Web - Domain Names

A domain name is the part of your Internet address that comes after "www". For example, in Want2host.com the domain name is Want2host.com.

A domain name becomes your Business Address so care should be taken to select a domain name. Your domain name should be easy to remember and easy to type.

How to Get a Domain Name?

When you plan to put a site online, this is one of the important steps to buy a domain name. This is always not necessary that whatever domain name you are looking that is available so in that case you will have to opt for any other good domain name.

When you buy a domain name it is registered and when domain names are registered they are added to a large domain name register, and information about your site − including your Internet IP address is stored on a DNS server and your contact information etc. is registered with your registrar.

You can buy domain name from any domain registrar like GoDaddy

Domain Extension Types

There are many types of domain extensions you can choose for your domain name. This depends on your business nature.

For example, if you are going to register a domain name for education purpose then you can choose .edu extension.

Below is a reference of the correct usage of certain extensions. But there is no hard and fast rule to go for any extension. Most commonly used is .com

◉ .com − Stands for company/commercial, but it can be used for any website.

◉ .net − Stands for network and is usually used for a network of sites.

◉ .org − Stands for organization and is supposed to be for non-profit bodies.

◉ .us, .in − They are based on your country names so that you can go for country specific domain extensions

◉ .biz − A newer extension on the Internet and can be used to indicate that this site is purely related to business.

◉ .info − Stands for information. This domain name extension can be very useful, and as a new comer it's doing well.

◉ .tv − Stands for Television and are more appropriate for TV channel sites.

Newer domain extensions such as .biz .info and .us etc. have more name choices available as many of the popular domains have yet to be taken and most of the them are available at very nominal prices.

Choosing a Domain Name

The domain name will be your business address. Hence, it is imperative that you choose the domain name with utmost care.

Many people think it is important to have keywords in a domain. Keywords in the domain name are usually important, but it usually can be done while keeping the domain name short, memorable, and free of hyphens.

Using keywords in your domain name gives you a strong competitive advantage over your competitors. Having your keywords in your domain name can increase click through rates on search engine listings and paid ads as well as make it easier to using your keywords in get keyword rich descriptive inbound links.

Avoid buying long and confusing domain names. May people separate the words in their domain names using dashes or hyphen. In the past the domain name itself was a significant ranking factor but now with advanced search engines, it is not a significant factor anymore.

Keep two to three words in your domain name − it will be more memorable. Some of the most memorable websites do a great job of branding by creating their own words. Examples include eBay, Yahoo!, Expedia, Slashdot, Fark, Wikipedia, Google...

You should be able to say it over the telephone once and the other person should know how to spell it and they should know what you sell. If you can do that AND work keywords in there, good for you. If you can't, skip the keywords.

What are Sub-Domains

You can divide your domain into many sub domains based on your requirement. If you are doing multiple business using the same domain, then it would be useful to have sub-domains for every business. Following are examples of some sub-domains −

You must have seen google.com as a main domain but google has created many subdomains based on their business. Some of them are as follows −

adwords.google.com − This sub domain is being used for Google Adwords.

groups.google.com − This sub domain is being used for Google Groups.

images.google.com − This sub domain is being used for Google Images.

This way, you can present your different business sections in a very good segregated way. It is not a big thing to create a sub-domains. If you already have registered a domain, then your registrar will provide you a way to create sub-domains. You may need to talk to your registrar for more detail.

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Domain Name Server (DNS) in Application Layer

DNS is a host name to IP address translation service. DNS is a distributed database implemented in a hierarchy of name servers. It is an application layer protocol for message exchange between clients and servers.

Requirement

Every host is identified by the IP address but remembering numbers is very difficult for the people and also the IP addresses are not static therefore a mapping is required to change the domain name to IP address. So DNS is used to convert the domain name of the websites to their numerical IP address.

Domain :

There are various kinds of DOMAIN :

1. Generic domain : .com(commercial) .edu(educational) .mil(military) .org(non profit organization) .net(similar to commercial) all these are generic domain.

2. Country domain .in (india) .us .uk

3. Inverse domain if we want to know what is the domain name of the website. Ip to domain name mapping.So DNS can provide both the mapping for example to find the ip addresses of www.want2host.com then we have to type nslookup www.want2host.com .

Organization of Domain

It is Very difficult to find out the ip address associated to a website because there are millions of websites and with all those websites we should be able to generate the ip address immediately,

there should not be a lot of delay for that to happen organization of database is very important.

DNS record – Domain name, ip address what is the validity?? what is the time to live ?? and all the information related to that domain name. These records are stored in tree like structure.

Namespace – Set of possible names, flat or hierarchical . Naming system maintains a collection of bindings of names to values – given a name, a resolution mechanism returns the corresponding value –

Name server – It is an implementation of the resolution mechanism.. DNS (Domain Name System) = Name service in Internet – Zone is an administrative unit, domain is a subtree.

Name to Address Resolution

The host request the DNS name server to resolve the domain name. And the name server returns the IP address corresponding to that domain name to the host so that the host can future connect to that IP address.

Hierarchy of Name Servers

Root name servers – It is contacted by name servers that can not resolve the name. It contacts authoritative name server if name mapping is not known. It then gets the mapping and return the IP address to the host.

Top level server – It is responsible for com, org, edu etc and all top level country domains like uk, fr, ca, in etc. They have info about authoritative domain servers and know names and IP addresses of each authoritative name server for the second level domains.

Authoritative name servers - This is organization’s DNS server, providing authoritative hostName to IP mapping for organization servers. It can be maintained by organization or service provider. In order to reach cse.dtu.in we have to ask the root DNS server, then it will point out to the top level domain server and then to authoritative domain name server which actually contains the IP address. So the authoritative domain server will return the associative ip address.

Domain Name Server

The client machine sends a request to the local name server, which , if root does not find the address in its database, sends a request to the root name server , which in turn, will route the query to an intermediate or authoritative name server. The root name server can also contain some hostName to IP address mappings . The intermediate name server always knows who the authoritative name server is. So finally the IP address is returned to the local name server which in turn returns the IP address to the host.

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Web - Hosting Concepts

Web hosting deals with putting the contents of your website on a Web server. Hosting your website on your own server could be an option. But this will become very much expensive unless you are hosting a site like yahoo.com or google.com. So this tutorials does not cover how to set up your own hosting server.

Buying a server space or renting a complete server from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) is the most widely used option. This section guides you to choose a hosting type and makes you aware of other related concepts.

Hosting Platforms

You can go for any of the following two most widely used hosting platforms −

◉ Windows Hosting Servers − If you are a Windows lover then you will find many hosting servers running different flavors of Windows and you can buy space from these servers. Normally Windows hosting servers are more expensive because of lot of software licensing costs are involved with these servers.

◉ Linux Hosting Servers − If you want to go for Linux then opportunities are unlimited and they will have to pay less then what you will pay for Windows Hosting Server. There are many ISP who provides Hosting Servers with different flavors of Unix.

Hosting Types

There are many options available and you can select any hosting type based on your requirement and budget. Following are most widely used hosting types −

Free Hosting

Yes, this is true there are many service providers who will give you free space on their web server with a condition that you will allow them to run their advertisement at your web pages. So if you are OK with this option, then you have nothing to pay for a space. There are some websites like geocities.com, lycos.com, myspace.com, etc. that give you space to build your web pages.

Shared Hosting

With shared hosting, your website is hosted on a powerful server along with other websites. On a shared host, you will have your own user ID and password to login to the shared host and you will be allowed to work in your work area. You would not be able to touch any file or directory belonging to other host partner. Even you would not know how many sites are hosted on your shared host. This type of hosting is very cost effective and good for small websites where your space and speed are not very important. Here traffic on one site will affect the speed of all other hosted sites.

Virtual Dedicated Hosting

This type of hosting is better for medium size business. With virtual dedicated hosting, you will have a dedicated bandwidth and dedicated RAM for your site. You will be given a root ID and password to maintain your Web server. You will be the complete owner of your virtual dedicated server and will be able to install or de-install any software. This type of hosting is created on a single server, but it is managed in such a way that every user will have dedicated speed and bandwidth. This is bit more expensive but really good one for medium size business.

Dedicated Hosting

This type of hosting is very similar to virtual dedicated hosting, but here, a complete machine will be allotted for you. They are more expensive than virtual dedicated hosting and should be considered when you have a very high traffic requirement.

Collocated Hosting

It is very difficult to set dedicated resources such as high-security against fire and vandalism, regulated backup power, dedicated Internet connections and more. Collocation is the option which allows you to put your machine in a service provider's premises to avail all the available facilities. This is also a very expensive option and should be opted when you have very high traffic requirement.

Hosting Components

When you buy a Web server space, then you should be clear about the follows. You should do a price comparison between different service providers based on the following components −

Disc Space

A small or medium website will require between 10 and 100MB of disk space. If you plan to keep a lot of audio and video on your website, then you need plan to buy more space. Before buying server space, you should check the options available to expand your disc space if you need it in future.

Monthly Traffic

A small or medium website will need between 1GB and 10GB of data transfer on a monthly basis. If you plan to keep a lot of audio and video on your website, then you need a plan with more data transfer capacity. Check different options based on your requirements. What are the other options available in case you cross the given data transfer limit. Your site should not be stopped in case you exceed given limit.

Processing Speed

If you are buying space on a shared machine, then you cannot guess how much speed will be given to you. In that case, only way is to see other hosted sites with the same service provider to know about their hosting quality. But if you are buying virtual dedicated server or dedicated server, then you should consider how much RAM is being allocated to you. Your pricing will depend on the given processing power to you.

Connection Speed

Nowadays, most service providers allow very fast connection speed. So choose a service provider who is giving better connection speed in terms of bits per second. You can have a connection speed ranging from 64Kb per second to 2.488Gb per second.

Email Accounts

Make sure you are going to get sufficient number of e-mail accounts. There are many other options available which come along with your e-mail account. Like, will you get IMAP, POP and E-mail Forwarding options available along with your e-mail facilities.

Emailing Support

Apart form having email accounts, it is also very important that your web server should have a facility to send emails from back-end. In case your site visitors want to contact to you using a form, then you will be able to use that emailing facility to send emails to your designated account. In simple terms, you should make sure that the SMTP Server is setup and working on your Web server.

Latest Technologies

You should make sure that your web server is equipped with all the latest technologies. It should have the latest version support for PHP, PERL, ASP and JAVA, etc.

Databases

There are many databases available MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, etc. You should choose your server based on your database requirement. If you are buying space on a shared server, then you need to verify how much space will be allocated for your database. Many ISPs do not give more than a limited space for databases. If your site needs a lot of database size, then you should go for a virtual dedicated server.

Server Uptime

It is important that you buy a web server from a reliable and reputed ISP. You should make sure your ISP is giving you 99.99% server uptime. If the is server down, then there are many service providers who gives you compensation in case your sites goes down more than a limited number of time.

Backup & FTP

Make sure your Service Provider is giving you more ways of taking regular backup of your website. If your site is changing everyday, then it becomes very important that you should take regular backup of your website. Many service providers do it on your behalf by charging a small cost for this service.

Control Panel

Just make sure what type of facilities you will get to maintain your hosting account. Check if your service provider is providing you an easy-to-use Control Panel or some other similar tool. Using a Control Panel, you should be able to maintain basic operations related to your website such as logging your service request, your reboot request, or any other problem.

Customer Support

Before finalizing a deal with your service provider, you should make sure they provide you the required support. You can get this information using Internet forums or from your friends. There are many service providers who give you 24x7 support for any technical or non-technical problem.

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What is Dynamic DNS?

When computers communicate over the Internet, the send messages to each other in a manner much like the postal service and just like your local mail man, the computer needs to know which address to send your information to - this takes the form of an IP Address and will look something like "216.239.59.99".

For most people, numbers like that mean very little and if you had to type the IP Address for every website you visit the web would be very difficult to use, not to mention the practical issues of having to remember every single IP Address you visit. To solve this problem the Domain Name System (DNS) was set up and is one of the main services that makes the Web possible.

DNS is the process of transforming something that you understand - www.google.com - into something that the computer understands - in this case the IP Address 216.239.59.99 used to access the search engine on the main Google page. DNS works like a large, distributed database and there are literally millions of DNS servers that take part in the system although there are a small number of "root servers" at the very top handling the .com, .org and .net domains and these root servers handle hundreds of thousands of queries every second of the day.

In an attempt to keep the load down on the root servers, most ISP's will run local DNS servers that will store a copy of the IP Addresses for the sites that their customers visit. A good example of this are the millions of people that use Google every day. If they had to go to the root servers to get the IP Address for www.google.com every time they wanted to do a search, this traffic would easily bring the servers down and the Web along with it but if the ISP runs a local DNS server storing all the IP Addresses of the popular sites, the local server can return the result instead and make the whole service quicker and less congested for everyone.

While DNS sounds like a truly great thing, it can be quite difficult to set up and is a lot of hassle if you just want people to connect to your home web server or gaming server so rather than go to the trouble, there are many companies that will do this for you for free by offering a service known as "Dynamic DNS". This works by running a small program on your home machine that will discover your IP Address every so often or even every time you dial up and will then send it to the company that maintains the Dynamic DNS. Once this information has been received from your computer, the company will then update automatically update their DNS servers on the spot so that any changes to your IP Address are immediately made known to anyone trying to connect to you.

This way, your "DNS Name" such as "johndoe.dynamic-dns.com" will never change but the IP Address that it maps to can change as often as required and since this process takes place behind the scenes, so long as you are connected to the Internet your computer will always be available to anyone trying to connect to it using your DNS name.

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Importance of Latency in Web Hosting

How long does it take for the visitors from another country to load your website? This is one very critical question you must ask yourself when hosting your website on servers in a particular location but have visitors from another geographic location. Since the Internet is global, it is highly possible that your website visitors from a distant location are experiencing delays (latency) in getting through to your web content.

In the web world, “latency” is the time taken for the host servers to receive and process a request for a web page. The amount of latency is largely dependent on how far the visitor is from the server location.

It is always recommended to locate your server close to your primary audience base for your website content to load faster. The load time on your website does affect the overall user experience too. In case your webpage takes a lot of time to load, it is highly possible that your website visitors will move on to another website even before your content could load. The latency becomes a rather critical aspect especially if you have loads of images and videos on your website, making it really heavy.

For obvious reasons, taking on latency thus becomes a top priority for the web industry. There are several ways to do this.

Understanding Latency

Regardless of where your host servers are located, there will be some amount of latency between your users and the server. That’s because the information is passed at the speed of light through switches, between networks along the global fiber optic routes.

Do not confuse latency with bandwidth. Bandwidth does affect internet speeds, but a high bandwidth/high latency connection may achieve better throughput with a delay before the data arrives, due to the high latency. A good example of this would be a news channel interview over the satellite, where there is a visible delay between the question and answer – that’s latency.

When it’s about latency in hosting, every fractions of a second counts. A difference of 10-500 milliseconds while loading a webpage may seem really long for some, while others would consider it as normal. It all depends on how your visitors like to use your service, and how much every millisecond is worth.

Content Delivery Networks (CDN)

In order to analyze latency, you first need to understand the existing issues in your infrastructure and applications. These days, most of the hosting companies also provide CDN services. The CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) provide the website content to a visitor based out of any location from the nearest servers. This service thus helps in cutting down the latency of your website. This feature is all the more critical for those websites having an international audience. This way your website is presented to the users from the servers located nearest to them, thereby reducing the down trip time.

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Domain Name System: Explained

Domain Name System (DNS) is a database framework that interprets a personal computer’s registered domain name into an IP address and vice versa. Network PCs use IP addresses to find and associate with one another, but IP locations can be hard for individuals to recall. For instance, on the web, it’s a lot simpler to remember the website www.abc.com than it is to recollect its relating IP address (257.101.177.77).

The DNS automatically converts the name we type into our web browsers to IP addresses of servers hosting that site. DNS also enables you to associate with another authorized PC or allow remote management by utilizing its easy to understand area name as opposed to its numerical IP address. On the other hand, Reverse DNS (rDNS) makes an interpretation of an IP address into a domain name.

Every organization that has a chain of computers has one server dealing with DNS inquiries called a domain server. It will hold all the IP addresses inside its system, in addition to the IP addresses of recently accessed PCs outside the system. DNS can be compared to a telephone directory where you find phone number using easy to remember names.

How DNS Works

DNS resolution involves a process similar to finding a house using the street address. Each device connected to the internet is given an IP address. When someone enters a query, the hostname is converted into an IP address to complete the query. This translation between a web address and machine-friendly address is crucial to for any webpage to load.

On the machine level, when a search query is initiated, the browser looks for information in a local cache. If the address is found, it will look for DNS server in the Local Area Network (LAN). If the DNS server in the LAN is found and receives the query, a result will be returned. If DNS server is not located, the local server will forward the query to DNS cache server provided by the internet service provider.

The DNS cache servers contain temporary DNS records based on cached value acquired from authoritative DNS servers. An authoritative DNS server as the name suggests stores and provides a list of authoritative name servers for each of the top-level domains. The working of DNS is based on a hierarchy, and it is essential to further learn about these servers.

Types of DNS Servers

1. DNS recursor – The DNS recursor server gets requests from client machines via apps like internet browsers. The recursor then makes additional requests to fulfil the customer’s DNS query. Think of it as a librarian that goes to find a particular book present somewhere in the library.

2. Root nameserver – This is the initial phase in deciphering comprehensible hostnames into the IP. Think of it as the index available in the library that gives you the shelf number based on the name of the book.

3. TLD nameserver – The TLD is the subsequent stage in the search for a particular IP, and it has the last segment of a hostname. The common TLD server are .com, .in, .org., etc.

4. Authoritative nameserver – This nameserver is the final halt in the inquiry. If the definitive name server approaches the mentioned record, it will restore the IP for the mentioned hostname back to the Recursor, which made the underlying query.

What Is DNS Propagation

If your IP address is similar to the street address used to find your house, what happens if you change your home address? What is the domain name server with the new IP address? Well, this is where DNS propagation gain relevance. In simple terms, DNS propagation is the time it takes for any changes made in the name server to come into effect.

When you change the nameservers for your domain or change the hosting provider, the ISP nodes across the world may take up to 72 hours to update their caches with the new DNS information of your domain. However, the time required to ensure a complete update of records across all nodes may differ.

New information about the nameservers will not be propagated immediately, and some of your users may still be redirected to your old website. Each ISP node saves the cache to speed up the loading time, and you will have no other option but to wait until all the nodes are updated.

You can bypass or minimize the DNS propagation by pointing your domain to the destination IP address using “A Record” on the side of the current DNS provider, setting the minimal TTL. After updating the “A Record” you can wait for an hour and then change the nameservers of your domain. This will ensure that your website will not have any downtime as both hosts will show the same new website.

DNS Security Extensions

Given that DNS is vital for redirecting any query to your website, it is hardly surprising that hackers and bad actors will try to manipulate it. DNS inherently has no means of establishing whether the data is coming from authorized domains or has been tampered. This exposes the system to a lot of vulnerabilities and attacks such as DNS cache poisoning, DNS reflection attack, DNS amplification attack, etc.

In a DNS cache poisoning attack, bad actors replace the valid IP address with a malicious IP address. So, virtually all the users reaching for the genuine site will be redirected to this new IP address. This new location could have an exact clone of the original site meant to steal crucial data such as personal information & banking information, or it could redirect to a website and malware would be downloaded on the local computer.

To address these serious concerns, DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) were put in place. DNSSEC is aimed at addressing the weaknesses in DNS and adding authentication to it, making the system more secure. DNSSEC uses cryptographic keys and digital signatures to enforce legitimate connections and accurate lookup data.

While DNSSEC can substantially reduce the vulnerabilities of DNS, administrative overhead, as well as time and cost, restrict its implementation. A better alternative for many organizations would be to opt for Cloud-based DNS. Similar to cloud web hosting, a cloud-based DNS ensures geographically diverse networks and DNS server infrastructure. It enables high availability, global performance,  scalability, stronger security, and better resource management. Do let us know your thoughts and if you have used cloud-based DNS in the comment section below. 

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How Reseller Hosting Works

Have you heard of reseller hosting? This arrangement could prove to be beneficial to you if you have purchased web hosting services from a parent web hosting firm, and you feel that you can allocate some of your resources to another party.

Doesn’t that sound enticing? You can share some of the resources on a web server like disk space, CPU, bandwidth, RAM, etc. and get a recurring source of income.

But what is reseller hosting and how does it work?

What is reseller hosting?

Reseller hosting is a type of web hosting in which the account owner uses his allotted hard drive space and bandwidth to hose the websites of third parties. The account owner is the reseller, as he purchases the services of a parent web hosting company and sells it as his own.

Of course, you hope to profit from selling web hosting services to third party clients. But even if you don’t get a profit, it still wouldn’t hurt to have other people pay for your web hosting needs, right?

Reseller web hosting can be likened to renting a big house or apartment and then accepting tenants or borders. The tenants pay you, while you pay rent to the owner of the house.

What can you offer in reseller hosting?

Some of the more common features or functions that you can offer to your clients as a reseller host are:

◉ Disk space

◉ Bandwidth

◉ Email accounts/lists

◉ Add on domains

◉ Parked domains

◉ FTP accounts

◉ Databases

Aside from these features, you can also pass tools or programs offered by the parent web hosting company to your clients. These include additional scripts and monitoring tools.

You can also brand your own web hosting firm to your clients, with even mentioning the parent hosting company to them. You will also have the ability to manage plans and configure different accounts according to your needs.

How to get started?

You’ll have to look for a parent web hosting company that offers reseller plans to individuals like you. Don’t worry as there are lots of web hosting firms that offer this particular type of web hosting.

Once you have bought a reseller plan from the web hosting company, you will likely be sent an email containing all the information you need such as username, password, and a link to your reseller control panel or web host manager (WHM).

This is the top level administrative control for the cPanel, or the web hosting control panel that system administrators utilize.

You will then log in to WHM to create the packages that you would offer to your clients. Then you can start new clients.

Don’t worry as these tasks are very easy to accomplish. The WHM is a web-based tool that is very simple and straightforward. With it, you can create and manage the accounts of your clients, manage and monitor their websites and provide client support.

Now that you have an idea how reseller hosting works, why don’t you consider getting into it? The prospects for this venture are really good. After all, websites need hosting, right?

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Determining What Type of Web Hosting is Right for You

Even though we live in today’s world of modern technology, not everyone is well adept and knowledgeable especially when it comes to the technical aspects. Ask an ordinary person about the internet and what’s the usual answer? The internet is known as the information superhighway. Research that normally takes hours can now be done in just minutes and reaching out to people from across the globe is easier too. All these were made possible because of the advancements in the field of computer and telecommunications.

What most people don’t realize is that is takes a great deal of effort, planning and investment for these companies to build websites that will catch the attention of internet users. The outcome is what you see on the computer screen but there are a lot of procedures involved in making it happened. One thing that sets a good site apart from the mediocre ones is the type of web hosting provider that a company utilizes.

Web hosting is not a new concept it has been around for a while and has gone through different stages of developments throughout the years. The sudden increase of interest about this was primarily because of the internet revolution. Every company and individuals who wish to offer their products and services to a wider market has established their presence online by creating a website.

For those interested to do the same and achieve online success, learning a little information about the different types of web hosting could provide you with a little help in choosing the right one for your needs.

Free web hosting - This is an ideal choice for those who are just getting started. The advantage of using a free web host provider is that you won’t need to pay for the service which is a big help especially for those who are on a tight budget. But keep in mind that these free offers usually come with certain restrictions.

Paid Web Hosting – With this type of web host service, you’ll have more freedom and access to your site. It also allows you to use different tools that can make your website more appealing for readers.

Virtual Private Server – Commonly known as VPS in the internet world, this type of web hosting provides you with your own server although this is also shared with other clients.

Dedicated Server – Consider this as the top of the line when it comes to web hosting. It provides you with your own server along with disk space and bandwidth that can be customized to fit your needs. Most companies with an established presence choose dedicated servers because it offers more features and options.

In finding the right type of web hosting for you make sure that it will be able to meet your requirements and at the same time won’t be heavy on the pocket. 

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What Type of Hosting Do You Need?

There are many web hosting options available nowadays: free web hosting, shared hosting, dedicated server, and the list goes on. All these options serve the same purpose, which is hosting your content so that it can be accessed and viewed by people on the Internet. The major difference is how each is structured as well as the benefits they offer.

Let's have a closer look at each of them.

FREE WEB HOSTING

What can be better than a free web hosting plan? This is a great option for someone who wants to create a homepage or small website to share with friends and family. While free web hosting has received criticism for its lack of features, security and customer support, there are a few reliable free web hosting providers that you can trust. However, keep in mind that free web hosting is more geared for giving you a taste of having and maintaining a small, personal website. If you want to establish a powerful web presence with an online business, you will need to consider a paid hosting service that offers more control, security and reliability.

Read More: Free Hosting

SHARED HOSTING

As the name implies, shared hosting is an environment where you are sharing space on a web server with other users. As clients are sharing the cost of the server, this is the most affordable and popular solution for personal users and small businesses as companies to set up blog, e-commerce and other advanced applications. However, when hosting on a shared server, you are exposed to all the activities of your neighbors. If someone makes a huge scripting error, the entire server can suffer. If someone experiences a sudden burst in traffic, your site might run slower. If the server goes down, so does your website and ultimately, your business.

Read More: Shared Hosting

DEDICATED HOSTING

When your business takes off and requires more than the typical sharing server resources, it's time to move up to the dedicated server. Now you're in the big leagues with an entire server dedicated to your hosting needs. However, without any experience, succeeding with this hosting option is nearly impossible - those who require a dedicated server but don't know a thing about server administration can get by with managed hosting. In this scenario, the hosting service provider handles all the management tasks which frees you up to focus on other areas of the business. Keep in mind that a managed service requires is generally more costly.

Read More: Dedicated Hosting

WHAT IS THE BEST HOSTING FOR YOU?

The best advice we can give about hosting is to know what you're getting into. Free services are geared for personal sites, shared hosting is suited for small businesses and a dedicated server is designed for larger hosting needs, yet is far more expensive. By knowing what your site requires, it will be much easier to determine which is the best solution.

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Changing Web Hosting Service Providers

There are many reasons why individuals or companies want to change to a new web hosting company. It could be as simple as not enough storage space or bandwidth, or it could be due to its customer service, or lack thereof.

Easier said than done? Changing to a new web hosting company may sound like a daunting task, but it doesn't have to be that complex - there are just a few things to keep in mind.

Keep your web hosting account with your existing host open

It is recommend that you keep your existing web hosting account active until you have completed the transition steps (ie. new account setup, file transfer, email creation and setup, DNS modification and propagation). This will ensure that your website and domain email accounts will be running during the transition.

Choose a suitable new web hosting provider

Considerations include:

a) Type of OS (Windows vs. Linux) - it depends on the technologies your website requires. For example, if your website requires ASP, MSSQL, MSACCESS or other Microsoft-specific technologies, then you will need to find a Windows-platform web hosting plan.

b) Bandwidth and disk space requirements

Make a backup copy of your existing website: download old account files

Ideally, files should be downloaded in the same tree structure in which you want to upload it later. Also look for any file or chmod permissions that you might to set on any folder or file. This is a fairly easy task and can easily be accomplished by FTP.

However, some free web hosting providers do not offer FTP access. This is especially true if you're currently using a free Flash/drag-and-drop website creation service (ie. Weebly.com, WIX.com).

If this is the case, you will not be able to download your existing web files and will have to re-create your new web files. You should check to see if your new web hosting provider offers a free website creator.

To avoid running into the same problem in the future, make sure your new web hosting provider offers FTP access.

Setup new (same) email addresses

To ensure that emails are properly received, it is important to keep the same email addresses, including email aliases and forwarders.

DNS changes and propagation

Once you have uploaded your web files to the new web hosting server and re-created your email accounts, you can go ahead and make the necessary domain name server (DNS) changes.

DNS is usually obtained once you have signed up with the new web hosting provider. You will need to replace your existing DNS settings with the new one - this is usually done via your domain management panel (your domain registrar).

The new DNS will take anywhere between 24-48 hours to propagate, therefore the old web host is responsible for website and email in the meantime. This is why cancelling the old service should be the very last thing to do.

Cancel your old account.

Once your new account has been activated and your website and email services at your new web hosting provider are up and running, you can proceed to have your old account cancelled.

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