Hosting Articles

In Search of Webhosting: First Understand the Industry

In search of a webhosting company for personal or small business purposes? We advise you to take a look at this article to understand the hosting industry and study its dynamics to know what to look for before you make your choice.

First, a brief introduction to the webhosting chain: the end consumer is served by about 3 upstream providers: the webhosting provider that they have direct contact with, the webhost's upstream company who maintains the servers and sells space to webhosts, and above that, the datacenter that provides the connection and houses the servers. Some webhosts are also the server admins and liase with the datacenters directly.

The webhosting industry has been claimed to be near saturation point as there are hundreds of web-hosting providers clamouring to provide cheaper and better services to businesses and individuals. This upsurge of supply is largely due to resources becoming readily available (and at cheaper costs) with plunging diskspace and data-transfer prices. The barriers to entry in the web-hosting space is low as large resellers of server space provide cheap hosting and reselling plans that create opportunites for new webhosts to join in the market. With increasing number of suppliers with ever cheaper reselling plans, more webhosting businesses are sprouting up to provide web-hosting solutions to business and individual websites due to lower fixed costs and investment. In addition, this increase in supply is not caused by factors in any particular country. The internet is global and as such, datacenters in US, or in fact, any part of the world, can provide the server and webspace for a local webhosting company. It is taking place in internet space and consumers and providers can easily find each other and exchange services in the global space.

Increasing the supply is naturally a good thing for the customer who is on the demand side. This inbalance has caused new web-hosting providers to offer extremely low prices for their webhosting plans or packages in order to compete in the tough market. Customers get to choose from a myriad of hosting providers who are constantly lowering their prices. However, this might not be a good thing. By offering low prices, companies are earning small margins that may not cover their support costs. Support is vital in the webhosting business as most customers want to be able to get help with their web-hosting accounts. If the profits do not justify the costs, web hosting companies will easily close down - and take their clients' sites with them.

So what are the factors to look at when choosing a host for your website?

Support is the single most important factor for any individual or small business looking for a webhost for their websites. Any internet web hosting provider that does not respond to emails for at most 24 hours is probably having problems providing fast and reliable support services. These services are essential to customer satisfaction and especially for customers who are new to webhosting will need guidance with publishing their websites on the webhosting account provided. The webhosting business is about relationships between webhost and webhosting customers. You should want to know that you can get help when you need, and want to be informed when your website is going to be offline for maintainance.

Stability comes in second as a factor when choosing a webhost. Stability refers to how much uptime you can expect from the webhosting provider. This actually depends on the providers' servers and network. If they do not have reliable and stable providers, it would affect their servers and cause problems for your website. An uptime of about 99.5% is considered reliable in the industry as there are external factors which may be beyond control of the provider. External agencies like Alerta.com provide server monitoring services that webhosting companies might use to proof their reliability.

Cost is a factor depending on the purpose of the website and budget. Personal /Individual websites might have smaller budget and choose to go with a cheaper webhosting provider, possibily in exchange for support and stability. Business sites might have larger budgets and should definitely place stability and support above all else. The cheaper webhosting deals that offer enormous diskspace and huge amounts of data-transfer at a dollar rates has continuously proven to be a one-off hit that attracts customers in numbers, but fail in providing quality support. Large numbers of client sites also cause sustained high server loads that might cause the server to crash and thus affecting stability.

Location of the server is generally not an important issue depending on your ISP/country's connection to the datacenter where the server is located. Pings to the server can normally tell you the network latency to expect when people from your area access your site. Lower ping rates means that your site will load faster.

Lastly, take time to identify and contact a webhost to ask about their service. This would give you an idea of the kind of support that you might receive and help you in deciding if you want to go with the web-hosting provider.

About The Author

Dax Christopher is the owner of BuildtoLearn Networks which specializes providing free webhosting and other web-building resources to assist budding webmasters launch their websites. Visit http://buildtolearn.com to obtain free webhosting or http://buildtutorials.com to learn more about web-development.

Other Article Sites

findabook.com  moneycd.info  a-mortgage.info   about-lemon-laws.info  aboutstudentloans.info
all-about-publishing.info  auctions-articles.info  bestcollege-university.com  bestispconnection.com
biblefolder.com  blogger-website.com  books-used.info  brokers-guide.info  buywindows.info  cable-dsl.info
career-miner.com  carpel-tunnel.info  cashinaflash.info  cashloanreviews.info  casinobell.com  chat-house.info
clearmycredit.info  collegeloantips.info  crones.info  depression-articles.info   dirnic.net  dishguides.info
divers-below.com  expodog.info   financewizz.com  fire-insurance.info  getgood.info  handleit.net   it-idea.info
health-supplies.info  hosting-right.com  insidealert.com  insurance-facts.info  jobs-employment.info
justgood.info  lookgold.net   lowcost-travel.info  money-source.info  myhostzone.info  numisblog.com
peoplesearchfinder.info  pr-articles.info  realeas.com   refinancing-guides.info  spyware-remove.info
telelot.info  the-law.info   toppaid.info  travel-deals.info  travelcorrect.com  wedding-guide-site.com
your-blog.info  your-credit.info

MORE ARTICLES:

The Breakers Resort's Palmetto Tower to Host "Palmetto - Then and Now" Package in Celebration of 35th Anniversary
The Breakers Resort, one of Myrtle Beach, S.C.'s finest oceanfront resorts, will offer the "Palmetto - Then and Now" package for 35 days from April 13 to May 18 to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Palmetto Tower, which recently completed a $1.8 million renovation.

Host Publications Announces the Publication of João Almino's 'The Five Seasons of Love'
Host Publications is proud to announce the publication of The Five Seasons of Love, the first English-language edition of the award-winning novel by Brazilian author João Almino. Set amidst the chaos of contemporary Brasília, a place where even the most basic human affairs -- love and friendship, sex and work -- can take unlikely shapes, this acclaimed story of friendship and its complicities is both relentlessly modern and profoundly timeless. Haquira Osakabe, Professor of Literary Theory at the University of Campinas, describes the novel as "intelligent, biting and lyrical." Winner of the Casa de las Americas 2003 Literary Award, The Five Seasons of Love is the work of a writer at the height of his powers

Healthy Living Boomer Expert To Host Costa Rica Retreat
"The advantages of our retreat over a local workshop are immense," says Dillon, "starting with the essential element of separating from day-to-day responsibilities long enough, and getting the right kinds of support and coaching, to go deeply within, truly relax, and reconnect with what really matters."

Reseller Hosting Explained
Reseller Defined:The term Reseller according to the dictionary means to sell again i.e.

Top-Colleges.com Announces Top Accounting Colleges, Top Business Colleges, and Top Marketing Colleges Websites
Top-Colleges.com, a Salt Lake City education marketing company, has revealed the release of three specialized resources for prospective accounting, business, and marketing students who need answers to specific career college questions.

Membership Site 1-2-3 Makes Recurring Income Through Membership Websites Easier Than Ever
Paid membership Websites have become a popular business model for individuals who are interested in making money on the Internet. Unfortunately, most systems for building such sites are complicated and expensive. A new book, Membership Site 1-2-3, simplifies the process so that anyone can do it.

Media Alert: Fieldglass, Inc. To Host Webinar On Effective Talent Acquisition Strategies
Fieldglass, Inc., the software provider of the leading unified platform for acquiring contingent workers, services and direct hires, will host a webinar to discuss how talent acquisition strategies can improve performance and results on Feb. 19, 2008, at 12 p.m. EST. The webinar, titled ?The Role and Benefit of Talent Acquisition in Human Capital Management?, will feature industry thought leaders including Sean Chou, CTO, Fieldglass; Christa Manning, research director, AMR Research; and David Barfield, president, Bartech Workforce Management, Bartech Group. Interested parties can visit http://www.fieldglass.com/emails/webinar0801.h...

What Is Reseller Web Hosting?
Introduction

Web Hosting: What Can You Expect?
Many consumers have found success in developing fee-free web pages through a free online hosting service. Some will even purchase a domain name and link their free site to a more identifiable name.

Lodging Interactive Launches RFPLink.com and Generates Group Leads For Hotel Websites
Lodging Interactive announced today that it has launched a new web service geared towards generating group leads for hotels. RFPLink.com is a free service which powers hotel websites with the ability to process group lead requests from consumers and meeting planners.

Be Aware of Fake Web Hosting Reviews
If you are looking for a good cheap Web Host to host your web site you will literally find 1000's of sites with reviews and awards for web hosting providers Be careful with how much trust you put into these reviews and awards, a huge percentage of them are not serious and are nothing more than a creative marketing trick to get you to buy hosting

ChurchPunch.com is Becoming One of the Largest and Fastest Growing Christian Websites, Strategically Taking Gods Good News Worldwide ChurchPunch was C
ChurchPunch.com is becoming one of the largest and fastest growing Christian websites. We are strategically taking Gods Good News to the next level. ChurchPunch.com was created and dedicated to serve ministries worldwide; this is the only stop for all of your ministry's broadcasting and announcements needs. With ChurchPunch.com it's now easier than ever to reach millions worldwide.

Web Hosting: The Bandwidth Connection
Web hosting often comes as a part of the design and upkeep feature of your web designer. In fact, many webmasters have difficulty if you want to select a web host outside of the Webmaster?s preferred, or in-house server. Some webmasters find compatibility and access issues to be a problem if they have to work with a secondary host outside their network.

Host Gadget Continues Quality Web Hosting Services into 2007
Host Gadget, a leader in providing quality shared hosting, reseller hosting and dedicated hosting, has announced its continued commitment to providing excellent service and support throughout 2007.