dylanseeker's Blog

Many people today have considered web hosting at home. However, before you make that final decision, you should make sure you have all the facts.

You will definitely want to weigh the pros versus the cons of hosting within your own home and deciding if it is right for you.

To do that, you must have the most accurate and helpful information available, this is where this article can help you.

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is where some form of website is given space upon a server.

The type of website hosted varies from one host to the next. There are several types such as strictly HTML, a combination of different allowable languages, shopping carts, and databases, just to name a few.

Of course, when it comes to websites, you have more than just the code that need hosted, you have a variety of images as well, that will vary from one person or business to the next as well.

Web hosting in general is allowing a person to take up space on a server for a nominal fee.

The amount of space that you allow another person to have is up to you, your equipment, and how much you have to offer.

Every website you see online has a web host; it is what makes up the World Wide Web as a whole.

What Infrastructure Do I Need?

There are several things combined that will help make you get started in offering web hosting at home.

Some of the equipment you will need may include:

High Speed Internet. Preferably Cable, but DSL is acceptable as well. Dialup is never acceptable for a web hosting provider.

Static IP. This address should be local and for your own network at home.

Router. This router should have the ability to forward different connections to that of your server. The HTTP port suitable for web hosting is port 80.

Apache. This program is both free and of the highest quality. This program allows you to host several websites simultaneously.

Perl

PHP

MySQL

Reliable Computers. Plural because most web hosting companies run their own dedicated servers and uses multiple computers to do so.

Is it Really Possible to Turn My PC into a Server?

Yes it is, provided that you have the above items implemented. You want to be sure that you have tight security on your systems and servers as well.

This will help keep hackers at bay. You want to make sure that you have the ability to provide your customers with outstanding service, reliability, and uptime.

Web Hosting At Home Pro's

1. A great business venture

2. You can use your own pc.

3. You have the opportunity to offer a higher standard in customer service and web hosting.

4. You no longer have to worry about which web hosting company is taking advantage or charging too much.

Web Hosting At Home Con's

1. It can be fairly difficult to implement
2. The investment can be quite large

3. It takes a lot of time and dedication

4. You have to constantly stay on top of maintenance to ensure that you are offering high quality and the latest in platforms.

Web hosting at home is your decision that only you can make.

With the right information, you now have the opportunity to make an informed and calculated decision.

http://www.find4buy.com/Blended/web+hosting.html

If you want to start your own website, here is a three-step guide to help you go about it successfully. The three crucial steps are: (a) hiring a web designer to put together a really good site, (b) finding a good host for your website, (c) putting your site in the search engines so that people will find it online. Of course, the success of your site rests on your position in the search engines.

Hiring a web designer shouldn't be too difficult. There are many professionals out there that do a stellar job on websites of all kinds. Or, you can put together the website by yourself. However you do it, you should make sure the results are good. If you have a well-designed site that's simple to navigate, visitors will keep coming back for more.

The next step of finding a good web host for your website is rather difficult though it appears to be a simple task. If you are new to the online world, you may find it even more difficult to choose from so many of them available on the net.

If you're serious about creating a good website, the best advice is to stay away from free web hosts. Free web hosts don't provide the resources and features you will need to run a successful online business. It's better to find a good company from the start that will grow with you as your business flourishes. In the end, you get what you pay for. This is why it's good to find a reasonably priced web host that offers great features, resources, and customer support. If you do this, you will be off to a very good start.

So now you have your web site designed, and you have the host that keeps it online. So what's next? Now you have to do some marketing. You basically have to get the word out there that you exist on the Internet and have something to provide people. How do you do this? How do you let people know that you exist online?

Advertising on the net is a different ball game altogether. In other words, Internet marketing is quite different than normal marketing. Here you have to do your level best in order to find a top position in the search engines. The moment someone types a keyword, your site should pop up somewhere on the top. Then you stand a good chance of converting these visits into sales.

How do you get the search engines to recognize your site? One of the best ways is link building. Sites like http://www.botwreviews.com exist to help you increase web traffic and get higher rankings on search engines and other directories. A site such as this one also lets you read, review and search comments and coupons. This means you can also research a topic using this directory.

This site is one of the oldest directories on the Internet and has been providing valuable information since 1994. It rejects the sites that do not meet the minimal criteria. Therefore make sure you have a great site with original content. Then it will not only take you but make sure your business succeeds.

Support

Do not join a host without testing out their support first. The best way to test out a host's support is calling in. You'll be surprised how many hosts with an 800 number never answer their phones, or have long hold times.

E-mailing a hosting company or submitting a ticket to their sales department is not the way to test a host! Many of the companies have incredible response times when contacting their sales department, very few have good times when contacting support. After all they don't make money by supporting you. They only make money by selling to you.

Scam Plans

If it sounds too good too be true it usually is! All hosts have the same basic limitations when it comes to server resources and specs. There is no magic server that has a never ending supply of RAM and CPU.

If a host ever claims to give unlimited space or bandwidth DO NOT JOIN THEM. The thing to remember is that the average web site uses about 50 Megs space and less then 1 gig bandwidth a month.

So what hosting companies do is they lie! They make up scam plans with tons of space and bandwidth for around $8 bucks a month. It's a numbers game... Only one or two of every 100 people that signup on the plan are going to use all the bandwidth advertised. So what do they do? They usually terminate the sites that use it saying "your site is using too many resources." They aren't lying about the resource usage. IT'S the truth! Most people don't realize that bandwidth and space used have nothing to do with the server resources being used.

Resource usage has to do with the amount of CPU and RAM a site uses. If a site uses a lot of bandwidth they aren't kicked for using their bandwidth they are kicked for using up most of the servers cpu and ram. Another thing to remember is that the cheaper the plan is, and the more space / bandwidth included the more sites per server the host will have to pack in to make their money back.

So the lesson here is don't shop for a host based on their plans! You should shop based on recommendations and experience!

About Paying Yearly

Another thing you'll notice is that most of these incredible scam plans force you to pay for a year up front to get the good pricing.

Why would a hosting company care if you pay monthly or yearly? After all if you're happy with them you're going to end up staying much longer than a year.

Merchant fees aren't that much so why? It's because most have horrible support, slow servers, or even tons of downtime. If you were paying month to month you're not going to stick around, but if you paid for a year up front what are you going to do? You won't get your money back so you have no choice but to stay with them.

ONLY PAY MONTHLY! We have one plan that requires a year payment up front (hatchling) why? Because most hosts advertise a low monthly fee if paid yearly and a much higher price if monthly. We still need to be competitive so we made one plan showing this option. We would however prefer you sign up for a monthly plan.

Remember paying yearly to anyone is always a bad idea, but the choice is yours. We would do everything in our power to honor the year but anything can happen to anyone. The state of Texas where our servers are located could be wiped off the face of the earth. If this happened we would most likely be out of business instantly and have no way to honor your payment.

All we're saying is no matter how good a company is anything can come up, and you could lose your upfront payment.

It is not a joke rather a fact that in one year thousands of web sites and millions of web pages are developed for personal and business use. Beside fast connectivity to the internet, all these sites require an appropriate and adequate space and storage on internet to perform maximum product for which it was created. Hosting service is the online service which encounters all forms of requirements of these sites to bring them operational on net. That’s why today web hosting has emerged one of the most expanding, profitable and popular online business. Web hosting provider companies are increasing on each passing day. Every hosting provider company tries to launch its unique web hosting plans and packages and at the same time web site maker individual or company looks for the most convenient and economically cheap hosting.
In early days it was not an easy job to search for a profitable, effectual, and cheap web hosting. Several hit and trial based procedures had to apply by the site owners. But in these days it didn’t remain a big deal. There are numerous sites that offer free services to find and select the desired web hosting. A number of options and procedures are presented for this purpose. For example, to get the cheapest web hosting one can easily find it by choosing the appropriate platform of hosting like Windows, Linux or Unix, the required disk space, number of required e-mail accounts etc. These really help to find the cheapest web hosting services.
One more point to ponder is e-commerce facilities provided by the hosting provider. For instance, today each and every individual will like it sell its goods online. An online storage space is required on the website for this purpose. It reveals that the web hosting service provider needs to have e-commerce compatibility supported by an SSL secure server to accept credit card payments online.
However the key to success is during searching the cheapest web hosting services is that one should never give extra weight of prices. The reason is being a businessman you like your web site to look more professional and effectively reflect your brand image. It must be remembered that the integrity, reputation and credibility is always more than money and other things. If one gets a reliable and sound web hosting provider according to his will and desires then he should not loose because web hosting services also provide technical support and protection from unauthorized and malicious access to the sites, therefore, he shouldn’t compromise on quality for some ordinary amount or quantity.