Archive for the ‘Hosting’ Category


SEO and your Web Hosting. Find out what’s important

In my previous post I talked about Why Reliable Web Hosting is worth your Money and the difference between SEO friendly Web Hosting Linux vs Windows. Today, I’m talking about the Requirements for SEO friendly Web Hosting. If you are choosing your Web Hosting you should watch out for the following things included in your package to make sure you don’t road block your SEO efforts.

Minimum Requirements on your Hosting Package

  • PHP: the most commonly used Internet Program Language
  • MySQL: the most commonly used Internet Database
  • e-Mail: e-Mail Marketing and customer support over email is important; make sure the ISP mail server is not blacklisted or use applications like Google Apps
  • Web space: you need to have enough space to grow, you don’t want to end up moving when you run out of space
  • Include Traffic: nowadays, traffic is cheap but make sure that you don’t pay a fortune when you are slightly over the included traffic, you don’t want to end up on the first page of digg.com and pay a few hundred dollars in traffic bill after
  • URL rewrite: Make sure that the ISP you want to partner up with allows url rewrites on their server. All Linux packages should have that included but some windows server providers don’t have the extension, so watch out
  • Directory Protection: You should make sure that your ISP has a simple directory protection in place
  • SSL ability: The ISP of your choice should be able to provide you with SSL certifications or let you use your own
  • Cronjob: Good ISP’s let you run your own cronjob on your shared Web hosting
  • SSH: Most of the big ISP’s allow you access via Secure Shell, that comes in quite handy if you are faster with doing things on command line then via click and drop

What can help you to rank better in your target marketplace?

Knowing your target market place will help you rank better since you can focus your efforts into this marketplace and increase your revenue. Depending on where your marketplace is located, you should localize your Server. The principle is that you want to keep the connection time between your customer and your e-Business as short as possible. Also the domain extension, the tone and language you use are very important to focus your e-Business for your target marketplace.

PeterD made a post about SEO for Regional Domains which should give you some hints what you should watch out for. If you are planning to work on a global scale it is useful to generate multiple sites fitting exactly to the needs of the marketplace you are targeting.

When you forget to Target your Marketplace you miss out on Business.

Let’s say you are a global provider for hotel accommodation and you are spending thousands of dollars every month on PPC Campaigns and spending a lot of effort on organic SEO but you only have your server localized in USA. The prospective customer might come to your site and it is taking him 30 seconds to load your site, guess what happens, he leaves as there are hundreds of other websites offering reservation for the same hotels. So why should he wait for your website?

But if you spend the time and effort to create regional sites for different major markets like .de, .fr, .co.uk, co.au etc., focus on the tone your customer will use as well as the convenience to reach your site, that includes localized hosting in your prospective marketplace, you can achieve much higher organic ranking in this marketplace, increase the quality score of your PPC campaigns and most likely increase your conversion rate as well as your return on investment.

So what helps you really to rank higher in your marketplace? Localizing your marketplace will help you the most if you try to rank well. So please think about this whether you are thinking of procuring a Web Hosting package in New York or you are a Restaurant in San Francisco. Ask yourself, would this really help you to focus on your marketplace?

Recommendations for Web Hosting Companies

I can recommend to you a few of the companies I worked with and as such, I would be happy to recommend them to other people.

Separation of Domains and Hosting

You should always try to separate your hosting from your domain provider. In the event of complete failure of your web host, such as the data center burned down, you can quickly point your domains to another server. As well as being able to move hosting without the hassle of transferring your domains between providers is very convenient. I use GoDaddy.com for most of my domains, they do a great job with providing you with all the tools as well as products you need for any kind of domain hosting. The support is excellent and you always feel welcome if you have questions. GoDaddy.com also provides you with hosting.

Web host company recommendations

As I described before, choosing the right web hosting company is a difficult process and a lot of factors need to be considered. If you are planning to work in a marketplace like New York, you should try to find a local hoster who can provide you with all the features you need, that may be a bit more pricey but a good business relationship with a small business web hoster who really cares about the service and server could make a difference when you are starting out. Smaller hosting companies are providing you often with information and services for free that cost at big companies.

1&1 Internet Inc. – is regarded as leader in web hosting, with over 10 million registered domains they are the leader in their market. 1&1 is founded in the 90’s and provides services around the world. Their services almost never fail, in close to the 10 years I have used 1&1 for hosting, I had never once a server failure. While the customer support back in Germany was not the greatest 10 years ago, now their customer service is solid, the Company is going with Internet trends and is one of the leading companies in the development of Internet services.

DreamHost.com – Dreamhost is providing their services from the USA, these guys really care about what they do and the support is great. The hosting package that they offer with all the different functionality and optional features are beyond crazy cheap pricing for such a reliable web hosting company. With their 1 click installation from popular Internet applications, they can make life easier for a lot of new e-Business owners. I had a great experience with DreamHost.com and could never complain about their services. I got answers on problems within minutes rather than waiting around for days and the knowledge the DreamHost staff has is solid and that’s why I would always recommend them to others.

Summary

Know your facts, if you are just starting out or thinking about changing your hosting. Research, locate your marketplace and don’t be afraid to contact multiple hosting companies to get a quote. A lot of companies will also offer you a test for a few months to show you how good their servers are. Don’t waste your money on cheap unreliable web hosting, try not to mix your domains with your hosting and also think about which Server OS would best fit your web hosting needs. If you take factors like the ones pointed out by myself in account, your e-Business should have the basics needed to succeed in your marketplace.

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SEO friendly web hosting Linux vs Windows

Every once in a while I come across questions like “Is Linux better then Windows Web hosting” or “Do I need to change my OS on my Computer when I get Linux Web Hosting?”. For some people questions like this are easy to answer, for others it is a matter of life or death 🙂 Today I want to show you the real difference between Linux and Windows Web hosting and dispel some myths.

What is the difference between Linux and Windows Web Hosting

Image courtesy Krazl.com - Bloggerholic

Image courtesy Krazl.com - Bloggerholic

The real difference between Linux and Windows Web hosting is not much more than the name and price. The standard internet applications work well on both platforms. We are talking about applications based on standards like PHP, MySQL, Ruby on Rail that are platform independent. What makes a big difference between this is that both OS have Microsoft based language, like ASP or Dot Net, and are not working well or not running at all on Linux Server and that PHP and MySQL applications are slower on Windows Server. Also note that Windows hosting companies will need to pay for licenses that would make it more expensive than Linux Hosting which is Open Source. Linux servers are generally more stable and you can tweak more on this platform in comparison to Windows.

The real difference between this most commonly used Operating System in Web hosting is what you want to do with your hosting package, what software you want to use and most importantly, what your system administrator prefers if you are planning to host your server on your own.

Which Web Hosting OS should you choose?

There is no clear easy answer, as in the choice between a Mercedes or BMW, it is up to you. To determine what works best for you, you might ask what do you want to use in programming language that your application will run on and what knowledge does your Technical Team have? And don’t forget Why reliable Web Hosting is worth your Money.

Myths about Web Hosting

  • No, you don’t need to change your Operation System on your Home / Office computer if you use Linux Hosting
  • You don’t save money hosting the server yourself
  • Hosting is a important part of your e-Business

What are the Pros and Cons of the OS?

Pros for Windows Hosting:

  • If properly administrated, you will have a secure and stable Server system
  • Supports all common Internet language like PHP and MySQL also supports Microsoft based products like ASP and MsSQL

Cons for Windows Hosting:

  • More expensive then Linux hosting
  • Non-Microsoft based language tends to run slower on Windows Servers
  • Some changes in the Server Administration could result in a reboot of the Server

Pros for Linux Hosting:

  • Fast, easy and flexible – it can easily grow with your e-Business
  • Open Source, thousands of people looking to fix problems and support each other, great community
  • Stable, most Linux Webservers get restarted once or twice a year

Cons for Linux Hosting

  • Implementation for ASP and .Net application is lacking
  • Wrong setup and bad administration can lead to slow and insecure servers

Why should you plan ahead?

Choosing your Web Hosting is like choosing the location of your off-line store and how much thought you put into the interior of your shop. As an example, you open up a coffee shop on the last open corner of a busy Vancouver intersection; the other corners are occupied by 2 Starbucks and 1 Java Express. All of them are bigger, faster and cheaper. You don’t have the money to spend on some fancy equipment, the building your shop resides in is old and you can hear the rats when you’re alone in the kitchen. You didn’t have money either to pay somebody to stand at the other corners and advertise for your shop, Starbucks does and they advertise in front of your shop by giving free regular coffees away. Do you think that it would be clever to have your business here when you come on to the market?

So plan, look ahead to what you need, where do you want to grow to and what is a good location to start your business. Search for a strong partner, ask your friends, ask your designer and search engine marketer for recommendations, build a relationship with your partner, and find somebody who wants to help you rather then just get a sale through.

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Why reliable web hosting is worth your money

Reliable web hosting can make a huge difference whether your e-Business will succeed or not, if you will be able to grow in the long run or fail. Reliable web hosting is a indicator of how serious you are with your e-Business and it will help you to better please your customers and increase your search engine ranking.

Cheap can cost you more

Cheap web hosting often comes with huge flaws and can easily backfire on you. Every downtime costs money, every time a potential customer visits your site and can’t reach it, you lose that potential customer forever. Webmasters don’t like to link to websites which are offline every once in a while, broken links will look bad on the site. If search engines send out their spiders to crawl your site every 10 days and your site is offline on that day, the lovely spiders don’t like that so you will be kicked out of the index until it can crawl again. What is the True Downtime Cost (TDC)? By Don Fitchett nicely describes how you can determine the true cost of a system failing. If you want to save money somewhere, then don’t save it on your Web Hosting. The hidden cost of system downtime could make all the difference in having a successful e-Business.

Common Cheap Hosting problems

Commonly cheap small – mid hosting companies are putting thousands of domains / customers on a single server with a single IP and promising resources that are not even available. It makes sense to do so from a hosting point of view, the cost of having empty servers standing around is enormous. But the rundown for customers is that you can’t influence the websites on your IP, you could have a shady Porn or Warez site running on the same IP and server. Creating enormous amounts of traffic that results in longer loading time of your website. If a customer is not willing to wait, and he will not be willing, for your site there are hundreds other websites offering the same or similar products or information just a click away. Security is another huge issue. It is common in shady markets like the above to have a constant wave of attacks on your site. If you are sharing your hosting with sites like that it is not only their server that gets hacked. Do you want to lose all your data? How good is your backup routine by the way? We talked about the true cost of Cheap Web Hosting, now think about how much it costs you to be offline every few days or having the loss of all your data. Sometimes your website is so slow that nobody can bear to visit it. If you want to prevent most common web hosting problems, find a partner that have the service level as well as the hosting standards to truly accommodate your e-Business.

Why you should never use free hosting for your e-Business

Free web hosting is exactly what it is, Free and that is the great thing about it. You don’t pay for it, so you get exactly that much from it. The common problems you can expect from free web hosting are:

  • Banner or Text ads across the top of your website
  • Pop ups or Pop under ads
  • Slow connection to the server
  • Downtime occurs often
  • Low security, htaccess is often not even available
  • Almost no configuration possibilities
  • Thousands of domains hosted on one server
  • Very bad neighborhood for search engine ranking
  • Search engine could have trouble indexing your site

Most of these points also count for cheap web hosting. The fact alone that your server neighborhood, sites hosted on the same IP, will be bad, would be enough to get your web site devalued by search engines. But also slow connections or even connection problems could lead to devaluation of your web site and could stop you from ranking highly. There are a lot of trade offs when you are hosting for free, even when you just host a blog on a free blog service site, it could inhibit you from ranking well. So ask yourself the question, Why Should I Pay for Web Hosting?


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