best web hosting reviews

As you have seen, the generalized term “bandwidth” is used to describe the monthly data transfer allowed.   Most web hosting providers measure this on a monthly basis. They are in turn charged by the wholesale providers who allocate the required amount of bandwidth to the web hosts.  The web hosts pass on the cost they pay the wholesalers, to the consumers through a variety of hosting plans they sell.

Since every bit of bandwidth is money for the web hosting providers, they have in place several techniques to ensure no consumer gets away with using excess bandwidth than specified in the plan they signed up for.  Most web hosts bill consumers for the extra bandwidth used, at the end of the month; while others resort to restricting any further usage in a particular month once the limit is reached.

Every new webmaster looking around for web hosts finds the promises of unlimited bandwidth attractive.  It is certainly exciting to be able to use any amount of bandwidth for a fixed monthly fee.

But have you ever wondered why only some hosts offer unlimited bandwidth and not all of them. Have you noticed that many of the major internet marketers do not sign up for the unlimited bandwidth plans?  They should because they are the ones who need it the most.

But they obviously know better! You will have to learn to read between the lines to understand what “unlimited” actually means. You will have to think logically and realize that the web hosting providers are in this to make money, not for social service.  Why would they give away their bandwidth, disk storage, hardware and server memory for free?

Here are some of the reasons why they offer unlimited bandwidth:

• Web hosting providers know that most websites need only a small amount of bandwidth and disk space. They can “afford” to offer unlimited bandwidth as it is not going to be used anyway.
• If you have a website with heavy traffic, the web host will deal with it by restricting you from hosting certain types of files. You must have seen that many hosts do not allow audio and video files.  They are smart and know that most web visitors are interested in downloading audio and video and these files use up enormous amount of bandwidth.
• There are others that state that their customers have the privilege of using unlimited bandwidth of around 900 MB, over and above that, users will have to pay.  Here they are imposing a restriction on bandwidth that can be used but call it unlimited.

Does this mean that there is nothing like unlimited bandwidth? Unfortunately, yes.

However, it is wrong to group all the web hosts that offer unlimited bandwidth as fraudulent.  Many reputable and highly trustworthy web hosts also resort to these marketing tactics in order to attract customers due to the increasing competition.

But beware not to fall into the hands of web hosts that vanish after they get a few signups. Reputation is what you should be going by when selecting a web hosting provider.

If you are a webmaster who has multiple websites, all having their own hosting plans, how much would it cost?  The amount you would be paying your web hosting providers would be huge, even if it is being paid yearly.  Even if a webmaster has enough money, maintaining and keeping track of all of them is a big job by itself.

Imagine the comfort and convenience of having all the websites under one roof, with a single hosting plan. The concept of multiple domain hosting can save hundreds of dollars for webmasters.

Multiple domain hosting allows website owners to have a number of sites.  For example, if you want to host two sites on health and you want your main domain to be “health.com,” you would purchase hosting for this main domain first.

You have one more domain called “diabetes.com,” for which you created a website.  Instead of spending money on another hosting plan, you can now set up an add-on domain diabetes.com in the health.com control panel, under the “add-on domains” option.

Internally, diabetes.com which is the add-on domain points to a subdirectory in the main domain – “health.com/diabetes.”  Although, this is an add-on domain, it is almost like a regular domain which can be accessed by visitors from www.diabetes.com. Visitors will be taken to a proper website and not to a sub-domain. However, all the files pertaining to this website are going to be stored in the health.com/diabetes directory.  This means that for all practical purposes, you have two full-fledged websites, and the only difference is in the internal file storing structure.

In this example, we have used just one add-on domain, but you can have many such websites hosted under a single account.  You can even create separate databases, email IDs etc. for the add-on domains, with the use of the main cPanel.

Multiple domain hosting also works great for niche marketers who target different sub niches for one main niche, as shown in the example above.

Multiple domain hosting not only helps you reduce the costs of hosting by a large margin, but you can also save a lot more from all the important features that are offered; such as pre-installed software scripts, marketing services, e-commerce tools and free online advertising credits etc.   Most of the hosts provide these features with a multiple domain hosting plan; however, it helps to make sure they do before signing up.

Another point to note when looking for multiple domain hosting is that there are several hosts that provide this type of hosting but do not advertise.

If you already have a web hosting provider, you can see if you have the option of choosing the folder the domain is pointed to.  This could mean that it can be used to host multiple domains with the creation of new folders under the main root folder.  However, you will find that all web hosts allow the creation of sub folders under the main root folder to save scripts and image files etc.  For them to support multiple domain hosting, you should be able to link those sub folders to different domain names.

Multiple domain hosting does not have to cost more than traditional hosting and some providers also allow free registration of a new domain.

Where hosting is concerned, “multiple” does not necessarily mean “unlimited.”  The number of domains that can be hosted under a multiple domain hosting plan depends on the plan.  If the plan restricts it to six domain names, then that is all you are allowed to host.

Let’s do a simple comparison of traditional hosting rates and multiple hosting:

Traditional hosting – If you host 1 website @ $8/month, the cost of 10 websites per month would be $80, and yearly it would be $960.

Multiple hosting – The cost of 1 website is $8/month, the cost of 10 websites per month would be $8, and the yearly cost would be $96.

Now, what would you prefer paying? $960 or $96?

I can see you’ve made up your mind.  All you need to do now is find a good multiple web hosting provider and rule the internet.

Most people are not sure if there is a difference between bandwidth and data transfer. The difference may be minor, but it speaks about two different things.  While bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred to or from the website or server within a given period of time; data transfer is the amount of data that is being transferred.

What it means is that the hosting company offers a certain amount of bandwidth depending on the chosen plan, and the data transfer is the consumption of that bandwidth.

The problem is that many hosting companies do not make it clear and a first-timer is left thinking that both are the same.

A higher bandwidth makes things easier for your users, as the site loads faster and is not dependent on their connection type. If the data transfer allowed is less, your site will be unavailable to users once you reach the maximum limit for that particular month, unless you upgrade your account to a plan offering higher bandwidth.

When hosting plans list bandwidth limitations, they mean to limit your data transfers.  Since bandwidth is a significant determinant of hosting plan prices, it is important to first figure out the right amount of bandwidth that is needed for your site.  This can be done by assessing your traffic.  If it is a new site, a realistic projection of future traffic is essential, based on what you have in mind for your site.

How do you figure out how much bandwidth you need?

It’s not easy to find the exact requirement of bandwidth but it can be figured out approximately based on your site.

Let us understand through an example:

If your website is 50 KB in size and you have 1 GB of bandwidth, your web page can be viewed 20,000 times approximately.  But if each visitor viewed 4 pages per month, then you get 5,000 unique visits to your website each month.  But, if you have images on your website, then a bandwidth of 1 GB will only be good enough for lesser number of visitors.

Web page visitors do not need too much bandwidth but audio and video downloads hog up the bandwidth.

For a website with a 1MB sized .PDF file, 1GB of bandwidth will yield about thousand downloads.  A 30-minute video of around 300 MB, will yield five downloads with a bandwidth of 1 GB.

Let’s calculate the bandwidth requirement for websites that do not offer any downloads:

Average number of daily visitors x Average page views x Average size of the page x 31 (days in a month)

For websites offering downloads:

(Average visitors daily x average page views x average size of page) + (average file downloads daily x average size of file) x 31

What this shows is that the bandwidth requirement is based on three important factors:

• The website size
• Visitors per month
• Downloads per month

Personal and small business websites

Most personal and small business websites do not need more than 1GB of bandwidth every month. If your site only consists of static pages and you are expecting huge amounts of traffic daily, you can start with a plan offering low bandwidth. You don’t have to worry about crossing the allowed limit, as your hosting company will charge for the extra traffic. Based on that, you can always upgrade to a higher plan.

Managing with low bandwidth plans

If you don’t want to pay too much for plans with higher bandwidth, you can do your bit to reduce the transfers, by optimizing your graphics and constructing easy to load pages.  Flash presentations and streaming audio take up a lot of bandwidth, as far as possible, stay away from them.  You would also do well to use JavaScript and CSS instead of embedding.  Use Meta tags when they are needed.  Robots can also use up bandwidth immensely, and to prevent this from happening, you can use robots.txt.

Bandwidth has to be managed more efficiently to ensure your users do not get frustrated trying to access your site and give up. This is the key to success.

With the arrival of Linux web hosting, webmasters enjoyed an increase in performance, stability, reliability and security.  These factors make Linux the operating system of choice for anyone looking to host a website. Most of the technologies and networking protocols that enable the internet are based on Unix, and Linux is a derivation of Unix.  It is also compatible with MySQL and Apache, proving to be a leader in the open-source software area, making it highly customizable and cost efficient.

One of the main advantages of Linux hosting is said to be the development of software to support the platform as well as the fact that it can run almost all protocols or web services.  With constant improvement in the software, there are several Linux distributions that you may encounter when searching for that perfect web hosting package. They are called “distros” and consist of a huge collection of software applications such as spreadsheets, processors, database applications and word processors.

Ubuntu

This is a popular Linux distribution for servers, laptops and desktops.  It offers excellent features that can be compared to Windows hosting, making it easier to work on. Everything from e-mailing programs to programming tools and web server are available. It is free to use, which means it can be downloaded and shared with anyone without paying anything.  Because of all the specialist tools available, it is liked by most multimedia designers who specialize in music production and video design.

It is used by many web hosting providers and this distribution is maintained extremely well with constant updates and regular patch releases.  It is available as an OS for most VPS web hosting and may also be installed on a dedicated server if you want.  Since it is based on Linux, users get plenty of ready-to-use programs that can be run on servers and desktop machines, by making the necessary changes.

Kubuntu

The name itself suggests that this is similar to Ubuntu.  Although, both are almost the same where functionality and operation is concerned, they use different file systems.  Other than that, they offer the same level of performance, reliability, security and security users look for, making it perfect for website hosting as well as for desktop use.

Debian

This hosting caters to the server platform based on Ubuntu and Kubuntu operating systems. It is the most used Linux distribution today; although it is considered to be more complex.  It offers superior flexibility and reliability and helps keep several websites running most efficiently at the same time. It is great to be used as a server as well as a desktop operating system.

Fedora

A common Linux distribution, Fedora is usually used for dedicated server hosting plans.  It is often bundled with dedicated server hosting plans.  It is based on RedHat Linux, which is a commercial distribution.
Though it is in existence in the hosting marketplace, Fedora is mainly used as a server platform for older machines due to its limitations and ability to perform exceptionally well by using fewer system resources.

RedHat

Ranked as the best software and providers of Linux and open source technology, Red Hat is the mother of most other Linux distributions and has a name for quality open source technology services.

SuSe

It is one of the largest Linux distributions from Germany and SuSe is short for “Software- und System Entwicklung.”  It is user friendly and offers easy accessibility for beginners, experienced people as well as being great for corporate use.

CentOS

It stands for “Community ENTerprise Operating System” and is a free Linux distribution.  This one is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linus (RHEL) and is totally compatible with it.  Although, it is a free software, it is only provided to paying subscribers.

Most hosting providers offer multiple Linux distros and you are assured to get everything you could ever need.  Linux distributions have a wide range of benefits and features, and have a historic reputation for providing the best in terms of reliable performance.

Hosting companies allow their users to sell hosting to others.  In simple terms, reseller hosting enables you to resell your hosting to others, as if you own a hosting company.  Since you don’t own the company, you have no hassles, as everything right from the bandwidth, hardware and IT issues are taken care of by the hosting company.

In what way does this benefit you?  It can be beneficial in many ways and there are many webmasters that would buy from you. For example, if you have a web designing business, and you also offer hosting services to your clients as a package, wouldn’t it make life easier for your clients to take it all from one person?  You are only paying for one reseller hosting and making more than that by selling it. Alternatively, you can offer free hosting to clients who buy a website from you, which would make your offer all the more appealing.  Think out-of-the-box and there is no dearth of ideas.

With reseller hosting, you don’t need web servers, mail servers, DNS servers or even a good internet connection. Most reseller-hosting plans come with every tool that is needed by a webmaster to be a successful hosting reseller.   Some of them even offer templates where you can have a website of your own with “your name,” so that others don’t know that you are actually a reseller. This is called “private labeling,” where you get to advertise your services as a web host.

Easy to use control panel makes reseller hosting a good option.  You will be able to create web host accounts for your customers as well as maintain them without any hassles.  Even if you are just a reseller, many a time, it becomes your responsibility to provide at least minimum support to your clients, but most of the technical issues are handled by the web hosting provider.

The different types of reseller hosting offered are; dedicated, shared and co-location. But since this is not consistent with every hosting provider, you will have to confirm with them before signing up.  Providers also offer add-on services, such as domain registration and transfer, e-commerce add-ons, database support and extra pop3 accounts, by charging an extra fee.

If you are new to this, it helps to know what sort of information you need to get out of the reseller hosting providers before you get in.

• Do they provide Private Label reselling?
• What are the various types of accounts you as a reseller can offer your customers.
• What are the add-on features that can be added?
• What sort of control will you have over the hosting accounts you sell?
• How do you modify a customer’s account?
• How long does it take for your customers to get set up?
• When is the customer service available to sort out any issues you may have and how long do they take to respond?
• What sort of uptime do you guarantee?
• What is the frequency of backing up the servers?

Armed with this information, you can segregate all the best reseller hosting providers and make a knowledgeable decision.

AlreadyHosting.com strives to provide the most honest web hosting reviews on the Internet.  When we first created our website we were very pleased with the web hosting service provided by IxWebHosting.com.  Unfortunately, after about a year, IxWebHosting has continued down a landslide in the hosting industry.

Today on October 24th, 2009, AlreadyHosting.com officially revokes any endoresments we had previously made for IxWebHosting.

There were many factors that led to this decision.  First, IxWebHosting has failed to remain competitive in the hosting industry (in service and in pricing).  Not only does IxWebHosting.com charge 2x the amount as competitors but their current customers seem very unhappy.  We have received many emails from customers who are unhappy with the IXWebHosting customer support.

Secondly, IXWebHosting mistreats affiliates, which gives us an idea of how they treat customers.  As a major web hosting affiliate we have the potential to send hundreds of customers to a web host; therefore we are normally are well respected by hosts, I cannot say the same about IxWebHosting. This host always provided us with poor support and acted like we “owed” them something.  AlreadyHosting.com will not be bribed by large commissions or pressured into writing positive reviews; in fact, we feel that this is very dishonest.  We are very disappointed in the way IxWebHosting.com has transformed as a host.  Instead of hanging on to the principles that they were founded on, they seem to now put the dollar in front of the customer.

It is unfortuante that we had to write the negative review; however, we want to make sure AlreadyHosting.com remains a top web hosting review site.   We no longer stand by IXWebHosting.com and we would encourage you to look for alternative hosts.  Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

AlreadyHosting.com is attempting to complete 500 web hosting reviews in 365 days.  We attempting to acheive this goal in order to provide our visitors with the best possible tools needed to find the best web hosting provider.

We are off to a great start in acheiving our goal .. In fact, check out some of the latest reviews that we have been able to add to our web hosting directory.

1. APTHost Review
2. HostUpon Review
3. Arvixe Review
4. iPower Review
5. WebHostingBuzz Review
6. Omnis Review
7. SuperGreenHosting Review

These are 7 of our recent web hosting reviews that we have added to our database of reviews.  If you own a web hosting company and would like us to consider reviewing your host, please contact us with all of your host information.

Each day more and more individuals, businesses, and organizations are switching their web hosting to a dedicated server.  Dedicated server hosting provides a lot more flexibility than shared or VPS hosting option.  Yes, it is true, dedicated servers cost a lot more than shared web hosting; however, you get what you pay for.

If you purchase dedicated web hosting you are in essence renting an entire computer server solely for your use.  With a dedicated server you do not have to share an IP address with hundreds of others on the web but instead you get all of the server resources to yourself.  What does this mean?  It means a lot of things: faster load times, more security, more disk space, more bandwidth, easier access, better reliability, and less chance of getting penalized by Google.

I once heard a story of a person who was penalized by Google simply because they had a shared web hosting account and one other site on the same server was participating in a lot of spam.  Google caught on to the spammer and put a penalty on the IP which affected everyone else on the server.  Google has since got a lot smarter but I still don’t think this is a chance worth taking if you depend on Google for strong rankings.

For some people it is not logical to spend a $100+ a month on web hosting; however, any reputable company or mid-to-large size web site should highly consider switching.

If you are looking to sign up for a dedicated server, I would highly suggest going with HostGator.  HostGator is know for their great and reliable dedicated server hosting.   Make sure you use the coupon code “alreadyhosting” during checkout to save a little bit on your initial purchase.

What does one expect from a colocation hosting provider? Once the decision is made to use such a service, the next step is to know what is involved.

Colocation hosting is perfect for companies who want complete control over their websites and the way they are operated, but are unable to host their websites themselves.

Since the servers belong to the users, the server has to be configured and completely loaded with the necessary information before being delivered to the colocation host.

Service Monitoring

One of the most important things users look for in a colocation host is that their website stays online at all times.  This is where it becomes important to choose a provider that offers Service Monitoring contracts, which means they take up the responsibility of watching over your system to ensure it keeps running continuously.

Hardware Support

Many providers offer Hardware Support contracts and take up the responsibility of keeping the servers operating mechanically. Some providers also require that the users give them the necessary spare parts in advance, to be used when the need arises. But if the server is purchased from the provider, they may charge the user the cost of the spare parts, but fix the machines.

In the absence of a hardware agreement with the colocation host, you can pay them to take care of any issues that arise or send a technical person over to the colocation host to handle it.  You will have to decide what you need before finalizing on a colocation host.

Size of the Server

The size of your server is an important factor when choosing a colocation host. You will find these hosts have limitations along with differences in price. Let us take the example of rack mount servers.  They come in all sizes; while some take up less rack space and are cheaper to co-locate, the larger ones are more expensive since they use up more space. Some of the co-hosts may allow tower boxes while other allow rack mount servers.  This has to be clarified beforehand.

There are several key elements that need to be taken into consideration, such as the bandwidth, rack space, hardware support, internet connectivity, server monitoring, uptime, backup services and static IP addresses.

Here is a list of things you need to ask your colocation host:

• Find out how much it would cost if you exceed your bandwidth limit in a particular month.
• Check out the prices for the type of server you are going to use at the colocation, since different prices are charged for different servers.
• Ask if the co-host offers hardware support contracts and if they do, ask them how long it takes to get hardware repaired.  Do they keep the spare parts ready or do they get them when the need arises? If they do not offer such contracts and you don’t need them, find out how they attend to any problems with servers.   Do they offer their services for a fee or allow a technician from your end to gain access to the servers?
• Learn all about the number of internet connections they have and the size of the connection.  This is important to ensure there is no downtime.
• Does the co-host have a guaranteed uptime?
• Do they offer Server Monitoring services?  This is needed to ensure the servers are up and running all the time.
• How many IP addresses are going to be allotted to you? Is there any cost involved for getting more later?
• Do they offer any backups?  If they do, what sort of backups? What are the extra data backups offered and what is the cost involved?

With these questions answered, you are better informed and have all the information you could ever need. You will just have to start looking at the different colocation hosting providers and compare their services and prices, to finalize on the one that suits your needs the best.  Don’t forget to give importance to word-of-mouth in finding a reputed host.

Before attempting to get a web hosting provider, it is important to understand the basics of web hosting and what is available out there.  If your head spins when you see the words “dedicated,” “virtual” or “shared,” a refresher is in order, as the web hosting industry can be quite confusing for the first-timer.

Here is a rundown on the different types of web hosting:

Shared and Virtual Web Hosting
Both shared and virtual web hosting are the same. This means that several virtual web servers will be hosted on a single host server. The number of websites sharing a single server can be in hundreds or even thousands.  This is the type of hosting that is used by almost 90% of internet users.

Reseller Web Hosting
Reseller hosting is almost like owning a small web hosting company.  This is hosting that allows you to create smaller hosting accounts to either given them away free or sell them to others and make money. You can create and control your very own cluster of websites, instead of using different hosting accounts for each website.  Everything is under one roof.

Dedicated Web Hosting
This is the father of all other hosting plans. This plan is used by all the major websites you see.  It is called dedicated when the server only hosts your website, in total contrast to the shared hosting where hundreds of websites are hosted on a single server. This hosting helps websites that have a lot of traffic, need a large amount of disk space and other services that are completely dedicated to them alone.  You are the master of the server and the hosting company manages the equipment and connectivity, while the rest of the nuances have to be handled by you.  But you must remember that while you have full control of the server, you do not own it.

There are two types of dedicated hosting; Unmanaged and Managed.  This may be cheaper but you will also have to take up the responsibility of managing the server.  For more information, read about Managed and Unmanaged hosting here.

Virtual Dedicated Web Hosting (VPS)
This type of hosting gives users a feeling of a dedicated hosting with their website being the only one on a server.  In reality, the server hosts several other users, but separates the main server into several virtual servers. When you hear people talking about VPS, now you know what they mean.

Free Web Hosting
These services are offered completely free to users. This is great for beginners hosting their first website or creating a website for personal use, but you do get what you pay for. You are given limited options and the web hosts place advertisements on your pages in place of a fee.

Colocation Web Hosting
This is almost like a dedicated hosting service and the users own the colocation server. The company that is hosting the site will provide users the space to use the server, electrical support and internet access. A good collocation web hosting service may prove to be more expensive than the other types of hosting, but for businesses, it works out cheaper than hosting their servers in-house, while having better security.

Clustered Hosting
Clustered hosting spreads the load of hosting across several servers, increasing availability. By clustering services across different servers and eliminating single points of failure, availability of your website is increased and you also benefit from several other services.  For example, on a single hosting, if a reboot is needed, it stops functioning for sometime; whereas in clustered hosting, the service is always available. Many of the large websites use this form of hosting, as downtime is non-existent in this set up.  It is almost like cloud hosting, where the resources of several servers are made available for a website to use when the need arises.

Home Hosting
This is nothing but hosting your website or websites on a server at home.  Most people convert their computers as servers to use for this purpose. It is connected to a broadband service.

These are the different types of web hosting plans offered by web hosts.  Now that you know what each one entails, it is time to go ahead and host your first website online.