Web Design Development Articles

There are no professionals who can sit and monitor their website’s performance around the clock…it just isn’t possible. So, how do you know when your website is experiencing downtime or other issues that prevent visitors from reaching it?

There are many services now available for anyone who needs to keep an eye on their site. The question for many professionals is usually “I pay for a web hosting service, won’t they let me know?” Unfortunately the answer to that question is “no”. Most web hosting providers just don’t have the ability to monitor the thousands of pages they are hosting. They do provide all kinds of troubleshooting and support for customers experiencing difficulties, but they cannot guarantee round the clock uptime.

While many web hosting providers are beginning to make some ironclad guarantees around uptime, such as a 99.9% guarantee, not all are ready to make such statements. This is the reason so many businesses utilize one of the monitoring services. These are available as free and paid plans, but the benefits from all of them are great.

Generally, the services will use some sort of program or scripting to gauge the function of the site. If at any time a site goes down the monitoring service will alert the website owner, which can be done via email, cell phone or any other preferred contact method. They work in a variety of ways, but most measure the status of an account holder’s site approximately every ten minutes or less. Most make it easy to monitor numerous sites and all have multiple locations to prevent a failure of service should any one monitoring area go down.

What exactly do the monitoring services look for? Generally, they are making sure that your website is never unavailable. While they will not be able to fix things, they will let you know instantly if the site is down. Even a few hours without service can add up to wasted dollars in advertising and loss of sales. This means that with an email or telephone call you can get in touch with your web hosting company to get the problems resolved and the site operational.

Additionally, using a monitoring service also lets a website owner know if their hosting provider is meeting the terms of their contract, and establishes a valid paper trail to prove when or if the provider is in the wrong. This can help to get a refund on fees if the service falls below its guaranteed uptimes.

There are a handful of reasons that anyone will opt to change web hosting providers. Some will find a better deal with another company, some will find that the original server is not meeting the terms of their contract, and others need to increase the size of their site and are choosing a new provider.

These, and many other factors, are valid reasons for changing web hosts, but it is important to remember that a shift in servers can translate to a significant amount of “downtime”, or a period when your site is unavailable. While this instantly means a loss of communication with current customers it also means a loss of potential new customers and money.

So, how do you change web hosts without any downtime? Well, the answer requires a few considerations:

· Time
· Organization
· Effort

Time - when you have decided that you need to shift from one provider to another it is critical to remember that your original host may not be happy with your decision. It is advisable to wait to let the current hosting service know of your decision to terminate service until all files have been transferred and the new site is fully operational. Why the secrecy? There are many reasons, but the most important is that they may end your service at the moment you make the call. This could mean a loss of data and files, an inability for customers and visitors to find your site and worse it could mean a loss of credibility and money.

Organization - once you have made the choice to change web hosting providers and have located your new service it is time to begin transferring and copying all of the files from your original server. You should all ready be making all changes on your own equipment and then posting them, usually via FTP, to the server. If not you will need to begin doing this in order to always have the hard copy files on your own equipment. Once everything is copied you can go ahead and test the site operationally.

Effort - You may run into a few issues with files or you may find that you need to perform a few annoying tasks in addition to shifting files. Like what? You may need to remove your domain name from the original server, who may serve as the registrar, in order to avoid forwarding fees. You may need to address all of the code on your site to ensure the old URLs are not embedded.

With some planning and hard work you will not experience any downtime, but ultimately the responsibility is on your shoulders.

It is easy to fool a novice business associate by giving him disk space and bandwidth that he does not really need. Depending on the type of website you own, you must be able to precisely calculate the amount of disk space and bandwidth you need for web hosting. Here are few tips to estimate the needs carefully. Read on to find out about them.

Size of the Website

The size of the website is important to ascertain the amount of disk space needed for hosting the website. This size depends on text, graphic images, animation, and flash. Text uses very little space. But contrary to this, images can take up huge chunks of space.

Although animations, jazzy flash, or heavy graphic files can be really interesting to watch, it could kill the interest of the users as well. How? By taking a lot of time to load. Many users are still using slow Internet connectivity. Their computer may also not support heavy animated files as well. Why not select simple images to keep your webpage within 50-60 KB? An average page should not be more than 30 KB.

Amount of Disk Space

Now that you have decided on the size of the website - which is roughly 30-60 KB, select the amount of space you need in the computer to host your website. Keep this limit to 10 MB. Surveys suggest that this limit is fair enough to accommodate any load the website might get.

You might consider altering this limit a bit if you have a busy forum to maintain. If not, you know the amount to keep.

Number of Visitors

Estimating the number of visitors to your website is very important to select the amount of bandwidth you need to maintain your website. For instance, if you are aiming at 20,000 visitors per month for your website, which has an average of 30 KB data per page, go for 1.5 GB bandwidth strength.

So, next time your web hosting provider offers a 5 GB bandwidth for a similar website, you know the answer. Also, 20,000 hit rates are quite hypothetical. Usually, hit rate for an average website is quite less.

Wrapping Up

In short, unnecessary disk space and bandwidth would cost you money and effort. Estimate your needs properly and seek those web hosting firms who offer upgrades as well. Unless you are offering a popular movie songs and clippings, you don’t really need mega space and bandwidth.

Email hosting is one of the most important aspects of online business because it is the point of contact for you to communicate with any satellite organisations and most importantly your consumers and clients. It is integral to the corporate connect culture that has invaded the internet and because of this, more and more providers are cropping up on the internet. With email and other forms of virtual communication, the Internet has made the market place truly borderless and nation less - you are able to stretch your business potential to the ends of the earth at a fraction of the cost.

At a recent survey done online, 90% of all business communication all over the world is now done through email. But here comes the dilemma; with so many to choose from, which ones do you go for and what are the aspects that you should look out for? Firstly, for those who are contemplating hosting email in house; it can be quite an expensive solution because the amount of equipment and customisation of the office space that you have to do is quite staggering. For one, you need to bring in additional equipment like servers, high memory capacity drives and an additional computer.

You would also need to change to a high speed modem and install expensive firewall and security software to that the internal office email network does not get attacked by viruses. These include anti adware software, spam blockers and corporate level anti virus software. If you are a large corporation, then the cost might be negligible, but if your operations range from the small to the medium, then you need to consider the alternative, which is to adopt an email hosting service from a provider who has already all the necessary equipments and software in place. Looking at the arena of email hosting on the web; there are several aspects you should look out for. For one, the provider should be able to furnish your business with an almost unlimited number of email names, email addresses that are 100% customisable.

The features that they should provide include security features like spam blocking software, a reliable firewall and a host of options for you to secure your precious corporate information. There should also be a 24 technical support division that can attend to your case, and the best thing would be to have a technician that can even come onsite if the problem is dire (Of course this only works when the email provider is in the same country as you are, and most likely, this will be the case). They should also be able to provide you with something called off site back ups, which is a web mail options which copies and archives all the emails running through the server, which means in the event of a global crash of all systems, there will be a backup storage for you to refer to. With these features, you can get the right email hosting for your business.

I know when you are first starting out on the website you might think that having a free domain name may sound get but it it? I am not talking about the one you get when you pay for hosting I mean the one you get from free hosting services. There can be some big disadvantages for using free domains as your web address. Here are some reasons you may not want a free domain name from a free host service.

One of the biggest problems with free domains is that they make you look unprofessional. When you get a domain from free hosting services they make you use their front end subdomain. For instance, your website name will look like “yoursite.theirname.com”. With that kind of domain name you are making it obvious to everyone that you are using a free service. Your visitors may lose confidence in your abilities. Plus, it doesn’t look good on a business card. These types of domain names are for just creating a practice site of one for fun.

The other reason why you do not want a free domain name is because you will not be able to sell your domain if your website begins to gain traffic. You will be stuck with that domain because they will own it not you. You will end up having to divert traffic from that site to your new site. Oh, and about traffic, you must have a certain amount of traffic going to that site or they will cancel your service. Since most will run ads on your site to make up for giving your a free service they will be more that happy to give your server space to someone else.

Free hosting services usually make you join their forums. You will have to log on and contribute to their forum at least once a week or your service will be cancelled. Unless you like forums you will have no choice if you website takes off.

You need a top level domain (TLD) like “www.yoursite.com” so you will have full control over it. You look more professional, you can sell your domain for a profit and you will not have to worry about being cancelled, unless you don’t pay your bill. But don’t worry about that because web hosting is much cheaper these days.

So if you are planning to have a serious business website then please do not rely on free web hosting or free domain name from these services. You can play around with them first to get the hang of thing then get yourself a (TLD) when you are ready for serious business.

A host reseller specialises in the buying and selling of host names and domain named accounts on the internet. Host reselling has been a viable option to gain cheap domain names for an online business or for even casual reasons. When you do purchase a hosting reseller account, you will have access to many cheap and distinctive domain names and you will be able to acquire and use them almost immediately.

Many individuals and corporations have been touting the use of host reseller accounts and there are two main reasons for this. One of the reasons is to of course save, and sometimes you can save a lot of money. When you want to get a domain name register or get an account with a web domain provider, it will be costly. Think about it as comparing the price of a second hand car to a brand new model. They both drive the same, they both perform the same and pretty much they are the same thing, with the second hand car being much, much cheaper of course. Then there is the profit side of the money issue, which is that you can actually make some money from host reselling. How you do this comes from purchasing an already existing account with a host reseller, usually for a small fee and with that, you can extend your hosting (newly gained) to other people looking to host their very own websites and you can charge a small fee. You do not need to acquire your own server and you certainly do not need to invest in other more expensive equipment or software.

Another way you can make money is if you are in the business of buying and selling on the internet, where you should and must be using several different websites that handle either a range of products or many different products from many different categories. You need to be able to micromanage and create these websites as markers and backchannels to route sales and create volume. You can even use these multiple sites to post interesting and engaging content and make money from either pay per click revenue with other internet advertisers. With a host reseller account, you can do all these things and much, much more. The possibilities are really endless with a host reseller account.

The interests and categories that can fall under the host reseller is almost as wide as the amount of content on the internet itself. If you are looking to just build a hobby website or if you are looking to extend your business reach into the digital arena with as many websites and satellites as possible, then getting a host reseller account could be the solution that you are looking for. They are many of these packages that are available online and a simple search on a popular search engine will reap you many returns on information. Soon, you will be able to enjoy the benefits of a host reseller account.

Dedicated server leasing is an excellent option for those individuals or businesses who have a specific need to implement a highly customized server hosting solution. Should you go with dedicated server leasing? Or will a shared server account suffice for you? The answer depends on what your specific needs are.

Before you make the determination whether to opt to go with dedicated server leasing versus using a shared server hosting account, you should evaluate your needs against this checklist below:

1. Do you require root / administrator access to a machine in order to install custom software?
2. Will you be hosting other customers or users on the system and need to maintain full administrative control over the machine?
3. Do your disk space requirements exceed the limits imposed by most hosting service providers?
4. Do you anticipate extremely high bandwidth, such as streaming media content, very large and very frequent downloads, or hundreds of thousands or millions of users hits per day, week, or month?
5. Do you have a highly customized solution that would adversely impact the availability or performance capacity of other customer accounts who may be sharing the same shared server host with you?
6. Do you have highly secure information and need to minimize the risk of exposing your data to becoming compromised by others who may be accessing the same system?
7. Are you relying on the dedicated server for disaster recovery, business continuity, high availlability, or data back up purposes?

If any of the above 7 situations apply to you, then without a doubt, dedicated server leasing at a reputable data center makes sense for you.

The world seems to be getting smaller all the time and the Internet has played a large part in that. It is also interesting to look at how the web has affected world trade. In the beginning world trade was a much harder task. After all it could take weeks to get a simple piece of communication through. With the telephone, things became much faster and much easier, but there was still a long way to go.

In the beginning of the 1990s people began to use the Internet for information and gradually more people began to communicate via email. It was a good way for people to keep in touch and businesses began to see how this fast communication could aid their commerce.

With this new way of sending information people could communicate so much faster and this meant that traders could communicate easily throughout the world. It was inexpensive and super fast. By seeing how email had helped business, companies began to see the benefits of creating business websites. They could see that if all businesses had websites it would make communication a lot easier for customers and traders.

They could see that buyers, who usually may have to call up by telephone and wait for days for a reply to their query, could get the information that they require instantly online. Things that used to matter like different time zones and speed no longer were an issue

Before web hosting there were very limited options for businesses. However, as the hosting companies grew, so too did the buyers and suddenly businesses could easily get a piece of web real estate and reach customers, who may never of heard of them otherwise..

At first the process of creating and hosting a website was very expensive, so online businesses were limited, but as competition increased, prices lowered and this enabled many more people to buy hosting and create a web page. This allowed trade to blossom even within communities.

Buyers and sellers were able to meet within these communities and trade increased. It did not matter where you were from, what country, what class, you could get a website and have a web presence and you could buy and sell.

Eventually there were options to get hosting for free. These hosts are funded by advertising and this meant that anyone could create a small web page. They could share photos and information with family and friends easily and instantly. People could sell and buy things that they had never dreamed of before.

People could trade from home and it has opened up world trade to millions. This has allowed world trade to grow by billions of dollars and huge companies have emerged.

There are many reasons you may want to consider building a website. Most businesses now have websites online for their customers. You can use a website to market potential customers or to provide current costumers with ongoing information about your service or products. Most people love the idea of having a website, but are simply scared of the website design process. However, website design doesn’t have to be scary and it can actually be a lot of fun. There is simply a limitless possibility of what you can do today. As a business, you can list all of your services and information about your company. Your website is actually like an online storefront for your company.

When you are developing your website design, you have to consider that it is the face of your company. In the same way you want your office to look clean and professional, you should feel the same way about your website. Customers will judge how good a company you are by the website design you use. If you use a jumbled and messy website design, customers will quickly become frustrated and move on to someone else. You need to make sure your layout is user friendly and allows customers or visitors to move easily from one area to the next.

Another major aspect of your website design is the originality factor. You don’t want a cookie cutter website that looks just like everyone else’s. You should make sure your logo and slogan are used in your website, and that any photos you use are original for your site. You will find that many website companies now allow you to use templates to create your website design and these can be great to quickly get online. However, you will find that your creativity is severely limited and you may not be able to create what you want. The best thing to do is build a website completely from scratch and lay it out the way you feel is best.

If you are unfamiliar with building websites, you may want to go with a professional website design company. Many companies will even design your logo for you and help you come up with a tag line. These companies also have sophisticated programs that can make your web pages look completely unique when compared to other sites online. They can even include custom boxes about your products or videos made for your company. These companies often offer packages to build and maintain your website for a certain amount of time. You can have your site built and then make changes as needed throughout the term of the contract. This is often the best way to go since your products or services may change throughout the year.

In order to be successful online, you need to have a unique, user friendly, website. Having your site custom built is the best way to guarantee both aspects. The best part is that you get complete control over what is done and you say when things should be changed. With a professional company, they will allow you full input into the creative process.