Having a clear understanding about your hosting requirements:

This is the number one rule that you should observe before purchasing web hosting for your site. Make sure you have a clear understanding of what exactly you need. These requirements differ from person to person and company to company and therefore it is vital to precisely determine your needs and wants. Failure to do so can end up with having the wrong web hosting plan with features, that you need for the proper function of your web site, missing and spending money unnecessarily for something that does not fit into your needs and wants. So you must have a clear understanding about your hosting requirements.

The level of customer support being offered:

This is another important factor that you should take into account when you are choosing a web host. Nowadays customer care plays a major role when it comes to any business; “Customer is the king”. So you should go for a web hosting company which treats its customers extremely well with careful attention to customer’s needs. Goviphosting.com is a web hosting company which considers the customer satisfaction as it’s key priority.

There are several more secondary features a customer should look for in a professional web hosting company as far as the customer support is concerned:

-The level of sales support offered

-The level of technical support offered

-Responding time for a help ticket (ie.the average response time is within 60 minutes)

-A fast, friendly and dedicated customer support team who are well trained to treat customers with due attention and regard.

There are web hosting service provider sites which offer huge to unlimited amounts of web space and bandwidth. Frankly, do not believe in inflated claims such as unlimited web space or unlimited bandwidth. Simply this is something impossible on commercial realities of the current web hosting marketplace. These providers are either overselling their web services endangering the servers and the proper function of your web site or making a false claim. Thus, you need to choose a web hosting service which offers realistic amounts of web space and bandwidth as web hosting is not only about the web space and bandwidth, but also about the quality of the service you are offered and the promptness with which your needs are taken care of.

Make sure your web host provides a feature rich service:

There are plenty of web hosting providers out there who offers lesser features for higher prices while there are web hosts who provides maximum features for lesser price. Although the situation used to be like that, nowadays most of the web hosting companies out there offers everything you ever need to have a high tech web site. And here’s a complete list of all the advance features that generally contains in a budget web hosting plan. So my advice to everyone is always look for the richness of hosting features of the web host your interested in. While at the same time who offers plenty of additional features.

Make sure your web hosting service is backed with “Price freeze or Price locked” Guarantee:

This is very important as what this means is that your web hosting service provider may unethically increase it’s hosting package prices periodically after you purchase web hosting from them. If this happens, you will be very frustrated and wanting to change your host. Changing hosting services means going through unnecessary technical hurdles in order to make a trouble free and smooth transfer. Therefore always make sure to look for a reliable web hosting company which does not trouble you with unwarranted and unethical periodic increases of hosting plan prices.

There are literally hundreds of web hosting companies to choose from. How to choose the right one?

As with trying out any new service, you won’t really know how good a web hosting company is until you try it. Therefore, ask around and see whether you can get any recommendations from those who already use a web hosting company. You might also want to consider how long the company has been in business, how reliable it is known to be, and how expensive it would be if you want to upgrade your plan in future.

Other areas to consider include:

Disk space

How much disk space do you need? Does you website have less than 10 pages? You’ll need only a small amount of space. Is it a huge site that has thousands of pages? You’ll be needing a lot of disk space. Most web hosting plans limit how much space you will have, so make sure the plan you choose meets your needs.

E-mail accounts

How many e-mail accounts do you need? You’ll probably need one for each employee and one for each department (sales, accounts, support). Make sure you purchase a hosting plan that has enough e-mail accounts. Also, do you want full POPS access, Web-based e- mail, or both?

Data transfer

How much data do you need to transfer? Most hosting plans limit how much data transfer you are allotted each month. If you expect a lot of people to visit your site, you’ll need a plan that allows for plenty of data transfer.

E-commerce

Will you be selling goods or services through your site? If not, there’s no need to sign up for an e-commerce web hosting service. If you are, e-commerce web hosting services such as shopping cart software, SSL support and a merchant account will be vital.

Database, script and extension support

Some hosts will try to blind you with all the features they provide: Frontpage, MS Access, MySQL, MS SQL, Peri support, PHP support, ASP support and SSI support. Do you really need all these features? If not, make sure you are not paying for extras you’ll never use.

Operating systems

Do you want a UNIX hosting plan or a Windows hosting plan? Unix is the most commonly used operating system among Web servers. It is known for its flexibility, reliability and stability. Windows hosting plans give you the ability to utilize many forms of dynamic content and specialized databases. Windows hosting plans are often used for sites utilizing Frontpage, ASP, MS Access databases, MS SQL Servers and other Microsoft applications.

Support

Is customer and technical support available 24/7? Can you easily get through on the customer support hotline? Or are you on hold for hours?

Especially if you aren’t computer savvy, one way to minimize costs with a web hosting package is to find a company that offers free setup. While this is a fairly common part of web hosting for most companies at this point, you should be sure what it’s going to cost you to establish the account. If you find a company that offers a great bottom-line price but has you pay an enormous fee up front to establish the service, it will probably take you a long time to recoup that fee in your monthly savings.

By the same token, finding a company that promises no fee to set up the service but then charges a significantly more expensive monthly fee to maintain the service isn’t really going to save you any money either. If you want to minimize costs with a web hosting package, look for a happy medium between the two – a service provider that establishes the service for free and offers a reasonable monthly rate for maintaining the service.

While set up fees and monthly maintenance fees are pretty straightforward, you should also look for other fees that might be charged by a particular provider. Depending on your needs, you might find yourself paying extra for a service you expected to be provided in the monthly fee. There’s no substitute for carefully considering your options as you search for a company to help minimize costs with a web hosting package. If you need services in addition to web hosting, look for a company that can combine all your Internet service needs – that could save you some additional money.

You should look for a company that offers a web hosting package specifically to meet your needs. You might be paying a significantly higher monthly fee for a plan that simply exceeds the needs of your company. If you don’t need a larger space, don’t buy a larger space. But with an eye to the future, know the company’s stand on upgrading an account later if you should need additional space.

Finally, know the company. While it’s a good thing to search for the most competitive bottom-line price, the best set up deal and a plan that fits your needs, it won’t do you any good if you are constantly out of commission because of down time. Each time you find yourself without the web hosting service, you’re running the risk of losing orders, clients and your own reputation – all potentially devastating to a business. Even if you truly want to minimize costs with a web hosting package, saving a few dollars is probably not worth the reputation of your own business.

Domain Name? “yourfreewebhost.com/blah/blahblah/yoursite/”
Does the URL above sound like something you would remember? Free web hosts require you to use a sub domain or give you a folder, somewhere on their server. Sub domains and folders are not meant for landing pages and are often much harder to remember. Paid web hosts allow you to use your own domain names and often times include it with their service offerings.

Banner Ads, Pop-up Ads, and Ads in your Dreams! Many free hosts rely solely on ads to make money. Your site may have many unwanted ads on each of your pages. These ads can reduce how well your page is perceived and often prevent visitors from returning to your website! More Downtime than Uptime? Many free hosts have a lot of downtime. Their subscribers are not paying for service so many hosts do not feel obligated when it comes to dependability. Keep in mind, these hosts are running on a tight budget so they have to cut costs and many times this is with their support staff. If there are dissatisfied users, the web host is rarely bothered by that fact. Remember the old saying, beggars can’t be choosers? The World of Limitations, Where to Begin? Disk space, data transfer, speed, file types, ect… Basically, in order to stay profitable, the free web host is hoping you use extremely minimal system resources and still get a reasonable amount of traffic to support their ad revenue. Most everything is extremely limited. What happens if you exceed what they expect? You will be halted or your site will be taken offline without notice if they choose.

Customer Support? Anyone There? If you experience problems with you web hosting you will most likely have to rely on the FAQs and Questions/Answers page. Most free web hosting sites do not have the money to hire customer support teams to answer live questions or emails. Once again, if they do offer this service, they normally could care less about resolving your issue or your satisfaction.

Zero Advertising Revenue. There is only room for a one advertiser with a free provider and it’s not you! If you are looking to sell advertisement on your webpage, free web hosting is the way to go. Many free hosts do not allow you to sell advertising on your webpage.

Web Hosting Reality. Paid web hosting has become so incredibly low priced that it is amazing free web hosting companies still exist. Face it, free items are normally too good to be true. Save yourself from the frustrations and limitations that included with free hosting and try a paid host. Most include trials and even free domain name registration…

To help you decide whether Linux or Windows hosting is better for you, we look at the following elements:

Cost

Linux is known as an “open source” operating system. i.e. there is no licensing fees to pay. Therefore, compared to Windows, Linux is very cheap. Starting with Windows XP, Microsoft has begun enforcing software activation. This means that a single copy of Windows can only be installed on one computer. With Linux, once you own a copy, you are free to install it as many times as you wish on any number of computers.

Reliability

Linux is reputed to be very stable and reliable. This means that a Linux server is much less likely to crash than a Windows server. Subsequently, a Linux server will mean more ‘up time’ for your website.

Experience

Linux has many more years of experience than Windows in hosting.

Speed

There is no real difference in speed between Linux and Windows, but Linux is slightly faster in processing basic web pages.

Functionality

Windows support ASP (Active Server Pages), a Microsoft programming/scripting language, which allows you to build dynamically database-driven web pages by connecting to a Microsoft database such as SQL Server or Access. Linux does not support ASP nor Microsoft databases, but uses MySQL database instead.

If you use Microsoft Frontpage to create your website, it doesn’t mean that you have to choose Windows hosting. All Linux accounts come free with Frontpage extensions, which allow you to upload your Frontpage website to your web space on a Linux server.

Scripts

There are many CGI programs available on the Internet. The majority of these are Perl scripts and have been developed on Linux / Unix web servers. So they tend to install more smoothly and operate more reliably on a Linux server. Moreover, many Perl scripts are downloadable from the Internet free of charge.

To summarise, most users find that Linux hosting is easier to use, more reliable, provides free, open source software and is much cheaper than Windows hosting. So unless you particularly need to use Windows specific features such as ASP and an Access database, it is probably a better choice to choose Linux over Windows.

Google Diagnostics

Google has a bot that crawls a website to find out if malicious content is hosted on the site. When your site is hacked and flagged by the Google diagnostic system, users receive a red warning in their browsers telling them not to open the website. This warning stems from the diagnostic report found on Google’s domain when the bot finds malicious content on your website. To find out if your site has been flagged, navigate to “google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=yoursite.com” where “yoursite.com” is your website domain. This diagnostic report tells you if Google has found malware on your website, the type of malware, and if the site is listed as “suspicious.”

Spoof the Google User-Agent and View Your Website Code

The “user-agent” is the property sent to a website server when you access a domain. The user-agent is typically the browser you use to open a website. For bots, the user-agent is set to a value that identifies the bot. Website tools such as web-sniffer.net or Rex Swain’s HTTP Viewer allow you to see a website when a specified user-agent is sent.
Using one of these tools, open your website to view the website code. Look for any links that point to online pharmacies or sites that you did not ever include in your website content. Typically, hacked websites have links back to online pharmacies, porn sites or other hacked sites.

Google Your Site Using the “Site” Operator

Since websites are typically hacked with links to online pharmacies, you can use the Google search engine to search for content that would not normally be on your site. For instance, type “viagra site:yoursite.com” in the search text box. If pages are found in the search engine, you are probably hacked. If you don’t see the keywords when opening the page in your browser, use the user-agent spoofing tools to view the site’s code.

Preventing Your Site from Being Hacked

Even if you haven’t found malware on your site, you should always take precautions to avoid being hacked in the future. First, make sure your passwords are secure and you have the latest virus definition files on your computer. For WordPress site owners, stay up-to-date with the latest WordPress version.

Meta Tags and Google

Meta tags were one of the first implemented techniques used by search engines. The two prime meta tags you’ll find on web pages are “keywords” and “description.” The keywords tag is used by some uncommon search engines, so it’s still slightly useful. Some webmasters stuff the keywords meta tag with dozens of phrases to improve index rank in Google. However, Google does not include the keyword meta tag in its algorithm, so stuffing code into this part of your web pages does not improve rank.
The description meta tag is still used by Google, but webmasters should only insert one or two sentences in the code. The description should be carefully considered, since this is the snippet seen on the search engine results page. The description should display an overview of the web page. Additionally, Google does not always honor description meta tags if the algorithm does not detect valid text. If this happens, Google’s algorithm will replace description meta tags with other text within the page.

Create Multiple Domain Names for Better Rank

An old technique used by webmasters is creating multiple domains to promote one business entity. Webmasters bought several domains and interlinked them together to pass PageRank and improve organic search results. However, Google now penalizes this practice. The common term given to people who host dozens and even hundreds of domains is “domain farm.” A domain farm webmaster attempts to saturate the search engines with dozens of domain names, so his websites dominate the search engine results. These websites normally have similar or identical content, but the business is indexed several times in the search engines. Google has added domain farming into the company’s guidelines as a black hat method. Consequently, a webmaster who runs a domain farm can have all of his work devalued by Google and ultimately cost thousands of dollars in lost revenue. For some webmasters, Google may remove the domain farm altogether from the index.

Doorway Pages Bring in More Sales

Doorways are one-page websites that point to the main domain of the business. Similar to a domain farm, these sites were popular as a means to get several websites into the search engine results page. Doorway sites are distinct from domain farms in that they have one page of links and very rarely have any content. A doorway website may rank high in Google for a short period of time, but very rarely does the page keep its rank.

Keyword Stuffed Content

Keywords and keyword phrases are the main component of website content. Google has perpetuated the increase in the need for content on websites. Google has hundreds of factors it uses to rank a web page, but one known way to boost search engine rank is by writing content that uses keyword phrases. Keyword phrases that focus on a website’s purpose increase search engine rank for that phrase. For instance, if a website design company wanted to rank for the phrase “website design,” the webmaster needs to focus on this phrase within the page content. However, keyword stuffing is a blackhat technique that can lead to a penalty.
Many people write articles with the intention of including keyword phrases at a certain percentage throughout the article. There is no documentation from Google that recommends a certain percentage of keywords. In fact, Google has stated that writing naturally on pages improves search engine rank performance and helps webmasters avoid a penalty.

Duplicate Content and Articles

One of the most popular myths on the Internet is that duplicate content increases search engine rank. The myth has made webmasters believe that articles should be posted on several websites with links that point back to the business domain. In fact, duplicate content should be avoided. Duplicate content devalues a site, and it causes erratic behavior from Google. Duplicate articles should not be hosted on several e-zine sites. Instead, create content rich articles and host them on your own website. Monitor your content for theft to avoid getting stuck in Google’s content duplication filter.
These five SEO myths are the most popular reasons webmasters incorporate poor optimization on a website and find their domains buried in the list of results. Ensure you read the Google webmaster guidelines before incorporating any SEO on your website. Additionally, be careful of scams that promise to bring your web page to the top of the search engine ranks. Many SEO experts use black hat techniques that do more harm than good for a website. Follow the Google guidelines, and a slow, gradual increase in rank will be accomplished.

Pages Inaccessible Without a User-Submitted Form

Any section of your website which requires extra user interaction to access will not be indexed by the search engines. If you want the content of your site to be indexed, then it needs to be public. Search engine crawlers cannot submit forms or do anything else other than scan content which is visible to anyone. Any content or links that you want the search engines to see should be outside of any restricted section of the site. Likewise, search engine crawlers cannot see any content which is only accessible by performing a search.

Content in Java, Flash and Other Plug-Ins

Content programed in Java, Flash or any other plug-in cannot be scanned and indexed by search engine crawlers. Any content including links and keywords embedded into these mediums will be completely invisible to the search engine crawlers. This is precisely why it is a bad idea to have a site fully programmed in Java or Flash unless you don’t care about search engine optimization or you have a text-based version of the website which the search engine crawlers can read.

Content Blocked by robots.txt

Robots.txt is a robots exclusion protocol (REP). It is a text file stored in the root directory of your web server. This text file allows web masters to specify which pages of their websites should not be indexed by the search engines. If you find that your site does not appear in any search results, you should try checking through the robots.txt file to see if anything is excluded. There are also other methods of blocking content from the search engine crawlers such as Meta Robots. This provides more features and customizability.

Too Many Links on a Page

Depending on the search engine, crawlers only scan a limited number of links. This is typically no more than 100 links per page. The idea is to help cut down on spam and keep accurate rankings. If you have a page containing too many links, split it into different pages, ideally categorizing your list of links in the process to make for a more user-friendly experience for your visitors.

Over the next year, we will very likely see an abundance of new trends in web design. A lot of this is also due to the fact that there are more ways of connecting to the Internet than there ever has been. Gone are the days where Internet browsing was restricted to computers. Today, many people get online with tablet computers, ultra-portable netbook computers and iPhones as well as other mobile browsing devices. To reach the largest audience possible, web designers are going to need to expand their outlook and start getting involved in new areas. Following are some of the most significant trends that we can expect to see over the next year.

Touch-Screen Browsing

Touch-screen browsing is nothing new, but it’s about to get a whole lot more widespread. Touch-screen browsing is no longer going to be restricted to mobile devices such as tablet computers and smartphones.

Touch-screen monitors for desktop computers and laptops are already starting to make an appearance. In 2012, Windows 8 will also be upon us. Windows 8 introduces a whole new interface style inspired by the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 operating system as well as other mobile operating systems. Although most desktop users will continue to use a keyboard and mouse for some time, touch-screen input is inevitably going to take over. Internet Explorer 10, which will be shipped with Windows 8, will use the new “Metro” interface for full-screen browsing optimized for touch-screen input as well as keyboard and mouse input.

Many websites are already being optimized for touch-screen usage and web developers will want to get involved if they don’t want to get left behind.

Typography

It wasn’t so long ago that web designers were, for the most part, restricted to using only a few different fonts and standard, repetitive designs were the norm. For many years, this has made the majority of websites look rather similar in their appearance in many respects. The typography trend is one which has been growing over the past couple of years and there’s little chance of this changing in 2012 with the increasing popularity of dynamic fonts and font replacement technologies.

High-Definition Media

More and more people are connecting to the Internet with ultra-fast broadband connections. This has given rise to a demand for higher-quality content such as high-definition video and large, quality images and other graphics. With compression, rendering and optimization better than ever before, there’s no excuse for using low-quality, blurry images in a website.

High-definition media is already becoming standard and, to leave a good impression on their visitors, web designers need to keep up with the times. With this being said, it’s also still important to consider the large number of web users who still access the Internet through slower connections. Any site which is particularly graphically-intensive should also have a low-bandwidth version to accommodate as many surfers as possible.