What is Server Load?

By Bob Willis

Server Load is expressed in a number format (usually the x.xx format) and this number refers to the number of processes that are waiting in queue to access the processor or processors. This is calculated for a certain time period. It is important to note here that a higher number would mean a decrease in the level of server performance and therefore a smaller number is always preferable.

The web hosting account comes equipped with a control panel. The user can find out about the server load value from their control panel under the "Server Status" tab. Here the user can access the server load value in real time. It is very important for the user to keep himself updated about their server load value. The user must know how to interpret this server load value. While the server load issue could be debatable, always take into account that a server load value of 0.xx is considered a safe value. In fact, a server load that is under 1.00 value should not cause any problems with the speed of your website. The uncertainties could however arise if the value goes above 1.00. By default, most web hosting companies apply the following rule: if the server has a single CPU (central processing unit), a server load higher than 1.00 is not good; if the server has two CPUs, a server load over 2.00 is not good and so on.

These are average server loads and given the advanced expertise and technology adopted in the hosting industry, even a single processor server is powerful enough to handle a server load of 2.00.

When a low-level priority process appears, it is usually put in queue while the newer server request (like a page request) is handled almost instantly.

Also, here we are viewing server load as just an isolated aspect of web hosting. Other related aspects including memory usage, CPU usage, size of swap file etc also influence this server load. So, in case the server is running on insufficient internal memory, then it will use a swap file. This will put the hard-drive in over-drive and in turn increase CPU usage. This will lead to a higher server load and a slower server response.

The solution here therefore lies in increasing the internal memory or RAM. This would result in a lower swap file, lower CPU usage, lower server load and faster response speed.

So the user must constantly keep track of the average server load of his hosting account. If the server load is 4.00 most of the time, then you have reason to suspect that the web host may be overselling or overloading. In that case, the user must ask his host to resolve these issues or perhaps move their website to a server with a low server load.

It is just important to play safe or else chances are that your hosting experience would not be as enriching as expected. So, make a well informed decision and happy hosting!

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The Business of Web Hosting

By Bob Willis

With a widespread emergence of web hosting company, it can be said that in today's market, the emergence of web hosting companies is directly proportional to the expansion of the Internet. In fact, the market today is quite conducive to the fresh emergence of web hosts since there is an ever-growing Internet awareness and subsequent emergence of websites. This makes the web hosting services indispensable to the Webmaster. That said, web hosting has proven to be quite lucrative and if implemented wisely, can generate supreme source of monthly or annual revenue.

Many biggies in the industry have joined the hosting race including Yahoo!, BigDaddy and other big corporations.

By keeping in mind and adopting some time-tested and proven strategies, a web hosting company can reign supreme in this fiercely competitive industry.

Superior Services:

A web hosting company should be able to offer all the advanced features, tools and functions that are required for hosting even the most complex websites. The customer should preferably be given affordable pricing structures to choose from in a two-tiered pricing schedule. The automation facility not only facilitates ease of use, control and monitoring, enhance the client's self-sufficiency, but can also minimize expenses and time consumption for both the user and company. High quality services and features offered by a superior web hosting company should be able to automate the following processes:

Order Forms

An order form should be able to fulfill 4 key essential aspects including legalization of the data entered, facilitate credit card processing, create an invoice and the successful registration of customer's information into the billing database for future use.

Administration System

The administration system forms an important component for the successful management of ordered accounts. The user might require manually adding or eliminating several new domains, change passwords, etc.

End-User Control Panel:

A control panel is indispensable to control and manage various aspects of a web hosting account. With a control panel, the end-user is able to view Website statistics and can manage files and control and access various other account features.

Billing System

An integrated automated billing system is essential in order to perform various functions including creation of e-mail invoices, charging credit cards, suspend overdue accounts etc. The billing system should also be able to issue credits or discounts as per the settings and requirements.

Support and Technical Interface

An effective and user-friendly tech-support interface should be able to generate an all-inclusive FAQ interface before the user is able to submit trouble tickets. These interfaces can minimize technical support requests by a factor of 10.

Retain and enhance customer base

A web hosting company should be able to offer services and features that are far superior. A company that values and respects its association with its customers will be able to enhance their credibility quotient in this competitive market. By retaining its customer base will result in mouth-to-mouth publicity and this in turn will generate additional monthly revenue. Remember, quality cannot be compromised upon in order to succeed in the web hosting industry.

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How to Get Cheap and Reliable Web Hosting Services

By Bob Willis

The Internet is teeming with web hosting providers who are offering hosting services at dearth cheap costs. Given the mammoth quantity of service providers to choose from, the customer usually fins himself perplexed over the kind of quality that the web-hosting provider would offer. Most of the time it so happens that the user is compelled to believe that cheap hosting does not equate to dependability. This could either be due to past user experience or a basic conception held of the hosting industry. While there is no rule of thumb that can ascertain the quality of a cheap web-hosting provider, lapping up on information and doing your research well may help you find a cheap yet reliable hosting provider.

The user first needs to go through the features and tools offered by the cheap web hosting provider and ascertain before hand if those tools would completely befit the requirements of his/her website. Secondly, reading the service agreement and terms and conditions in its entirety is imperative to avoid getting into the cheap price trap. At times, cheap web hosting packages could have certain hidden costs involved and the user needs to be aware of these intricacies before hand. There are websites who also offer a free trial period of one month and these in most cases prove to be reliable. Or else, you always the chance of trying the cheap web hosting provider for a month before you can commit for a larger billing tier. A month of services would give you an idea about the quality of services offered and if it really delivers your money's worth. Most important aspects to betaken into consideration are the features offered. These include the type of supporting programming language, bandwidth and disk space allowance, accumulating number of email accounts, and the frequency or percentage of uptime provided.

The user should have access to ample disk space and bandwidth and is required to select a package that would best suit the requirements of his website.

Dependability is one aspect that needs prime consideration when planning to register with a cheap web-hosting provider. It is important to read the fine print and ascertain in advance the quality of technical support offered by the company. Do a thorough research about the given hosting company by reading unbiased user reviews, exploring search engines, web hosting directories, their rating etc. Also find out if the company offers free set up service. The set up fee for most hosting providers are quite high and your cheap hosting provider should be at least able to offer affordable if not free website set up. Also, avoid signing any long-term contracts with the hosting company at least initially as it may so happen that the company is offering a cheap pricing structure for a long-term contract period with them.

It is important to take note of the fact that cheap web-hosting providers in most cases do not have complete control over the server and usually work in coorporation with other hosting companies in order to cut back on expenses. So do your research well before you zero down on a cheap and reliable web-hosting provider.

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How Does Multiple Server Hosting Affect Your Website's Uptime?

By Bob Willis

Hosting of websites has become an increasingly popular business and it has become difficult to tell between a quality and inferior company, just from the looks of it. The pricing structures, core features and plans are almost the same with most hosting companies. In fact, opting a cheap hosting company is not a cost-effective method, especially in terms of long-term results. Reliability is one aspect hat comes into play here or else it could cost your website loss of sales as a result of downtime. The process of selecting a quality web hosting company therefore is like sifting for a needle from a haystack. One prominent aspect that cannot be overlooked however is the reliability of the hosting provider. In the web hosting industry, this reliability equates to redundancy. This ensures that if a problem exists at one point, there will be an alternative, which ensures continuity as seamlessly and transparently as possible. In order to address issues, most of the hosting providers employ redundant network connections. These comprise of high-speed pipes that route data from the server to your web browser. However, these redundant multiple web servers come at a very hefty price and are usually utilized for mission critical applications of Fortune 500 companies.

The DNS or Domain Name Server feature also referred to as "round robin" allows the selection and provision of a particular IP address from multiple addresses when a DNS request arrives. In terms of server reliability, the DNS database maps a host name to their IP address. So instead of using a hard to remember series of numbers (IP address) we just type in your web browser www.yourdomain.com, in order to access your website.

It usually takes a few days to propagate the DNS information through the World Wide Web. So in case of domain registration or transfer, it takes a while before the user can access your website. This delay in the process could raise security issues if the website is hosted on multiple servers. So if something goes wrong with one server, this would imply that your website too would go down.

However, the round robin DNS strategy solves this issue by mapping your domain name to more than one IP address. A quality hosting company would always employ the DNS round robin technique as a conjunct to "failover monitoring".

The user should therefore look for a web host who employs an elegant solution to multi server hosting. This could constitute very expensive hardware based failover-monitoring systems that point a virtual IP address to other ISP's, while behind the scenes are handling a number of unique IP addresses on different servers.

With the advent and employment of latest technology, various issues can now be resolved with fair amount of ease. The user must however do his research well and select a company that offers maximum uptime. The technology to achieve this readily available and while it could cost the company a bit more, it would definitely reflect its reliability and credibility in the hosting industry.

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How Can Traffic Affect Your Web Hosting?

By Bob Willis

Web hosting essentially involves a myriad aspects including the quality of customer and technical support, pricing, reliability, programming, add-on features, installation of PHP among other marketing scripts, programming tools and much more.

One of the most important aspects among these is "website traffic" that cannot be overlooked as it can reflect the quality of web hosting that you are receiving. Traffic here in simple terms refers to the amount of bandwidth that your website is entitled to receive.

Bandwidth can be defined as the measurement of data, and the speed at which it flows through the phone lines, cable or DSL lines to transfer information to and from a web site via your computer. What in simple terms is referred to as website traffic is essentially the measurement of this flow of data transfer and in relation to your web site hosting, it is precisely the bandwidth that equates to this measurement.

In terms of website traffic, let us try to try to understand bandwidth and how it can affect your website hosting. If you own a simple text based website, then your website would be able to receive much more traffic even with a low bandwidth allowance as compared to a "graphic intensive" website. This is because the latter would feature large file sizes and therefore a higher amount of bandwidth allowance would be required to transfer from the user's website to the visitor's website.

This can impact and determine the type of hosting package you are required to select. Most hosting packages offer specific amounts of bandwidth and every hosting package is available for a fixed monthly fee. The user therefore needs to ascertain the amount of bandwidth required for his website before he/she selects a hosting package. As mentioned above, a plain text based website would smoothly function even on a small bandwidth allowance whereas a graphic intensive website would require a higher bandwidth allowance.

It is important to take note of the fact that there is an overage charge for additional bandwidth required which does not prove to be a cost-effective strategy when it comes to web hosting. In most cases, the hosting company charges $3 per additional GB.

If you are novice client and are not sure about the amount of bandwidth you require, then is advisable to sign up for the basic hosting package or speak to the support team who would be able to advise on the type of hosting package that best suits your requirements.

New websites usually take some time to grow and gain popularity. This takes active website promotion. Therefore bandwidth should not become an issue at least initially. Ensure that your web host offers convenient upgrades in case your website starts to receive large amounts of traffic. A web host should be able to provide in-depth statistics reports, and monitor your web site activity regularly. Set yourself a budget and exercise good judgment and look for a result-oriented hosting company.

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CGI Web Hosting

By Bob Willis

It is essentially the "behind the scenes" features and functionalities of the website that determine its success and popularity on the World Wide Web. The automated tools and features are instrumental in generating online sales as well as make it easy to use and secure. This type of automation can be created in various ways, but all the processes engage either client side or server side scripting. The user is subjected to a wide variety of programming languages to choose from and these programming languages are used to write scripts. Java is considered one of the best programming languages and customer side scripts are usually written in Java. In order to accomplish certain functions through the scripting on server side, programming languages like PERL, PHP and CGI are used.

While PHP and PERL are rather fresh in the industry, CGI is considered as the mother of all scripting languages and comes equipped with a wide variety of features.

Shopping Carts:

An online business website requires a functional shopping cart and the most advanced shopping carts utilize the functionality of the CGI scripts. CGI web hosting is ideal for shopping cart scripts because of its better interaction with majority of databases, which includes popular MYSQL and MS Access databases. Furthermore, these can applied to a wide range of servers including Windows, UNIX, Linux as well as MACOS and can easily be configured for shipping cost calculations as well as sales tax.

Password Protection:

Most of the online business websites require that the user log in through their registered username and password. With the application of CGI scripts, the entire registration process and the issue of password and username is automated, thereby making CGI indispensable to the smooth functioning of such websites.

Form Managers:

Many websites feature online forms that need to be filled up by the user. Now, most of these online forms are generated and handled by CGI web hosting. When a user fills in that form and hits the "submit" button, a CGI script takes over and transmits the data via email or writes it to a database where the site's administrator is able to access it later.

The aforesaid aspects are just some of the aspects that can be handled with the use of CGI scripts. Since web hosting is advancing to greater heights in terms of demand and technology, a quality and superior web hosting company should be able to offer CGI web hosting. It has actually become an essential prerequisite for smooth functioning of an e-commerce enabled business website. Even though PERL and PHP are gradually gaining popularity, CGI web hosting will continue to rule the hosting industry as it comes equipped with versatile functionalities and all-inclusive features.

Various web hosts also offer all three: PHP, PERL and CGI and the user has an option of choosing whichever best suits his/her requirement. It is only wise to opt for a web hosting company that is able to offer CGI web hosting along with other features, functionalities and tools that are required for the website to function smoothly.

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ASP (Active Server Pages) Web Hosting

By Bob Willis

Active Server Pages web hosting refers to hosting companies that offer ASP support for websites. Active Server Pages are HTML pages with embedded ASP scripts that are processed on the server before the page is sent to the user. ASP allows the user to create dynamic database driven pages. The user can access data in a database, and interact with page objects such as Active X or Java components.

ASP support is ideal for websites that require a dynamic, data-driven website. In such cases, ASP code is required to be embedded into the website's HTML pages. ASP code allows the users to link their web pages to a database, wherein users can then interact with the web pages and by using their personal settings, they can log in and place orders on the website.

How does ASP (Active Server Pages) Work?

When users types the URL in the address box or clicks on a specific web page, a request is sent to the web server to send the file to their computer. In case of a standard HTML file, your web browser will receive the file and it will appear exactly as it did on the web server. However if an ASP file is sent to your computer from the web server, then the server will run the HTML code; and run the ASP code (the ASP code could be the current date, or time; and other such information).

A user who requires ASP support from their web-hosting provider must ensure that the feature is included within the given hosting package. The web hosting provider will then in all probability be hosting your website on a Windows 2000 server. This is primarily because it is safer to host the ASP pages on a Windows 2000 server as they are more stable and most ASP components work with IIS (Internet Information Services), specific to Windows. The user must also ensure if their website utilizes a database like SQL, Access etc. and then ask their web hosting provider if they offer support for the type of database that is utilized by their website.

Most quality web-hosting providers do offer ASP support and the feature is usually included within the hosting package and does not come with an additional fee. However, it is advisable to check with your hosting provider if ASP support is included with the hosting package. Usually, web hosting may offer these features as additional or add-on features, which could turn out to be more expensive. It is only wise to consider a cost-effective hosting package that can offer support for various website requirements.

Therefore, do your research well and make a well-informed decision when it comes to choosing a web-hosting provider. Take into account all aspects of web hosting requirements for your website and set yourself a budget. Consider signing up for companies who have garnered certain repute in the industry and has preferable set unprecedented standards in the hosting industry.

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

KISS Web Hosting

By Bill Kirkpatrick

"K.I.S.S. Web Hosting" is my way of explaining the "Keep It Simple Stupid" principles of web hosting and how anyone can use them to help get their business or website noticed and how to do this as inexpensively as possible. When you keep things simple you in turn learn how to save time, money, and frustration.

Many people I talk to make web hosting out to be something more complicated than it really needs to be. As with most things in life it's just not. I mean we are not talking about Rocket Science here are we? Definitely not!

There are many web hosting companies out there. Most are very reputable and offer many convenient features packaged in a manner to help you keep things simple.

Some of the more common features that seem to help most of us include: providing a domain name, site building tools, email accounts, blog and forum tools, up time, the money-back guarantee, and quality customer service and support.

If you are new to this arena you may be wondering if you should go with one of those companies that are offering you "the world" of web hosting for FREE. Well, my advice to you would be you get what you pay for (or in this case what you don't pay for). Companies that offer unlimited space, unlimited domains, 100% up time, etc. - all for FREE will probably be very hard (if not impossible) to contact when you do have a problem or an issue with your site and need their service.

Today many of the best most reputable web hosts provide you with everything you will need for just pennies a day. So to not go with one is probably in the end just going to give you more headaches than its worth. You're probably not in the business of spending countless hours trying to find the "perfect" web hosting company. We as consumers when shopping for a web host need to decide what is really more important for us. Usually the most important factor ends up being customer service.

As with most businesses if you cannot find someone to help you when there is a problem it will just leave you feeling helpless, upset, and frustrated. Since most of these reputable hosting companies provide similar features and do so at a cost of less than $10 per month, some less than $5, ensuring that you get a host who is there for you when an issue arises allows you to concentrate on the more important things for your particular business.

Keep things simple and choose the web host company that fits your needs.

Bill Kirkpatrick assists people with finding the best web host, offering software solutions, and helping with advertising. He always strives to keep things simple. Check out what he can do for you: http://www.advertiseyourbiznow.com

How to Find a Cheap Host With All the Features You Need

By Allan Burns

As a webmaster you are always looking to keep your hosting costs as low as possible. You want to find a cheap host but you also want to find a host that is reliable and that offer the service and functionality that you need for your sites.

Different types of sites require different functionality. These varying requirements can sometimes mean the features you need can end up being expensive. Certain types of sites such as web proxy sites, image hosts and streaming video sites can use a lot of bandwidth and some require a lot of processing power. Other types of sites such as those made up of a few flat HTML files will not need such a powerful server.

You first need to consider the types of sites you are looking to host. Are there going to be any special requirements for your sites such as databases, streaming video or server side programming languages such as PHP.

There are lot of hosts that provide many features as standard such as a control panel, MySQL databases, PHP, email addresses, add on domains and various single click install scripts. Other features usually vary with cost such as disk space and bandwidth.

If you want to find a cheaper host then you need to optimise your site requirements with what different web hosting companies provide. For example if you have a site with half a dozen pages containing some text and a few pictures then you are not going to have a very demanding site. You could get a basic hosting package with none of the bells and whistles to keep your cost down.

Usually webmasters have more than one site that needs to be hosted. With certain hosting packages you can host multiple websites which means you can save money on multiple hosting accounts and keep all your sites in one place. You can do this by using a reseller hosting account that allows you to host multiple separate sites on a single hosting account. These are usually hosting accounts that come with management software such as Web Hosting Manager. WHM usually makes a hosting account more expensive so if you do not need to keep each site completely separate you can instead get a hosting package that allows multiple add on domains. This will save you even more money as you will not need to have WHM, which the host has to pay for a license to use.

Find out how you can get a cheap hosting account at http://www.cheaphosting.co.uk

Tips For Web Hosting

By Mark Hendersen

Choosing the right web hosting solutions provider is a very vital decision to make. Whether your objective for the website is for an online business or an information resource or a blog on any topic of your interest, you must go for a web hosting service that will make your website available on the internet all the time for all to visit your website. Here we provide you the tips for web hosting that will help you in making the right decision for your online presence.

It is web hosting that empowers you to share information, sell products and services, and interact with people through your web site. Making a decision can be actually very confusing, considering the humongous choice of web hosting solutions providers available. So before choosing a provider, it is best to do some basic groundwork and get some information about the services provided, the features, background about the provider itself, etc.

There are a lot of solutions providers out there who offer free services, but the quality may be questionable. The most important factor to consider is whether the server of the provider should be up as much as possible 100% of the time. The higher the down time, the higher the problems for you because every second the server is down, your website will not be available for public to access.

So it's best to go for a paid service provider. It may be very enticing to go for cheaper or free service providers in order to cut costs, but you need to consider the down side of that. If economical package comes at a cost of your website being not available for a chunk of time, then the visitors or your audience is lost. Because they are not going to wait till your website is accessible. By that time they may have found another source. So it is essential to go for a quality service provider that offers very low downtime. Another factor to consider is whether the provider is easily contactable or accessible when there is a problem.

I hope these tips for web hosting come handy and help you in making a wise decision.

Mark Hendersen Tips For Web Hosting http://www.webhostingoogle.com