From the category archives:

Web Hosting

8 Reasons to move to a Self Hosted Blog

by ZK on December 10, 2009

Welcome back! This Blog runs on Thesis . Get Thesis Theme Bonus worth $225. Download my FREE ebook "The 10 Point Site Optimization Checklist" and subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I know a few people, who don’t want to buy a domain and a web host because they don’t know whether they like to blog or not. Of course it would be a stupid investment if you don’t know if blogging is something for you.

If you don’t know, if you a going to like to blog, then try using
Blogger.com – for a week or so – then you will see whether you’d like to blog or not – if it is – buy a domain instantly and select a good web hosting provider .

Well Blogger.com is great for newbies, who want to try web-publishing. But, literally it’s hard to get a popular blog out of Blogger – it can certainly give you some traffic, but I’d only use Blogger for driving traffic to my main self-hosted blog.

Of course all the fun, starts when you get your own domain name. When you get your own domain name you are truly able to do whatever you want to do with your blog. When you have your own domain name you are practically only limited by your imagination.

Below are 8 reasons why you should move to a self hosted blog

1. Google can choose to close down your blog whenever they want to, if they don’t like your blog, they’ll shut it down (it’s proven)

2. It’s difficult to customize Blogger, it isn’t that much customizable – compared to self-hosted WordPress

3. There’s limited template options to choose. If you look at the templates Blogger allows you to choose, you will see how limited it actually is. This blog runs on the Thesis Theme, Thesis gives great flexibility and customization options.

4. Sometime blogs on blogger.com can be very slow to load

5. You also have limited monetization possibilities – well on Blogger
there’s Google Ads, but not many earn that much from that.

6. It’s not social bookmark friendly. Many social bookmarking sites, don’t accept articles from free blogs.

7. Custom URL – When you have your own domain name you will easier be remembered – if you have a hosted blog, your domain name will be less professional and memorable.

8. SEO Friendly – A self hosted blog helps in ranking your website based on the location of your host .

If you consider blogging for more than 3 months I really think you should buy a domain name – you can get one for like $6 a month or so – cheap ? compared to the ROI based on the monetization options available for self hosts blogs.

If you don’t see this as cheap, then I don’t think you should have a
serious business blog – Blogger is great for personal blogs though, unless you want to make it dead popular. If you just want a chill blog and don’t wanna spend lots of money on a blog, just write. Then go for Blogger.

I just need to make clear, that if you want to build a successful and a profitable blog it will be easiest using a self-hosted blogging platform such as WordPress.org.

If you are just a little bit techie you’d be able to set up your own
domain with WordPress. There are some webhosts that offer the “one-click-WordPress-install” – then there’s no need to be techie.

If your host doesn’t have the one-click-installation you just need to upload some files to a server and then install (not a problem at all), even my mom can do that.

My blog is my business, this is a self-hosted blog . I hope your blog is too.

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Top Web Hosting Rating & Reviews

by ZK on October 6, 2009

Choosing a good and reliable web hosting service should be one of your top blog priorities. There are lots of web hosting services in the market, but the one that you select should be related to your needs. Web Hosting Rating gives you all the valuable hosting information required to choose a web host.

Web Hosting Rating is an exhaustive service directory that gives information and reviews about different website hosting companies along with their plans and pricing structure. This detailed information on different web hosts makes the content valuable.

The site is categorized based on Top CMS web hosts ( ie. Joomal Hosting, Drupal Hosting, MODx Hosting, Wordpress Hosting , phpBB Hosting, vBulletin Hosting and more ). The site also gives an overview of Top Hosts based on Linux (Unix) Hosting, Windows Hosting, Resellers Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, VPN Hosting and other types of Hosting.

One of the top features of Web Hosting Rating is that it has user reviews and rating on web hosts, if you are happy with the features of your present web host you can rate it on the site. This is a great feature that gives an unbiased opinion about web hosts and their services. The exhaustive website hosting guide section will help you know more about hosting tips and other web marketing related information necessary to host and market your site.

Check out WebHostingRating.com

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Choose the Best Web Hosting with WebHostingGeeks

by ZK on June 6, 2009

When I was planning to launch my first internet site I had very little knowledge about web hosting, I was unsure which web hosting service provider was best suited for my website. Since most of us start a website on a shoe string budget I wanted to ensure that I was not spending unnecessary dollars on web host fees and services.

Now, if you don’t have a technical background web host becomes a painful task and I don’t have a technical background. I had to read up about the different web hosting companies and their service offerings to decide which web host provider was the ideal fit for my internet site.

The net has tons of information on web hosting and services provided by web hosts, you can easily get lost in a sea of information on web hosting and still be as confused as I was about it.

If you are looking for a reliable web hosting service I recommend you to check out testimonials from users who have used web hosting services. To make things easy WebHostingGeeks.com have a section dedicated to customer web hosting reviews. On this section you’ll get customer reviews and experiences about web hosting companies.

WebHostingGeeks.com also have reviews on top web hosting companies based on your need, budget and business. For examples Web Hosting Geeks have the top hosting reviews and services for blogs, forums, windows hosting, PHP hosting or dedicated hosting.

So whether you are looking to host just one of your website or a number of websites read the best web hosting fit for your site. Make your decisions easier by choosing a dedicated server or a shared hosting service.

And if you are an environmentalist like me who is concerned about planet Earth, you ll be glad to know that Web Hosting Geeks have a category for green hosting. The green hosting category has a list of web hosting providers that use recycle material to power their servers and information centers.

Choose the best web hosting for your internet sites with Web Hosting Geeks .

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10 reasons to select a good Web Hosting provider

by ZK on May 10, 2009

If you have a web business or are in the process of launching one it’s important that you select an affordable and reliable web hosting provider. The web hosting provider of your online business can make a difference between a successful website and failure, it’s that important.

Below are the 10 things you need to look for in a web host

1 ) Your target market
Google evaluates your website or blog based on the location of your servers, the Google spiders assume that if your website is hosted on servers based in US then your target market is US. Hence it gives your site preference when a users goes on Google.com and types the keywords you are optimising for, if you want to rank on Google.com you need to have servers hosted in US. Location of your web host is important for your web ranking and searches on Google.

2) Unlimited hosting space
When you have a website or blog you need to ensure that you don’t run out of hosting space as you add content and images to your website or blog. If your site has limited hosting or bandwidth that you will run out of disk space when people are trying to access your site.

2) Unlimited bandwidth
It’s important that your host be able to deliver your content in the event that a lot of people are visiting your site at the same time. In a Web 2.0 environment where your blog post has an equal opportunity to go viral on networks like Digg or Stumble upon it becomes important to ensure that your hosting has large or unlimited bandwidth capability.

3) Unlimited websites
You may initially start with one site or blog, but find that you want to launch a few more blogs or sites based on the opportunity in a particular niche. My first site was an adsense related site, my second site was a web forum for movies and music, this web marketing blog is my third site, my fourth site is a web directory. All these sites are hosted on one server

When I launched my first adsense related site I had no idea that in less than a year I would have four growing websites. All these sites are hosted on the same server that has the option to host unlimited websites, I can host as many sites on my hosting as I wish, it’s important that you have the option of unlimited hosting on with your web host.

4) Free website and blog setup
There’s no reason you should be paying setup fees or transfer fees. Web Hosts like Bluehost has FREE transfer set up facilities, which means that if you choose to host your blog of site with them they will take care of your entire website or blog set up.

5) 99.9% uptime guarantee
No one can guarantee 100% uptime, but some hosts can get awfully close to give you a 99.9% uptime and that is what you want to have for your web business. You want your websites to be up and running when your users visit your website. Having a 99.9 % uptime means that in a year your website will be down at least for four days if not less. That’s a lot of time for your web business to be down.

6) Installed software for systems, database, scripting, email and more
This will appear as CGI, Perl, MySQL, SSH, POP and other acronyms I don’t understand. It’s ok, you don’t need to understand them either. Most web hosts wil have these unless you prefer a free web host.

7) CPanel web hosting
This is the defacto control panel making it easy to administer your site, this is an essential element of your web hosting. Ensure you have a CPanal hosting with your web host.

8 ) Strong 24/7 support system
I have been with hosts who didn’t answer their phones when my site was down and had database issues. It’s scary. Support is critical and 24/7 support is the most essential feature when you choose a web host. Bluehost specializes in customer satisfaction and has 24/7 support for live chat, email and toll free number.

9) No contracts or hidden fees
Ensure you read between the lines when you sign up for a web host, some of the web hosts have hideen charges that are not upfront when you sign up. Ensure you read everything that your host offers before you decide on a web host.

10) A fair price
Most hosts start at $10 or so per month which is not bad but there are better web hosts that will provide a lot more value for your buck.

I’ve used a number of web hosts in the past few years and had some nightmarish experiences. So I am frequently asked who I recommend for web hosting.

The host I’ve found that meets all of the above requirements and beats the price on all others is Bluehost. In fact, all of my sites including this blog is hosted with them. I am happpy with Bluehost’s web hosting service and I think you will be as well.

Bluehost’s web hosting service gives you a lot of FREE online promotions and pay per click marketing credits, with Blue Host you get a FREE domain name, FREE ecommerce shopping cart script that can be very easyly integrated into your website or blog, FREE $ 25 credit with Yahoo pay per click search marketing and FREE $ 50 credit with Google pay per click adwords marketing.

The value of FREE credits from Yahoo Search Marketing and Google Adwords itself is worth $ 75, which covers up for your hosting charges for a year. This blog is hosted on Bluehost.

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Why website hosting location is important for search engine position

by ZK on April 3, 2009

What is web hosting location?

Every website, blog or every a single webpage is hosted on a webserver that connects to the internet. A webserver is a computer connected to the internet which is owned by a webhosting company ( in most cases, unless you have your own webservers ). A webserver is a computer connected to InterNet. That computer or webserver is located in some country. It has a specific IP address, and from that IP address, it is possible to know in which country or sity or town the webserver is located. The location of your webserver is known as a Web Hosting location.

Search engines ( Google , Yahoo and MSN ) know where your Web site is hosted based on your webserver location and IP details. Your site is ranked according to domain extension and web server location or the IP address location as mentioned above. Now, if you move the site or your domain to another server or a Web Hosting company you first need to know where the web server is located. The location of your webhosting company is an important factor in your search engine ranking

Let me give you an illustration of how a web hosting location can affect your search engine ranking.

Website www.ABC.com was selling shoes, hosted in USA and targeted US visitors, the domain extension is .com This is an ideal situation, where we have a USA domain extension .com targeting USA visitors and hosted on web server located in USA. Over 75 % of the traffic to this site was from search engines, namely Google, Yahoo and MSN with the high search ranking on all the three engines. Now, for some strange reason the company decides to host its site in India where it has its offshore development team. They move their site to servers hosted in India. Now, one month later, the search ranking situation is completely different:

- Google indexes site pages in Google India since the site is hosted in India it assumes that it targets Indian visitors, visits from Google.com come down by 30 – 40 % . The site in Google.com moves to 5 and 6 pages.

- Yahoo India starts to show ranking for the website on 2 nd and 3 rd page. Yahoo.com searches reduce by 30 %

Similar trends are shown by MSN.com

Now lets understand what exactly happened here and why the site showed a decrease in visits from US searches. After site IP changes, all the three search engines showed a decrease in indexed pages. The search results were lower as some of the pages were deindexed.

Site is now receiving 60-70% less traffic from search engines inspite of search engine optimisation and most of visitors now are from India and other international IPs. For site targeted to USA market that is, in simple words not targetted traffic. Now, even by increasing the backlinks the site results from search engine rankings did not increase, Google started to give low value to backlinks from US sites as it did not determine it to be valuable.

Backlinks from India based sites were now more valuable to Google. Due to a small number of India based sites operating in the same niche industry, the website was not very popular even on India based search results. Onsite search engine optimization like meta tags don’t help much here as the search engines don’t understand where the site is located by reading the Meta tags but it can give you targeted traffic for a particular keyword search.

GeoTargeting
It is well known that search engines are using GeoTargeting to list sites related to visitor’s IP (country) and this is one of the most important factors in ranking. The search engines also look for language used on website and server location. For the above site, English language and hosting in India, show that the site is targeting the indian market.

So, to target USA market, .com domain, web server hosting location in USA, English language, links from sites (.com, .net) hosted in US are of prime value and importance to Google.

To target UK market, domain co.uk , English web server hosting location in UK, links from UK domains are of prime value and importance to Google.

To target Canada market, .ca domain, English web hosting located in Canada, links from Canadian domains are of prime value and importance to Google.

Targeting Local Markets
Due to cheap web hosting, many international sites are hosted in USA but this could be a problem for search engine and SERP. If you are targeting some other country, use domain with that country extension, get links from other sites hosted in that country, link to other sites in that country, use local language and keywords. The state for the hosting is not important, moving the site to a web server located in a different state can only show you a small difference.

Conclusion
The right target audience is important for your site, so target your visitors better, localize you content. Get a domain name with an appropriate extension based on your target market, host your site located in the country that you are targeting, get links for related sites and use local keywords. If you have an affiliate website or blog this becomes important. You won’t get any traffic from Google hosting your site in India and targeting US visitors.

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