Website Hosting Reviews And Tutorials

There is sometimes confusion out there for people who are new to the web or maybe trying to get online.  The confusion is based upon whether people should use a domain registrar or web hosting company to get their website up on the web.

The answer is that often there is no difference between the two.  Domain Registries will focus on domains as their lead product, but will almost always offer hosting for your website.  Hosting companies on the other hand will focus on web hosting as their lead product, but will also offer domain registration.

There are two very simple factors to think about:

1. Whoever you choose to host your website with make sure you determine which country your site is hosted in, is it in the country you reside in and that is relevant to your domain.  For example if a .ie domain, is your site hosted in Ireland.

2. Whoever registers your domain, are they an authorised registry for that domain in that country and can ensure you’re domain is registered correctly.

We’re not saying these are the only considerations, but important if you want good search engine performance.

Here are our top 5 tips in choosing a web hosting company…

1. Reputation – Has the Hosting company being in business for some time and is well know for it’s service and support?
2. Getting in Touch – Obviously you can send an email or submit a ticket, but can you call a person and talk through any problems you have?
3. Security and Location – Make sure your site is hosted where you think it is, and is in at least a Tier 3 Datacentre. If it’s the other side of the World you will have support issues simply because of the time difference. Nothing worse than needing a quick answer and have to wait 6 hours or more.
4. Technical Expertise – Do they have the expertise that you need for your hosting requirements, do they know what they are talking about?
5. Value for Money – Don’t go for the cheapest, go for value. Read the small print and make sure there is no nasty hidden charges.

Many cloud computing companies are claiming to be the best thing since sliced bread. Suddenly there are thousands of cloud computing companies all claiming to be the best, and so the obvious question is, who is?

Well common sense says that there can’t be just one and there are so many factors that determine what makes a good cloud company. Some may say that size does not matter, but of course that simply is not true.

The simple answer is that the best Cloud Computing Companies are the ones that are right for you, can deliver all the standard benefits of the cloud, including security, high availability, scalability, fast deployment and offer clear benefits to your organisation over and above their competitors.

Whatever your cloud computing need make sure you have have a detailed RFI – Request for Information and then follow up with a refined RFQ – Request for Quotation and don’t just settle for what may at the outset look great value. Make sure your cloud service provider backs up there quotation with a full SLA – Service Level Agreement and Contract.

Choosing good domain names is an often overlooked or underestimated step or setting up an online presence, the steps you may take go along the lines of…

1. Is my company name available to register as a domain?

2. What type of domain tld should I register, .com, .ie, .co.uk?

However, have you ever stopped to consider if your keywords are available as a domain name?

The next time you are searching for your “web hosting” for instance, check out the best performing domains. Generally these domain names include the search term you are searching for.

The reason for this is because if I register “Web Hosting UK” every link I get from other websites has that term in it “web hosting uk”, If i get enough sites linking to my site with the text “Web Hosting UK” then bingo! im top for the search term.

Keep this in mind if you are considering domain name registration.

What is cPanel?

Simply put, cPanel is a control panel. Similar to the control panel on your pc that allows you to change settings on your local pc, cPanel is a control panel that allows you to control settings on your hosting account.

To try out a demo you can visit the cpanel website here

cPanel has a few uses, it can be installed on a server to manage the user accounts and features available on a dedicated/shared server, it also has individual area’s too that allow clients to log in and set up/ manage email accounts, databases, add on domains, sub domains and ftp accounts and loads more too.

Many custom built hosting control panels tend to be a bit clunky in my experience but the cPanel control panel is really easy to use and fast.

So, in conclusion, when looking to register a new domain and hosting, my recommendation is to look for a cpanel hosting provider.