E-Commerce web sites present a list of concerns and requirements unique doing business on the internet. Once you’ve battled with deciding which web development methodology to use to build your site, you’ll need to locate a web hosting provider that specializes in e-commerce sites. Aside from which operating system the server will run (determined by your development tools), there is a long list of security concerns that must be addressed by the hosting provider.

One of the most important aspects of e-commerce sites is the security involved with the processing of payments and other customer information. Because these sites contain financial information as well as customer’s personal information, these sites often become the targets of hackers attempting to obtain financial gain from breaking into these sites. To protect against these types of intrusions, multiple layers of security are typically built into hosting providers specializing in hosting e-commerce sites.

The first layer of defense is what’s known as Secured Socket Layer or SSL. This layer, combined with a digital certificate, provides for the secure communications of information from the web server to the client’s browser. The one major drawback to SSL communications is the overhead on the server for the encryption and decryption of information sent over the internet. An e-commerce hosting provider has different methodologies available to them to offload this overhead from the servers to improve performance.

Another common practice of good e-commerce providers is the breaking up of there datacenter into different zones. In a typical three-tier datacenter design, the web servers sit on the outermost least secure area, the business logic of the application sits in the middle, and the database in the third layer and most secure area. The typical configuration is a three-tiered approach, with the most sensitive data being stored behind multiple layers of security.

You may be looking for a cheap web hosting service, but there are some important things you should consider. Remember the old saying, “you get what you pay for”. Sometimes a cheap web hosting service is just not worth the time and trouble in the end. Some cheap web hosting services are so cheap that they are actually free.

One of the problems of some free cheap web hosting services is the many annoyances you may end up experiencing. One of the things that may annoy you are the banner ads cheap web hosting services have. This is how they can provide cheap web hosting for next to nothing and sometimes free. Remember the old saying, “nothing in life is free”. In this case there is truth to this. The minor irritations add up over time and you may end up paying a high price with lost sales and or customers.

With some cheap web hosting services you will not have good customer support. It may be like pulling teeth to get a problem resolved in many cases. Another issue to consider with cheap web hosting companies and services is the amount of downtime you may experience. This is more common with the free web hosting services than the cheap web hosting companies. This again can cause lost sales and customers with downtime. This is where you will want to really shop around for cheap web hosting. In the end your time will have been well worth your effort.

6 Important Things You Should Consider With Cheap Web Hosting

1. You should pay very careful attention to the terms of use and the acceptable use policy of the cheap web hosting service.

2. You may be able to find a great deal because the cheap web hosting industry is very competitive, but if the cheap web hosting service does not have some of the features others may have, it’s best not to sign up.

3. Again, a cheap web hosting services requires more research. It’s best to read all the reviews on the cheap web hosting services. You can do a Google or Yahoo! search on cheap web hosting for all the information you will need to make a good decision.

4. Some larger cheap web hosting services such as Windows plans, are usually going to be more expensive.

5. Take time to visit some of the cheap web hosting support pages to see what kind, “if any” support they may give you. This will be a quick indicator of the type of service you will receive from a cheap web hosting service.

6. Cheap web hosting services will in some cases oversell space and bandwidth. They assume people will not use all the space. You do not want to be kicked out if you use all the space allocated to you with a cheap web hosting service.

It’s wise to take your time when looking for a free or cheap web hosting service. The fact remains that with a “paid” cheap web hosting service, you will get more support and dependability, than you will from free web hosting services.

Finding the best web hosting company is not always easy. There are probably tens of thousands of them. They range in size and the services they offer. Finding a dependable hosting company, however, is not as easy as it looks. Too many hosting companies are the electronic equivalents of the worst used car salesmen. They lie on what they offer with no intention of delivering on what they promise, sell you a clunker that doesn’t work as promised, overcharge you, and ignore your messages when you e-mail or call trying to resolve a problem.

The Internet and its relative anonymity offer the opportunity for people to pretend to be something other than what they seem to be. Children can pretend to be hosting companies, people with a computer in their bedroom or basement and a DSL or cable modem line pretend to be hosting companies, people with a shared server reseller account pretend to be companies with their own servers, people using tools like Front Page and others and templates pretend to be site designers even though most have no knowledge of HTML and other important design elements. Only movie making can surpass the kind of illusion that the Internet makes possible.

1. What to avoid

Beware of companies that promise unlimited resources, especially bandwidth or data transfer. They lie. Unlimited bandwidth/data transfer is an impossibility. Much of the time, they are gambling that the offer of unlimited bandwidth or disk space will get your business (money) and that you may not even approach the very real and finite limits they have. There are a few places that legitimately offer some unlimited resources under particular conditions, but far fewer than advertise them. Along with bandwidth use is CPU/resources usage. Many hosts have limits mentioned in their terms of service.

Beware of companies that treat your site creation and hosting as a package deal. Some will refuse to give you access to your site so that you are forced to have them perform any changes and redesigns. They often overcharge for their work, which is why they hold your site hostage.

Beware of the companies that rate hosting companies. For the most part, those ratings were bought with advertising dollars. Many of those rating companies are owned by a hosting company. No big surprise there. Even if the rating company doesn’t rate its host, it may have a reciprocal arrangement with one of the other rating companies, trading a high rating of each other’s hosting companies. None of this is speculation but has been confirmed in our research on the subject and candid admissions by some individuals in that business.

Beware of the companies that make you pay for a year in advance or obligate you to a year long contract for a shared (virtual) server account. It’s a sweet deal for them, and often a sour one for you. A company that is long on promises and short on keeping them, benefits greatly when you pay for a whole year. Remember, many of these companies make their money from a constant influx of new customers, not by providing service to the ones they have. When you pay for a year in advance, you make it easy for them to fleece you. Some offer discounts as an inducement to have you pay yearly, while others simply require it. If you read their Terms Of Service (TOS), chances are they say no refunds are allowed and that they can close down your account for a variety of reasons, even penalizing you for your success (referred to as using an excessive amount of resources, what they term as abuse). You can look at it this way, if they are as good as they say they are, you’ll probably stay with them anyway. If they aren’t, you’ve either lost money by prepaying that far in advance, stuck with a bad host for a year, or both.
Note that this does not apply as regards dedicated servers. Because of the commitment of hardware and other resources, a six or twelve month contract is typical for dedicated server hosting.

Beware of the companies that hide their Terms of Service (TOS). Terms of service are the web hosting equivalent of reading the fine print on a contract, with an important distinction. With the fine print, at least you are aware of its existence. Not so with TOS. Many companies fail to disclose them until you violate them, which is too late to do you any good. That is when you often find out that the unlimited bandwidth and traffic they advertise has very definite limits. However, once your account has exceeded those limits and been disabled is not the proper time to learn the terms of service. The proper time is right up front before you have committed to them as a customer. Some refer to their TOS as Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).

You can’t judge by appearance. This simple premise applies to many things in life and applies as well when selecting a hosting company. Some of the worst hosts have an attractive web site and offerings and would indeed be excellent if their service and attitude were equal to the impression their web site is meant to give. Some hosting companies have started in garages and do not have the facilities or equipment to ensure your site will remain operational to the fullest extent.

You can’t trust the claims made by many. They advertise their servers are up 99.9% of the time, but how do you know for sure? Nobody monitors these companies so they can claim whatever they want to. The testimonials on their sites, if not fabricated, are only from satisfied customers. Do you think they would print the truth from any of the customers they have abused? One of the hosts we used in the past shut our account down when we challenged them to print our testimonial to their ineptitude. Many advertise a 30 day money back guarantee and don’t keep that promise either. Once they have your credit card number, they begin charging far more than they told you they would.

Even some seemingly legitimate companies lie, and it can cost you in many ways. Most will have stated policies against spamming (the sending of unsolicited bulk e-mail) simply because it is expected that they have such policies. Unfortunately, some companies are hypocrites and do not honor those policies. They tolerate spammers on their system or may spam themselves. Choosing such a host can cost you in many ways. You may find yourself cut off from a sizeable portion of the Internet. Your e-mail may be blocked and rejected by many servers that block all e-mail coming from systems that tolerate abusers. The Spamhaus Project to see if any host you are considering is listed there. It is one of the steps in keeping you from making a bad choice.

Sometimes (often, actually) big is too big. Some sites boast of thousands of accounts that they host. This is meant to impress you and suggest that if 50 or 60 thousand other customers have chosen them, that you should too. What they don’t tell you is that they may have lost 20 or 30 thousand of those customers, or they may have turned over many more times that amount in dissatisfied customers. Many of these companies make their money from getting new customers, not from keeping the existing ones by honoring their commitment and providing good service. They load hundreds of accounts, even thousands, on each server, all sharing many of the same resources, which affects your site and all others you share the server with, especially if you have any CPU (processor) intensive programs or functions. This is one of the reasons many of the advertised unlimited resources are not unlimited. They may disable your account when your site uses more than its fair share of resources (we’ve had that happen too), or start charging your credit card for more than you bargained for.

Smaller companies can offer something the large ones can’t, personalized service. That can make a big difference in helping your site make the most from being on the Internet.
Companies that are Internet access providers do not offer any advantages over companies that are solely in the hosting business. Their core business is providing access and even many companies that excel at that are deficient in their hosting service. Some have file restrictions that make them impractical for all but the simplest of sites, those where no additional programs will need to be added. There may be attractive financial packages from combined services, but these can be secondary or tertiary to more important concerns.

Sometimes cheap is too cheap. It is perfectly natural, even expected, to seek the best deal one can get. For a business site, the best value may be much less expensive than the lowest price. Remember, many sites advertise low prices to get a constant influx of new customers. They have to as many of their present ones leave them. You get what you pay for. The poor service at so many companies means frequent changes from one host to another in search of a decent one. That can be costly, between the time lost in transfers, reinstalling and reconfiguring your programs, down time of your site, lost sales, lost exposure, inability of certain programs to operate properly, etc.

The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of the low price is forgotten.

2. What to look for

You may want to choose a host that you can grow with, one that you can afford now, can handle all your site requirements, and one that can handle any growth you may experience. This includes e-commerce, databases, and keeping abreast of Internet technologies. Having a plan for your growth and how to accommodate you is certainly a desirable feature and indicative of a host looking towards the future and betterment of your company.
Many will promise that, so you will want a hosting company that is the opposite of the ones to avoid, one that does not make false claims and does not promise you any more than they are prepared to deliver, one that gives you access to your site and files even if they perform all design work for you, one that cares about its existing customer base and proves it through its actions, one that can furnish references of customers you can communicate with directly, and one that you can communicate with and not be ignored.

Choose wisely. Whatever amount of time you spend in selecting a proper host will be well worth it.

a.Your needs

You might start by making a list of your needs. Keep in mind that the great majority of sites use substantially less than 1 gb of transfer per month and less than 5 mb of hard disk space. Disk space is cheap enough that offering as much as most sites may need is not a problem. Many hosts offer far more than you may need and it can be less confusing if you know what your requirements are.

While additional disk space is cheap and can be included at no additional cost, bandwidth must be paid for. Please see our information on bandwidth for a greater understanding of it. You should know which method you host uses as it will affect you.

b. Price

Don’t expect to get reliable or prompt service from a free or too cheap host. You might, but the odds are against it. Many hosting companies make their money from a constant influx of new customers and are not at all concerned with providing proper service to their existing customer base. On the other hand, you could pay too much. There are companies that charge an exorbitant amount for hosting a simple web site. This may be due in part to offering more services than you need, especially programs that require a license fee every year. You may be subsidizing the cost of these services for others. Regardless, you might simply be paying too much. There are many companies that set their prices high and take advantage of the ignorance of customers.

c. Support

All too often, this is one of the last things many people consider, if they think of it at all, yet it is one of the most important factors. Typically, a lack of support is a precipitating factor in finding a new host and is a more important factor the second or third time around.

It is not the job of hosting companies to teach basic web design elements, assist in installing scripts, and other services. Some will have information and links on their sites for the convenience of their customers. Nevertheless, there are some smaller hosting companies that offer personalized service and will assist you with any needs. If you are a novice at web and hosting related matters (as most small business people are likely to be), you may prefer such a host.

Can you talk to a real person when you need to? If you need help, an answering machine or e-mail may not be up to the task, either of solving your problem or solving it with expediency. Sometimes, there is no substitute to speaking to a person, yet this is not possible at many companies, even if the problem could be solved in a minute or two.

d. Reliability

This is a multi faceted issue and deals with the reliability of the company as well as their hardware and Internet connections. Just as a preponderance of HTML editing tools has allowed most anyone to label themselves as web site designers, though they may have little knowledge and skills, so too do many people call themselves hosting companies. Some are children, teenagers, and host from their bedroom or basement using DSL or cable modems as their connection. Others may have marginally better connections. Some will host on a shared server and are resellers for the actual hosting company. A more professional company will have their own dedicated or collocated servers at a network operations center (NOC).

You should be aware of the hardware and connections to the Internet a host has, even if you aren’t very familiar with what they mean. In the course of your investigation, you can ask others who do know. As far as connections, you should expect multiple T3 or OC3 (or above) connections.

e. Guarantee/Warranty

Any guarantee is only as good as the company behind it. Don’t be fooled by the presence of a guarantee. It cannot compensate for an inferior company. A reputable company will seek a reasonable solution regardless of guarantees. You should base your decision on other factors and not rely on a guarantee. If the company is not trustworthy, a guarantee won’t change that. It is nothing more than a promise from a liar. If a company cares about giving good customer service, it will do it regardless of the presence or absence of any guarantees.

f. Statistical Reporting

You may wish to select a host that offers statistical reporting, as many do. This will allow you to track many things, from how visitors are finding your site, to where they come from and what keywords they use in search engines. Programs such as Webtrends and usage report on this information and much more.

There are other, minor factors that might be taken into consideration, though the information above should prove useful to the majority of people. Choosing a webhost is a complicated decision and a bad choice may destroy your business. Many factors should be taken into consideration and the decision should not be made on costs alone.

One of the great benefits of a web hosting reseller is you can earn some extra money at the same time as having web hosting. You may even end up making a full time income with a web hosting reseller. Some web hosting resellers pay very well.

Choosing The Right Reseller Web Hosting

It is a good idea to know what is the best web hosting reseller for your situation. You will need a reliable web hosting reseller that can provide you with good customer support. A good web hosting reseller will provide you with the tools you need to be successful with their service both for yourself and for the reseller aspects of your business.

What Is Reseller Web Hosting?

Reseller web hosting provides a reseller hosting account to the reseller who resells space and bandwidth to their own clients. There is usually plenty of bandwidth and space for this type of service.

What Is A Web Hosting Reseller?

Web Hosting reseller is a person or a company that acts like an agent to resell the hosting companies products and services. The web hosting reseller can receive commissions and or discounts from the web hosting reseller company. They may even create their own custom web reseller accounts to re-sell to customers.

It is important to realize that when dealing with a reseller web hosting company, some of the control has been taken out of your hands. You will want to make sure the web hosting reseller service is not having problems with downtime. You can end up missing out on important emails and or sales from your valuable customers.

With the right web hosting reseller company, web site developers can be successful with a reseller web hosting service or business. They can provide their customers with web hosting and create web sites at the same time. This is why it is a good idea to find a web hosting company that offers multiple hosting accounts with their web hosting reseller services. A web developer can then host their clients web sites from their own reseller web hosting account.

One of the best things to do before choosing a web hosting reseller company is to get a list of reference sites you can check out to see if they have downtime. With web reseller hosting companies and services you can ask other web site developers about what web hosting resellers they have had good quality service with.

Another important aspect to consider is, does the web hosting reseller have a great list of services and features that you will be able to offer to your customers. This may be the reason you are considering a web hosting reseller in the first place. Take time to shop around for the best web hosting reseller and you will know you have made the right decision.

When planning an Internet venture, one of the most basic questions for any Webmaster is what platform to base the Web site on. The two most popular platforms, UNIX and NT are widely available and offer various options and have differing abilities. Your choice of platform will define the utility and type of software that you can use, the kind of applications that your site can run, what kind of server can host your site, the amount of control you have over your site and how efficiently your site will work as it grows in scale.

When deciding on whether or not you will choose a UNIX or NT platform it is important to keep in mind what Web host will host your site. Established Web hosts offer service on both platforms, while others offer service only on NT or UNIX. Any Web Host can offer service in either platform but the main difference is in customer support. Above all, make sure when choosing a host that they have a skilled technical support team that is knowledgeable about the platform you choose.

Introduction to UNIX and NT
The fundamental difference between UNIX and NT stems from how they came into existence. UNIX was designed to integrate with large network systems, while NT was made to serve the needs of individual users or companies that don’t want to deal with the complexities of UNIX administration.

UNIX has been around, in one form or another, for the last twenty years and as such is a very mature platform. Because of this, the system is very well developed and stable, and there is a lot of software and applications designed to work for it. NT, on the other hand, was created more recently by Microsoft as a system specifically designed to handle the user-friendly software, which it has developed for Web page design. With NT, you get a platform that runs a series of naturally compatible programs and applications that mesh easily within the ubiquitous Windows environment. The main thing is to decide which system suits the projected needs of your Web site.

How will your customers or visitors view your site?
When you are planning your site, think of how your visitors view your site. The technology is improving every day and users are upgrading their systems in kind, but it is important to remember that a great number of users are working with technology that is a few years out of date. This concept is important at every level of Web site planning, even when deciding what platform to use. Creating a complex web site that requires a lot of data transfer will be slow on older equipment and this may be counter productive for you. Remember to think of your visitors when deciding what software you are planning to use. This is important because the software you want can some times determine what platform you must use!

What programs and application will work for you?
FrontPage 2000 by Microsoft, Cold Fusion by Allaire, CGI scripts, Cybercash, and Java servelts are just a few off the many names and buzz words that float around the Internet business. Deciding what software you need and what features you want, and therefore what kind of platform you run your site on, is one of the most important decisions you will make. For instance, if you or your are skilled systems administrator you might choose the UNIX platform so that you can take advantage of it programming flexibility. On the other hand if your Web site is an accessory to your business and your time and staff resources are small, you should work with an integrated package like Microsoft’s FrontPage 2000 and run on an NT platform.

How large do you expect your site to grow?
When you are making the plan for your web site try and think of how large it is going to grow. Is your Web host going to need to support a lot of features? Do you need Real Audio, Video or chat capability? Are you going to have a lot of web pages and a lot of traffic, e-mail accounts and E-commerce activity? In the beginning, even if you start out small, on a virtual host (or shared host), remember that one day you may grow large. At the present time, you may be advised to go with a UNIX platform because of its flexibility, its multiple application possibilities and its proven robustness in large Web site environments.

Keep in mind, however, that recoding from one platform to another is difficult and time-consuming. Many believe that Microsoft will soon have features comparable to UNIX: Features that are not only easier for the average Webmaster to use but ones that will integrate easily into already existing Web sites.

How much administrative control do you really need?
In this category, UNIX is generally considered superior. This is because its system allow for programming closer to the base of the programming hierarchy. In UNIX an experienced Webmaster or Web developer can fine-tune a Web site, using CGI scripts, to create applications and site features specific to their needs. In fact, some Web hosting services even offer free CGI scripting as part of their UNIX packages. Find out about these when choosing your Web host. But the question is ‘how much administrative control do you really need?’ Many users do not need the kind of direct control that UNIX provides and are better off with the simpler, pre-prepared (and integrated) programming that Microsoft supplies for the NT platform.

Summary:
In the end, it will be the needs of you and your visitors that will define what programs and applications you want to work with. Once this is decided the kind of platform you need will become apparent. If you need help answering these questions, ask a professional Web developer or sales representative from a reputable Web hosting company. They will be able to help you wade through the details and decide whether you should use a UNIX or an NT platform. Defining whether one platform is superior to the other is relative to you and your visitors needs. UNIX is older and offers some network and programming advantages, but you can be sure that Microsoft is working overtime to produce similar capability in a Webmaster friendly environment. NT’s simplicity and integration may make it a better long-run solution for your web site.