Web Hosting Blogger

With the current economic recession plaguing many businesses, nothing is sacred as far as cost cutting measures are concerned.  IT departments is one area and managers would like to get the most out of any investment they put it.  Web hosting doesn’t escape the cost cutting scissors as they look for ways to get down to the basics of web hosting with the least expense. 
Free domain names are often part of the web hosting services and this is one area site owners can look at. 

But this is just a one-time savings.  After getting your domain name, the next item to consider is bargaining for the most bandwidth at the least possible monthly.  Securing a service level agreement with penalty provisions on downtimes is another are to consider.  Have you started negotiating with your web hosts lately for better terms?  Or else?

There’s a lot of room for interpretation in the copyright laws with one side arguing that web host providers should not be held liable if one of its clients do some hanky panky on the net that law enforcers frown at. Apart from putting child porn on their sites, it includes having copyrighted materials ready for downloading.

Some states require that web hosts close down the offending sites after reasonable warning and a desist order from posting illegal materials.  I’m not sure how a court order will affect the operation of a web hosting services, but feel free to give us your ideas and opinions on what the web hosting management should do for against offending web sites it hosts.

There are literally thousands of web hosting companies out there wanting a slice of the hosting business.  In the process, many are making ridiculous claims to entice the unwary novice web site owner to get him onboard. 

One that stands out are claims they’ve been in business since 1990 or earlier.  Folks, I can assure you there are no web hosting businesses back then.  Another is the boastful claim that they have hundreds of servers over thousands of square feet of data center space.   That could be true for some, but for most, they are mostly like resellers who are selling a fraction of the server space in other firm’s data centers.  Feel free to chime in what you think are funny claims from web hosting bureaus.

That’s the question most people starting out their first Blog efforts have to settle.  For most novice bloggers, the answer can be a resounding NO. If it’s just a personal blog and you have no grand designs of linking it to a commercial website where people can easily associate your website domain name with that of your blob, there really is not much of an advantage getting your own domain. 

But having said that, the ideal is always to have your own domain name.  That shouldn’t be difficult or expensive. Having your own domain gives your more flexibility and freedom and not be bothered with adds that most free blog sites out on your blog site.  It all boils down to how much you are wiling to spend on a blog site.

For amateurs and novice web site owners just starting out a presence in cyberspace, getting a free web host is often a good start just to get you exposed on what to look for and what to avoid when getting hosted. 

Things like online ads competing with your audience attention on your own site content, slow download times when you reach a certain number of visitors, or unacceptable downtimes that make your site unreachable – all these are easy to read about but are better experienced. 
On the other hand, be wary about sites that have no ads, they won’t last long in the business.  Oh, and those are basically the things to look for you should minimize when looking for a free hosting site.  While they do have to earn their keeps from ads, too much of that can be very annoying to your visitors. Look for web hosting sites that keeps its ads at bay.

You could get a free web hosting site and there are many offering such service.  Just be prepared for all those ads to litter your web pages from time to time and a constricted bandwidth.   Or you play it neat and safe by getting hosted in name sites that have a reputation to protect. They have the bandwidth, the redundancies and the technical support you need. 

But most of them have such a good reputation, you just have to pay a premium in getting yourself hosted.  The others are just struggling to get by with the few they host and while many are excellent web hosting sites, there are a few really bad eggs not worth considering at all. 
If you want bargains, just be careful.  One sure way to evaluate your prospective web hosting is to check out the sites they host.  Are they fast to load?  Any ads?  Contact their site administrators and find out if they are happy and content with their web host.

Yup, web owners are realizing the marketing and advertising potential of getting your presence in such social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  But they should have known that right from the start.  Marketing is really a social activity. It’s al about broadcasting your products and services to as many people who you want to sell to. 

On the internet, companies have known it to be a most lucrative distribution channel for their brands.  And the rise of social networking sites couldn’t have been more fortuitous than today.  Brand sites often have a link to a Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook site with their marketing executives getting their presence felt on the online social community to better make their brands felt.  Are you doing that for your own products and services online?

It wasn’t at all surprising to see web hosting ads claiming to be a “Green” environment friendly web hosting company. With the save-our-planet movement getting all the hype after a lot of climactic disasters have been hitting the planet lately, the call to be eco-friendly has reached the ears of staid IT managers in their glass houses.

Okay, what does it mean for a web hosting bureau to be green? Well, if I follow the example of companies like Anso.net, you just have to harness the power of the sun and reduce electricity consumption.  A couple of years back, it was reported that Anso had their data center solar powered thereby reducing electric consumption.  Hmm, is being green a good idea for web hosting companies?  Maybe not in the northern hemisphere where the sun gets hidden for half the year.

There are two sexes, two political parties, and there are two operating platforms that web hosting providers are divided on – Linux and Windows.  One is a freebie on an open source kernel and the other is license-encumbered. It isn’t worth getting into a debate on which one is better. Windows had corrected stability issues though it still short of the popularity and robustness of the Linux environment. 

But both do a good job of hosting any number of websites on any server set-up.  It’s often a matter of choice made by the people who set up the web hosting business.  If you’re a Linux buy in charge of setting it up, then you go Linux.  And the opposite is true.  So which one is your cup of tea?

And so much depends on the web hosting bureau providing the bandwidth to get this done.  I’ve notice my colleagues downloading the latest songs and movies right from internet sites.  Be it paid or free, torrent sites or file sharing storage sites like rapidshare and megaupload, sets the trend and seems pretty much clear.

Consumers are now getting wise.  What will they do with all those movie and music discs sitting on their shelves gathering dust?  Storing them as video and mp3 files on a terabyte sized hard drive is now easy and economical.  What’s more, it’s more convenient.  Just a click away and you get to listen to your favorite music or watch movies from your PC with a 32 inch LCD display.  So web hosts, be sure to get your bandwidth ready.