Choosing the right hosting plan is difficult enough when you don’t have to factor in an interminable sea of choices and the possibility of receiving terrible service from the hosting provider you choose. Unfortunately, fly by night business is all too mutual in the web hosting industry, so it is hence important to make sure you decided on the right company from the first. Even so, it is not uncommon for someone to be stuck with a hosting plan that they disdain, being afflicted with site downtime and poor performance.
Most people would like to believe that the unreliable service will end soon, and that they’ll be able to enjoy a web hosting plan that will meet all of their requirements. Nonetheless, if you’re having a bad experience with your hosting provider it may be time to make a change, and/or request a refund. The following information details when it is best to switch hosting providers.
Persistent Downtime
Persistent site downtime is absolutely unacceptable in the hosting industry, especially if you currently own an online business that depends on the reliability of your hosting provider. If your hosting provider offers an uptime guarantee, and most do today, be sure to take them up on this guarantee, and at the very least ask for a discount on your current bill because of the inconvenience. If the company refuses to provide some sort of compensation for the persistent downtime then it is time to find a new hosting provider. Any down time that lasts longer than a few hours should warrant a web hosting provider change as well.
Bad Customer Service
If you’ve been on the phone with customer service several times, only to be treated poorly each time, then it may be time to consider a new hosting provider. Good customer service is an integral aspect of every good web hosting provider, and many times being a webmaster requires immediate assistance from trained professionals, not half an hour delays and unfriendly people that do not know what they’re talking about. If you’ve had problems with your hosting provider’s customer support, you may need to start thinking about different options, before you encounter a serious issue that needs immediate support. Customer service should be friendly, fast and knowledgeable about every aspect of web hosting.
Unfair Terms and Fees
If you’ve been noticing unusually high, unfair or unexpected fees on your monthly bills, you may want to contact the hosting provider to let them know how you feel. If you’re told there is nothing they can do, or if you continue to receive inflated bills each month, it may be in the best interest of your online business to cancel your hosting plan with the current provider. Likewise, you should examine the terms and conditions of any hosting plan before you make the decision to purchase the plan, especially if you’re required to pay a year in advance, as is the case with many shared hosting plans, which are often unreliable.
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Using a WordPress Hosting Provider
WordPress is an extremely popular platform for publishing on the Internet. It has been employed by large companies to report on global events and hobbyists to inform the family about the cat having babies. WordPress offers a range of benefits to casual and professional users alike, and there are many WordPress hosting companies that can help you get started right away.
Why WordPress?
The WordPress platform allows anyone to start blogging or publishing a website even without any significant background in web design. Most WordPress hosting providers offer a one-click installation of the necessary software so you can start creating and publishing content right away.
WordPress makes it easy to design and add content to your blog. There are thousands of free templates available to help create the look you want. This is one of the features that make WordPress so accessible to the general public. The layout and design elements are completely separate from the content, which means that once the design is set, any of the authors on the blog can start writing and not have to deal with all the design issues.
Finally, one of the best reasons to use WordPress is that it is open source software. To put it another way, it’s free. The software is open to the public to download and develop, and as the WordPress community continues to grow, more and more developments will keep appearing and new plug-ins and themes will become available. And it will all still be free.
WordPress Hosting Requirements
There are a couple ways to get a WordPress blog started. One is to register for a free online blog hosted by WordPress.com. This is completely free, but there are a couple of drawbacks to it. The first is that you will have fewer customization options because the blog must conform to their web hosting requirements, and the second is that the website address will not be your own. Instead it will be formatted as: “yourcompany.wordpress.com,†which can create a very unprofessional image. That’s not such a big deal for a personal blog, but it could really hurt a business.
Downloading and installing the software on your own WordPress hosting server, then, can offer you all the customization options you want and the ability to have it on your own domain. This option will, of course, incur some web hosting costs, but those are usually very affordable. When you start looking at your hosting options, though, there are some requirements that you should examine before settling on a company.
You need to make sure that the provider has enough bandwidth and storage space to accommodate your needs. You never know when your blog might hit it big, and the server will need to be able to cope with ever-increasing traffic. Be sure to look at the company’s history as well. What is their record when it comes to uptime vs. downtime? What do current and previous clients say about their service? Do they offer auto installation of upgrades and features? Finally, make sure that the provider has the proper software required for WordPress hosting – PHP, MySQL, and Apache server. When all these elements come together you can make your WordPress blog everything you want it to be.
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The File Manager allows you to manage your site through HTML, rather than an FTP tool or other third-party application. You can upload, create or delete files, organize files in folders, and change file permissions. While not as sophisticated as most FTP tools, File Manager is free and gives you all the basic functionality necessary to manage your site.
Note: All of the other topics in this section assume that you are already in File Manager.
To open and navigate in File Manager:
- Click on the File Manager button on the home page.
- Navigate by using the following:
- Open a folder by clicking on the folder icon.
- Go up a level by clicking on the Up one level link.
- Use the path links at the top of the window to move up and down the path.
- Select a folder, so as to view or modify its properties, by clicking on the folder name link.
Folders are a very useful way of adding organization and structure to your web site. They make maintenance of the site much easier, as you can easily see what files are in which folder. Most web sites include at least an /image folder to keep all the image files separate from the HTML files.
To create a new folder:
- Navigate to the area in which you will create the new folder.
- Click on the Create New Folder link.
- Enter the name of the new folder in the available field in the top-left corner of the window.
- Click on the Create button. The new folder will appear in the main display area.
You can use File Manager to upload files to your web site, up to 12 files in one go. Although useful, a third-party FTP client has many more features and does not limit you to the number of files you can upload at one time. Refer to the FTP Manager section for more information.
To upload files in File Manager:
- Navigate to the folder where you want to upload your files.
- Click on the Upload file(s) link.
- Click on the Browse… button next to one of the top fields.
- Search for and double-click on the first file to upload.
- Repeat the above steps for each file you want to upload.
- Click on the Overwrite existing files tick box if you want to overwrite existing files of the same name.
- Click on the Upload button when you have finished selecting files. The status of the upload will appear in the top-right corner of your window. The contents of the folder is displayed in the main area, including your uploaded files.
For small text files it can be easier to create them online, rather than on your home computer and uploading the file. You can create text files, such as HTML, PHP, or plain TXT, but not binary files.
To create a new file:
- Navigate to the folder where you want to create your text file.
- Click on the Create New File link.
- Enter the name of the file to be created in the available field in the top-right corner of your window. You do need to add the file extension to the name, for example script.pl for a Perl script, not just script.
- Select the type of document from the drop-down list. Each type of file adds specific information to the text file:
- Text Document – No text is added to the file.
- HTML Document – No text is added to the file.
- Perl Script – Automatically adds the path to Perl to the top of the file. Make sure to double-check that the path is correct.
- Shell Script – Automatically adds the path to the Shell executable to the top of the file. Make sure to double-check that the path is correct.
- Click on the Create button. The file has now been created and the display updated to show the new file. Refer to Editing a file to add text to these new files.
Editing a pre-existing file through File Manager allows you to make immediate changes to your web site, without having to upload a new version of the file. This is useful for small changes, but would be inefficient for large alterations.
To edit a file:
- Navigate to the folder where the file is located.
- Click on the name of the file.
- Click on the Edit File link in the top-right corner of your window. This will open a new window with the contents of the file displayed.Note: Clicking on the Show File link will display the contents of the file. However, you will not be able to make any changes to the file.
- Alter the text of the file as you wish.
- Click on the Save button when you have finished altering the file. The file has been saved and any changes will take effect from now on.
If you are using Internet Explorer 6 as your web browser you can edit online HTML pages directly through the File Manager.
To edit a file using the HTML Editor:
- Navigate to the folder where the file is located.
- Click on the name of the file.
- Click on the WYSIWYG Html Editor (IE 6 only) link in the top-right corner of your window. This will open a new window with the contents of the file displayed.
- Edit the file in the same manner as using a word processor.
- Click on the
when you have finished editing the file.
You can quickly rename a file or folder if you originally labelled a file or folder with the wrong name, or if the name needs to be updated. This is useful if a small number of files need to be changed, since you do not need to upload any files for the changes to take effect, but inefficient if you needed to rename your entire site.
To rename a file or folder:
- Navigate to the file or folder.
- Click on the Rename File link in the top-right corner of your window.
- Enter the new name for the file or folder in the text field. You need to enter an extension if it is a file, such as .html for HTML files.
- Click on the Rename button. The file name has now been changed and the display updated to show the modified file.
All files on UNIX (including Linux and other UNIX variants) machines have access permissions. These tell the operating system how to deal with requests to access these files. There are three types of access:
- Read – Denoted as r, files with read access can be displayed to the user.
- Write – Denoted as w, files with write access can be modified by the user.
- Execute – Denoted as x, files with execute access can be executed as programs by the user.
Access types are set for three types of user group:
- User – The owner of the file.
- Group – Other files which are in the same folder or group.
- World – Everyone else.
The web server needs to be able to read your web pages in order to be able to display them in a browser. The following permissions need to be set in order for your web site to function properly.
- All HTML files and images need to be readable by others. The setting for this is 644 (readable by User, Group, and World, and writable by User), and is set automatically when you upload files.
- All folders need to be executable by others. The setting for this is 755 (readable by User, Group, and World, writable by User, executable by User, Group, and World), and is set automatically when you create a folder.
- All CGI files (all files in the cgi-bin folder) need to be executable by other. The setting for this is 755 (readable by User, Group, and World, writable by User, executable by User, Group, and World), and is not set automatically when you upload files. You need to change file permissions manually. Refer to the Introduction to CGI topic for more information.
Warning: It is important that none of your files or folders are writable by anyone else. Any file or folder which is writable by others can be erased by them. Generally there is no problem, just be careful how you set your permissions.
To change file or folder permissions:
- Navigate to the file or folder that you need to change.
- Click on the name of the file or folder.
- Click on the Change Permissions link in the top-right corner of the window.
- Click on as many tick boxes as you require to create the right permission. The permission numbers underneath the tick boxes will update automatically.
- Click on the Change button when you have finished setting the permission. The new permission level has now been saved and the display updated to show the modified file.
CPanel includes a Trash folder, which operates the same way as the Windows Recycle Bin. All deleted files are automatically placed in the Trash folder and can be restored to their original positions by a simple click. However, once you empty the Trash folder, the files are permanently deleted. Refer to Emptying the Trash for more information.
To delete a file or folder:
- Navigate to the file(s) or folder(s) that you want to delete.
- Click on the name of the file or folder to display the item’s properties in the top-right corner of your window.
- Click on the Delete File link. The deleted file or folder is now displayed in the Trash area. Refer to Restoring an item from the Trash if you deleted the wrong file or folder by accident.
You can easily restore a deleted file from the Trash by moving it from the Trash to another folder. Restored folders are automatically moved back to their original location. However, you will not be able to restore the item if you have emptied the Trash since deleting it – it has been permanently destroyed.
To restore an item from the Trash:
- Click on the icon of the item that you want to restore in the Trash area on the bottom-right of the window. The folder or file will be automatically returned to its original location.
Warning: Make sure you do not need any of the files or folders in the Trash before you empty it, because the files are deleted permanently once the Trash is emptied.
To empty the Trash:
- Click on the Trash button in the Trash area. All of the files in the Trash have now been permanently deleted.
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A lot of web hosting providers, perhaps even most, use CentOS to power their dedicated servers. Of the many options for paid operating systems (such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux or even Windows) or free operating systems (such as Debian or Slackware), these hosts choose CentOS. Currently the question is Why? What is so particular about this Linux distribution that has made it a best loved for dedicated servers? .
The answer is pretty simple. CentOS furnishes the best of both worlds. On one hand, you get an enterprise-quality operating system, basically because it is based on the source code of Red Had Enterprise Linux, which has been examined and stabilized extensively prior to release. On the other hand, CentOS is completely free, open source, and no cost, offering all of a typical user support and features of a community-run Linux distribution.
For updates, CentOS relies on the tested and trusted Red Had Enterprise Linux update network. This means that all of the packages that come through are identical, and CentOS maintains binary compatibility with Red Hat. This means you get an enterprise OS for free.
The catch with CentOS is that you do not get any of the commercial support (although it is optional) or guarantees such as warranties. In other words, if it messes up, no one will fix it but you. For leased dedicated servers, however, the hosting provider may offer support for it, making it a win-win for both the provider, who does not have to pay licensing fees to a vendor, and the user, who still gets quality support.
If you are interested in trying CentOS, you can download it from the project’s website.
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It has long been my experience that most seasoned webmasters are huge fans of the Web site control panel available with most Web hosts known simply ascPanel. Those who use it exclaim often about its power and general ease of use over the alternatives such as Plesk. I, on the other hand, am convinced anyone who thinks cPanel is easier to use than Plesk needs to stop drinking the pond water.
For less experienced users, I remain firm in my belief that Plesk blows cPanel out of the water with its ease of use. But rather than going on and on, let’s take a solid look at what this looks like for Joe Average, shall we?
Plesk demo:
Without even having a clue as to what I am doing, I can easily determine that I can add a domain name from the first page I arrive at. Just click domains, create new, follow the prompts. Simple. Instantly, everything I need is toggled to be turned on. Even after hitting next, I am instantly presented with the place where I set up my FTP account. I cannot overstate how “droolingly†simple Plesk makes this — it’s almost frightening. I also have access to toggling support for perl, php, python, or whatever else I need WITHOUT needing to dance around from option to option. By continuing to hit next, each step even down to domain policy is right there without me ever having to search for it.
Once my initial domain is set up, once again, Plesk owns the experience by instantly providing me with clear indications of where I need to go to, then sets up my email accounts. Everything else I need is right there at my fingertips — for this given domain that I created, as well. Subdomains, etc. — the works.
cPanel/WHM:
Immediately, we find things overcomplicated. Why? Because I must decide whether I start with cPanel or WHM. Remember, I am looking at this from the perspective of a very new user. I am not relying on any experience here, rather, I’m looking at how intuitive the options really are. Moving on.
Being as it appears that cPanel is the control panel and WHM is for managing the Web hosting accounts, I guess one would start with WHM? Upon arriving at the WHM demo account, I am assuming that one would start with Basic cPanel/WHM Setup? After clicking on this, I find boxes where I am to enter in my default nameservers. Okay, did that… where’s the next button? And also, where do I add in my domain?
Frustrated, I then click home and proceed to try account information, then trying server configuration, (pulling my hair out now), then finally setting on Multi Account Functions. None of these options are doing ANYTHING of value for just starting out. Awesome. So I click home once again. Wait, I see a cPanel link — perhaps this will help me get my domain set up? Not even close…
Finally I wise up and scroll down on the lower left side of the screen. At the bottom, there is an option for create a new account. Maybe this is where I add my domain? Yes, this is it. And this looks much better, too. So I add in the needed info. I also like the default mail settings detection option — this is good. Okay, all of this is set. Sadly, this is as far as the demo will take me. So I can only assume I must set up email fromcPanel, then? Back in cPanel, I find email, choose it, and set up my account. Easy enough. Cool. Adding FTP, also doable from cPanel easily. There, that ought to do it for me.
What I learned from a newbie experience:
While cPanel/WHM are certainly usable enough, they are very poorly laid out. Seriously, cPanel and WHM should not be separated like this. I realize why they are, but the end user simply wants it to be combined, right there, and easy to navigate. Plesk wins easily by making the entire setup process as complex as installing software onto Windows. Just keep hitting next.
So yes, cPanel is definitely demonstrating more powerful options with the ability to restart things like POP3, SSH, DNS, and FTP services. Despite this, Plesk makes getting started MUCH easier. That and the fact that most of the functionality folks want from a Web server is right there for the choosing with Plesk, all without dancing from setting to setting in a blind hope of getting things working.
To the advanced user, cPanel obviously makes sense as you are already familiar with jumping all over the place to get things done in exchange for powerful server control. But for most people, Plesk is going to tick folks off far less when they are simply trying to get their Web site up and running without a trip to the nearest freelancing Web site for help.
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The Backup area allows you to download the daily, weekly, or monthly backup file of your entire web site, or a particular MySQL, alias, or filter backup file. If your computer crashes, or your personal backups are destroyed, these files allow you to recover your site in a convenient manner (you could also use FTP to download each file, but it would take much longer as the files are not compressed).
How often a backup is created is decided by your web host. Contact your hosting administrator for more details.
Important: You should keep your own backup copy of your web site as well. Do not rely solely on the backup provided by your web host. Having multiple backups in different locations provides security against permanently losing information.
Note: A complete web site backup file includes everything – from web pages to images to scripts to access logs. A large site will have a large backup file, and will take some time to download.
To download a backup file:
- Click on the Backup button on the home page.
- Click on the Daily, Weekly, or Monthly backup file to download the entire system backup for the indicated time, or click on the link underneath the required area to download an SQL, Alias, or Filter backup file. Refer to Generating a backup if you need to generate a backup first before downloading it.Note: To download any previous stored backups, click on the Generate/Download a Full Backup link, and click on any backup that is listed.
- Save the file to disk.Note for Windows users: This file is in .tar.gz format (a GZIP archive file that contains a TAR archive file). This is a common archive format used on Unix machines, in the same way that .zip is a common Windows archive format. Most compression utilities should be able to uncompress a .tar.gz file.
You can generate a backup at any time. This is useful if you have just made some changes to the site and you do not want to have to wait for the routine backup (usually daily or weekly) before downloading the backup.
To generate a backup:
- Click on the Backup button on the home page.
- Click on the Generate/Download a Full Backup link.
- Click on the location for the backup from the Backup Destination drop-down list. The following locations are available:
- Home Directory – Saves the backup in the public_html level of your site.
- Remote Ftp Server – Saves the backup on a specified remote FTP server.
- Remote Ftp Server (passive mode transfer) – Saves the backup on a specified remote FTP server that will only accept passive (PASV) mode FTP transfer. Please refer to your hosting administrator or the remote FTP server if you have questions about passive mode transfer.
- Enter your e-mail address in the Email Address field. An e-mail will be sent to this address when the backup has completed.
- Enter the FTP address, user name, and password in the Remote Server, Remote User, and Remote Password fields if you are saving the backup file at a remote location.
- Click on the Generate Backup button. An e-mail will be sent to the specified address when the backup has finished and can be downloaded.
In the unlikely event that your web site or other files are deleted from your web host’s servers, you can restore the web site using your most recent backup file.
To restore your web site from a backup file:
- Click on the Backup button on the home page.
- Click on the Browse… button next to the relevant area that you want to restore.
- Search for and double-click on the relevant backup file (in .gz format).
- Click on the Upload button.Note: You may need to wait for a few minutes to upload and restore a large web site file.
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With our combined experience over the years, we have seen the best and worst of web hosting companies. He’s a light hearted but rather jaded list of reasons web hosts SUCK!
1. Calling into customer support and waiting on hold for 40 minutes and the hold music is Marilyn Manson!
2. You ask for RoR (Ruby on Rails) and the tech on the phone assures you he can provide that and yells “RWAAAARâ€
3. Your hosting company just got bought out by a web hosting company you just transferred away from.
4. They claim to be a member of the BBB but later you find out theirBBB is The Birmingham Bizarre Bazaar (quality fetish suppliers).
5. You call in tech support and a gentleman with an Indian accent says “Sir is your computer plugged in?†.. and you’re a woman
6. You sign up for domain privacy and later do a WHOIS and see your credit card information and SS number. “I was told I would get domain privacy!†“Miss we thought you requested domain piracy†.. and you’re a man.
7. You ask the tech if he has a TOS and he says yes. You later find out he meant totally offensive smells and your site has been suspended unexpectedly, you have no leg to stand on and the tech’s response is “Oh THAT TOS!â€
8. The same tech who told you he has backups on your pre sales call turns out to be a wannabee singer and his “backups†are his 12 year old twin sisters who “doowup†when he busts a move in the bathroom.
9. You ask him how big his file size limit is and he responds “That’s kinda personal.. but what I can tell you is I leave the ladies smilingâ€.
10. The same tech (let’s call him Hubert since there’s a whole theme happening here) answers yes to your questions regarding shared server offerings. You later find out that Hubert is a very giving and generous guy and he “shares†your server space, bandwidth allocation and resources with all the clients hosting on the same server as you… along with your personal information and email address!
11. When you ask Hubert how long they have been in business his response of 15 years reassures you that they are a legit and solid company. When you phone in to challenge this as their whois says 2006 he replies “Ohhhh I thought we were talking DOG years!â€
12. When your server goes down right before a big marketing campaign goes out.
13. Calling into support to ask a question and the rep cannot find your account because somehow it got deleted OOPS!
14. Your host asks you to verify your account by repeating your password over the phone. Every time you say it, you hear a stifled giggle and they say “I’m sorry sir can you please repeat that?†Your password is IamTheBe$tLOVER
15. Your web host has automated support. After 23 minutes of keying in your SS number, last 6 digits of your credit card and your domain name (37 characters) you finally speak with a real person who requests the SAME information AGAIN!
16. After canceling your hosting account you are continually getting billed but now for 2 dedicated servers instead of your $100 a year hosting account.
17. After 36 straight hours of working on your new sites web design and meticulously putting every image in its place you find out that your server crashed and there is no backup. NOOOOOOO!!!
18. Getting a deal on your first year and then having to renew at a more expensive price.
19. You have never been on the internet before and you decide to buy a hosting account and setup an email account through them. Within 20 minutes you already have spam!!!!!
20. Your host experiences power failure and they have no backup generators!
21. When you call your hosting company and ask why your servers went down. They respond with “No they didn’t. It must be a propagation issue or something with your ISPâ€
22. You call support because your site is down and they say “We are going through an upgradeâ€. That works once but when it happens every week sporadically during the middle of the day and they keep saying “it’s an update to help better serve you†SUUUUCKS!!!!
23. Your hosting company has a problem with spam and the filter is up so high that no mail is getting through but when you are in a meeting and check your mail all there is in your inbox is porn spam and everyone is looking at you like you’re a sicko.
24. Every time you go to your website it’s down but when other people go to it, it’s fine. Sometimes you will sit your friend down at his computer and you at yours and you phone conference each other to see if it comes up and it does for him but not for you. You decide to go to his house and he to yours and see if it’s just your home computer but wherever you go your website will not be displayed. SUCKYVOODOONESS!!!
25. You call your web host support team because something is wrong with your site and they tell you that a widget 2.0 socket 5 cloud storm hit their data center and that’s why a page got deleted. IDIOT SUCKFEST!!
26. After many attempts of being patient with your web hosting customer support techs inability to fix any problem you get frustrated and a little upset. Later that day you find the following things wrong with your site.
• Your real estate site is unexpectedly not selling real estate anymore. You are selling liquor stores now.
• You just put up a very professional picture of yourself on your site and the next thing you know someone photo shopped your photo with a mustache, a black eye and teeth missing.
27. When you bought your website and domain name through a sales rep at your first hosting company the hosting company used the CEO’s name to register your domain name. Now you want to leave but they own your domain name. TRICKY WEB HOSTY!!!
28. You bought a hosting account through a template hosting agency because you don’t know html and their backend admin area looks cool. After you purchase this you find out that they don’t support their templates!
29. You are talking to smooth salesman Timmy over at a hosting company and he promises you 4 add-on’s, forum management, bulletin management, Free email marketing and a 200 Google adwords credit. After you sign up for their premier account for 5 grand a year you notice that the freebies are not included in your package. You call back for Timmy but no one knows who Timmy is and a “Timmy†has not worked for them EVER!
30. You do not have log files!
31. Your log files are never accurate.
32. You started a lead generation site where people fill out forms for products/servers/newsletters and in return you get there email addresses. Someone decides to give your site a virus and take over your mailing list and your web host cannot do anything about it.
33. Your built in traffic stats never work.
34. Your built in traffic stats are always off.
35. You purchase a large hosting account with a lot of extras but when you need small things done you are nickeled and dimed till you are broke.
36. Your hosting company charges you to park domains.
37. You buy a hosting account with a ton of space but cannot put up multiple sites on it.
38. The only way you can put up multiple sites on your account is via your .htaccess file but you have no freaking clue how to do that and your web host does not support that. GREAT that’s awesome good work!!!!
39. You actually love your hosting company because it’s a smaller no name company but the service is great. You tell all of your 5 friends to join and they do and their servers are overloaded.
40. You sign up for a web host by doing a Google search and after you sign up you call their support line but find out they are a foreign hosting company in Germany and all there support techs speak German. Foreign SUCKY!!!
41. You sign up with your web host but you only get 1 MYSQL database.
42. Your web hosting company is in charge of sending you notification on domain name expiration but you never get yours. Your domain expires.
43. A cyber squatter picked up your domain name and is holding it hostage. You find out it’s the guy from your web hosting companies support team who you previously screamed at and called a stupid moron.
44. You utilize a free web hosting service but they place ads all over your page.
45. Your hosting company has backup servers but they are in the same geographical location so when the power goes off the original servers go down AND the back up’s go down.
46. Your hosting company cannot automate its billing an invoices and its all done by hand. Sadly, the accounts guy was recently paralyzed in a freak server accident and types by blowing into a straw.
47. Your web host goes “down†for 24 hour periods at a time.
48. Your user control panel consists of 2 options. On and Off!
49. You forgot to check “(web hosting name here) sucks†in Google before you bought your hosting account and to your surprise there was over 1,000,000 pages indexed for that “company sucksâ€.
50. They offer SSH on shared servers and your site is constantly OWNED by 12 year old hackers.
51. They advertise domains for under $2 but when you complete the purchase your charge says $98?
52. You request support and they advise you support costs extra!
53. You request a CPanel them change and they escalate your request to a System Admin!
54. They don’t tell the truth. They claim a lot of services that when you host with them, you find out they don’t offer. Like bandwidth, they’ll claim to provide x amount of bandwidth, then you find out they have a daily cap for using it and when you multiply the daily cap x 30 or 31, it is about 1/2 the size of the bandwidth they claim to provide monthly.
55. canceling – they’ll claim they let you cancel anytime within the contract, but it turns out you can’t ever get a refund (you have to write a letter in your own blood to prove you are who you say you are, then send it to their office in Nome, Alaska that reads mail only once a year during the famous dog sled race). Of course, when you complain about these points, they point you to their TOS where it spells out the whole Nome and dog sled stuff, although it doesn’t mention the writing the letter in your own blood (the person on the phone just made that up to be funny).
56. When immediately after you sign up with them, they offer this great deal on more space/bandwidth/whatever…but you can’t get it because you are already a customer.
57. EVERYTHING is an extra charge, and you feel like you are getting nickle/dimed to death.
58. You get treated like you just won the “Imbecile of the Year†award. (Even if you do deserve that award, being treated that way is not nice.)
59. They pretend to help but can’t speak English….only geekspeak. And they refuse to repeat or explain any further.
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Your domain password is the password you use to log on to your CPanel. You should change this occasionally to maximize your site security. You should always change your password if you think someone else has access to your account.
To change your cPanel password:
- Click on the Change Password button on the home page.
- Enter your current password in the Old Password field.
- Enter your new password in the New Password and New Password (again) fields.
- Click on the Change your password now! button. Your password has now been changed.
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When it comes time to select who will be hosting your website, keep in mind that your web host is, in a way your business partner. Their service and performance could directly impact on your business so I’ve put together a list of my top 10 tips for choosing a web hosting provider:
Reliability and Uptime
You really want this to be top of the list. If you host on a server that is only online 50% of the time then you’ll be losing half your visitors, business and income! Your web host should guarantee its uptime. You won’t ever find a host that has 100% uptime – but look for web hosts that at least guarantee a minimum of 99.5% uptime. Also check out the host’s redundancy – ask them what resources are available in the event of a utility failure? For example, a backup generator and uninterruptible power supply (UPS).
Support
Following on from your server’s reliability, it’s a good idea to look for a host that will provide great, timely customer support. Customer support need not be via phone – email support is just as good as it provides a thread should an issue need to be escalated. Your website’s server and network should be monitored 24/7 – that includes public holidays!
Data backup
Choose a company that backs up your files. Then if the unforeseen happens, your website can be restored. Find out how often your server will be backed up. Remember, you should always archive your website files on your own hard drive in case of that meteor strike!
Find out where your server will be based
Find out the physical location of your web host’s servers as many New Zealand Web Hosting providers host their servers offshore, usually in large data centres in the USA. If your target audience is local, then New Zealand based servers are a good choice. You’ll find your host easier to deal with if both the support team and data centre are in the same time zone. It also means faster access for your visitors making their visit to your site more enjoyable!
Flexibility
You may just be getting your business off the ground but it’s always good to look for a web host that will allow you to easily upgrade your plan in the future. This may include increasing disk space, number of email accounts or extra data traffic allowances as your business grows.
Disk space and Data transfer
Don’t cut yourself short on disk space and data transfer (bandwidth/traffic) when picking a plan. Most websites consume a very small amount of disk space, but you should allow room for growth, and space for email storage. Investigate if the host provides warning emails as you approach critical limits and ensure they won’t surprise you with excess fees for exceeding your monthly bandwidth traffic allowance.
Server features
The operating system of your server may determine the types of scripts you can run. Whether you require a Linux or Windows server will depend on what you plan to do with your site. Linux servers are often cheaper and more stable, but if you need to host ASP scripts then you have no choice but to look for a Windows web host. Check with your host to ensure these minimum features are available with your plan:
- FTP, SSH
- PHP, Perl, CGI
- Subdomains
- Statistics and logs
- FrontPage extensions
- Email
Think about how many email accounts you will require and how you’ll access email sent to your domain name. When overseas or away from your computer, WebMail is handy and allows you to pop into an internet café to check your mail. Other features to consider when choosing your host include:
- Number of email aliases included in your plan
- Is email forwarding available?
- Can you setup auto-responders?
- Is there a catch-all account included?
- POP3 and IMAP access for checking mail on your mobile.
Ease of use / Control Panel Site Management Tools
Choose a host that allows you to manage the different aspects of your web and email account yourself. An easy to use web based control panel should be provided. Ask to see a demo of the host’s control panels. This way you can get a feel for how you’ll be managing your website’s server.
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Here is basic of a meta tag example :
<head>
<title>site title</title>
<meta name=â€description†content=â€â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦..†/>
<meta name=â€keyword†content=â€â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦..†/>
<meta name=â€Author†content=â€your name†/>
<meta name=â€copyright†content=â€Copyright© 2009-2010 by company name.†/>
<meta name=â€Robots†content=â€index,follow†/>
<meta name=â€robots†content=â€all†/>
</head>
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