Web Hosting Directory

Tips to Keep Your Website Safe from Hackers

Eric — Mon, 17 May 2010 16:29:07 +0000

Hackers are constantly creating headaches for webmasters. From government websites to small business sites, hackers spread their attacks far and wide. And if your website gets hacked, recovery can be a huge challenge.

The key is to do everything you can to prevent malicious attacks from ever happening. Some will say that hacking is just a part of being online, and that there’s nothing you can do to stop it. This is partially true as some hackers can crack even the most secure website, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the basic steps to protect your website as best as possible.

Here are some helpful tips for keeping your website safe.

Choose a reliable hosting service—One of the reasons I recommend using a paid hosting service over a free service is that free hosts generally lack in the safety department. When you choose a reputable hosting service, your website is instantly a little more secure. Also, the best hosting services offer 24/7 technical support, so even if the worst happens and your website is compromised, you can get help immediately to correct the problem. Do some research to find the best web host for your needs.
Use strong passwords—Weak passwords are often the culprit whenever a website is hacked. Your access password should be at least 8 characters in length, and it shouldn’t be something that’s easy to guess (hint: using “password” as your password isn’t clever). Try to use a mix of letters and numbers, and if your password is case-sensitive, mix in both upper and lower-case letters. This makes your password stronger, increasing your security.
Change your password regularly—Of course, even a strong password can be broken. That’s why it’s a good idea to update your password on a regular basis. I recommend changing it at least every 3 months, but if you want to update it even more often, go for it. You should certainly change your password if you’ve recently given a programmer or a web designer access to working on your website. Never take any chances! When in doubt, change your password.
Keep your virus protection up to date—When browsing the web, you can come across a harmful virus or Trojan. These malicious programs are notorious for finding any and all passwords stored on your computer. This puts your website in danger of being hacked. That’s why it’s important to always keep your virus protection up to date. Never wait around to renew your subscription as every second you’re unprotected is an opportunity for your computer to get attacked.

Has your website ever been hacked? What have you done to keep it safe? Share your experiences and tips by leaving a comment.

Why Free Hosting Isn’t Right for You

Eric — Thu, 13 May 2010 08:43:23 +0000

Whether you’re about to launch a new website or it’s time to renew the hosting on your current site, you may consider trying out a free web hosting service. I mean, it’s free, so you have nothing to lose, right? Wrong.

With a free hosting service, you could be throwing away your entire online presence. That’s because free web hosting has a collection of disadvantages. Here are the top reasons you shouldn’t use a free hosting service.

Can’t handle the traffic—Simply put, free hosting services aren’t set up to handle large amounts of traffic. If you have a blog on your website, you’ll never be able to grow it with a free host. As soon as the traffic starts rolling in, your website will crash. Even if you don’t have a blog, you’ll have a difficult time building a successful website because if too many customers come at once, your website will go down. This costs you money, and most visitors will never come back after a bad experience. You’re far better off using a reliable paid hosting service that can handle all the traffic you can bring in.
Shared space with spammy websites—The best hosting services don’t allow spammy websites to be on their servers. As a result, these websites often end up using free hosting options. What does this mean for you? It means your website will be sharing server space with spammers. It’s like living in a bad neighborhood and hanging out with the wrong people. It reflects badly on your website, and it can actually lead to penalties from the search engines.
Too much downtime—Even if your website isn’t getting a lot of traffic, the websites you’re sharing server space with might. This can negatively affect your website, causing it to crash. Free hosting services are notorious for having a high amount of downtime. They don’t guarantee uptime because they can’t. Their services just aren’t good enough. There’s something to be said for “you get what you pay for.” Look for a paid hosting service that guarantees at least 99% uptime for your website.
No customer support—Customer service is crucial for web hosting. When your website goes down or you have some other technical problem, you need to be able to get a solution from your host immediately. Free hosting services are unable to offer a high level of customer support. This means you have to wait a long time to get any response (if you get a response at all), and during the meantime, your problems persist. Instead, find a paid hosting service that offers 24/7 friendly customer service.
Ads crowding your website—There’s an old saying that there’s no such thing as something for free. There’s always a catch, and when it comes to free hosting, the catch is usually that you have to include banner advertisements on your website. If you’re trying to build a serious web presence, these advertisements can make it nearly impossible. They make your website look cheap and spammy.

Simply put, if you’re serious about building an online presence, you should never use a free web host. It’s just not worth it. Your website will be limited, and you’ll never be able to gain any momentum. You’re much better off making the small investment in a quality, reliable monthly hosting that guarantees at least 99% uptime for your website.

Which hosting service do you use? Leave a comment with your favorites and why you use them.

150 Web Hosting Resources

Jennifer Mattern — Mon, 10 May 2010 08:08:36 +0000

Are you looking for a new Web hosting company? Do you want to make money by promoting the affiliate programs of those hosting companies? Would you like to learn more about hosting issues by reading Web hosting blogs? Then look no further!

We’ve compiled a huge list of Web hosting resources for you below. Here you can find a list of hosting affiliate programs, Web hosting blogs, hosting and domain forums, hosting companies that you can follow on Twitter, and more. If you’d like to let readers know about additional Web hosting resources, feel free to leave a comment.

28 Hosting and Domain Affiliate Programs

If you want to make money by promoting Web hosting packages or domain registrars, this list might come in handy. The following is a list of some of the bigger Web hosting companies and domain name registrars offering affiliate programs that let you earn money by promoting them. (Note: You might have to be a user of a larger affiliate network to become an affiliate of some of these companies.)

30 Web Hosting Blogs

Here’s a list of Web hosting blogs where you can learn more about Web hosting companies or managing the hosting of your website(s).

3Tera Blog
AC Web Hosting Blog
AlreadyHosting.com Blog
Bob Parsons’ Video Blog — CEO of GoDaddy
CloudPundit
Data Center Knowledge
DotSauce
DreamHost Blog
EasyStreet Blog
Gator Crossing — HostGator’s Company Blog
Heart Internet Blog
HostingFu
Host Wisely Blog
Jag Web Hosting Blog
Layered Technologies Blog
Lunartics — Lunarpages Blog
MediaTemple Blog
Parallels’ Blog
RackLabs
Server Beach Blog
SiteValley Web Hosting Blog
The Hosting News
The Inner Layer
Web Host Industry Review Blog
Web Hosting Directory
Web Hosting Fan
Web Hosting Geeks’ Blog
Web Hosting Info
Web Hosting Talk News
Web Host Talk

50 Web Hosts and Domain Registrars on Twitter

If you’d like up-to-the-minute Web hosting news, consider following these Web hosting companies on Twitter.

32 Web Hosting and Domain Name Forums

Do you want to ask Web hosting questions or get in on hosting discussions? Then join one of these Web hosting forums where you can talk to hosting companies and other website owners or learn more about domain names.

10 Web Analytics Tools

If you don’t want to dig through raw server logs and you aren’t satisfied with the analytics / website statistics package that came with your hosting account (if any), try one of these Web analytics tools on for size.

It’s impossible to assemble a truly exhaustive list of hosting resources because worldwide there are just too many to count. Hopefully this list of 150 hosting resources gives you a good starting point in connecting with hosting companies, getting hosting advice, and tracking the websites you host. Feel free to leave a comment including other resources that you think readers might be interested in besides the ones in the official list above.

Most Expensive Domain Names

cocles — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:00:25 +0000

Credit: Flickr

Being that it’s 2010, it’s safe to say the most of us have heard the term “virtual real estate”. Typically though, this refers to virtual worlds, people blowing tens of thousands of dollars on virtual real estate in a game like “Second Life”. The real virtual real estate, though, is that of the internet itself, domain names. In the mid to late 90’s there was a land grab as numerous popular domains were snagged for $100 two year contracts (later dropped to $70) from Network Solutions. The dot-come bubble arrived and suddenly those same domains were being resold for millions. Surprisingly, the dotcom bubble never burst when it came to the internet’s real estate. Prices today are as high as ever.

Insure.com – $16 million. This is the one that blows people’s minds. Ask just about anyone to guess what the most expensive domain name in history is, and they’ll probably guess something related to the porn industry. But nope, not even close. QuinStreet is the company that bought Insure.com in 2009. So who the heck is QuinStreet? They’re the eighth largest internet advertising firm in the world. Insure.com itself is an insurance company and brokerage house that provides insurance information and advice on their well-named website. They bought the domain for $1.6 million in 2001 and were the ones who sold it to QuinStreet.

Sex.com – $14 million. Sex.com is one of those domains where people say, “Gosh, if only I could go back in time and buy that before people knew what the internet was.” Trust us, you don’t want this domain. Mostly, because of a crook named Stephen M. Cohen. In 1994, Gary Kremen, founder of Match.com, purchased Sex.com from Network Solutions. In 1995, Stephen M. Cohen, committed fraud, provided false papers, and convinced an employee at Network Solutions to transfer the domain over to his name. What followed is a legal battle that is still going on today. Kremen won back his domain in the year 2000 as well as tens of millions of dollars worth of damages, since Cohen had been using the site to create a fortune with click-through advertising. Cohen filed an appeal, provided more false information, illegally transferred his assets out of the country, and ultimately fled to Mexico. He was eventually apprehended again and thrown into prison. Today, he is out again, and supposedly again living in Mexico while representing himself in court. Kremen in turn went on to sell the Sex.com domain for $14 million to Escom LLC. Worth? God only knows how many years the whole ordeal shaved off of Kremen’s life. Earlier this year, Escom proved to be unsuccessful as Sex.com was put up on a foreclosure auction. This auction, however, has been postponed as Escom’s creditors cried foul since a foreclosure auction would likely greatly diminish the selling value of the domain. Opening bid was set for $1 million.

Fund.com – $9.99 million. This is one is fairly straight forward (and therefore, kind of boring). The Fund.com domain was bought in 2008. As a company, Fund.com is dedicated to, well, the investment fund business. They’re an information company, providing information to consumers through their website as well as through personalized research. Since most of you have probably already glanced down and noticed that the next entry is Porn.com, I’ll just assume I’ve lost you and go ahead to the next entry, which I know you’re all dying to hear about.

Porn.com – $9.5 million. Boy, is MXN Limited happy. They found themselves a bargain. Face it, moral reservations aside, $9.5 million is a ridiculously low price for Porn.com. The name could have easily gone for twice that. MXN Limited is an internet media and investment firm. They purchased the domain with a cash transaction, which may make Porn.com the most expensive website to ever be purchased that way. MNX Limited has openly said they plan to be as shrewd as possible with the domain. They know they have a jewel from the internet’s real estate crown and they plan to make the most of it.

Diamond.com – $7.5 Million. This is another one that’s fairly straight forward, as well as a great example of yet another industry that makes enough money to throw astronomical amounts of cash toward acquiring a great brand. In 2006, Ice.com, one of the internet’s foremost diamond sellers purchased Diamond.com. Today, both sites are run as separate stores. The one clue we have that they’re related are their individual favicons that feature differentiating backgrounds.

Business.com – $7.5 million. The name may sound mundane, but this domain actually has a bit of history to it. The site was purchased for $150,000 in 1997, which at the time made headlines. Only two years later, though, it would be sold again. This time for $7.5 million to Jake Winebaum, founder of Earthlink, Boingo Wireless, and Helio. The original intention for Business.com was for it to serve as a search engine for small business and corporate information. The company managed to limp through the burst of the dot-com bubble and survive. In 2003, the company returned to profitability having completely reinvented its business model. In 2007, a number of companies would vie to purchase the entire company, including its famous domain name. The winner would be RH Donnelly, publisher of the Yellow Pages. Two years later, RH Donnelly would file for bankruptcy, finally emerging from Chapter 11 earlier this year. Perhaps they paid too much.

In 1999, Network Solutions’ veritable monopoly on internet domain registration was shattered and the wholesale price of domains dropped from $70 for two years, down to $6 a year. Since then, countless domains have been purchased, leaving many new companies struggling to acquire a domain that isn’t inconvenient in length or simply a random collection of characters. Small wonder then why so many modern online companies bear strange names such as “Hulu.com” and “Zillow.com”.

image via flickr cc

Tips for Improving the Crawlability of Your Website

Michael — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:29:40 +0000

Credit: Flickr

The best website in the world is going to have a hard time ranking if a search engine can’t navigate through it easily. Here are some tips to help you make your website more crawlable.

Sitemaps – Having a sitemap is the number one thing you can do to make your website easier for a search engine to crawl. It flattens out the architecture and exposes a large number of links. You should have an HTML sitemap and an XML sitemap: they serve different purposes. Don’t rely on only an XML sitemap because search engines prefer content they discover through natural crawling instead of just through a sitemap. Google recommends no more than 100 links per page; although you can technically put more than the recommended number, 500 links on a page isn’t good for bots or users. If you have a lot of links, use multiple sitemaps.

Flatten Your Website – Unless you have a trusted authority website, you need to be concerned about how you use your link equity. Having 1000 really short articles about similar topics doesn’t work as well as 100 high quality longer articles. Look for ways to eliminate or consolidate pages that don’t add value. If you are concerned about too much information on a page, look into CSS and layers to control the presentation of info but to keep it exposed for search engine spiders.

Expose Links Avoid Link Chains – While I personally don’t like reading paginated articles, the truth is they aren’t good for search engines either. They spread the content over multiple pages, each with similar titles and poor internal anchor text (ie “more”, “continued”, or a page number). So you should avoid it whenever possible. If you do need multiple pages, such as for something like multiple sitemaps, expose all of the links at once. Show me the links to page 3,4,5, and 6. Don’t make the only exposed link to page 3 on page 2

Use Breadcrumbs – Using breadcrumbs is a really excellent way to expose links to mid level pages. Many sites will just list the hierarchy, but if you turn the words into hyperlinks you’ll get more out of internal anchor text. The text can be small and still be useful without radically affecting a design or layout

Interlink Within the Main Content Area – Search engines are getting much better at breaking down pages into different elements, separating out common navigation from content, and giving the areas different importance. Use this to your advantage by putting links to other pages in your site in the main content area wherever possible. Use things like suggested items or related posts to make your site more sticky.

Avoid Renegade Linking Implementations – Developers like to build cool and neat things in websites; however, that javascript or ajax menuu that looks really cool might not be crawlable by search engines. Search engines are getting smarter about navigating that type of content, but you can’t depend on it. Ask yourself the following question: is it ok to have an amazing ajax flyout menu that no one will ever see because search engines can’t crawl the site? Use straight links wherever possible to ensure maximum crawlability.

Test Crawling – Use a search engine spider or something like Xenu Link Checker to make sure your website can be crawled. The technology isn’t exactly the same as a search engine uses, but it will help you spot any problem spots if they do exist.

via flickr cc

How Google Kills and Misses Out

cocles — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:05:09 +0000

Credit: Flickr

You know you’re onto something when the name of your company becomes a colloquial verb. Sure, this has been said before, especially about Google, but it bears repeating. Google is an enormous corporation, but with epic size comes epic screw ups, and boy-howdy Google has made a few of them. Google outright killed one great startup, and gone on to miss out on several others.

Dodgeball – Ever play the location based social media game “Dodgeball”? No? Well, you never will. Because Google bought it and all but purposefully killed it. Dodgeball was created in the year 2000 by NYU students Alex Rainert and Dennis Crowley. Keep in mind that this before our modern, Web 2.0 of cloud, mobile apps, and online applications. So how did it work back then in the proverbial dot-com middle ages? It was text based, both literally and figuratively. A user would TXT their location to the Dodgeball service, which in turn would reply with crushes, friends, friends’ friends, and cool venues nearby. So what happened? Google bought them in 2005. What followed would be two years of incredible frustration for Rainert and Crowley as Google largely ignored their creation, deeming it unworthy of engineering resources necessary for upgrading it. Rainert and Crowley would finally quit in 2007. Dodgeball would continue to limp along as Google’s red-headed stepchild until January 2009 when Google finally pulled the plug. Why, you may ask, January 2009? Coincidence? Random decision? Not at all. Google simply wanted to clear the way for it’s groundbreaking Google Latitude service.

Foursquare – Think about it… a location-based, social networking game supported by a full-fledged website, with web-applications for multiple platforms, and even a TXT based interface for everyone else. It almost sounds like Dodgeball 2.0! And that’s exactly what it is. Dennis Crowley, one of the original two creators of Dodgeball, would go on to create Foursquare in March 2009, just two years after leaving Google. Do we really need to explain how Google missed out? Foursquare is what Dodgeball would have become if Google could have been bothered to give it some of the attention it was pouring into Google Latitude at the time. Since its launch, Foursquare has gathered a user base of 500,000. For any gamers in the audience, that makes Foursquare more popular than most of the MMORPG’s currently out there. Early this year, Foursquare even went from internet fad to mainstream when it inked deals with Bravo, Cande Naste, The New York Times, and Zagat. Foursquare could have been Google’s achievement, but they decided to let what they had languish and leave.

Gowalla – So what’s Gowalla? It’s effectively Foursquare’s top competitor. Both went toe to toe at SXSW in March 2010. Gowalla’s userbase is a fraction of Foursquare’s, but don’t let that fool you. One could argue though that it comes down to which city you’re in as to whether Foursquare or Gowalla is more popular. So what is Gowalla exactly? For one who hasn’t tried it, think of it as the next evolution in geo-caching. Of course, if you have no clue what geo-caching is, then that doesn’t help you. Gowalla is a game that rewards you for checking in at certain locations. These locations in turn can be combined into “trips” providing the user with a route to take when touring a city, barhopping, or hiking. Checking in requires a mobile app or logging in to Gowalla’s mobile website. Gowalla is much more stringent about making sure you’re checking in from where you actually are, so Gowalla has the advantage (in theory at least) of less cheaters. So how did Google miss out? They could have recovered from their Foursquare misjudgment by swooping in and picking up Gowalla, which just finished gathering up a hefty pile of venture capital. At it stands though, Google is continuing to rely on their Google Latitude service.

Google Latitude – If we’re going to be talking about these location aware mobile apps and how Google missed out or killed them, then we ought to talk about what Google actually went with. So, what is this amazing location aware service of Google’s? Google Latitude. And what does it do? Simple. It lets people know where you are. You choose how accurate your location is, and who has access to that information, but at the heart of it, yes, it simply lets Google Latitude users know where other Google Latitude users are. How popular is it? That’s a relative question. The service blends seamlessly into other Google services, and even uses Google Maps to report locations. Countless people have flipped the switch to check it out. But how many of those are actually using Latitude vs. those who just “left it on”? It’s difficult to say, but one at least wishes Google had been more imaginative when it came to doing their own location based social media service.

Twitter – Do we really need to explain what this is? It’s Twitter. It’s a mico-blogging/chat hybrid in which your posts are limited to just 140 characters. So yes, about a year ago there was noise that Google was looking into acquiring Twitter. This would have granted Google unparalleled access to Twitter’s feed, which would in turn fuel Google’s search service. The deal, however, ultimately never went through. The two companies shook hands, though, and a different deal was struck in which Google gained the ability to provide real-time tweets within its search results. Here’s where it gets obnoxious though. Google then turned around tried to create its own competing service, Google Buzz, which completely blew up in their face (and hit many of Google’s users with the shrapnel). If Google wanted a Twitter service that badly then they should have just rolled up their sleeves and wrote a check so big that Twitter couldn’t refuse. To think they could outdo Twitter at twittering was simply arrogance.

At the end of the day, it comes down to this: what Google is great at is creating services that work well with in the confines of Google’s own four walls. Google Buzz assumed everyone in the world likes each other. Google latitude might be neat for keeping track of your coworkers, but beyond that… it’s boring. Whether or not these services actually work in the outside world is a roll of the dice. Google does sometimes get it right though, and hopefully the future will bring more services like Gmail, and the Chrome Browser.

How to Handle Redirects with an Error Page

Michael — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:09:54 +0000

Credit: Flickr

One of the problems with having a large or old website or a site that has seen a few different versions is dealing with pages that have moved and handling redirects. Generally speaking, most sites handle rewrites via htaccess or iisapi. However, once you start to get a lot of redirects, you can encounter performance issues. What I suggest using is combination redirect and 404 error page.

The first thing you’ll need to do is set up a database table. The table needs two fields: old URL and new URL. Basically, we’ll look at the page requested, see if it matches any of the values in the old URL field, and, if it does, get the URL we want to redirect to.

Once that’s set up, develop a custom 404 error page then code the 404 page to handle the lookups and redirects. This is pseudo code, but any competent programmer should be able to use it to work in PHP, ASP, JSP or whatever other scripting language you use:

## this code should execute before any code is sent to the browser ## Get the URL requested ## check the database to see if new URL exists ## if new url exists then issue a 301 redirect to new URL ## if URL does not exist then issue 404 response code and send error page to the browser

That’s it. There’s not much to it as far as coding goes. The tricky part is making sure you don’t send a 200 or 404 response code to the browser when you are doing the redirect. You also want to make sure you you don’t send a 200 response code when you are sending the 404 page. There are plenty of tools to check the response code you are sending. I like check server header tool from SEOConsultants but that’s up to you.

The code is pretty basic but there is room for improving and expanding it. For example you could track all pages with a 404 and write them to a database. If a certain number of entries occur in a single month, you can have it send you an email alert as a way of keeping ahead of potential unexpected problems. If you are tracking 404’s you’ll want to write a script to clean out entries older than 60 days so the table doesn’t get huge.

Another idea would be to track inbound referrering URL’s. If you see someone is sending a lot of traffic to an old URL, you might want to contact them to ask them to make the change directly. A straight link to the proper page is always better than one you have adjusted after the fact.

If you start using a script like this, be wary of the potential to chain 301 redirects together. You want to avoid a 301 redirect into a 301 redirect. The more redirects you pass through the greater the chance a search engine is going to get it wrong. If you have to move something a second time, go back and change the destination URL in the first redirect as well. It’s just good practice for keeping a well-maintained website.

via flickrcc

Does Your Website Need a Directory Tree

Michael — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:33:08 +0000

Credit: Flickr

One of the questions that seems to be asked regularly is does my website need a directory tree structure and should I change it to eliminate the directory. For clarity, when I talk about a directory tree, I’m talking about sites that are set up like this:

http://example.com/


http://example.com/ford/
http://example.com/ford/sports-car/
http://example.com/ford/sports-car/mustang/

http://example.com/ford/sports-car/mustang/2010/

The core question is, Is there any difference between these two URL’s?

http://example.com/ford/sports-car/mustang/2010/

http://example.com/ford-sports-car-mustang-2010/

In my opinion the second URL structure is preferable because it allows you a lot more flexibility. That said, there are some caveats to be aware of. When you go with a directory tree structure, it’s really essential that you get the directory names as short as possible. If I had a nickel for every keyword-stuffed directory name I came across, I’d spend the rest of my days swinging from a hammock in Tahiti. Most people can’t resist the temptation to add in one or two extra keywords … don’t do it. When you go with a tree-less structure you aren’t forced to use names from higher in the tree, but that means there is more temptation to keyword stuff. Keep it as short as possible by using essential keywords only. I recommend the 3-5 word range with no stop words (a, of the, is, etc). With the example we are using I think this structure is too long:

http://example.com/ford-sports-car-mustang-2010/

It could just as easily be any of the following:

http://example.com/ford-mustang-2010/


http://example.com/mustang-2010/

http://example.com/sports-car-mustang-2010/

Personally I’d go with http://example.com/ford-mustang-2010/ I think adding “Ford” as a KWD is important, but every implementation is going to be slightly different.

A second thing to remember: when you use a directory structure, the hierarchy is forced upon you. You can’t put “/ford/” at the end without creating a 404 error page. However, when you eliminate a directory structure, you could very easily end up with something like this:

http://example.com/ford-mustang-2010/

http://example.com/2009-mustang-ford/

Yes, the page will still work, but it’s going be a whole lot more confusing and harder to maintain the website if you let it happen.

Just because you go with a tree-less structure doesn’t mean you can’t have middle level pages either. I would 110% recommend having these pages with some editorial content and a link to each of pages beneath it:

http://example.com/ford/


http://example.com/ford-sports-car/
http://example.com/ford-mustang/

http://example.com/ford-2010/

The next question is should I change my existing website to this new format. In my experience, radically changing a URL structure is never fun or painless and should only be done if something is wrong, broken or needs to be fixed. If your current site implementation has low traffic, has session ID’s and lots of other parameters in the URL, and you decide to fix it, yes it’s something to consider. However if you are an established website with good rankings and traffic, changing the URL structure because it’s what all the other cool kids are doing isn’t a a smart move. IMHO, of course.

One last thing to consider is using a directory structure to limit crawling. Sometimes you have a section of a website that you don’t want crawled for whatever reason. If there are multiple pages, it’s a lot easier to block crawling using a directory/tree structure than making multiple entries in a robots file.

via flickr cc

A Beginner’s Web Hosting Checklist

Jennifer Mattern — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:46:19 +0000

Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

Are you about to launch your first website or blog? If so (and if you choose to self-host), you’ll need a domain name and Web hosting company to get your site online. What should you look for in a Web host?

Before you can compare Web hosting companies or decide which Web hosting reviews to pay attention to, you have to know what you’re looking for in a new host. Since you’re still new to Web hosting, we’ve assembled a checklist to help you out. This Web hosting checklist is designed to help beginners map out their domain registration and hosting needs before they spend any money.

You can view the beginner’s Web hosting checklist below, or print the .pdf version to use for yourself.

Web Hosting Checklist

In order to use this Web hosting checklist, you’ll need to decide what you want. To make it easier on beginners, some of the things you’ll need to decide on are listed at the top. When you print out the .pdf version, you can fill these in. Then go down the checklist and check off any hosting package you’re considering that meets your requirements in those areas.

Disk Space: ___________ (How much do you need?)

Bandwidth: ___________ (How much will you use each month?)

Uptime: ___________ (What required uptime do you expect?)

Control Panel: ___________ (Do you want a specific control panel?)

Operating System: ___________ (Do you want Linux or Windows hosting?)

Price Limit: __________ (What monthly price are you willing to pay?)

CHECKLIST

(Fill out a checklist for every Web hosting company you’re considering.)

General

___ Meets disk space requirements

___ Adequate servers and RAM

___ Meets bandwidth requirements

___ Meets uptime requirements

___ Desired control panel?

___ Desired operating system?

Billing

___ Meets price requirements

___ Allows monthly billing

___ Discounts offered for longer term contracts

___ Money-back guarantee

Support

___ 24/7 support

___ Telephone support

___ Adequate uptime guarantee

Domains

___ Free domain included

___ Allows subdomains

___ Allows add-on domains

___ You own and control the domain (if registered through the host)

Features

___ MySQL

___ PHP

___ CGI bin

___ Perl

___ SSI

___ FTP access

___ Anonymous FTP access

___ Free Web statistics programs included

___ Shared SSL

___ Dedicated SSL

___ Email hosting included

___ One-click installs of popular scripts (like Wordpress)

___ Password-protected directories (for password protecting areas of your site)

This is not an exhaustive list, but it covers the most common features a new website owner might want in a hosting package. If you need other programming languages supported, additional features, or anything else not included here, add them to your checklist.

Ideally you’ll want to find a Web hosting company that offers everything you’ve included in your checklist — all of the things you want or need in managing your website. If no such plan exists, you can compare your checklists side-by-side to figure out which hosting package offers the most things you’re looking for, and which ones are missing essential elements so you can weed them out.

Whether you’re looking for a new hosting company for your very first site, or your hundredth site, we wish you the best of luck in finding the perfect Web hosting package for your unique needs.

Creating a Crawlable Regional Website

Michael — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:00:19 +0000

Credit: Flickr

One of the challenges of having a large website that has content about multiple regional areas is getting all of the content crawled on a regular basis. Due to the width and depth of sites like this, getting new content that is at least 3-4 levels deep is often a problem. In this post I’ll be taking a look at some strategies to help you solve these issues.

Let’s look at the first problem: getting all of the content crawled and in the index. For the sake of simplicity I’m going to be using the 50 states model, but the concept is easily adapted to other types of structures. My number one recommendation is to put a link to each of the 50 states on the home page. When I say something like that, the most common response that I hear is, “Great! We’ll put it in the footer of every page.” But that’s not really the best solution. Google and other search engines look at pages and try to break them down into sections and, in some cases, weight things differently. For example items listed in the top navigation have a greater likelihood of becoming sitelinks for your site. It’s not a 100% guarantee, but it does help, especially if the pages have a lot of links to them. They will also look at things like sidebars and footers and weight them differently.They also look for content that is repeated on every page, and again it’s often weighted differently than information and links in the main content section of a page. My recommendation is to put a link to each of the 50 states right in the main content area of the homepage but to avoid putting it sitewide in the footer. What I would also do is create a separate page (a mini sitemap if you will) with links to each of the states and put a link to that page in the footer or masthead, whichever makes the most sense.

When you are working with large sites like this, using a breadcrumb is essential. Not only does it help advanced users know where they are in the structure of your website, but it also provides crawling points. So all of your pages should have something like this:

Home > State > Page Home > State > City > Page

It’s important that the “state” and “city” elements be hyperlinked back to another mini sitemp page. Everything you can do to make it easy for the search engines to get exposed to the content is beneficial. The less pages a search engine has to go through to find the content the better.

Another challenge with these sites is getting new pages in the index. When a page is in a state and city directory tree, it’s going to be 3-4 levels deep under the best circumstances, and 5 or more if things are really bad. To solve that problem you want to list the new content as close as possible to the homepage for a short period of time to spoon feed the search engines. If you can, list the 10, 15, or 20 newest pages right on your homepage. If you are using a CMS, have some custom programming created to take care of that for you automatically, so it’s a hands-off operation. I’d also create a “what’s new” page with the 100 newest pages listed on it. Another tip: on the state and city mini sitemap pages, create a new listings section area at the top and put the 10 newest sub pages there as well. Again, try to get some code in place to automate the process as much as possible.

Lastly if your listings get updated regularly and you want to make sure the content gets indexed quickly, create a recently updated section that works just like the what’s new areas I mentioned above.

via flickr cc