The Web Hosting Blog » Web Hosting News

Web Hosting Jargon – Name Server

Dan — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:42:49 +0000

Ever feel like you’re talking to someone from a foreign country when all you want is a little help with your website? This series explains what some of the web hosting industry’s technical terms mean, so the next time you contact tech support you’ll feel like you’re talking to someone who lives a little closer to home. Today we’re going to look at the job of a name server.

Name Server – The internet is made up of millions of computers located all around the world. Life would be much easier if these computers all talked to each other and knew exactly what you intended when you click a link on a website or enter a web address. Due to the internet’s technical nature, this perfect world doesn’t exist, so some of the busy work is left up to you, the user.

Whenever you type in an internet address such as http://blog.readysetconnect.com, your computer has no idea what remote machine it has to connect to. There are millions out there, but where should it go? How should it get there? The solution to this problem is the real-world equivalent of a telephone book. Given a name, you can search a telephone book to find a person’s phone number, and in many cases their home address as well. The listing in the phone book and the concept of a name server are synonymous. The name server’s job is to point the user (or in this case, the computer) to the destination where the website can be found. If someone moves or changes his or her phone number, the entry in the telephone book must be updated.

So what does a name server do?

The name server acts as the link between the user’s computer and the remote destination in that it tells the computer where it needs to go. Your job, when setting up a website, is to enter the name server into the phone book. Normally this is accomplished at the domain registrar website (the place you used to register your domain). The registrar will give you the option to configure anywhere from one to four or more name servers. Usually you will enter two, however more adds redundancy. After you update the name server, it can take anywhere from 0 – 24 hours for the registry to update. Once everything is online, your computer will know where to go when accessing your website, assuming the name server is configured correctly. That’s usually something you don’t have to worry about, and your web host will be able to help you if you have any problems.

For more information on DNS propagation, check out this post.

Google PageRank vs Alexa Rank. Determining a website’s advertising value through PR and Alexa Rank

Dan — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:14:49 +0000

When buying advertising on websites, you usually have to rely on the webmaster of the site to send you accurate traffic reports. But how do you know the webmaster isn’t making up the stats to try and get more money out of you?

Fortunately, we can use Google PageRank and Alexa Rank to get a rough estimate of a web site’s advertising value and traffic levels. Just remember that while these tools are great for this process, they do not tell the full picture all the time.

A web site’s Google Page Rank can tell us:

How much SERP value you will get from a link from the website you want to advertise on. Depending on the number of incoming links and the PR value of your website, will likely determine how much traffic Google will send your way.

More info on developing back links and off-page SEO techniques.

Sometimes a sites PR can give you an idea as to how much traffic it gets. For instance, if a site is PR7 or 8, it is probable that the website is getting a good amount of traffic OR the webmaster has done a really good job at attaining high PR links to his/her website. However:

I have seen many PR6 websites that get hardly any traffic.
I have seen many PR3 websites that get a TON of traffic.

This is where you can use Alexa Rank to help.

We can determine a rough estimate of a web site’s traffic through Alexa rank. Alexa rank is determined by how often people with the Alexa Toolbar installed on their browser visit a certain website. The higher the Alexa ranking number, the less traffic it probably gets.

If you are looking for your advertisements to reach a large number of people, you will want to target sites with 175,000 Alexa Rank or less. Websites with Alexa rank 50,000 or less get a lot of traffic, but be prepared to shell out some dollars for these sites.

Note* Alexa rank CAN be gamed by setting up many Alexa bots (computers with the Alexa Toolbar installed setup to continuously visit a certain site in order to boost its Alexa Rank. So don’t always believe what you see as far as Alexa Rank is concerned.

Use PageRank and Alexa rank only as a guesstimate.

Google PR and Alexa rank are a great way to get a fast reading of traffic for a website. I generally like to collect a group of sites related to my niche and go through each one for PR and Alexa rank. Once I weed out the sites that don’t fit my criteria, I will contact the webmaster for more accurate statistics. Just keep in mind that while Google PageRank and Alexa are great tools for finding the advertising value of a website, they are not 100% accurate and should only be used for a rough estimate.

Have a better way to figure out a website’s traffic? Let us know how you figure out the advertising value of a website!

Reducing your web hosting costs. How to save money on website hosting plans.

James — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:16:53 +0000

Web hosting industry today, is a powerful and lucrative option that most web business associates would love to try out. Maintaining a website has also become equally costly. With so many options offered by numerous websites in recent times, it might just be difficult to reduce costs of supporting a website even though you have chosen the best web hosting provider.

Look for Optimum Hard Drive Space

While all websites need to expand to match the growing market, too much disk space than what is required can be a bane to your profit. For instance, a particular website may only need 200 MB space but it ended up with more than 500 MB space. This space is simple redundant and not required.

In other websites, webmasters did not plan for the required space and ended up coughing up more cash due to the cost of the extra disk space.

So, the solution would be to find out the amount of space needed for your website. Then, plan some more extra space – say less than 50 percent – to get the optimum space.

Look for Optimum Bandwidth

The similar theory applies for bandwidth also. Ensure that you don’t shell out extra cost due to over usage. Stay within your limits and choose a little extra bandwidth strength to match high data transfer.

Look for Block Purchase of Bandwidth and Disk Space

Often, web hosting providers offer block purchase for disk space or bandwidth. If the amount allocated within the block, matches your needs, then go for this option. It would help you to reduce your cost.

Look for Customer-Savvy Providers

Some web hosting providers offer a good service to their clients. For instance, when a website is going in for an over usage for both disk space and bandwidth, it automatically informs the client about the extra usage. It also offers block purchasing facilities at that time to help customers reduce their spending.

Look for Multiple Domains

There are options where one account can offer multiple domains. This option is lot more cost effective than those amounts which offer single domain hosting facility. So, in case you have many websites to launch, go for a web hosting provider who offers multiple domain.

In case you have only one website to launch, team up with group of webmasters planning to launch their site and share the cost.

Look for a Free Mail Server

Don’t pay extra for a mail server as most standard web hosting providers offer this facility for free. The number of email addresses that you can get from the host should also be “unlimited”.

All in all, ensure that you have the optimum facilities, correct options, and good customer care service to maintain your website in a cost effective manner that would suit your budget.

Have some tips to save money on web hosting?

If you have some additional tips on reducing your website expenses, we would like to hear from you. Let’s see some comments!

0bones.com updated to 1.1. Start, build, and promote your website for free.

admin — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:47:30 +0000

Hello All,

My apologies for my lack of updates lately. I have been very busy trying to get our new social web hosting service updated and fully functional. I am glad to announce that finally, after many months, we have finally got 0bones fully functional and that we are now accepting new signups once again.

0bones.com – Start your website on the social webmaster’s community

Start your website for free – start a blog, forum, web portal, or custom website with ease. All users get cPanel access for complete control over their free web space
Learn website building techniques – learn about website building through our webmaster community. If you have problems or questions about your website, ask them in the webmasters forum
Promote your site – The best part about our service is that we allow our users to promote their website through the community. Everytime you do something on 0bones, you leave your website link behind. This is a great source of steady traffic to your new website!

Come check us out at http://0bones.com

Take The 0bones Tour

Simple PHP/MySQL user login tutorial. Make parts of your website private with a login.

admin — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:27:22 +0000

PHP & MySQL Login Tutorial Series
Pt1: Introduction
Pt2: Setting up the database
Pt3: The front end and user validation
Pt4: The code to privatize a page
Pt5: Logout function and clearing the session ID

Part 1: Introduction

Sometimes it’s important to restrict access to certain parts of a website, and the best way to regulate this access is through a user login system. This article is going to cover the creation of a very simple login system that will help get you started. This system is by no means 100% secure, so we do not recommend using it in a production environment, however we will examine one of the ways a login can be created and we’ll also look at some of the pitfalls of such a system.

Before we begin, let’s establish the pseudocode of our script and walk through the general process of a login. First, and most importantly, we need a user account. This will include the user’s login identification number, a username, password, and any other credentials we may want such as access levels or email addresses. To keep this simple, we’ll stick to user id, username, and password. When a user enters his or her login credentials on your site, we will have to verify the credentials and then establish some means to keep track of a user’s login status. Remember, whenever someone visits a webpage, that page is always loaded as if it’s the first time someone has been on the site. We need a way to tell the site who the user is so that the site can make adjustments for the logged in account.

There are essentially three different parts to this login system. The first part is the PHP code we’re going to write that will regulate the user access. We’ll also need a database to store both the user account information as well as temporary session information that remembers what accounts are logged in. The latter can be setup several ways, including the use of PHP sessions, however for this example we’re going to store the sessions in a database. The third thing we’ll need is a way for the user’s computer to identify itself. For this we’re going to store a cookie on the user’s computer that will be sent to our website every time the user accesses a new page.

Let’s begin creating the code. If you want to test this code on a working site, we suggest you create a separate user.php file (or equivalent) that will store all of the user functions. In this example we’ll simply reference all of the different parts necessary. To view the final working code as it should appear on a site, go to http://blog.readysetconnect.com/sample.php.txt.

Next -> Setting up the MySQL database

How to communicate effectively with your web hosting provider

Dan — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:51:30 +0000

When you have a problem with your web hosting provider, it is important that you communicate properly with them in order to get your problem resolved as soon as possible. I have noticed that customers who use effective communication also get their issues resolved the quickest.

How to create a support ticket the right way

When you create a ticket, you should provide ALWAYS provide as much of your account information as possible. At the very least, you should include the following info:

Your full name – makes it easier to find you in a billing system
Your domain name and username - this is what we use to figure out which server you are on, and to locate where your account is on it.

For authorization purposes only, you may need to include additional information. If you want to upgrade, cancel, switch owners of an account, you should add these to the list:

Last 4 digits of your credit card on file or a Paypal transaction ID
Your current account password if you can’t find the above

What to include in the body of your support ticket

It is important to include as much detail on your problem and if possible, the exact way to recreate the problem. Here are some examples of what I mean:

The wrong way:	“Hello, my MySQL database is messed up, please fix it.”
The right way:	“Hello, I am having a problem with the database bigjames_mysqldb1 on the account name bigjames. My domain name is Parkour08.com. When I go to my website, it says that the maximum number of SQL connections has been reached, what should I do?”

In the example of the correct way, the user has supplied all the information that the technician will need in order to resolve the problem. The user who created the incorrect ticket will have to wait longer because the technician will have to reply back asking for the information he needs.

Why you shouldn’t be rude when creating a ticket

The answer to this is simple. No one wants to help someone who is not showing the proper respect. It is common in this industry for support techs to be treated like dirt. You would really be surprised how mean people are in some of the tickets they create. I’m not talking about people who are frustrated, I’m talking about people being outright rude and making direct personal remarks to the technician working with them.

I used to work all the technical support tickets for my company at one point, so I know how it feels when someone is being so disrespectful to you. For this reason, I tell all my techs that if someone is being overly disrespectful to them, that it is OK to delete the ticket off the desk. Some people might say that this is bad business practice, but I believe that these customers cause more trouble than they are worth. I am not afraid to lose one nasty client if it increases the overall wellbeing of my support techs. A happy support tech = a productive support tech.

When creating your support ticket, always remember to be courteous to the person working with you. By being polite and respectful, you will increase the techs willingness to get your problem fixed as quick as possible. It is also important to remember to include as much information as possible so that the technician has everything he/she needs to find and resolve your problem.

Need a sponsored web host? Free sponsored web hosting accounts!

admin — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:54:40 +0000

I am proud to announce that we are now accepting applications for sponsored web hosting on our hosting blog. If you are looking for someone to host your website with a premium sponsored web hosting plan, look no further. As part of our new blog promotion, we would like to sponsor our reader’s computer or internet related website(s).

This is not just some junky free web space – this is a premium web hosting account that you would normally have to pay for. You will be getting the same exact service our paid members have, except it will be completely free.

Our sponsors will be put onto our ConnectOne hosting plan with the following specs for FREE:

15 GB of web space
200 GB of data transfer per month
PHP, Perl, Ruby, CGI support – with MySQL database access
Email hosting
Ability to host multiple websites on the same plan

You will be getting a fully functional, premium web hosting plan for free. In exchange for this valuable resource, we require a couple things:

Website must be older than 6 months.
Must be written in English.
Website must be related to Computers or the Internet
We require all sites to provide us a text link back to our hosting website. We also may require a graphical image on our sponsorship sites. This image will be non intrusive and will say ‘Hosting by ReadySetConnect’. This will not look like an annoying advertisement. We are also open to our sponsors modifying our image to fit your web design.

What if my website is really big? Will you guys still host it?

Yes! We are willing to provide you with everything you need for your website as part of our sponsorship. If you use all the resources provided in our ConnectOne plan, we have no problem adding more. We are even willing to provide sites with their own dedicated servers if they are require it(still a free sponsorship).

If you are interested, please proceed to our web hosting sponsorship page. Fill in the contact form at the bottom and we will get back to you within 24 hours. Once accepted, we will setup your hosting account with your desired login information.

True web design: the lost art. Web designers obsolete because of theme and template designers?

admin — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:32:49 +0000

Years ago, web design was the biggest hurdle to overcome while starting a new website. However, the increased popularity of web applications like WordPress, Drupal, phpBB, etc., have made true web design a thing of the past. Today all you have to do is install your favorite CMS, find a good looking pre designed, add some content and you got your standard website setup in less than an hour. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against people running website in a box applications. In fact, I recommend this setup to my readers and clients who are new to the insane world of websites. However, If there is no need to learn web design anymore, who would be willing to read through all those books and tutorials that you web designers out there had to go through? Let a lone spend hundreds of hours honing your web design skills for that matter.

Which option do you think sounds better to an inexperienced user?

Start a website in 15 minutes with WordPress and a pre-designed template
Spend hundreds of man hours learning web design…then start your website a year later?

Without question, most people will pick option 1 because, lets be frank about it, most people have better things to do than spend all that time in front of a computer screen by yourself. Why would anyone want to study the art of web design when they already have their awesome new CMS or can simply download and install a new theme for a new look?

As time goes on, I think that web design as we know it will be a thing of the past. There will be a small population of skilled website designers compared to a large population of website operators (people who run pre-made software and designs). There will be less and less new talent coming into the industry because there will be no need for those skills if a CMS and pre-made theme can take care of it all. I mean how many of you got into web design by designing your first website on your own? I’m willing to bet that most professional web designers didn’t just one day decide they want to design websites for a living.

What advantages does a web designer have over the standard web app operator?

While pre-made software and designs can do probably 99% of what you want it to do, it will never be perfect. A true web designer doesn’t need to sacrifice the way a website works or looks because he/she is in complete control of the website’s flow and look from the beginning.
Business and corporate websites don’t want pre-designed software and designs. I’m not talking your mom and pop stores here. You will find that a medium to large scale business will NEVER use a pre-designed template. First off, they have an image to uphold. Secondly a business website is its online brand so they must be able to convey their message properly. That is something that is almost impossible to do if you have no flexibility over your website look and flow.
You actually learn something – It is very satisfying when you can look at a website and say to yourself that it is something that you made from the ground up. It is a great feeling, something that is very difficult to put to words. When someone compliments the look of your website, you feel very proud that you had the ability to do it yourself.

If you are just getting started with websites, than by all means give the pre-made web templates and themes a shot. It is a quick and easy way for a new, inexperienced, user to get his/her ideas online. However, if you want any absolute control over your website, you should start learning web design. And hey, if you get good enough, you could get a great job from it someday. Considering that there are less and less people getting into web design every day, you will be in great demand!

New look for our web hosting blog

admin — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:46:31 +0000

Hello All,

First off I would like to thank all my readers and contributors to our blog. It has turned out much better than I would have thought. I changed the theme of the blog to something more simple. I am also trying to make this blog more visually pleasing. I have mostly all text in my posts, which has been great for the search engines…but not so great for my readers. Over the next week Im going to try and find some appropriate pictures to place in my posts. The only problem is that there aren’t many web hosting specific images. I could always add a bunch of web server pictures but that would get real boring, real fast.

Anyway, keep checking back as you will notice some pretty major changes. We will also be adding web hosting related contests with free prizes like domain names, shared web hosting accounts, and even free reseller plans. So stay tuned…

Free Social Web Hosting – 0bones is a new site made to host and promote its users websites.

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:51:58 +0000

I am proud to announce the beta opening of the new social web hosting service 0bones.com – You build it, we promote it!

0bones providers its’ members with a valuable hosting and promotional service to its’ members free of charge.

For zero bones, you get everything you need to get your website online:

FREE social web hosting space

250 MB Web Space
10 GB of Data Transfer
PHP Access with 1 MySQL Database
Use your own domain name or one of our free .zerobones.com sub domains.
cPanel 11 Access

All with NO Adverts. The only thing we put on our user web pages is a non intrusive 0bones.com linkback.

Promote your website right off 0bones.com – instant traffic to your new website!

Obones users can promote their websites content by submitting it to the 0bones.com main pages. All submissions are rated by other 0bones members and if its rated highly, your content (which links to your site) could end up on the front page of 0bones.com. 0bones support submissions of text, images, and/or videos. Your website could even appear in the top 10 rated websites right on our front page for an instant surge of large amounts of web traffic to your website.

All 0bones member websites link back to 0bones.com to create a high traffic social network of web masters.

By being active on 0bones.com, you can build up a constant source of traffic to your website for absolutely nothing!

Join the new era of web hosting by starting your website with 0bones.com free social web space. You get everything you need for your website for zero bones!