides. This makes the PHP hosting platform so well-liked for beginners. For experienced programmers, the flexibility is unmatched, while at the same time, beginners don't have a large hill to climb to start coding simple applications. One of the things you want to look out for with your PHP host is that they have the latest versions of PHP running on their servers. Currently, your PHP host should not be running PHP that is older than version 5.x. lastly, the PHP platform is open source, meaning that it is constantly evolving and improving, and it's the best kind of cheap - free.

Companies that provide ASP hosting usually include many options that you want to take a look at. Once the ASP hosting has been implemented, the manager of the website will have permission to access the IIS service and the Windows operating system directly via ASP.net. Once this has happened, the hosting manager can implement server-side scripts in conjunction with complementary Microsoft technology including MS access, SQL Server and other website related applications. No matter what size website you're planning to run, ASP.net will allow you to operate with high precision.

Most ASP hosts offer the other services through the Windows server platform with IIS 7.0. This is currently the most flexible and sophisticated set up that is available with this infrastructure, and most developers prefer it.

The proliferation of social networking in the form of blogs, forums and Web 2.0 are the main reasons that foster the need for dynamic website interaction. This is why hosting services such as ASP meets the needs of so many. Running an ASP infrastructure allows the Web developer abundant services at a global level while still maintaining lower costs and streamline functionality. However, this arena is not one for those with little experience and knowledge of Windows servers or the Windows operating system. In the long run however, the cost and sacrifice involved with decreased customer service and a large learning curve will most probably be overshadowed by the benefits of using the ASP structure.

 

If saving money is in your long-term plan, and flexible dynamic websites are your desire, ASP hosting may be a wise investment. Many large websites run on an ASP infrastructure quite successfully, and so you may want to find examples of these sites to learn exactly what type of expertise is required to maintain them.

Personal website hosting is usually best left to the larger, more reputable hosting providers. You should be able to find an affordable hosting package from a larger company as well as more access to their resources and simpler website editors and administration panels. Larger personal hosting companies usually also have better customer service and technical support departments. This fact can't be overstated, because in the beginning you're going to need all the help you can get involving the technical specifications of your server setup.

The next feature you want to look for in a personal web host is hospitality and attention to the individual. The last thing you want is to be on the phone waiting for a customer service representative when your website is crashed and you're at the end of your wit. Some companies are so small or so big that they completely ignore the individual customer unless you physically beg them to help you. They may also be able to help you with your website layout in the way that your information appears. Chances are, you going to want to add all types of multimedia including pictures, audio and video, in specific areas on your site. These things have become very popular and are quite standard, taking only a few minutes to install and should be able to be configured easily.

To have unlimited access to your website is probably going to be the next thing that is important to you. Depending on who you're hosting with, you shouldn't have a hard time getting help making your site accessible and easily updatable. The blog format has become a popular way to have quick access to your website and update your website information frequently so that your friends, family, and visitors will want to come back more often. Once you have easy access, consistent updating, and a simplified interface, you'll be well on your way to posting and maintaining a successful personal website.

It may be surprising to know that small business hosting is really no different than regular shared hosting for the most part.  For the most part, such hosting is mainly designed for small to medium sized businesses. Ease-of-use and quality customer support from the hosting company cannot be overstated at this stage.  Who wants to spend lots of unnecessary time on managing a site when you could be working on the business?

The right way to shop for business web hosting is to first to identify the primary purpose or goal of the website, as this will determine the hosting requiremnts.  You can generally break down most sites into just a few basic categories:

• Ecommerce = Selling things on your site, usually with a shopping cart, online store, or order form.
• Lead capture = Anytime you are trying to collect someone's personal information.  This may be as simple as a contact form on your site.
• Branding  = This can be anything from a brochure type site, to a site that is advertising a new movie.
• Readers = Newspapers, blogs, and other information sites fall into this category.  They often make money via advertising, email lists, or selling subscriptions.

Depending onthe goal, this tells you what you need next.  For example, if you are selling items on your site, it is best to start out by searching for the most complex pieces first, and that usually means the shopping cart software, or ecommerce platform.  After you have that piece, you will know what hosting will work best. Sometimes the hosting is built into the shopping cart service.  As for the other types of websites mentioned, generally most any hosting services will work.

The second part of this is determining estimated traffic, and other factors that may not work with your shared hosting. Sites that expect 1000's of visitors per day, or need super critical system to ensure reliability, will need to take this into consideration in their hosting.  In this case, we recommend reviewing our hosting classes; or if you know which one you need, we have separate guides for cheap VPS hosting, cheap dedicated hosting, cloud / grid hosting, or cheap colocation hosting.

When it comes to hosting, what is popular tends to be good, especially for smaller businesses that only get a few hundred, or thousand, visitors per day. Once you found out the most reputable business hosting companies, you can begin to weed out those companies which don't offer those things that your business requires.

What about "business services"?  Beware that most business add-ons are either worthless, or seriously overpriced.  Companies like Godaddy do this to make up for the fact they are losing money on other services, like domain registration.  If you are interested in business services such as cheap search engine optimation, cheap merchant accounts, cheap gateways, and other services, please check out our website checklist.

Sometimes, the reseller may consider getting exclusive use of the hosting instead of reselling the package in chunks for smaller profits. In either case, the reseller only has a pool of bandwidth and disk space to work with that decreases with each new website that is added on the account.

Some reseller hosting companies include value-added services in addition to reseller hosting such as web design or other Internet systems integrations. These particular companies tend to cater to small businesses and companies in the early stages. Someone who controls a reseller account will have the freedom to create his own pricing plans, services, and in some cases even software. The more flexible reseller hosts even grant you the ability to customize your brand and control panel, with some limitations./p>

To become a reseller you have to have a basic knowledge of the principles that are involved in basic Web hosting. All of the aspects involved in web hosting, including nameservers, disk space usage, accumulated web traffic, and common server maintenance will most likely be under your control. As the Web hosting manager, you will be responsible for all of your customers' problems that arise. Since you are 100% responsible for finding customers, you may also have to do some marketing to recruit customers to signup with you. These plans would most likely include enticing bandwidth, pricing, and customer service offerings.

The quality of support should probably by your biggest guide in shopping for a cheap reseller hosting company, as this what separates the success of most hosts today.

What About Cost?

As for pricing, for the most part, there is little to no difference. It's recommended to include this in your shopping list for hosting, even if you don't plan on using it.  Not only because prices are about the same, but because you never know when you might decide to setup another website, blog—Perhaps even for a friend.  Since there are several, high quality, multiple-domain hosting companies out there, starting out with one generally has no drawbacks over single domain hosting.

What Are the Limits to This Type of Hosting?

We have seen cases where a person has over 100 low traffic sites on a single hosting account.  Had this person set this up on regular hosting, they would be paying hundreds of dollars per month in hosting fees.  Of course, the limitation to multiple domain hosting is controlled by the amount of traffic all of your websites get collectively.

"Multiple Domains" is Not the Same as "Sub Domains"

Each of these extra domains (sometimes referred to as "add on domains") are completely separate websites, and normally, just as easy to manage as a hosting account with a single domain. Don't confuse multiple domain hosting with "sub-domains." While only some companies offer multiple domain hosting, almost every host offers the ability to add sub-domains.  For example, lets say you have a website: http://www.example.com.  And for whatever reason, you need to have a separate sub-domain for the shopping portion of the site.  You might set this up as http://shop.mysite.com. And, perhaps the email login is http://mail.example.com.

Can I Resell Hosting to People Using Multiple Domain Hosting?

If you are looking to use multiple domain hosting because you plan to resell sites, this can be done, but generally only on a smaller scale.  If you plan to resell more a a handful of sites, you might want to check into reseller hosting.  It depends on how much traffic each of the sites get.  Point is, if you are doing this as a business, setting up a reseller account from the start makes the most sense.

But the truth is "blog hosting" is sort of a made-up term. Companies that are blog friendly tend to get recognized as such by their users. These companies usually offer a variety of blogging software packages that can easily be installed by most of us non-technical people. Sure, you can download most of these on your own, then setup a database manually, and other slightly technical steps (that your hosting company can walk you through), but being able to just click a few buttons in your host's control panel is that much easier. In the olden days, it was much more difficult to setup a blog.

If you are unsure which blogging software to use, our recommendation is to start with our favorite: Wordpress. It's probably the easiest and most flexible of any blogging software, and it's completely free. Other blogging software platforms include: Typepad (Movable Type), Livejournal, SimplePHPBlog, Textpattern, b2evolution, Nucleus, pMachine, and LifeType.

Although "free" hosting exists, it is typically littered with their ads, not on your website, and in the long run, most people end up switching to a cheap blog hosting service anyways. It is not uncommon for them to break permanently, as well as having little or no control over it—especially if you want to move it later. It's a risky proposition for those wanting to have a blog for the long term (whether personal or for business).

Do I Need FTP Hosting?

FTP hosting is used frequently by design firms, legal firms, sites that deliver lots of downloads, and other companies that regularly transfer large files bewteen them and their clients, friends, or within a company.  This might, for example, include accountants who do their customers returns, or a musician who wants to store his library online for browse. It is also commonly used by just about anyone or any company as a cheap way to backup their data. FTP hosting also allows you to easily setup security and permissions for multiple users as well.

FTP hosting allows for simple sharing of music, video, images, and all other multimedia files. Good FTP hosts will have reliable transfer speeds, and if needed, high speed or semi-dedicated transfering abilities. A good FTP hosting service will allow you to keep your information protected from hackers and unauthorized account holders.

Another, less common use of FTP servers is as a file hosting or data storage and backup repository. Oftentimes businesses use a secure FTP host to upload and back up their most important files. These files can then be accessed and moved from one place to another with relative piece as well as additional security. It just serves as another way to secure your company or personal data, in the event that anything happens to your office or main location.

What Is FTP Exactly?

FTP is known as file transfer protocol, and has become the most popular method for exchanging large amounts of information through the Internet. FTP hosting is made up of two components - the FTP client and the FTP server. Just like logging on to your website, the administrator of your FTP account will have both a unique username and password.  If the user has the password they'll have access to your FTP host which will connect with all the files that you have uploaded to the server. Obviously, security and privacy throughout the entire process of exchanging information is of high importance.

What Should I Look For When Shopping for FTP Hosting?

If you shop around you should be able to find a discount FTP hosting provider that offers:

• Sufficient file storage space
• Sufficient bandwidth
• A custom FTP address
• Great support
• and SSL (which gives you a secure connection for transferring)
• An easy to use control panel

FTP hosting has gotten less popular in recent years, and replaced by regular hosting companies, since transfer limits and file space are so generous, and speeds are usually sufficient for the average user. However, hosts that specialize in FTP hosting tend to make things a little easier to manage sometimes. For example, some companies even offer a desktop folder to which you can simply drag-and-drop files on to the FTP server, instead of having to use an FTP program. Some companies offer continuous backup, or versioning, so that you can always find a previous version of your document.

When in doubt, check out our reviews, including those submitted by our customers.

Electronic surveys have been conducted that estimate that up to 90% of business communications around the world are done via email. With so many people relying on the same method of communication, there arrives some difficulties. The number of choices out there for email clients, services, and providers is endless. So what questions should you be asking yourself when it comes to finding the best email hosting? First, you could try to host your email yourself. While the solution may offer you the greatest flexibility, you going to have to have some technical know-how to bring in additional hosting equipment such as servers, have resources for high memory capacity, and additional drives on your computer. You would also need to have a cable or T1 modem along with expensive software including a firewall that would protect you from potentially harmful viruses and worms. If you're a big business this may not be a problem. However, if you're a small to medium size business thing you should consider the alternative which is using an email hosting service provider which has all the necessary equipment and software already in place.

If you choose to go with the email hosting provider option, you will make sure that certain core functions are in place. An unlimited number of email names and email addresses should definitely be included in your hosting package. Other core functions that should be available with a good email host include features like spam blocking software, and on-call technical support division that is available 24 hours a day, and technicians that can fix problems that may arise, in a timely manner. These services can make it much easier for your company to handle smooth communications on a consistent basis. Another option you might look for, depending on the size of your business and the number of emails that you have to manage, is email data backup, where all of your email files and messages are backed up continuously through the server. This way, if there is a collapse of the email system, you will have the important emails and files in backup and storage.

However, the line has begun to blur. Much of ecommerce hosting, is simply shopping cart companies that have integrated the hosting and cart into a single system; with the two halves being inseparable.  This is very popular approach to running a store online for the reasons of speed, support, cheaper short & long-term costs, zero maintenance at 0 cost, automatic upgrades, etc…  But you can check out our shopping cart guide for more.

The short of it is, if you plan to install a shopping cart on a host, most any host will do fine.  The term “ecommerce hosting” is pretty much a dead term, at least in the way it used to be used.  We do recommend specific hosts for certain shopping carts which seem to have compatibility issues with lots of hosts.

So where did the term “ecommerce hosting” originate?  Plans in which the hosting company give you the shopping cart for free or for a discount is a very bad idea, and that business model is virtually dead, and given way to other solutions. 

As ecommerce experts, we recommend finding the cart first, and then finding the hosting second.  You will definitely want to see our shopping cart recommendations if you haven’t decided on that part yet.

In reality, ecommerce hosting is used in many different ways.  Some hosts mean you get a free SSL (secure certificate) for running credit card transactions, or that you get a cheap merchant accounts included with your hosting plan.  But these are both generally bad ideas. SSL certificates are cheap at places like Godaddy, and merchant accounts are always cheaper through a company that specializes in selling them.  You can check out our related guides on those as well, as they cover the absolute cheapest sources for those other online store components. You might be able to get by with using Paypal (using their most advanced integration) instead of a traditional merchant account, but this is not advised if you are panning on growing the site big, as Paypal makes it difficult to reconcile, hard to get real support, etc...  It is worse if you are using only their Standard integration as it will severly reduce the number of people who complete the transaction on your site.

Ecommerce hosts place an emphasis on uptime.   Having a website that is down for a day can easily result in the loss of hundreds, or thousands of dollars in sales.  Different websites have varying customer traffic needs, database sizes and payment limitations. Most hosts offer uptime guarantees, but few, if any, know their actual uptime.  Actual performance history is so much more important than promised refund on hosting fees, should the site go down.  Our user reviews are often the most helpful in weeding out hosts with poor track records.

When in doubt, check out what our users have to say. Being that they have actually used these hosts, this gives them a clear insight as to what you can really expect from each hosting company.

As hardened ecommerce experts, we recommend reading our in-depth guides into choosing the absolute best, and lowest cost ways to run an online store / shopping cart.

What is Shared Hosting, and How is It Different From Other Types of Hosting?

As the name implies, shared hosting is essentially sharing space on a physical server. Your website will take up storage space on a server that is owned by your hosting company, along with potentially thousands of other websites taking up their own space. A good hosting provider is reliable and fast among other things, while a less than ideal shared hosting provider will give you nightmares. As there are virtually thousands of shared hosting providers available, you would be best served to perform due diligence on the provider that is best for you.

Generally, shared hosting runs between a few dollars per month, up to $25 on the higher end.   Pricing varies widely, depending on the level and quality services offered.

Is Shared Hosting Right for Me?

For the majority of individuals that expect to have less than 1000 visitors per day, a shared hosting solution is usually the best one. As you may have guessed, shared hosting is the most popular type of hosting, simply because most sites are well under this 1,000 visitors per day.  But take note, that isn't an exact number.  Some sites, depending on how much programming is behind them, how many pages are being visited, peak visit periods, and several other technical factors; may support 50,000 or more visitors per day.  

How do you know if it's right for you?  Since there is no way to know exactly, the general rule of thumb is, unless you are planning on heavy advertising out of the gate, most small companies will fare well on shared hosting.  Then, if needed, you can always upgrade later (your hosting company can probably let you know if you are close).

If your site is a business, and your website is a revenue generator, then obviously, spending more than $3 - $10 a month is not a difficult decision. On the other hand, it may be difficult to want to upgrade a site that does not generate revenues.  For example: some personal sites, blogs, free resource sites, etc... 

How Do I Know When I Need to Upgrade From Shared Hosting?

Your hosting company should let you know when you have been exceeding the limits on your shared hosting plan.  What typically happens is your site will basically be throttled to not go over the hosting limit.  When that happens, they will usually send you an email as well, but at that point, you are getting large numbers of visitors at that moment.  

But just because you exceeded that limit, may not be normal, so you don't necessarily need to upgrade if it's not a long term problem.  If for example, your site gets mentioned on a popular news site, social network, etc... then you may get a sudden influx of traffic.  A few hours later, that peak traffic often dissipates, so unless thats a problem, temporary spikes may be acceptable for you.

What Should I Look for When Choosing A Cheap Shared Hosting Plan?

A couple of the more important factors when deciding on a shared hosting server include:

• Affordability - Obviously, you would not be on this site if price wasn't important to you. Overall, shared hosting is the most affordable hosting that's available. Depending on your budget and the traffic that your website receives, you will have to determine the amount it you can afford to pay your shared hosting provider per month.  Often, we have found large differences in pricing in the hidden services, such as if you need a dedicated IP, extra upgrades such as SSL installation.  It's best to know what you need ahead of time, and then check out their detailed pricing page for add-ons.  Chances are though, these hidden costs usually don't amount to much if you only have a couple of websites.
• Simplicity - This aspect is generally more important for those newer to hosting, and have just a single website. If your shared hosting provider is not easy to use, it will make everything that you do much more difficult. Uploading files, FTP, e-mail and virtually anything that you do behind the scenes is affected by the simplicity of your web host.  Hosts that use CPanel for example, are fairly easy to use, although there are tradeoffs to CPanel.  Other hosts have developed their own control panels which are just as easy to use.
• Features -  The easiest way to learn about features on our site, and use the host finder to find hosts that have these features (coming soon). Common features range from website statistics all the way to special programs that make the setting up of a blog relatively easy. Even for something like websites stats, this can range from simple statistics (e.g. Awstats / Webalizer) to very powerful business analytics (e.g. Urchin). So many features, like FTP, are common amongs all hosts, so putting them on your shopping list really isn't necessary.
• Speed - When visitors arrive at your website, they want information quickly. In the event that your shared hosting provider takes its sweet time to load your page, you can kiss your visitors goodbye.  This can make a giant difference in the ability to keep or convert people to sales on your site.  Measuring speed is difficult since it varies by location, but you can check a handful of their client sites to get a rough idea of how fast yours might be. 
• Uptime - Although this, and "Speed" are near the end of our list, these are probably the most important, If your website is down, then your business is dead. No hosting company we know will tell you actual uptime stats, but the truth is, most companies have plenty of downtime during the course of a year. Reviews from others often will be useful in determining whether the host you are interested in has serious problems keeping their customers sites online. For example, if your site will generate $1,000,000 in sales, then your site being down for a single hour can amount to several hundreds of dollars.

If you are still unsure of your exact needs, the best way is to simply sign up for some of our the top rated hosts. Chances are, most of them will work just fine, with the exception if your site is going to be programmed in a way that it will only work with a few hosts (rare). Since so many hosting companies offer a month-to-month pricing, switching to another company is an option.

How Is It Different Than Other Types of Hosting?

VPS hosting is essentially the hosting option that lies between shared web hosting and dedicated Web hosting. It offers you the opportunity to share a server with many other customers, while at the same time offering additional flexibilities and privacies above shared hosting.

Imagine a dedicated server, or one that belongs only to you, and split it up into many, smaller virtual servers. In the end, what you will have is the freedom and flexibility of a dedicated server with the price tag of a shared server, but with much less power than a full dedicated server. 

If VPS Hosting Is Like Dedicated Hosting, Then Why Should I Even Bother With Dedicated Hosting?

The problem with virtual private servers is that hosting companies can still put too many websites (or VPS’s) on a physical server, and cause it to go slow or even fail sometimes.  In theory, the idea of having a semi-separate environment for your site is good.  In practice, it just doesn’t work like hosting companies would like you to believe. 

This is why some mission-critical sites prefer to use dedicated hosting, even if they are not high traffic.  If your site is making hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars per year, then using a dedicated server may not be a bad investment; especially if you have been having problems with your VPS in the past.  Of course, switching to dedicated hosting is not a solution for all your VPS problems.

VPS hosting has become more and more popular in recent years. When you are choosing the ideal server for your website or business you will encounter a wide range of VPS hosting options that include various control panels in addition to various capabilities and levels of service.

What Kinds of VPA Hosting Are Available to Me?

There are generally three main categories of VPS hosting:

• Unmanaged hosting,
• Managed hosting, and
• Unmetered hosting

In terms of affordability, managed hosting is the most expensive, whereas metered and unmetered hosting provide lower levels of customer service but greater affordability. You will have to decide which level of service best fits your organization. With managed VPS hosting, you will receive 24 hour server monitoring by an experienced system administrator who is a certified professional when it comes to application installation and server maintenance.  They will often update or inform you of security issues, but often the line between managed and unmanaged VPS hosting is faint.

What Should I Look for In a VPS Hosting Plan?

Shopping for VPS hosting requires a bit more technical understanding, when compared to shared hosting. Of course, user and expert reviews make that process much easier.  There are a few things that you might want to look into when deciding on the best VPS option for you. Here are a few of the most popular factors in shopping for a VPS host. 

• Uptime – This is probably the most important factor, but the most difficult to measure.  Reviews from other users can show general trends here.  SLA (Service Level Agreements) don’t guarantee anything more than a refund, or partial refund, on your hosting bill.  This probably won’t mean much if you are losing thousands of dollars due to your website being down.
• Power – One of the largest differences in VPS pricing simply comes down to how much power, space, and bandwidth your site needs.  When in doubt, simply start with a small plan, and then work your way up as needed, unless you plan to get a ton of traffic from the start (e.g. via lots of advertising).  The hosting company you plan to go with can let you know if your expectations are realistic.
• Redundancy - You will also want to ensure that they have solid and proven redundancy systems built in, just in case the server or hard drives fails.  Other redundancy features should be checked out and compared.
• Accessibility - As an administrator of a VPS server, or programmers if you have them, you may have the ability to access your server at the root level. For optimal flexibility, you will want to make sure that your access to the root is kept to a minimum if you are going to run a heavy-duty site.
• Features – Most VPS hosting is fairly plain vanilla.  There are certain aspects that can make them easier to manage, such as back up tools. If you plan to host several sites on the VPN, then you will also want to make sure that you can host unlimited domains from the same VPS server.
• Simple to Use - In terms of the control panel, make sure that there is flexibility in the options that are available to you, as you will probably be spending a good deal of time in this administrative area.

When in doubt, just check out what our other users have to say.  Generally speaking, VPS hosting offers month-to-month plans, so don’t worry if you start with a certain host, and want to switch later.