"The page cannot be displayed." Have you ever encountered this message while surfing the net? Of course you have. We all have. Think it can't happen to you? Think again. If you're hosting your website on one of the free hosting services or even worse your own server, there is a chance of losing more than downtime.
These free hosting services can shut your site down at any time and they don’t need to have a reason. You may sit down in front of your computer one morning, try to access your site and instead, this message will appear, "The page cannot be displayed." That’s the end of it you web site is gone all the hard work and with it all the search engine ranking, lost for ever.
There are a lot of domain name extensions out there such as; net, biz, gov, cc, info, and so on but the most important one is without question .com. The question is do you really have a sincere desire to succeed with your online business? If this is the case then having your own domain name is a must. I can’t stress enough the importance of cross domain extensions. What I’m trying to say is it’s not enough to have a .com extension because a large potion of web site traffic goes to other extensions, and they are you competition after all. As an example I personally own six domain extensions and even a few different domain name variations, such as http://www.albanygraphics.com/ or http://www.albanygraphics.net/also a more descriptive one www.albanygraphicsdesignstudio.com In addition .net, .gov, .biz, .info and I’m always looking for more.
Selecting Your Web Page Host
When selecting a professional web host company your first consideration should be the company. Check out their background. Talk to some of their customers and ask them if they've been satisfied with their service. It’s always good to have a local company this will make it easer to keep open the lines of communication. The one thing I hate more than all else is to talk to an answering service. Below is a list of some of the questions I encourage you to ask before making your decision.- How large is the customer base they serve?
- What is their uptime percentage?
- Is there a policy for making payments in advance?
- Do they charge set up fees?
- Find out how there customer support is? Call the references and ask they think.
- What is the speed of there connections?
- Do they offer shopping cart software (e-commerce solution)?
- What is there E-mail package like?
- Do they offer a content management tool and ftp app for file transfer?
- Do they have a 24 hr support line or online chat service?
Web hosting prices fluctuate, so keep in mind that a low monthly cost does not always mean a good value. If the service is poor and you suffer a lot of down time then you’re saving nothing.
Criteria for selecting a host
Selecting a professional web host is a very important decision. Make sure you do your homework and ensure the host you select offers exactly what you need.
- Your own domain name (http://www.yourname.com/)
- Your own True POP email account - name@yourdomain.com
- Fast, low overhead, Multi-T3 access
- Your own unrestricted cgi-bin
- Access to SSL Encryption for secure transactions
- Java, C, C++, Tcl support
- Auto responders
- htaccess Password Protection for your files or directories
- At least 1 GIGABYTE (1024 MB) of Daily Transfer
- Design (and upload to) your site using Netscape or other HTML editing software
- Microsoft FrontPage (98) Server Extensions for those utilizing FrontPage
- Unlimited free access to your server via Telnet/FTP
- Online invoices, account tracking, and payment history to enable you to check your account balance, monthly invoices, past payments, etc.
- Complete daily server backup
- Easy access to your log files
- Statistics on visits to your site
It may not be necessary for you to have everything on the list depending on the size of your website or the technology used in development, but be sure to ask.
I know just how hard it can be to get a small business started and watching every penny is a big part of that. Let’s stop and take a look at the outcome of the last cheep investment we got involved with. Let me guess a disaster! Don’t feel bad it happened to me a few times in the beginning. My point, don’t try to save on hosting get a good quality company with professional support. If your having issues or problums just give me a call and I can get you in the right direction. http://www.albanygraphics.com
4 comments:
seo uk I am very enjoyed for this blog. Its an informative topic.
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You made some good points there. I looked on the internet to learn more about the issue and found most people will go along with your views on this site.
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Hello folks to those of you who still have an interest I should say I have been away sick for a while. I was told it was IBS but all is well now and it only took about a half a year to get there. Well now I'm back and posting again.
Back when I wrote this post and started this blog all that I mentioned was true and very accurate. But I should update this a bit.
The price of web hosting has dropped so drastically it seems there is no place for it to go but up. What I should say is there is no point in saving your pennies because that's all it costs. Also the most amazing change to date in the web hosting industry has less to do with money and more to do with quality. Storage is no longer an issue because most hosting companies lease or rent if you will the servers over seas or from a large host like Godaddy or fatcow. The point is it's all about support, because have you ever had to talk to a support specialist from India or Indonesia, it's like talking to a 5 year old. "Hello good sir how may I for to help you today"
Now the final straw is wix.com or as I like to call it wysiwyg-flash-crap... Ok so I'm a bit bitter and it makes me kind of crazy. As a professional designer and developer this is getting out of hand. Free hosting, free design, and worst of all sometimes the sites look good. However I have to point out that the code is just terrible and forget about getting listed on search engines based on relevancy. So let me know what you think and I look forward to your impute.
John Catalfamo
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