9 Benefits of Custom Domain Name

Most of us start our blogging journey with free blogging platforms which provide us with their subdomains -but the good idea is to buy domain name -a custom domain name for our blog as a custom domain name ensures a blog’s success in multiple areas-search engine rankings, quality traffic, Google Adsense approval, community building and more.

What is a custom domain?

It is a domain name that belongs to you and only you. This is your own blog domain name – a unique web address, created by using the name of your choice like www.yourdomain.com.

Why should you use a custom domain name for your blog?

There are multiple advantages of a custom domain for your blog. Some of them are explained below:

#1 It is easy to discover

Every blog is special, but it needs to be discovered first or “get found online”.

Today, when people look for any piece of information, they first search it on the Internet. It is worth mentioning here that blog sites with right custom domain names are easier to find.

#2 It is memorable

We have tendency to forget things which are difficult to remember. So choose a domain name for your blog which is easy to remember, short and most important bears relevant to you- the author and your blog. Your ‘fans’ will need to memorize your domain name just once to be able to follow you forever.

For e.g a custom domain such as ‘xyz.com’ is easier to remember than ‘xyz.blogspot.com’ or ‘xyz.wordpress.com’. xyz is the blogger who writes on ‘the minimalists’.

#3 It is search engine friendly

The difference between a blog page on custom domain vs subdomain is not huge- but then, with changes in search engine algorithms that actually concern more social sharing, custom domain plays an important role because people like to share a blog that looks professional.

It also allows you to maximize your SEO efforts by using a variety of plug-ins and software add-ons.

#4 It helps in improving page rank of your blog

Backlinks that you get on your blog post are the major metrics for its ranking. When you set up your blog with a custom domain, search engines do not see the domain name as a separate site (which it sees in the case of subdomains) and adds all backlinks to the overall popularity of your blog site, which in turn, increases your page rankings.

#5 Maintains your SEO and Alexa ranking

Blogs develop community of readers around them. Once you become famous and try to move from subdomain to your own domain, it may affect your SEO & Alexa ranking.

#6 Google Adsense Approval

Getting Google Adsense approval is a dream of every blogger, as it is the best way to earn money and also a way to monetize your blog in the way you want.

As per statistics -Google Adsense accepts only 3 accounts of every 1000 applications they receive each day. Adsense team takes a custom domain more seriously rather than the free domain name.

Thus, owning a custom domain for your blog increases your probability of getting approval with Google Adsense.

#7 Advertising

Most advertising services nowadays do not accept subdomains like Buysellads, a very famous ads network which does not like subdomain blogs which means you are losing a big percentage of revenue. So you must own custom domain to get approval with Buysellads.

#8 Can create sub domains

Can you create subdomains out of subdomain? No. But you can create subdomains with custom domains set on your blog, according to your wish and need like- contact.yourdomain.com or service.yourdomain.com. This makes easier for your blog visitors to reach sub-pages of your blog website.

#9 Can create professional email address

You can create your professional e-mail address such as username@your domain.com with your custom domain name. Professional e-mail will build your blog’s credibility and create good professional perception among visitors/followers.

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What are name servers for domains and what are they used for?

When you buy domain name for your online business, you own a name with which people will identify it, an address where your website will be visible on the internet and a route through which people will reach to your site, easily.

But, as you name your website, millions of other people across the globe, also register their websites with different but unique domain names. So there are millions of websites in the world with different names and addresses.

Then, what makes people reach to their desired destination? Just a click on the browser! No. The magic begins behind the scene.

How does a web page appear in a browser?

Everything that’s connected to the Internet – websites, computers, laptops and other devices, have an IP address made up of numbers. But IP address is a string of numbers and is difficult to remember, so to make them easier for humans, domain names are used instead, to reach websites as they are easy to recognize and remember. So, it is the domain name that you enter into a web browser in order to reach a specific website and this is how a web page appears.

All the information of domain names – including registration information, emails, addresses of web host is stored and managed by domain name system.

Domain name servers control different aspects of domain name with the help of different elements- nameservers, A zone file, Records, CNAME and other elements.

All elements are important but in this post, we will discuss about domain name servers-the GPS system of the computer in online world.

What is a name server for domains?

A nameserver is a web server that helps to identify location of a domain name on the internet .They translate into and map human readable domain names with respective IP addresses (four digit numerals), of the respective web server (hosting that particular site) to find a website, communicate across the network and return to the desired web address. They point domain name to the company that controls its DNS settings- company with which the domain name is registered.

Nameservers are managed by a web host and are assigned on a per-domain basis.

How many domain name servers are provided?

Every web site has two name servers –ns1 and ns2 to which domain is pointed. They are set by the web host on the purchase of a domain name and a web hosting account.

Ns1 is the first server listed as the primary server, while the second one-Ns2 is used as a backup server, if, the first server is not responding.

How it works?

Just as your phone is connected to the phone network, your computer is connected to the internet network .So when you want to reach any website, you type in the domain name /web address, into a web browser for e.g. when you type want2host.com your computer will go to the domain registrar and request the name-servers for the domain name, then it will go to the name-servers and request the IP address for the domain name and then finally retrieve the desired website.

What are they used for?

Domain name servers are used –

◉ To covert domain names into respective IP addresses and locate the web address (website) hosted on a specific web host.

◉ To divert traffic that comes on your domain name to a web server at a specific web host.

◉ To make a website or an online business visible on the internet.

◉ To help your customers, locate your business.

◉ To safeguard data from being accessed by unwanted people as these DNS servers are monitored on a daily basis and consist of latest security patches.

◉ For breaking domain names into subdomains.

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How to Create a Subdomain In cPanel?

What is a subdomain?

In the hierarchy of DNS, a subdomain or a child domain forms a part of a larger domain name. For instance, in ‘blog.want2host.com’, “blog” is a subdomain of the larger domain “want2host.com.” Here is the hierarchy of DNS:

Here is the stepwise process of how you can create subdomain in cPanel:

1. First login to your cPanel.

2. After logging in, you will see the below screen:

1. Now move over to subdomain option and click on it.

On this screen, you need to enter your subdomain name and mention document root for it. For example if you want to create subdomain as a test, you can proceed as given below:

1. After filling all fields, click on the create option.

2. Once the subdomain is created, you can upload your data under the subdomain directory.

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Why Should You Register Multiple Domain Name Extensions?

You would certainly agree with the fact that your domain name is the online identity of your business. When you register a domain name, you own it completely which means that you can create and host your website and sell your products and services. This means that the domain name that you have registered is under your ownership and no one else can use it. Having said that, you also cannot ignore the fact that there are many other similar and close variations of the domain name that you have registered.

For instance, you might have registered your domain name – myhostingwebsite.com but there are also other variations of this domain name that are available to be registered like myhostingwebsite.net, myhostingwebsite.biz, myhostingwebsite.in etc. It is definitely unrealistic to register all the domain name TLDs but you can think of register a few closely related ones, here’s why you should do that!

Stop Competitor Strategies

If your business is doing really well, your competitors might consider registering domains with other extensions that you haven’t registered. For example, if you only have the domain name – myhostingwebsite.in, they might register myhostingwebsite.com or myhostingwebsite.biz if these versions are available. Even though your competitors might not use these domain names for hosting websites, all they will do is stop you from registering them.

This can create a tremendous impact on your business, here’s how – If a person assumes that your website ends with a .com but if your domain name ends with .in, he/she will not be able to get to your website by typing myhostingwebsite.com. Another possibility is that if your business is international and if you wish to register new domain name for your business in UK, you won’t be able to register it if someone has already taken it. See the point? You lose out on opportunities to expand your business.

Redirect The Other Domains

When you register for many domain name extensions, it is not necessary for you to create a website for all of them. It would be nice of you to do that but if you don’t do it, that’s perfectly fine. All you have to do is make sure that when people visit the other domains they are redirected to your main website. For instance, if your website is myhostingwebsite.in, then all the other extensions that you have registered should redirect to this website. In this way, even if people accidentally type in the wrong domain name extension, they are redirected to your website. Therefore, all your potential customers who did not succeed in getting to your main website earlier will now be able to get to your website even if they type in the wrong domain name.

This can be done with the common spelling mistakes of your domain names we well. For example, if your website name is myhostingwebsite.com, then you can consider registering the domain name myhostingwebsite.com or myhostingwebsite.com and if people type these domain names, they will be redirected to your website.

Opportunities With Geolocation

The search engines make use of the geolocation extensions for guiding people to search for businesses that are near to them. If someone in Australia tries to find a business in Australia, results will be displayed with websites that end with .au or .co.au.

If you wish to expand the international reach of your business, you will benefit by buying various geological domain name extensions for the countries that you want to target. Even if you just register various domain name with various geological extensions and even if you don’t create websites now, you will be able to create new websites when those domain names later when you wish to expand your business. Apart from this, the other most important advantage is that you can create international websites in various different languages. you can sell products in various currencies and have a bigger market for your products/services.

Improve The Search Engine Rankings

If your business is international and if you are targeting multiple countries, purchasing various country level TLDs like .com, .au, .in is a good idea. This is because the domains that have country specific TLDs secure a better ranking in the search engine result pages (SERP) in the respective countries. This step will help to give a boost to your organic search results.

Enhance Your Brand Identity

This is the time of a very tough competition and you should have a competitive edge to rise above the rest and this can be done by registering multiple domain name extensions. When people visit various websites, they do not generally remember every domain name along with its extension unless the website is really very popular. If you own multiple domain name extensions for your business, you can redirect the traffic of all these domain names to your own domain name and get the benefit.

Stop People From Encashing On Your Domain Name

If your website is doing really well, your competitors or other people might try to take advantage of your efforts by registering your domain name with different extensions. If this happens, the traffic to your website might go to their website if your users happen to enter the wrong domain name extension. Don’t give them a chance to do this, register all the important domain name extensions yourself.

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What is Blog Hosting?

Blog Hosting is one type of web hosting. Blogs, also known as weblogs are websites that feature regular updates in the form of individual entries, or posts. With the many different blog hosting options available nowadays, getting your blog set up can often seem like an overwhelming task.

What is a Blog?

A blog is an abbreviated version of "weblog", which is a term used to describe websites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information.

Watch this short video for a simple explanation for what a blog is.

Blog Hosting: Features

Blog hosting is all about the features that allow you to install and/or use a blog-software such as WordPress, Typepad, b2evolution, Nucleus, etc. These features will include:

Scripting support (ie. PHP)
Database support (ie. MySQL)
Large amounts of storage space and bandwidth
Easy one-click install (ie. Fantastico)

Blog Hosting: Choosting a Blog Host

The first step in choosing a blog host is deciding whether you want to create a blog with free web hosting or invest in a paid blog hosting provider. If you are creating a personal blog to keep in touch with your family and friends, then a free blog hosting service would likely be sufficient for your needs. Free blog hosts, such as Blogger and WordPress.com, offer easy-to-use interfaces that make it simple for people with limited technical skills to start blogging. There is no script installation or database configuration - as the blog software is all setup and ready for you.

Most free blog hosting options also provide a limited selection of templates so you can alter the look of your blog to better suit your personal tastes. You won't be able to remove ads from the site, however, since this is the primary way free blog hosts generate revenue.

For bloggers who are hoping to turn their blog into a source of supplemental income, it's best to invest in paid blog hosting. With a paid account, you will have your own domain and greater options for customizing your blog. If you want to run ads on your site, you will be the one who keeps the income generated. You will also be able to accommodate larger amounts of traffic. Many paid blog hosting providers offer easy one-click installation for major blog softwares, so you can get your blog up and running in just a few clicks.

Blog Hosting: WordPress

With the use of plugins, free and paid, you can extend your site and nearly anything that can be done within a web site, like a static website, forum, photo gallery, job boards, eCommerce site and more.

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An Overview Of Web Conference Hosting And Its Benefits

Web conferencing is a complete online meeting and webinar solution. This platform enables you to engage and train audience throughout the globe through live webinars. You and your team or audience can meet securely for discussing, presenting and collaborating form different locations. This is a great approach to launch a new product online, conduct a meeting with participants present in different locations or for providing training to employees or students. This is the ease of connecting with people from your location.

As companies experience worldwide growth, they have to connect with employees and customers all around the world and web conferencing is the best way to do that. Web conference hosting can get people together in the same way as they would have been discussing in a conference hall.

Here are some prominent benefits of web conference hosting:

Add Co-Organizers

You can add your colleagues and guest speakers to your webinar or web conference so that they can present with you as well. Simultaneously, you can answer the questions of the attendees and create polls. You can either choose to automatically accept all the registrations to your webinar or you can choose to control the registrations manually. When you create a web conference, you have the authority to accept, deny or cancel registrations for filtering your audience and keeping away from spam.

Audio, Video And Screen Sharing

You can host live video webinars and share your screen, an application window or the screen of some other monitor while conducting a webinar for better supporting your presentation. This helps in presenting the concepts in a much better way to foster better understanding. You have the option of sharing multimedia like slides and videos.

Engaging Your Audience

It is a great idea to launch audience polls while the web conference is still live. Your audience will be able to voice their opinions and they will be engaged throughout the web conference. You can view the opinions of the people attending your web conference instantly. You can answer audience questions by creating polls. You can also encourage the attendees to become a part of your webinar and allow them to talk and make their point.

Record And Replay

It is possible to enhance the life of your webinar by recording it and sharing it with the people you want. Your recordings can be stored on cloud; you can download the recordings easily for offline use. These recordings can be replayed whenever required.

Manage Live Meetings

Drive the proceedings of your meeting by having the complete control. You have the ability to lock meetings, mute some participants or remove some participants and collaborate securely online. You can enable any participant to share their screen for presenting in the meeting.

Provide Information Online

A well arranged web conference enables you to provide training sessions online. You can also provide crucial information to your customers and shareholders online if required. You can also launch a product online through web conference hosting.

Enhance Productivity

If you have to conduct an important meeting and if you have web conferencing system in place, your team mates and colleagues will not have to travel all the way to attend the meeting. You can organize an online meeting and conduct it successfully and all the members can participate from their own locations. As online meetings and online training sessions are possible, the whole effort of organizing an event or a meeting, finalizing a place, paying for it and intimating people to be there on the location etc. all these aspects are not required at all.

Hire The Best Employees Across The Globe

You might just get the right person for the job, but what if he/she lives at some other far away location? Gone are the days where you only have to hire local talent! It’s time to go global and expand your horizons. As an organization, you are free to employ people from all over the world because you have the flexibility of collaborating with them online. If you have a web conference hosting system in place, your employees can easily communicate with you and the show will go on! Web conferencing abolishes the geographical boundaries and hindrances.

Streamline Management And Utility

It is important that all the teams across the world get access to better collaboration solutions with the help of which they can meet through audio conferencing, video conferencing, screen-sharing and real time messaging. But depending on too many platforms for this can make things complicated, what you need is a one full-fledged solution and that solution is web conference hosting. A web conferencing system that comes with a simple UI is what is needed. With the help of this, all the teams can concentrate on the meeting instead of being bothered by the entire procedure of setting up conferences.

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What is PHP Hosting?

PHP is a popular scripting language that is designed to produce dynamic web pages (e.g. login pages, shopping carts).

PHP code is embedded into the html source of a website, and is run on the web hosting server rather than on the browser. So, if you look at the source code of a PHP web page, the code that you see is just plain HTML. Since PHP is a universal scripting language, websites created with PHP are fully compatible with popular mobile devices like iPhone and iPad. A large number popular websites, including Facebook and Wikipedia, are written in PHP.

WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla are the most commonly-used open source content management systems written in PHP. A lot of webmasters choose these three platforms to build their websites because of their flexibility. There are a lot of themes and plugins created for these three platforms and webmasters can create professional looking websites based on these systems with just a few clicks. Also, their themes are customizable, so webmasters can change the coding to fit their needs.

PHP and Web Hosting

As mentioned before, PHP is decoded on the web hosting server side. Therefore, if the website is written in PHP, it needs to be hosted on a server that has PHP processor module. It is important to check with your web hosting provider if the hosting plan you are using supports PHP.

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Free Hosting Vs Paid Hosting: What You Need to Know?

Free! This word catches more eyeballs than Paid. It is a human nature to get attracted towards free things. Take an example of Buy 1 and Get 1 free offer. You will buy two same color and design T-shirts if one is free on the other, isn’t it? Later, you may think shall I use it for myself, or give it to my sibling or my best friend. That means you buy the product first without any idea of how you will deal with it later on. What else the company has thought of while giving you such offers? Bingo, their idea worked.

On the other hand, there are companies that do not give such “free” offers instead they may give discounts which tells us the company trusts its product and the quality is never a compromisable parameter here.

Free and Paid concept is applicable to any business from every sector. No matter if it’s an IT industry or textile industry it works everywhere. In this article, we will go through the web hosting point of view. Now you may be thinking is this scenario present here too? And as I said before, yes it is!

Free hosting:

Free hosting is a type of internet service where an individual and an organization make their website visible on World Wide Web.That means you can host your website without paying any cost.

Paid hosting:

Paid hosting is a type of internet service provided by web hosting company where you have to pay for the space and other resources needed to host your website.

This may confuse many of you that if I can do my work without spending any penny than why should I pay for it?

Read the below points to understand what makes the difference:

1) Try:

If you are a small company or a web developer in the learning stage and have a blueprint of your website then you can give free hosting a try. In free hosting also you get good plans where you can learn the basic process and steadily move towards complexity. But make sure this you are using for the practice purpose i.e.for your temporary website. After all, you cannot afford to compromise your online presence, as free web hosting services always mention their name in your site’s unique name.

2) Speed:

Speed is one of the important parameters to gain internet users’ attention to your site. Visitors expect your site to load within a few seconds of their click. In free hosting, the chances of your site getting down are high, as your websites’ performance depends on the proper infrastructure of your server. Imagine a scenario where you are giving a presentation to your client through a website and your website gets down. It will directly hamper your business deal. This may not be your fault but absolutely the hosting provider’s. So, for any professional website, you should always look for the paid hosting services where you get the assurance of at least 99% uptime for your site.

3) Unwanted Advertisements:

In free hosting, you have no control over the unwanted pop-ups and banners that gets displayed on your website. This may distract and irritate your relevant audience. If your website is about technology and your visitor sees baby products pop-ups on it, he will shut the website without going further. You may observe the free hosting providers cover almost half of the space on your website with such irrelevant pop-ups and banners. Such factors will be considered by search engines and affect your SEO ranking in a negative way. This is not a case in the paid hosting. Your hosting provider takes the responsibility to restrict such advertisements from coming to your website.

4) Resources:

Free web hosts give you lower bandwidth, storage space, CPU memory, RAM for usage. But the images and videos on your website may require additional space which you can demand as per your usage from the paid hosts. Plus you get unlimited email accounts, free domain names from them.

5) Security:

In web hosting, security comes with SSL certificate. Free web hosts also provide SSL certificates making you feel a low budget security investment. But this is actually a risky investment as any hacker can easily access your private data (Transaction id, credit/ debit card number, contact information) even if you have free SSL certificate. In fact, this has happened in 2015 when 13 million passwords were stolen. So, it is wise to choose a web host provider that provides high-level security, in order to make a standard place in the market.

6) Backup:

Your data may get lost due to some natural calamities or mishappening without you being aware of it. With free host, it is impossible to retrieve your lost data, now even if you pay them they won’t be able to recover your lost data. On the other hand, the paid host takes the automatic backup for you on your server at least once in a 24hours. So that you don’t have to worry and no need to remind yourself to take the backup, it gets done automatically.

7) Uniqueness:

Who will like the domain name with other companies name included in that? I think any decent company cannot tolerate this. This is what free host providers do, they will give you a domain name including their company name in your URL. This won’t give a professional image to your business as clients can easily find out that you are using a free host that means even they are dealing with the non-secure providers. Whereas, paid web hosts provide you unique domain names which give your brand a unique identity.

8) Time Span:

When you develop a website you consider the past, present and future impact of it on your visitors. That means you think that your website will be available on the internet until you want it, isn’t it? Suppose, one fine day you wake up and find out that your website doesn’t exist on the World Wide Web, what will you do? This is a risk involved when you host a website with the free provider as no one knows how long the free hosting company will survive. After all they need to make money to survive. This is not a case with a paid hosting company as it won’t ever shut down. Even if it does by any reason then still you have your private account from where you can download your whole website whenever you want and can host the same website elsewhere.

9) Customer support:

There is no customer support from the free hosting company. So if you get stuck anywhere during installation or want any technical guidance where will you find the solution? To overcome from such situation paid hosting company gives you 24/7 support. You will never feel helpless or left out as the technical team will guide and fix your problem.

10) Business strategy:

Some free hosting companies host your site for free up to some duration. After that, they start asking for charges to provide you any facility and if you don’t pay your website might get lost. The free fake promise is made just to attract the customers and once you make the deal they know the tactics to take out money from your pockets. On the other hand, the paid hosting company informs you about the charges before you buy any product/service from them.

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Selecting A Great Domain Name – Important Guidelines

The domain name is your online identity and the most important part of your website; therefore it is important to make the best choice. You might choose your business name to be the domain name however if that is taken, opt for the next best domain name. Basically your domain name must be easy to remember, it must be impressive and it must represent what your business is all about. Selecting the domain name is as important as selecting the company name.

Also Read: Top 10 Web Hosting

Before we get into the essentials of a domain name, let’s have a look at how the domain name works! Here is an insight on domain name functionality:

In order to understand the importance of domain name and for making the website live on the internet, it is beneficial to understand what happens behind the scenes when you open a website. The moment you type the name of the website, in the address bar of any browser (Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Chrome etc.) The browser sends an immediate request to the web server where the website is located.

This request is managed by the DNS (Domain name system) that converts the domain name into the actual physical address of the website on the server; this is also known as the IP address. The name servers or the NS Records store information about the respective IP’s that correspond to the requested domain. Once the information is read, the server responds back to the browser and the website shows up online.

The domain name substitutes the IP address that is the real address of the website. In case you type the IP address in the browser, you will be taken to the website that relates to it. However, can you imagine typing a meaningless string of numbers every time you want to open a website? This will not be convenient at all times! This is the reason why we use domain names – they are simple, easy-to-remember and they stick in our minds and help to find the website easily.

In short, domain name is your online identity! It has to be good, it has to be impressive! Consider the guidelines mentioned below for selecting a great domain name that helps you to create a great online identity in the future.

Combine The Top Keywords

When you begin your domain name search, keep 5 terms or phrases in mind that best describe the domain that you have in mind. Once you are ready with the list, you can start putting them together and adding prefixes or suffixes for creating good domain name ideas.

Keep It Short

Sure you might be tempted to have a long domain name that represents your brand, however from the point of your online visibility, this is not a good step. Long domain names are difficult to type and they have higher possibilities of errors. It is also not easy to say it over the phone to the customers or clients, or even for putting on the business cards. Preferably the domain name must be easy and simple, the moment you say it, people must be able to understand how to spell it.

Using Alternate Endings

It is true that .com is a popular domain name ending however you can get creative with alternate domain name TLD’s without losing on the traffic. Take the example of del.icio.us; they have used .us as the ending. This domain name is created in such a way that people can easily put all the letters together for reading what it says. Some of the other commonly used endings include .me, .net and .biz. Although the .com TLD gets a good response, it is perfectly alright if you use any other TLD if you think it is best suited to your domain name.

Singular vs Plural Words

This is a small thing, but makes a great impact. At times it is beneficial to use the singular version of the domain name instead of using the plural one. There are more possibilities of the plural domain name being searched more often thereby resulting in more website visitors. A good example of this would be cakeandcookie.com and cakesandcookies.com. Keep yourself in the consumer’s shoes and ask yourself which name is easily remembered by your mind? Another trick is to obtain both the singular and the plural versions of the domain name so that you are not a victim of cyber squatting.

Future Plans Of Your Website

Keep the future plans of your website in mind before selecting the domain name. For instance, if you are operating the business of selling roses, and you are thinking of registering the domain – ‘tulipsonly.com’. However in the future, if you intend to sell other flowers, the ‘tulipsonly.com’ domain name might not sound right. Therefore in accordance with this example, you might consider registering ‘flowersonly.com’; as it provides with a better scope of business expansion.

Domain Name And Website Relevancy

When someone hears your domain name, they should be instantly able to guess the content of the website. Some examples of the most relevant domain names include – CareerBuilder.com, Hotmail.com and Auto-Trader.com, with these domain names establishing a brand becomes easy. Also make sure that the contents of your website are in perfect synchronization with the domain name.

Avoid Hyphens And Numbers

Both hyphens and numbers make it hard to pronounce your domain name and they are also hard to remember or type. It is also preferable to avoid the use of spelled out or roman numerals as both can be confusing and might be mistaken for each other.

If you have a domain name in mind, you can also check its availability in the website of the web hosting company that you are considering. Be creative while selecting the domain name; this specially holds true if you would like to establish a brand. The domain name must reflect the nature of your website, it must be unique, something that captures the minds of the visitors. A domain is a once in a lifetime investment for your website, therefore it is crucial to select the best domain name.

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The Pros and Cons of Using Multiple Domain

Having multiple domains means having more than one website for the same, or a similar, company. Some online businesses think having more than one website (domain name) might seem like a good idea, especially if you have a product or service that appeals to different audiences. A site for each target audience makes it possible to customize the messaging, sales materials, and other marketing strategies that hook a particular potential customer. For example, a website for engineers will use a different approach than one for school teachers, so a cross-over product (e.g., cleaning supplies) might be difficult to pitch on a single site.

Taking a narrow view that only considers search engine optimization (SEO), the short answer is multiple domains can hurt your page ranking. There is no benefit to having several keyword-rich domains pointing to your website. SEO is done on a single domain name and incorporates many things such as site popularity, the amount and type of content on the site, keywords in meta and title fields, and paying for a spot in the search engine database.

However, there are some benefits when taking into account the functionality of the site and how it supports your goals. It’s important to consider the role of your website (or sites) when choosing to use more than one URL. If your website serves a simple purpose, such as a portfolio of work samples, using multiple pages on the same site will likely be adequate. If the business model is a bit complicated, then it’s worth exploring how to leverage several sites. But a few words of caution at the start:

More work – Each site will require unique content, regular updates, and SEO attention, so this will mean more time.

More cost – All of that extra work will cost staff time, tech support, and outside vendors will also require two paychecks. There can be some economies of scale for hosting and other services, but that needs to be weighed against the value added to the goals for the sites.

Organization – More than just scheduling regular maintenance and content updates, you’ll have to make sure your marketing messages are consistent across all platforms, including the websites.

The Pros

So when does using multiple sites make sense?

A Single Business with Diverse Audiences

Any marketing or sales professional will tell you that one-size does not fit all when it comes to communicating with different people. Each group has its own set of needs and expectations about what products or services will do for them. When a diversity of messages are required, separate sites makes it possible to tailor content as well as approach an individual group.

For example, a company that supports schools with a diversity of resources might have product lines specifically for K-12 teachers, high school teachers, and college professors. Each audience has a distinctly different professional style and educational criteria to meet. A separate site for each group will avoid the need for the visitor to sort through any irrelevant information to find “their” material. This audience-specific approach can also be helpful for cultivating links with other sites, which does help search engine rankings.

Niche Website for Showcasing Specialization

Niche websites can be much more appealing over a large, generic site. Larger sites run the risk of having too much overlap with a competing site, which diminishes the likelihood of adding links. Niche sites – which don’t necessarily have to be small – allow for the kind of specialization that can be helpful to complement the information (or services) of other sites. This can support the development of deep, topic-specific content making your site a valuable (and linkable) resource. From a marketing and sales standpoint, these niche sites can support niche products and services

High Turnover

In some industries, name changes are common. A financial service firm or law firm might change partners – adding a new name or removing the name of a retiree. If an affiliation exists with a parent company, such as a real estate broker with multiple state or regional offices, a rebranding effort might dictate a change. In these and other cases, multiple domain names can be helpful to leverage an established identity or geographic presence.

Multiple Countries, Multiple Languages

If you’re doing business in multiple countries, it might be worth having separate sites for each geographic location. Localizing the colors, images, and content to match the social and cultural norms will make the sites more user-friendly. And matching local preferences and habits can make the URL easier to find.

The Cons

The issues related to maintain multiple sites are as much practical as they are SEO related.

Ranking – There is zero benefit to having multiple sites. And there could be some negatives, such as garnering bad links to phishing sites, which require significant technical troubleshooting.

Can’t find you – People tend to look up a company by name, so multiple domain names can make it difficult (not to mention confusing) for a prospect or customer to find what they need.

Loss of authority – Longevity is necessary for a domain name; changing it hurts the site’s credibility.

Expenses – The time and money required for building and maintenance (including fixing problems) increase with the number of sites you have to maintain.

Diluted identity – Depending on your brand, splitting off products and services on different sites could undermine the power and market influence of your company.

Merging issues – If you decide later to move to a single website, the migration needs to be done correctly (which means more expense).

A single website can support multiple product lines and services as long as the site is easy to navigate. So it’s important to keep that primary motivation in mind, not the ease or low cost of design maintenance.

Each website owner is going to have a unique combination of goals and priorities. Those, not a fabulous web hosting package, need to guide this kind of domain decision.

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cPanel - Contact Information

In this interface of cPanel, you are allowed to change the system email address. It is the email address on which the system can notify you for important updates. You cannot use your system email address or any email address, which is connected with your domain, so that you do not lose any important update, when the system is down.

To update your contact email, follow these steps −

Step 1 − In cPanel Home, click username on the right corner of your dashboard.

Step 2 − Click on Contact Information option. You will find Contact Information Interface.

Step 3 − Enter the email address on which you want the system to contact you for important notifications.

Step 4 − You can enter a second email address on which you can receive the copy of that email sent on your primary email.

Step 5 − You can choose the options of an event on which the system should send you notification in contact preference. It is recommended that you leave every checkbox selected.

Step 6 − Click the Save button to save your contact preference.

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What Is The Difference Between Domain And Web Hosting?

You decide to create a website for your company or service and you are faced with a series of acronyms and complicated terms. CSS, HTML, and other terms may confuse people who are not accustomed to the language involved in creating and maintaining web pages.

In this scenario, two terms can cause major confusion. Domain and hosting designate two fundamental things for the existence of any page and understanding how it works is the first step towards creating a successful website.

Key Features of a Hosting Server

A hosting server is a kind of “virtual space” in which multimedia content, scripts, CSS files and the HTML code of a web page are stored. They can be provided free of charge or through paid services and differ mainly by their control characteristics and features.

Also Read: Top 10 Web Hosting

A free hosting solution, for example, may include the publication of advertising banners on the web page as a counterpart to the use of the service. The support and as well as the resources are also limited. These limitations, coupled with reduced storage space and limited use of databases and other technologies, are often directed to encourage the use of paid plans.

Already the paid hosting service provides greater control and availability. You can choose a plan that has the features you need for your site, and in most cases, customer support runs 24 hours a day. Paid hosting services also do not serve advertisements on your site.

How to choose a hosting?

During the hiring of a hosting service, several details must be evaluated. It is through this analysis that will define the solutions that best fit the needs of a site, both in terms of resources and control.

The first step is to check the amount of space that will be required for the hosting of the page. There is no way to get a precise value. However, by checking the level of resources, a number of images and other content that will be used, you can get an idea. In any case, prioritize services that are scalable. This way, your company can expand the available space whenever it is necessary.

The definition of the size of the public that is intended to be reached is also indispensable. This allows a better assessment of the size of the monthly traffic that will be contracted, a metric that is used across multiple planes. In this case, the rule is simple: the higher the number of visitors, the greater the traffic.

Control options should not be ignored. A page can be the access key for a lot of private information. In this sense, the contracted company must provide several options for those seeking the maintenance of sensitive data in security. Security protocols define how the business will deal with digital transactions and other sensitive transactions, so choose services that have security as a priority.

The control panel should allow easy access to all resources used by the company. Through it, you can create new accounts, modify permissions, and contract new resources.

If the hosting server is used to access critical resources, the company must also evaluate the uptime of the service. Ideally, it should remain available for more than 99% of hits, so that the number of users affected by a system crash is as small as possible. And if the company needs access records for evaluation and creation of marketing operations, look for solutions that support analytics tools.

Key features of a domain

The domain functions as an address for the sites. It is the “translation” of the server IP on which the page is hosted to an easily memorized written address. Through it, we can access any content via the web.

The structure of a URL varies according to the type of address. Pages with the ending address in .com, for example, are set for business services. Those with the .gov are reserved for government institutions, while the .org  for non-governmental organizations.

A complete address will be in the form http://www.name-of-site.com, where HTTP helps the browser to identify the communication protocol (in this case, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol). The www refers to the fact that the page is available on the World Wide Web, followed by the name of the page. Finally, in the last two divisions, the indicators of the type of domain (commercial, governmental, etc.) and the country are inserted.

It is not always necessary to type all this data to access a page. With the technological developments of recent years, the need to enter “www” before accessing a domain, for example, has been eliminated. In addition, it is not uncommon to find pages without the country flag at the end of the URL.

How to hire a domain?

The hiring of a domain is a relatively simple process. Once the availability of the domain is checked, through hosting companies, you can register the domain by filling out a registration and making payment for registration. After domain registration and payment confirmation, you must configure the DNS values for the domain to work on your site. DNS is responsible for converting your domain to the IP address of the hosting server where the site is stored. DNS values will be made available to you by the hosting service provider.

The renewal of the domain registration is done annually, but it is possible to register a domain for a period longer than 1 year, simply selecting a number of years desired at the time of registration. Upon renewal, if the user misses the deadline, the address will be frozen for a few weeks. When it is frozen, the domain will be disabled, but can still be recovered by the person who registered it, enough for that, if the value of the renewal is paid. If the domain is not renewed, it expires and can be registered by any other interested person.

Having a hosting and a registered domain, just make the configuration of the DNS so that the two services “speak” and your site happens to work with the domain that you chose.

How do domain and hosting fit into the creation of a web page?

There is no way to create and publish a web page without the existence of a hosting server and the registration of a domain. Both articulate, together, so people can access content on the web. If the hosting server were a home, the domain would be its address, allowing anyone to find it on the internet.

Because they are two basic parts of any page, the company must carefully define the services used to register the domain and store the web page. That way, it will avoid inconvenience and ensure the reliability of your site. In addition, the domain should be easy to remember so that people can always return to your site.

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cPanel - FTP

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) allows you to manage your files with third party applications like FileZilla, CoreFTP, etc. Using a FTP file manager to upload files is a great practice when the number of files or size of the files is large. FTP accounts configures users who can upload, download or modify your files through FTP. Each FTP user has his own username and home directory, only that certain directory the user will have access to.

To create an FTP account, please follow these steps −

Step 1 − Open FTP accounts feature by clicking FTP accounts found under Files Section.

Once FTP accounts feature is opened, you will see the following screen.

Step 2 − Enter Log in name for your new user, it will be the user’s username, also provide a strong password for this user.

Step 3 − Enter Directory for your new user, you may also leave it with pre-filled directory name according to your user.

Step 4 − Provide FTP storage quota, you may provide unlimited quota or use some value in Megabytes.

Step 5 − Click on Create FTP Account and Your FTP account will be created.

Configure FTP Client

To configure your FTP client, you can download any pre-built configuration file by clicking Configure FTP Account.

You can download FTP Configuration files for FileZilla or CoreFTP, which are windows software or Cyberduck for Mac.

Special FTP Accounts

These FTP accounts are pre-built with hosting account and cannot be deleted, these are used for administrative purposes.

One of the Special FTP account is your Administrative FTP account, whose username will be same as your accounts username. This FTP account’s home directory is your cPanel accounts root directory. You can access all the files of your account with this FTP account. Its password will be the same as your cPanel account password.

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