Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Apollo Hosting Review

By Russell Hancock

I'm not much of coding guru, and I don't really want to learn! That said, I've managed enough sites now that I know my way around basic websites and feel confident enough to run my own web marketing site. So, what I look for in a host is a company that will offer me great support but without having to pay over the odds for site by site support which I don't require.

In the past I've suffered from quite unprofessional hosting companies offering intermittent service and sub-par hosting solutions. Most notably this resulted in one of my sites being down for around 4 days with no notice and no response to my queries, resulting in a loss or revenue from the site and also wasted targeted advertising.

Thus, as with most webmasters, I've been with quite a few hosting companies over the years but the one I've stuck with most recently is Apollo Hosting. They offer pretty much exactly what I'm looking for. First, in terms of support, Apollo Hosting offer both 24/7 toll-free support alongside 24/7 chat and messaging. Every time I've had to use this service, which has fortunately been fairly infrequent, the staff have been very helpful and quick to respond to my problems, with issues being resolved very quickly.

Second, turning to features, Apollo Hosting offers a fantastic range starting with even the most basic package which is what I started out with a year ago. This includes unlimited MySQL databases, e-commerce ready hosting, pre installed blog software, steaming and podcast capabilities as well as 20 websites. Also for those just starting out, there is a site creator to get you a unique design quickly and easily.

Since then I've moved up through the other shared hosting plans and found each feature rich and well thought out. For those needing a little more, Apollo Hosting also offers VPS server solutions and dedicated servers both of which are very reasonably priced and come with the same fantastic support. Moreover, there is the offer of Red Hat or Windows Server 2003 at no extra cost which is certainly a bonus compared with the extra fees charged by some providers.

In conclusion, Apollo Hosting offer a great level of service with a fantastic product that doesn't disappoint. If I had to find a flaw it would be that especially with the lower cost plans the bandwidth and amount of storage space you receive is fairly low and this means that those plans might not be suitable for more needy users. That said, the cost is generally low and so it is possible to scale up in terms of plans for a fairly low cost and get a solution that is right for you.


Find out everything you need to know about how to choose a web host and see the reviews of this weeks top picks at Five Star Web Host Reviews and at Top Ten Reviews for Webhosting

Webhosting Definitions - Explaining Bandwidth, Disk Space Among Others

By Kyle Odermann

When you begin to host your website, you will need to get to know a whole new set of definitions relating to the industry. Some of them you will use a lot, some a lot less, and most of them you will forget. In case you do, here are a list of most of the most popular web hosting definitions, so you can at least sound as if you know what you are talking about. They are neither in alphabetical order nor in order of importance

Control Panel

Every web domain should come with its own control panel. This panel allows you to view statistics that your web site generates, alter passwords, and check your e-mails. The c-panel should b very user friendly and allows you to make some internal adjustments to your web site. Before you make even the simplest of adjustments, you should take your time to get the feel of the c-panel.

Disk Space

Disk spa applies to the amount of storage that you have been allocated by your hosting company to store files. Web pages among others. It is worth your while to check your disk space allocation now and again through the c-panel to see if you are either arriving at the maximum levels, or are consistently using a lot less than your allocation. If this is the case, you should contact your hosting company and request that they reduce your allocation and save some money. ).

Bandwidth

Also known as your web traffic, Bandwidth is used every time someone accesses your web site, and views materials on the page. Bandwidth for a web site implies the total monthly traffic, either inbound or outbound and covers web site access, e-mails and file transfer. Bandwidth is usually measured in gigabytes

Server Uptimes

Confirmed through server monitoring systems, server uptimes means the time when the server that you host your web site on is available. To find a hosting company with maximum uptime is a tough task, with most people prepared to settle for 97% data accessible essentially this percentage of time.

Email Addresses

Some web sites have more than one e-mail address, and the server should be provided with all the correct information so that each e-mail arrives at its proper destination. This known as Email Forwarding

Spam Protection

Sadly this is very necessary in this day and age. Any worthwhile hosting company will have powerful software installed on their servers to detect and filter out spam Unfortunately, like sperm, one or two of them always slip through.

Server Backup

Most hosting companies back up their files, so that if they should have some kind of calamitous failure, and all information on their server is lost, they should have at least one other backup server to protect your information, especially these days where more and more people are backing up their data online.

These are just a few of the many web site definitions, but probably the most important. Worth learning more about them!


HostingReviewGuide.com - Learn the ropes of Web Hosting and find Hosting Articles and unbiased user reviews of hosting solutions. Also with the most up to date Hosting coupons list on the internet.

Co-Location Web Hosting

By James Betchley

Co-location web hosting is similar to unmanaged dedicated server hosting, with the crucial difference being that the server is owned by the client and not the hosting provider.

Therefore over time co-location hosting can be a much cheaper alternative to dedicated server hosting as you do not have to pay for the rental of the server, just the space it takes up, it's power consumption and bandwidth. Most web hosts which offer a co-location service charge fees based on the rack space taken up, and charge per GB of data-transfer which is generally booked in the same way as a normal web hosting service plan.

You should ensure that your server is rack mountable since these are the only type that are accepted by most web hosting providers and data centres, and that you have the necessary knowledge to manage your own server before co-locating it as co-located server hosting normally comes with very little support. One other issue you will have to sort out with your hosting provider is that of access to your server, they can't deny you access but they may have restrictions on time, which could cause angst if you have a problem out of hours.

In conclusion, co-location web hosting is a form of dedicated server hosting, where you own your own server, in addition to all the benefits of dedicated server hosting, you have more freedom to modify the server, because you own it, the level of technical expertise required is much higher than for instance managed server hosting, but once the server has been purchased the associated costs are much lower.


For more great information on web hosting or for reviews, visit, Which Domain Host

Who Else Wants Quality Hosting?

By Daren Albom

Whether you are doing business or sharing views online, website will be your medium in reaching your users. Users will judge you and the business based on the websites. Also as a webmaster you will do branding and marketing on your site, people will also comment on your site. Everything you and other people do will point back to your site, thus it is important to have your site built reputability and professionally. And this is why your website hosting is important for you. Picking up a quality web hosting means you have a strong foundation for your website. This will impact on the reliability of your website and further boost the confidence of your users.

However, in the recent days there have never been that much of web hosting providers before in the markets. Different web hosting plans are offered and everyone claims they are the best. It is difficult to judge until you bought their service which you could not take the risk. When come to the end, you will need to judge it by yourself with this few points.

Web Host Reliability

Reliability of web host, the ultimate point to rate a web hosting, is utmost importance for any websites. I cannot stress more on the importance of reliability of web hosting when come to picking a good web hosting. For usual web hosting provider should at least achieve 99.9% uptime to be considered as reasonable as your website is designed for 24/7 access worldwide.

Web Space Sizing

Web space is just like the storage space in your hard drive in your computers. It acts as the same functions where the bigger your hard drive, the more things you can store in it. Therefore the amount of web space available from your web hosting determine how big you website can go. In another words, how big can your business expand. Does it important enough for your concern?

Quality of Support

Judging a hosting company based on their available support is essential for people like you. As web hosting is something virtual for you who are may be at the other end of the world away from the hosting and you need someone to tell you that everything will be fine in less than 10 minutes when problems occur at your end. Hosting providers with reputable supports is definitely what you need.

Soft and Hardware Compatibility

Fourthly, the compatibility of software with your web hosting. For example, if you are using Dreamweaver to build your website then you need to make sure the web hosting has Dreamweaver compatible. Same applies to other software like Frontpage and etc. On top of this, the more scripts and features provided from web hosting company the highest point it should achieve. These scripts will generally help you in transforming your ideas into reality.

Easy-to-use Control Panel

I believe with the current trend in the market, most of the web hosting providers have developed their own set of user friendliness control panel to serve their subscribers well. But do not take it for granted as you do not want to get along with messy settings yourself. Ask them for the user friendliness of web hosting and go ahead only if you are truly satisfied. Web hosting technology involves a lot of technical knowledge and if you are not a technical person, makes sure you get a lame man interface like what I am getting from control panel.

Pricing

Budget service is always good as you pay lesser for the same service other people get. But be sure that you get quality service. There are web hosting promotions coupons outside and those coupons do give you discounts when you make a purchase on certain brand of web host. Try Google web hosting coupons and promotions coupons will be easily available. Spend smart and maximize the quality of your web hosting service.

For web developing beginners, building a website is not supposed to be difficult and hassle. But starting something new always need extra effort therefore it is advisable to choose carefully on your web hosting. You do not want to deal with mess when the development is half way through do you?


Daren is a writer and webmaster. His review Lunarpages website provides a better insight on the web hosting leader. For a good quality of web hosting, Daren recommends Lunarpages web hosting. Have a look at Daren's Lunarpages review here.

What Everybody Should Know About Web Hosting

By Daren Albom

Buying a web hosting solutions is an imperative decision in owning a piece of the internet. When you have a web hosting, you can do all sort of things online. It does not matter you want to store data, send email with your own domain name, do transactions and etc. Once you have decided what your purpose is, it is time for you to determine which hosting to go with. Web hosting is like mushroom after downpour and you have to see carefully in order to pick one without poisons. Few points that you should bear in mind are:-

First of all, reliability is the main concern of your web hosting. Reliability means how often your web hosting will be ready to serve whoever reaches your website. 99.9% of uptime is what most of the web hosting providers claim but have they achieved yet? This is something you need to find out with some internet tools available. Reliability also means how and what the providers do to keep their promises. Dual ring power supply is one of the common methods to avoid power failure of server.

Secondly, the web storage is a concern to your web hosting choosing as well. The size of the hosting limits your website and possible applications. If you got a smaller storage hosting, you will definitely lose out in embedding different ideas due to space constrains. Look for a bigger storage for your web host. Unlimited storage is now quite common among the provider.

Thirdly, the support from your web hosting provider is essential. Supports here include technical supports, customer supports and etc. How strong the support is does reflect how reliable the service is because when something happen in your website or the hosting, a stronger support always responds and get things fixed faster. Some hosting providers provides telephone supports, forum supports, live chat supports, 24/7 supports and etc. That sounds good doesn't it? But beware. Some providers only claim to have those supports but only get to realize those are all beautiful lies when you website is down. What you can do is research around to get some feedback from friends.

Fourthly, the compatibility of software with your web hosting. For example, if you are using Dreamweaver to build your website then you need to make sure the web hosting has Dreamweaver compatible. Same applies to other software like Frontpage and etc. On top of this, the more scripts and features provided from the company has the highest point it should achieve. These scripts will generally help you in transforming your ideas into reality.

Fifthly, the user friendliness of the web hosting. cPanel a very famous control panel is most webmaster's lover including me. It provides user friendly navigation within the hosting functions. Installations of plug-ins and programs on web hosting are also easy with their 1 click installation features. Look for cPanel in web hosting if you do not want to deal with raw programming codes or DOS or anything else.

Last but not least the pricing, with the competitiveness of web hosting market nowadays, it won't be difficult to get a low price hosting. But do not settle for the cheapest also, if you are serious about your website, pricing should be your last concern and services and reliability should come first. It will not worth it if you save a few bucks on it but getting a lousy web hosting causing you to lose thousands of business in return of the constantly downtime.

A famous web hosting company will usually be a good one. It is because people will talk about them and recommend the service to others. But you do not need a neither famous nor good hosting. What you need is a suitable hosting to host your business and websites. So I still think everything should go back to the basic. Analyze one hosting by one hosting before making any purchase.


Daren is a writer and webmaster. His review Lunarpages website provides a better insight on Lunarpages web hosting. For a good quality web hosting, Daren recommends Lunarpages. Have a look at Daren's hosting review here.

Too Good to Be True Web-Hosting Deals

By Bob Willis

If a web hosting deal sounds too good to be true, chances are that they might just be too good. Just because a few web-hosting companies have made false promises and claims, does not mean that the rest of the hosting companies cannot offer superior features and services. The customer is required to however exercise caution and sift out the shifty characters in the web-hosting industry.

It is important to perform a research on the web host in terms of their history, reliability, and their value for money services, features and tools offered as well as their support system. It is also important to note here that companies who are offering "unlimited" features and tools are probably scammers and only interested in making a few bucks off of you. It may so happen that the company's own web page may not be working. So imagine how would they be concerned about your website? Stay clear of websites that have zero professionalism and reliability.

Companies that are offering cheap and affordable hosting may not necessarily be a scam host. You need to ascertain here however that the potential web host has been in the industry for a while and boasts of a loyal customer base. This can found out through discussion forums and unbiased reviews and testimonials.

A web host that accepts PayPal as their payment transaction mode is usually a reliable hosting company. It is even better that the web host features other online payment options.

If a web host is offering a lifetime or annual membership at a low price, then it is probably a good catch. This way the company would rely on its bulk orders and with enough money coming in, they would be able their backside.

For companies that offer packages like "never pay for hosting again" is yet again a promotional gimmick. These are usually categorized under the "fly-by-night" hosting companies and a bad business model. These companies are there to entice their customers into lucrative pricing structures and unlimited features. Such companies are seemingly too good to true but are actually scammers in the making.

So beware of companies that are offering schemes that reflect a poor business model. Every hosting company would require a consistent source of income in order to maintain and sustain their hosting business. It therefore follows that they need a pricing structure that is reasonable enough to sustain their business and also make a reasonable profit.

A company that has been in the industry for a while and is offering affordable or cheap monthly fee should be a safe bet to consider. Stay clear of companies that advertise themselves for offering "unlimited bandwidth" or "unlimited disk space". Such companies usually do not mentioned the otherwise hidden coasts involved with their hosting packages.

Exercise judicious choice and do your homework well. Remember, hosts that offer prices and features that sound too good to be true may just be your ticket to quality hosting at affordable pricing.


HostingCoupons.org lists web hosting coupons, deals, discounts, savings and exclusive promotions from the top web hosts. You will find the best of web hosting companies listed there including the most recommended web hosts and domain registrars - godaddy, bluehost and hostgator. It covers blog discussions and topics like web hosting discussions and hosting reviews

Dedicated Hosting Purchasing Guide

By Bob Willis

As the hosting term suggests, with dedicated hosting, an entire server and its resources are dedicated to hosting your website. So in other words, it implies that you own an entire server minus the set-up investments associated with it. The dedicated type of web hosting can further be divided into managed and unmanaged dedicated type of web hosting.

The unmanaged hosting plans typically include hardware, operating system, web server and Internet connection. The managed hosting plans on the other hand include all the basic features of a hosting plan and all the other services associated with managing a server.

The company is therefore required to ascertain and analyze all their physical and financial resources at hand required to manage their servers. Most companies prefer the managed hosting plans as these prove to be more cost-effective. For organizations that have a good support department could go in for the unmanaged dedicated hosting option.

A dedicated hosting plan works best for website that need all the server resources at their disposal. This option also facilitates faster and better website performance and the web owner also wields the control to optimize the server as well as the database for the website. With server customization, you can also install and run programs that your website requires and this obviates the need to reprogram the website to fit the server requirements.

The growing websites would definitely benefit from complete access to storage that comes with dedicated hosting. Managed plan customers also have the flexibility to build the website the way they desire without having hardware, operating system, certain software, middleware, security, Internet connection, backup, power backup, staff, casualties & loss prevention even insurance responsibilities.

It is advisable to opt for the Intel processor for large websites when shopping for the dedicated hosting plans. This is primarily because it emits less heat. Celeron is an optimum choice for small websites and for the medium-sized websites, Pentium 4 has proven to appropriate. Dual Xeons are highly recommended for high traffic web sites to give you the processing power; more so if your web site uses a lot of server side scripting. On the average, processor speeds of 2 to 2.4 GHz are good choices.

Also ensure that the server features a memory of 512MB. For websites that heavily utilize server side programming languages (PHP, CGI, ASP), a memory of 1024MB is appropriate. The high-traffic websites can have 2048MB of memory.

With a dedicated hosting plan, it is not easy to migrate between different hosts. It is therefore advisable to opt for a host that delivers quality and reliable services. With a dedicated hosting plan, the support response system is required to be of better quality and reliability than with the shared hosting plans. So in this area you should be clear what to expect from the company's support system. Check for the company's network reliability and find out about their contingency plans in the event of a technical or network failure. Also find out about the money back guarantee and its terms and conditions.


HostingCoupons.org lists web hosting coupons, deals, discounts, savings and exclusive promotions from the top web hosts. You will find the best of web hosting companies listed there including the most recommended web hosts and domain registrars - godaddy, bluehost and hostgator. It covers blog discussions and topics like web hosting discussions and hosting reviews

 

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