Don’t Make These Web Hosting Mistakes

Many people, especially newcomers, when they register their domain names, are convinced to sign up for a hosting account with the company that registered their domain name. That could be godaddy.com, yahoo.com or any number of other domain name registering companies. Thats really unfortunate, because the hosting sets those people usually get dont generally meet the needs of an online entreprenuer. Those hosting accounts just without the functionality you really need to promote your business.

Heres what happens – the domain name registering companies will make you an offer of a low level hosting plan. Since the customers that are registering the domain names are usually beginners, they arent aware of all the hosting choices that are freely obtainable in other places. They think that just because the company theyre dealing with can register domain names, they must have the best hosting too.

To make a long story short, people that buy into the hosting thats offered when they register their domains are usually disappointed once they get started with their new online business. Although they got what seemed like a low price, theyll find out later, when they compare it to other offers, that it really wasnt such a good deal.

But thats only part of the problem. As they become more and more involved in running their new online business, they discover that there may be some special software that they want to run on their website. Perhaps its a shopping cart or maybe a content management system. When they look at the requirements of the software and compare those requirements to their hosting account, theyll see that their hosting account wont sustain the new software. You see, most marketing related software will use PHP or mySQL databases. If your web hosting account doesnt sustain PHP and mySQL, youre just out of luck.

Of course, these customers can go back to their hosting provider, who will explain to them that the features required for sustain of the new software are obtainable to them, but theyll have to upgrade their hosting account. And the upgrade isnt free, by the way. Their original hosting may have cost only $7.95 a month, but the new, upgraded hosting will cost them $25 or $30 a month. Now, all of the sudden, that great hosting deal doesnt seem so great anymore.

Dont waste your time and money with bargain web hosting that wont do the job.

Another mistake is trying to run your business with free hosting. First of all, if youre looking for free web hosting because youre not willing to use a small amount of money for your own web hosting account, you might in addition just give up right now. If you want to do everything for free, youre not looking for a real business, youre looking for a hobby.

Usually, when you go with free hosting, your website URL will end up being something like freehosting.megacities.com/18987/~parkavenue/1793 If your only interest is in having a place on the web to characterize your family photos, maybe the free hosting is right for you. But if youre trying to run a business, the free hosting can be a big handicap. For one thing, the URL doesnt look very specialized.

And the free hosting companies tend to characterize their own advertising banners on the pages of your website. How does that look to your possible customers? Just imagine that if youre trying to function a family oriented business and when prospects visit your website, banners advertising Adult Chat Rooms are on your pages.

Types of web hosting – chiefly, there are 2 different types of web hosting. One is Microsoft Windows based and the other is Linux/Unix based. My personal recommendation is to stay away from the Windows based hosting. Ive had friends that went with Windows hosting, and then later found out that much of the software they wanted to run wasnt compatible with the Windows server. Most all web based software that is used for marketing purposes is designed to run on Linux servers, so I wouldnt recommend anything other than Linux based hosting.

Now that weve established the need for Linux based hosting and that you shouldnt get hosting from the same place you registered your domain, the question is – Where do you get hosting?

Im going to let you in on a little secret – all those banner ads and email messages you probably see pitching hosting deals – IGNORE THEM. The absolute best hosting Ive seen is obtainable at dirt cheap prices on Ebay. Yes, Ebay, the online auction.

Just go to ebay.com and search for web hosting reseller By getting a resellers hosting account, youll get all the hosting youll ever need. Heres how it works – A resellers hosting account gives you the ability to sell hosting accounts to other people. One of the benefits of a reseller account is that you can usually great number an unlimited number of domains.

Right now you may be thinking this isnt for you because youre not interested in selling hosting to other people. You just want hosting for your own business. Thats OK, you dont need to sell hosting with the resellers account. You can just use it for yourself. You can use it to great number the new domain that you recently registered and then, later on, if you register more domain names, you can great number those also – without paying any more money for hosting.

I bought a hosting resellers account on eBay about 3 years ago. Its complete featured, reliable, and the service and sustain is great. I pay $139 a year and I currently have about 95 domains hosted. Do the math – that works out to a little over a dollar per year for hosting that has everything I need. I think thats a pretty good deal.

If you dont want to get a resellers account, you can get by already cheaper. I have another hosting account I bought at eBay that only hosts a single domain, but it only costs 75 cents a month. This 75 cent account supports PHP, mySQL, has unlimited space and bandwidth, unlimited email accounts and just about everything else you could think of.

I strongly recommend that you check out the hosting offers on eBay before you make any other commitments. Here are the features you want to make sure your hosting has –

1) Linux based web server

2) CPANEL admin control. This is the web based admin where you can check traffic stats, setup mySQL databases, setup email accounts and a whole lot more

3) Fantastico – This is an installation aid thats really handy to have. It allows you to automatically install several high powered software applications with just a single mouse click. Want a WordPress blog? Click and you have it, ready to roll. Want an online forum – same deal, click and its there. Catalog and shopping cart – You guessed it, click and youll have it.

It goes without saying that you should check the sellers feedback on eBay before you make any commitment. See what other customers have to say about the service. You want to make sure youre dealing with someone thats reputable.