Finding the right Web host for you can be difficult.

Choosing a Web hosting solution for your Website or blog is one of the most confusing choices with starting out.

Yet, choosing a good Website host is very important. A bad web host can cost you money. A bad Web hosting company can damage your ranking. A poor Web hosting solution can drive potential visitors away. It can make your blogging or Internet marketing career miserable.

It is difficult to know what advice to follow when you choose a Web host company.

Like cell phone providers, it seems like everyone hates their host. For anyone that says a host is good, it seems like there are 3 people that will claim that website hosting solution is the worst on the planet. Every Web host has numerous individuals either claiming it is run by monkeys or that it is the perfect hosting solution for every need. It is difficult to tell who had a really bad Web host versus who just had bad luck and whose experience was a rare exception.

Web hosting review sites are no help.

Web hosting affiliate programs are very profitable. Many hosting review sites are not much more than a list of affiliate links. The order they are in may not be as reliable as an opinion. Checking 10 “Top 10 Web host provider” lists will give you 10 very different lists. Often, a significant portion of each list will be unique to each one. It is hard to know who to trust.

Sadly, nearly all the Web hosting companies over promise and under deliver on their shared hosting plans.

Shared hosting plans are the $10 hosting plans that promise unlimited domains, gigabytes of space, and terabytes or incredible gigabytes of bandwidth. You will never get to use those features before you account is pause and you are told you need a more expensive plan. You will be told you are using too much resources (usually CPU cycles). No shared plan is going to stand up to a DIGG front page. With a shared plan, you are sharing the server with hundreds of other sites. A DIGG can use all the resources of a server (or more) leaving none for any of the other sites. The host can either pause your site, or let the hundreds of other sites on the server go offline.

It is a shame that Web hosting companies feel forced to advertise like this, but would you pay the same for a host that only offered 2 domains and 500 megabytes of space vs. the typical deal? Probably not, even if it was more accurate. At one time Web hosting companies had different shared hosting plans depending on how much you thought you needed. Now, it seems like  there is just one shared plan, a few reseller plans, and then more expensive VPS and dedicated server solutions.

With shared hosting plans, you get what you pay for.

It is unreasonable to expect a $10 shared plan to give the same performance that you would pay $100′s for with a dedicated server. However, for most cases, they are just fine to start with. It may be all you ever need. Once you have a successful blog or Website, you can upgrade to a dedicated sever or virtual private server (VPS) if you need it.

What you need most from your Web hosting company is reliability and support.

You need your web server to be up and running. You need a reliable Web host. If not, visitors may think your site is gone when your site does not load and never return. Or worse, Google may decide your site is bad and stop sending you the traffic in the first place. Also realize that 99% reliability means your site could be offline 3 entire days a year.

Support is important because sooner or later you will need it. It might be to have a blog restored from backup. Good support means different things to different people. In most cases, I am happy with an email solution within a couple hours. Even with my slow typing, I would rather email support than spend 15 minutes waiting on the phone. I also realize that any site I would put on a $10 hosting plan can afford to be offline for a few hours. If you think you would lose too much money on support that might take several hours, you should look into more serious hosting. These are not the hosting plans for your Super Bowl commercial site. Still, especially if you are starting out, you will have questions that need an answer occasionally.

Below I will share my Website host experiences. These are all basic hosting options that I either have accounts with currently or had until recently. I am sharing my own experiences both good and bad. I also have an opinion on which I would recommend to someone. Most of the links are affiliate links, so you can take my experience or leave it.

XXXX vs. HostGator vs. Hosting Zoom vs. Prohosters

XXXXXXXX

This blog is hosted on XXXXX. I had the unfortunate situation being with XXXX for a week and being with them when all their servers went down for an entire day. They claimed to have made changes to prevent this from happening again. Since then, I have not had too much of a problem. A few minor down times and occasional slowdown spikes at peak hours, but generally pretty good. Phone support is available.

I only have two sites on XXXXXX shared plan. This is because until recently, they only allowed two unless you wanted to pay an extra fee each month. Now you can have unlimited add-on domains.***As of December 2009 this site is now hosted on HostGator and because of further problems with the previous host, I am removing mention of them on this site. I cannot in good faith recommend them.***

HostGator

I have not had any problems with HostGator. None. I have several sites on a Host Gator shared account and have not seen any problems. I admit that I do not check them quite as much (daily, but not much more than that) as the sites on Lunar Pages. While it is possible there have been problems, I have not seen any. I would expect some slowness at peak times but I have not seen it. You can have unlimited domains on the shared account.

I have not had much need for support with HostGator. My support tickets were handled timely even though I have never marked them urgent. They are better than LunarPages are warning of coming software upgrades. I was given over a month’s warning before the upgrade to PHP5. HostGator seems well run and is my recommendation for a Webhosting company for anyone starting out. HostGator is high on my list to check when I think about getting another hosting account.

Hosting Zoom

I have a budget reseller account with Reseller Zoom a division of Hosting Zoom. I am including it here with the shared plans because it is basically shared hosting. The difference is you create an account for each domain (allowed up to 20 with the smallest account) instead of the add-on domains shared hosting plans have which look like subdomains in your account. It is slightly more complicated than just a regular cPanel admin but not difficult. The basic account was just $4.95 when I started. It costs more now (about the same as most shared hosting solutions). This is a good option for someone who has several small sites. Also, storage and bandwidth is very low on the budget plan.

Support with Reseller Zoom depends on your plan. Budget plans do not get phone support. Only online support. Reseller Zoom has some security settings that are different from most hosts also, which can cause some problems or confusion. Reseller Zoom is best for someone with a bit of experience. Of note are options for European and Asian hosting plans. You are best off getting hosting on the continent your target market is on, but if you are looking to improve your site using silo techniques, having links from sites at geographically different locations can help boost rankings.

ProHosters

ProHosters is a division of Carpathia Hosting. ProHosters is not the typical shared hosting but a VPS hosting solution. Their starter VPS solution is close to HostGator’s low end reseller plans in cost but probably lower in bandwidth and space. However, with ProHosters your plan tells you how many other plans are allowed on the same server. In other words, you are not packed onto a server till it starts to slow down from the load like most shared plans. Starter hosting plans are limited to 100 plans per server.

ProHosters support is top end. Any scheduled maintenance is done at off hours and you are well warned ahead of time and given specifics of any expected downtime. ProHosters also does not hide downtime. In four years of using Prohosters, I think there were three times the server was down or there was any interruption in access. None were over an hour and specifics were emailed to me about how long the outage affected the server and what the problem was. You will not see support like this from most shared hosts and even some VPS and dedicated server hosts. The hosting takes advantage of Carpathia Hosting’s datacenter reliability.

The only downside to ProHosters is cost and the admin panel. It is more expensive than most hosting. It does not use the cPanel that is used by the majority of hosting companies. It is an advanced option to look at when you have a site that is making lots of money for you. Till then, I think HostGator is a good solution. Carpathia and Prohosters do not have an affiliate program so the links are not affiliate links.

Some final points for WordPress users:

• Stay away from Windows hosting. WordPress permalinks and Windows hosting have some problems.
• cPanel is used by most but not all Linux hosts. This can make changing hosts easier for you later on.
• WordPress does have a higher CPU load than a static Website. This means you cannot get as many blogs on a server as static sites before the server slows. You will never get to the bandwidth limits of your account before you are asked to upgrade to a more expensive hosting option.

I hope I have explained why choosing a Web host can be confusing, I hope you’ll find my advice valuable.

Google wrongly labels Alphatrends.net and blocks author’s access.

Is your blog safe?

Alphatrends is the BlogSpot home for Brain Shannon’s financial videos.

His analysis of stock trading videos are some of the most subscribed financial videos on YouTube. He has over 600 videos and over 5000 YouTube subscribers. He posts a video on stock analysis daily at his blog. Here is an example:

Friday, I got a message through MyBlogLog that he was unable to update his blog because Google was blocking him as a spam blog.

My first reaction was "You’ve got to be kidding." One look at Brian’s videos will show you they are not spam. The is quality content. In fact, most of it is a bit over my head, but I want to learn about stocks and subscribe to his blog because, eventually, I’ll understand. His blog consists of his daily videos and an occasional post about something related.

Alphatrends is not a site you would think could be labeled as spam.

Brian has a PR from Google of 5. He has an Alexa rating of 159,700. This is a financial blog, not a blog that is going to attract lots of readers with an Alexa toolbar. In other words, Alphatrends has good links and decent traffic. I think it is from the content and not from Brian working hard promoting his blog.

Brian is back up on Alphatrends.

Usually, Google is quick to fix these situations. It still takes time. If your label as spam by Google, you get no warning. You are guilty until proven innocent. That can take a couple days. I noticed that while Brian was not able to update his blog, AdSense was still advertising. What happens if your AdSense account gets labeled as spam also? You would not be able to remove it from the blog as Google blocks your updates and still keeps the blog showing. You better hope they let you back in.

I think this is a good example of why any blogger should look into their own hosting.

Brian has a domain name already Alphatrends.net. All he would need is hosting and he would not have been cut off from his blog. With your own hosting, even with a bad host, you should at least have a warning before something like this would happen. In Brian’s case, I doubt if any host would have considered a complaint against him valid.

If you are using WordPress.com or Blogger/Blogspot you are adding an unnecessary risk with your business.

If you are looking into stock trading, Alphatrends is a blog you should look at.

Brian Shannon does not give investment advice. He teaches how to understand stocks and evaluate them technically.

For Alpahtrends.net maybe hosting might be a good investment at $10/month.

No matter what you do, you have some investment in business.

Are you investing smartly?

I wrote this post after having someone literally hang up on me as I mentioned that there would be a financial investment in starting a business.

I didn’t even get to the numbers before the line went dead. What kind of mindset does a person have with no plans to invest in their own business at all? In fact, the numbers I would have told her are almost ridiculously low and even refundable, but just the mention of money turned her off. This is someone who asked for information about from home because she could no longer do her former work due to a back operation that work had caused. She had risked her time and health and lost. She will lose more because she has not learned be informed before making her decision. Any financial investment or even risk would be small compared to what she already risked and lost.

Even if you are working a traditional job, you are invested in it and you have risk.

You invest your time. Your pay is the reward for the investment of your time. You also have a risk with that investment. Your risks could actually be just as much as a stockholder of the company you work for. After all, if the company fails, you lose your income. A stockholder loses money only if he invests in stock that is overpriced or if the company fails. Your investment of time is also at risk of the whim of your boss firing you, or you becoming unable to fulfil your job duties. Maybe, this make the risk of a traditional job holder even greater than that of a stockholder.

The investment in an online business or a home business can be very low, yet many don’t want to invest.

Starting a website or blog can cost as little as a domain and hosting for a year. That would an investment of well under $150. You may need to invest in some software or training. That may mean an investment of money or an investment of time. After that, much of your investment may be time. Again, you will be investing time in the business. The financial investment is low but the time investment can be high. The risk is dependent on your ability to succeed. Risking $500 or even $1000 total to start an online business is not a large investment. It is a small percentage of what a traditional brick and mortar business would cost. You would most likely pay $1000 for a month’s rent just as a start.

Yet, I see so many who are willing to risk the time investment but completely unwilling to risk any monetary investment even a small one.

In the long run, I see this as a setup for losing much of the investment in time. A domain name is cheap. Often less than $10 a year from GoDaddy or Namecheap (I use Namecheap now for most domain names). Yet, so many start a blog without a domain. I fail to see why this is a step so many skip. Meanwhile, domainers are out there just investing in domain names alone for their potential value in a few years.

I find that many people think that there is money to be made with no financial investment.

There is. It is called a job. I already talked about your risk a little bit. Your job comes with perks like a boss and workers you cannot stand, following the same rat race every day, and the knowledge that job security doesn’t exist like it did for your grandfather.

So many people refuse to make any financial investment in themselves.

They seem to be afraid they will get scammed or ripped off. It is true there are many scams. There are many ideas for making money that require you to invest money in them that do not work. I think a lot of the eBay businesses and online store products are a bad way to invest your money in an online business. Why? Simple. They want you to sell the same piece of junk that 10,000 other people are selling and it’s junk no one really uses anyway. So, yes, there are bad ways to invest your money to build a business.

The point is to make a wise, informed decision on what to invest in and how much of an investment is needed.

Buying a McDonald’s franchise can be a wise investment, but it is a significant financial investment. Few of us have the spare million dollars that would take. Not to mention, you are also going to have a significant time investment in that McDonald’s. There are other businesses that have a very low financial investment and can make you just as much money.

I am not saying you should not be skeptical.

You should be informed before you invest. You should make a wise decision. Just do not let the fact that it may cost a little bit and have a tiny financial risk be the reason.

Sometimes, that financial investment is the motivation to use the time investment wisely.

How to manually create a Database for WordPress in cPanel

If you want to install WordPress on your host manually, it is not very difficult.

All you need is access to the administration panel (cPanel) on your host, the latest WordPress download, and an FTP program to upload.

In this video, I show how to create the MySQL database in cPanel.

I assume you can already access cPanel on your Web host. Usually your domain name followed by /cpanel will get you to it. You will need your user name and password.

There are three step to creating the database for WordPress.

1. Creating the database
2. Creating the user with a password
3. Adding the user to the database

It is very important to write down the database name, user, and password.

You will need these later when you add them to the wp_config file before you upload the WordPress files to your server. Make sure you take note of them. You will find that cPanel will add a prefix to your database and user name.

Here is the video:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Let me know if you find this useful and please mark it in your favorite social network.

The next video will cover adding the information to the wp_config file.

Video on how to edit the wp-config.php file for WordPress

Choosing a domain name may be the most important step in starting a new website

I said maybe in the title of this post because there is the also the question of the subject the website is about. Most likely, a domain name related  to subject will be preferred.

I think that the domain name may even be more important than the subject

There is a market for used domain names. There appears to be a “sandbox” for new sites with new domain names at Google. This means that any new domain name is put on hold for really great search engine ratings till it has aged for a few months. This is supposed to help keep spam sites (sites just made to get high ratings to get advertising clicks) from going straight to the top. Much of this is theory, since Google does not share its methods with anyone. Still, there is a market for older domain names that have been hosting some kind if content.

Even if you don’t plan to sell your domain name, it may be just as important as the subject of your site

I was originally thinking of using subdomains for extra web sites ( I sill might ). A subdomain is a separate part of another domain. It looks like this www.subdomain.maindomain.com. This would save a bit in creating additional websites. It saves from purchasing the additional domain. It also saves on hosting. Many hosts allow you to add subdomains at no extra cost while they often charge for additional full domains.
Using subdomains, you could save a lot of money on testing ideas for niche sites by making each site a subdomain. Even if this does not give a penalty on the search engines (I have not been able to determine a real yes or no on this question), not having a separate domain name for a site could really cause problems later if you need to change hosts.

Three reasons you may need to switch Web hosts

• One or both domains you have sharing a host are beginning to require large amounts of bandwidth or disk space. You simply may not be able to get enough from your host with one account.
• If a site is generating a lot of income, you may need a more robust host. No matter what the claims a discount host provides, you will experience downtime at some amount point. Really tough backup systems will cost more than you will receive at any discount host. I have a site on one host that experienced a 1/2 hour connectivity outage. This has happened once in over two years. This was a major breakdown by their standards and generated an emergency email even though I did not have content up. They also provide constant and regular backup (and restores when you need it). Another host, recently lost power to all their servers for nearly a day. This was a major breakdown by their standards. They never notified me directly and I would not have known had I not been trying to update the site at the time. They also charge if you need them to restore from a backup. You get what you pay for and should not really expect everything from a discount host. If your site make $10 a day if it is down one day you don’t lose much. If your site makes $100 a day it would definitely be worth the extra monthly charge to make sure it is up and has better backup and redundancy in place.
• May need more CPU time for a site than you get with a shared server. If your site uses databases heavily, even if your host provides high bandwidth, if you share that server with too many other sites that use the same CPU, your site may seem slow.  Also, even if you have a high monthly allotment of bandwidth, your host may not be able to provide a wide enough pipe during a peak period (the fabled site that crashes from volume during a Super Bowl commercial).

Of course, maybe you chose a bad host to begin with

You can read a bunch of horror stories one blogger has had with web hosts here.
www.jimwestergren.com
Sticking to better known Web hosts will help you avoid problems like he has had. Yet, even well known hosters will experience some outages like I said above. At least with a well known host you can expect that there is actually someone there to fix problems (not off to university).

Just Switching domain names later on can cost you

If you decide that a different domain name for your site would be more effective, you may pay a penalty with the search engines when you change. Even if you provide the proper redirects and try to notify the search engines and keep all your content the same.
You can read how one blog has had some problems after changing domain names here.
www.paulallen.net

A domain name will make you independent of the host you choose

This is one reason you should purchase your domain name from a separate registrar like GoDaddy. Your domain name will be completely independent of your host. If you need to switch to a new host for any reason, it can be very quick and painless. Just sign up with the new host. Then transfer a downloaded backup of all your data over or recreate it at the new host. Finally, just change the namservers at GoDaddy to point to your new host. Your all done. You could be up on the new host in just a couple days or even hours (depending how long it takes for the domain to go propagate and point to the new nameservers. There should not be any penalty with the search engines this way either.

I suggest choosing your domain name carefully

You will not want to change it later. Make sure you use an independent registrar like GoDaddy. Use a separate domain name whenever possible for additional sites.

Honestly I was not real scientific about choosing a Web Host

***This was an early post on this site. Problems with the host chosen have forced me to leave. Sad, but things change. I recommend HostGator now. ***

I felt I had several options.

First, I had one web site at ProHosters.com. I could also go with GoDaddy, a popular Domain registar.iPowerWeb is one that has been around a few years and has been recommended by Chris Carpenter of Google Cash. I also looked at xxxx which has also been around for a while.

ProHosters was a bit on the expensive side.

I might recommend them if you are running the type of buisness that would advertise during the Super Bowl. They offer great service, fantastic bandwidth and back-up but their starting package is 3x more than anyone elses here.

GoDaddy is probably the first choice for domain names.

I have bought several from them and keeping them organized with GoDaddy is very easy. They are not well know for their Web hosting though. While they have very low prices, it looked to me that many sevices free with other hosters would add a bit to the initial cost. No real savings and I have heard poeple who were not happy there. Again, if I were telling my mother how to start her own website, maybe I would recommmend to her.

That left me with iPowerWeb and XXXXXX.

Both of these continually show up in most of the top 10 web host sites (of which there are probably more than there are web hosts). I have actually kind of been keeping an eye on these types of pages on and off for a couple of years. Both iPowerWeb and XXXXX have been on them long enough for me to be familiar with the names. Odd how the first place host on many of the pages never makes it on to some of the others.

Anyway, I was leaning towards iPowerWeb until I looked at the help files for both hosts. Being a little new to blogs and not very experienced setting up a website, I found that Lunar Pages seemed to have more information on doing things than iPowerWeb. XXXXX just seemed like it would give me a few more places to go to find out how to do stuff before I would have to resort to the help desk (I find that embarrasing).

The cost between the two are very close.

The disk space and bandwidth are huge for both. While I went with XXXXXX this time, I plan to give iPowerWeb a try next time I look for a Web host.

So far, I have been happy with XXXXX.

One thing I learned after starting my account was, that many of the applications the host supplies you with will need their own MySql database. When I first opened my account you only got one and had to pay for any additional databases. Within a week they had already changed it to unlimited MySql databases.

Maybe I’m just lucky.