How To Select Best Domain Hosting

Top Domain Hosting Companies

• Web Hosting - http://www.eukhost.com Offering affordable uk hosting solutions on UK based servers together with outstanding 24/7 support for a reasonable price you will find on the web, and even though our prices are low, there is no compromise on our service performances.
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• Dedicated web hosting - http://www.aplus.net/ Web hosting, dedicated servers, domain name registrations and quality web design. Aplus.net offers internet services since 1995.
• We offer Business Web Hosting - http://www.wingsix.com All services at www.wingsix.com web site hosting are low cost and reliable. We offer a one stop solution for all your web hosting needs."
• Website Hosting - http://www.imhosted.com Offers fast website hosting and jsp services. Affordable web hosting provider with excellent customer service. Free Domain and more! Winner of 14 Industry Host Awards.
• Rackspace - Dedicated Hosting - http://www.rackspace.com/index.php Offering custom web hosting services that are based around both the popular Windows and Linux hosting environments and are scalable to any size business.
• PHP Website Hosting Services Affordable Domain Names - http://www.dotservant.com Quality php website hosting services and affordable domain name registrations
• Dedicated Hosting - http://www.eukhost.com/ Offering affordable uk hosting solutions on UK based servers together with outstanding 24/7 support for a reasonable price you will find on the web, and even though our prices are low, there is no compromise on our service performances.
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• Dedicated Hosting - http://www.eukhost.com/ Offering affordable uk hosting solutions on UK based servers together with outstanding 24/7 support for a reasonable price you will find on the web, and even though our prices are low, there is no compromise on our service performances.
• Rackspace UK Managed Hosting, Web Hosting and Dedicated Hosting - http://www.rackspace.co.uk/ Managed and dedicated web hosting which is reliable and scalable to any size business.
• Web Hosting - Web Hosting Company UK - Fasthosts - http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/ Fasthosts web hosting company offers a broad range of internet services, comprising domain hosting, email hosting and broadband services
• Affordable Web Hosting Services - http://www.hostrocket.com HostRocket offers reliable, affordable dedicated and shared web hosting for both professional and personal websites. We offer cheap, secure domain hosting packages ranging from very basic, shared hosting to high bandwidth and high storage dedicated host
• Register.com Web Hosting - http://www.register.com Register.com offers domain name registration, web hosting and whois lookups. Register for a website today!
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• Intermedia.NET - business email - http://www.intermedia.net Since 1995, Intermedia.NET has provided excellence in hosting services to thousands of customers around the globe. We stand apart from the competition due to our solid infrastructure, support, and customer loyalty.

How to Find Podcast Hosting

Podcast hosting is the mainly important part and first for anybody who wants to begin to create a podcast. Before anyone begins distributing podcasts, they required a location to store the files and keep the feed file that will tell their subscribers about the new episodes available.

One of the first things required is a domain name where the website will be located. Many domain registrars are available who will help one register a domain name for a small fee. Once the domain is registered, hosting is required, and again there are many different companies willing to do the hosting for a small fee. One of those is bluehost.com, but many others are available. When searching for a host, the mainly important thing is to build sure that a lot bandwidth and storage space is available and cheap. Since podcasting deals with large media files, a lot of disk space will be taken up storing the files and bandwidth will be eaten quickly when they are downloaded by the subscribers.

Once podcast hosting has been established, it needs to be used and the website needs to be set up. The DNS addresses of the website required to be set to the addresses that the host offers you so that the servers that the internet will know where your website is located. DNS addresses can be set by going to the domain registrar that was used to acquire the domain and inputting the addresses provided by the host. Then, it will take a few days before the master list the domain registar updates will be shared throughout the internet and all name servers know where to find your specific domain. You can then go about setting up your own podcast.

With the podcast hosting in place, you will required to look at the disk space allocated to the website using something called and FTP browser. The host may offer one as part of their hosting plan, but if not there are many available free to choose from. Using the FTP browser, log on to the host and upload a file called dircaster.php after editing it to fit the specifics of the website. Dircaster.php is an easy to find piece of coding that generates a feed file by searching at the contents of its directory or folder. The individual episodes to be podcasted can then be uploaded to the similar folder as dircaster.php for cataloging. build sure that all the meta data, or information about the mp3 file is correct before doing so.

The podcast hosting allows you to distribute all your podcasts. It would be top to upload more to the website, such as an index page that tells visitors about the podcast and offers the address of the file dircaster.php on your website. When they subscribe to that file, the podcast client they use will access it and receive information about the newest and latest podcasts.

Domain & Hosting - The Wizards

Before you rush out and choose your domain name or name your website, you might want to consider the following points:

1. Your Domain Name Should Be Your Website Name

Naming your site after your domain may seem obvious to some of you, but you'll be surprised to learn that not every website is named after the domain name even when the webmaster owns that domain name.

Naming a site after its domain name is important, for the simple reason that when people think of your website, they'll think of it by name. If your name is also your URL, they'll automatically know where to go. For example, when people think of thefreecountry.com, they don't have to wonder what URL to type into their browser to get there. The name of the site is also the URL.

Imagine if your business (or website) is called "Acme", but somebody else holds that domain name. Instead, you have some obscure domain name called, say, "mybusiness.com". What happens when your customers, recalling that Acme has a product they want, type "www.acme.com"? They'll wind up at your competitor's website. One lost sale.

In the modern world of the Internet, where people automatically turn to the Web for information, it pays to have a domain name that reflects your site or business. There are just lesser things for your customers or visitors to remember. Moreover, you don't seriously think that they'll try to memorise an unrelated URL just because you want them to, do you? The only people who'll memorise it are you and your competitors who want to compare your prices.

What if you cannot get the domain name of your choice? It really depends on how committed you are to that particular name. If you have an existing brand name that you're known for, you'll probably not want to ditch that name just because you couldn't get the domain name. After all, it took you a lot of time and money to establish that name. If so, you might simply want to try to buy over the domain name from the current owner. Check up the "whois" information for the domain, and contact that person listed to see if they're willing to sell it. You probably should be aware that they are likely to want to charge a higher fee than you'd normally get when buying new domains (assuming they want to sell it in the first place).

On the other hand, if you're just starting out, you might prefer the cheaper alternative of trying to obtain a domain name first, and then naming your website (or business) after the domain that you've acquired. So if you've acquired, say, the domain name "acme.com", then your website and business might be named "Acme" or "acme.com". I know this seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse, but that's the reality if you don't want to lose out on the Internet.

2. Generic Names Or Brand Name Domains?

I know that a number of people seem to think that your domain name really must be some generic name like "cars.com" if you are selling cars. Witness, for example, how much money those generic names are being sold for. But seriously, if you were searching for a car, you'll probably already have some brands in mind, and you're more like to try out things like generalmotors.com or toyota.com rather than just cars.com.

For that reason, I personally feel that a domain name that matches your brand name is very important. The very name that you use to advertise your product is the name that you will want for your domain, because that is the first thing that people will try in their browser. It is also the easiest thing for them to remember, and whatever that is easily remembered, will be more likely to be tried out than the obscure domain name.

3. Long or Short Domain Names?

Domain names can be of any length up to 67 characters. You don't have to settle for an obscure domain name like avab.com when what you mean is AcmeVideosAndBooks.com.

Having said that, there appears to be some disagreement about whether a long or short domain name is better.

Some argue that shorter domain names are easier to remember, easier to type and far less susceptible to mistakes: for example, "getit.com" is easier to remember and less prone to typos than "connecttomywebsiteandobtainit.com".

Others argue that a longer domain name is usually easier on the human memory - for example, "gaepw.com" is a sequence of unrelated letters that is difficult to remember and type correctly, whereas if we expand it to its long form, "GetAnEconomicallyPricedWebsite.com", we are more likely to remember the domain name.

Some of these arguments are actually academic. It's increasingly difficult to get short meaningful domain names. I have not checked, but I'm fairly certain that names like "getit.com" and "good.com" have long been sold. If you manage to get a short domain name though, the key is to build sure it's a meaningful combination of characters and not the obscure "gaepw.com" in our contrived example above.

Long domain names that have your site keywords in them also have an advantage in that they fare better in a number of search engines. The latter give preference to keywords that are also found in your domain names. So, for example, if you have a site on free C++ compilers with a domain name like freecpluspluscompilers.com, it might fare better in a search for "free C++ compilers" than my other site, thefreecountry.com.

Which would I go for? I'd go for the shorter name if I can get a meaningful one, but I'm not averse to longer names. However, I would probably avoid extremely long names verging on 67 characters. Aside from the obvious problem that people might not be able to remember such a long name, it would also be a chore typing it and trying to fit it as a title on your web page.

4. Hyphenated Names?

Should you get a hyphenated name? There are a few things to consider here:

a. Disadvantage: It's easy to forget the hyphens when typing a name. Many users are used to typing things like freecpluspluscompilers.com but not free-c-plus-plus-compilers.com. They'll probably leave out the hyphens and wind up at your competitor's site.
b. Disadvantage: When people recommend your site to their friends verbally, having hyphens in your domain name leads to more potential errors than when the name does not contain hyphens. For example, how do you think your visitors will refer to your site if it is named "acme-books-and-videos.com"? They might say, "I visited Acme Book and Videos dot com yesterday. It was fabulous." Their friends, remembering that comment later, might type into their browsers "acmebooksandvideos.com". Oops.

c. Disadvantage: It's a pain in the neck to type. Enough said.

d. Advantage: Search engines can distinguish your keywords better and thus return your site more prominently in search results for those keywords occurring in your domain name.

e. Advantage: The non-hyphenated form may no longer be available. At least this way, you still get the domain name you want.

Personally, I prefer to avoid hyphenated names if I can, but I guess it really depends on your domain name and your situation.

5. Plurals, "The", and "My" Forms of the Domain Name

Very often, if you can't get the domain name you want, the domain name registrar will suggest alternate forms of the name you typed. For example, if you wanted website.com, and it was taken (of course it is), it might suggest forms like:

thewebsite.com
mywebsite.com
websites.com

and the like, if they were not already taken as well. The question is, should you take them?

My personal opinion is that if you take the "the..." and "my..." forms of the domain name, you must always remember to promote your site with the full form of the name. Otherwise, people are likely to forget to affix the necessary "the" or "my". For that reason, I always advertise my sites as "thesitewizard.com" and "thefreecountry.com" in their full domain name forms, rather than just "Free Country" or "Site Wizard" (without the article).

On the other hand, I would not take the plural form of the domain name (eg, websites.com) if I cannot also get "website.com", since the chance of the visitor failing to type the "s" in the name is very great. Think about the famous name tussle between etoys.com and etoy.com. Many people wanting to go to etoys.com were apparently going to etoy.com instead. If it happened to them, it can happen to you too.

6. COM, ORG, NET, etc?

One common question I encounter is from people who can't get the ".com" domain of their choice, but find the ".net", ".org" or other country-specific top level domains (TLDs) available (like .de, .nu, .sg, etc). Should they try for these?

The answer is not as straightforward as you might think. If your website or business caters to the local community, such as a pizza delivery business or recruitment agency or the like, then it makes sense to get a country-specific domain. You actually benefit from having such a local domain because the people in your country know that they're dealing with a local entity, which is what they want. After all, if they stay in (say) the United Kingdom, they're not likely to want to try to order pizza from pizzaparlour.com, which suggests a US or an international site. You'd have better luck calling it pizzaparlour.co.uk, ie, with a UK domain.

What if yours is a site or business that can benefit from an international audience? There are actually many schools of thought on this. I'll just mention a few common ones.

The first school of thought goes on the premise that it is better to have a domain name of your choice "myperfectdomain" even if it has a TLD of ".net", ".org" or some other country specific extension, than to wind up choosing an obscure domain name for the simple reason you can't get your first choice. Thus they would settle for domain names like "myperfectdomain.de" or "myperfectdomain.net" or whatever. Against this is the argument that if you get a country specific domain, people might think that your business only caters to that country.

Another school of thought finds that ".net" and ".org" extensions are actually quite acceptable domain names. For some, the ".org" extension actually describes the non-profit nature of their organization. So, for example, the famous Apache web server can be found at "apache.org".

Others would settle for the ".com" extension and no less. As grounds for their arguments, they cite the browser algorithms used to locate a website when a user simply kinds a name like "acme" into the browser. Apparently, the browser searches for a domain name "acme.com" before attempting "acme.net", etc. As such, people who do that will be delivered to your competitor's site if you do not also own the ".com" extension. Indeed, even if people do not rely on their browser to full their typing, many simply assume a ".com" extension when they type a domain name, so if your business is "Acme", they'll just assume your domain name is "acme.com" rather than "acme.net" or some other such name.

As you can see, there are actually good grounds for accepting any of the above views. My personal footnote to the above arguments is that if you get a domain name with an extension other than ".com", build sure that you promote your business or website with the full domain name. For example, if your domain name is "dogandcatfood.net", build sure that when you advertise your site or business, call it "dogandcatfood.net" not "dogandcatfood". Otherwise people will assume a ".com" extension and travel to the wrong place.

7. In Conclusion...

In case the forest got lost in the trees (or the reverse) in my arguments here, let me reiterate the main point of this article: GET THAT DOMAIN NAME before you start your site or business.

Don't build the mistake of attempting to retrofit your domain name to your business or website. thefreecountry.com did not originally start out with that name, and I encountered a huge hassle (and lost visitors) as a result of the URL changes (I'll tell you about it in another article). Don't build that mistake too.

- Obtain from your web host the DNS IP addresses and names of their primary and secondary nameservers. Don't worry if you don't understand what these things mean. Just save the information somewhere. The information can usually be obtained from their FAQs or other documentation on their site, usually under a category like "domain name" or "DNS" or "domain name transfer" and the like. If you can't find it, email their webmaster. If you don't have a web host yet, all is not lost. Read on.
- Get your credit card ready. This is a requirement of mainly if not all registrars. It will allow you to claim and get the domain name immediately on application. This is not an option (unfortunately).
- if you already have a web host, you can just go to one of the registrars listed below and apply for the domain name. Be sure you have the information mentioned earlier.
- If you do not have a web host, you can always use one of the registrars listed below that allow you to park your domain name at a temporary website specially set up for you. This way you can quickly secure your domain name before it's too late and still take your time to set up the other aspects of your site. Some of those registrars also offer you with a free email address at your own domain name, like sales@yourdomain.com.

List of Domain Name Registrars

There are numerous domain name registrars. Listed below are just a few, along with my comments, if I know anything about them.

- Domain names from Yahoo! only US$1.99/first year - This well-known company also offers domain names at US$9.95 per year. They currently (at the time this was written) have an offer for new customers of US$1.99 for the first year for one domain only. The price includes the ability to manage your own DNS MX, A, CNAME records (useful for those who want to control every aspect of their web site and not leave it to their web host), email forwarding, domain forwarding (useful for people who have existing websites that they want their new domain to redirect to), and a starter page (good for those who just want to quickly get the domain name before someone else snaps it up, but don't have a website yet).
- 1&1 Internet Inc - This giant web host offers .com, .net, .org, .us, and .info domains at US$5.99 per year (as well as other domains like .biz, .ws, .mobi, .cc, .tv at different prices). Included in the price are a free email account with up to 200 email aliases and a starter website builder. You also get free private registrations and the ability to set your own MX records (for your email).
- World's Largest Registrar - GoDaddy.com - This extremely popular registrar offers domain names for US$8.95 (plus 25 cents) per year (US$7.95 plus 25 cents if you transfer from another registrar). They have a web interface to manage your domains, free web redirection (where people who visit your domain will get transferred to another URL of your choice), free starter web page, free parked page or free "for sale" page, and an optional private domain registration where your domain is registered in the name of a proxy company. They offer .com, .us, .biz, .info, .net, .org, .ws, .name, .tv, .co.uk, .me.uk and .org.uk. Note that (as with all registrars) the exact price varies depending on which domain you are registering (for example some domain extensions are more expensive than others).
- Dotster.com - This fairly popular registrar offers fairly cheap domain prices (US$14.95 per domain), a convenient web interface to manage your domains, an optional privacy facility where your domain name is registered in the name of a proxy company, etc. They offer .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .us, .ca, .tv, .name, .cc, .de, .sr, .md, .co.uk, .us.com domains, etc. If you're transferring a domain here from other registrars, the price is even cheaper (US$8.95).
- Register.com - This domain name registrar has been in business for a very long time: they were one of the biggest around when I started my early websites. They charge US$35 per year for .com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info domains. Country-specific domains are also available at varying prices, depending on the country.

Conclusion

Once you've decided, you should not procrastinate. I've lost more than one domain name by procrastinating (I lost the latest one by only one day). After all, at the price you're paying, it works out to be about US$3 a month if you're choosing the mainly expensive registrar. It is even cheaper, of course, if you use the other registrars (slightly more than US$1 per month).

How to Choose a Web Host

What are some of the things you should look for when choosing a web host? The criteria for choosing a free web host and a commercial web hosting solution are slightly different although they do overlap. Since thesitewizard.com caters to people who might be searching for either of these kinds of hosting, I will deal with each of these in turn. If you are only interested in one of these types, you can simply skip to the appropriate section. I have written these sections to be as independant of the other as possible.
Choosing a Free Web Host

1. Advertising mainly free web hosts impose advertising on your website. This is done to cover the costs of offering your site the free web space and associated services. Some hosts require you to place a banner on your pages, others display a window that pops up everytime a page on your site loads, whilst still others impose an advertising frame on your site. There is really no hard and fast rule which is to be preferred: some people hate a pop-up window, other webmasters dislike having to stuff banner codes onto their pages, and many people cannot stand an advertising frame (which may cause problems when you submit your website to search engines). Whichever method is used, check that you're comfortable with the method.
2. Amount of web space Does it have enough space for your needs? If you envisage that you will expand your site eventually, you might want to cater for future expansion. mainly sites use less than 5MB of web space. Indeed, at one time, one of my other web sites, thefreecountry.com, used less than 5MB of space although it had about 150 pages on the site. Your needs will vary, depending on how many pictures your pages use, whether you required sound files, video clips, etc.
3. FTP access Some free hosting providers only allow you to design your page with their online builder. whilst this is useful for beginners, do you have the option to expand later when you become experienced and their online page builder does not have the facility you need? FTP access, or at the very least, the ability to upload your pages by email or browser, is needed. Personally, I feel FTP access is mandatory, except for the mainly trivial site.
4. File type and size limitations Watch out for these. Some free hosts impose a maximum size on each of the files you upload (including one with a low of 200KB). Other sites restrict the file kinds you can upload to HTML and GIF/JPG files. If your needs are different, eg, if you want to distribute your own programs on your pages, you will have to look elsewhere.
5. Reliability and speed of access This is extremely important. A site that is frequently down will lose a lot of visitors. If someone finds your site on the search engine, and he tries to access it but find that it is down, he'll simply go down the list to find another site. Slow access is also very frustrating for visitors (and for you too, when you upload your site). How do you know if a host is reliable or fast? If you can't get feedback from anyone, one way is to try it out yourself over a period of time, both during peak as well as non-peak hours. After all, it is free, so you can always experiment with it.
6. CGI-BIN access / PHP This is not particularly crucial nowadays for a free web host, since there are so many free CGI hosting services available that offer counters, search engines, forms, polls, mailing lists, etc, without requiring you to dabble with Perl or PHP scripts.

However if you really want to do it yourself, with the minimum of advertising banners from these free providers, you will required either PHP or CGI-BIN access. Note that it is not enough to know they offer PHP or CGI-BIN access: you required to know the kind of environment your scripts run under: is it so restrictive that they are of no earthly use? For PHP scripts, does your web host allow you to use the mail() function? For Perl CGI scripts, do you have access to sendmail or its workalike?
7. Bandwidth allotment Nowadays, many free web hosts impose a limit on the amount of traffic your website can use per day and per month. This means that if the pages (and graphic images) on your site is loaded by visitors beyond a certain number of times per day (or per month), the web host will disable your web site (or perhaps send you a bill). It is difficult to recommend a specific minimum amount of bandwidth, since it depends on how you design your site, your target audience, and the number of visitors you're able to Draw to your site. In general, 100MB traffic per month is too little for anything other than your personal home page and 1-3GB traffic per month is usually adequate for a simple site just starting out. Your mileage, however, will vary.