DKIM

DomainKeys Identified Mail, or DKIM, is a system for verifying the legitimacy of an email message using an e-signature. When DKIM is activated for a specific domain name, a public cryptographic key is published to the global DNS database and a private one is kept on the email server. If a new email message is sent, a signature is issued using the private key and when the message is delivered, that signature is checked by the incoming POP3/IMAP email server using the public key. Thus, the receiver can easily know if the email is authentic or if the sender’s address has been spoofed. A discrepancy will occur if the content of the email has been modified on its way as well, so DKIM can also be used to make sure that the sent and the received messages are identical and that nothing has been added or removed. This validation system will strengthen your email security, since you can verify the authenticity of the important emails that you get and your colleagues can do the exact same thing with the emails that you send them. Depending on the given email service provider’s policies, an email message that fails to pass the examination may be erased or may end up in the receiver’s inbox with a warning notification.

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SMTP

The SMTP acronym stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and this is the set of scripts that allows you to send out emails. If you work with an email application, it creates a connection to the SMTP server. The latter then searches the DNS data of the domain name, which is a part of the receiving address to find out what email server handles its emails. After system information is transferred, the SMTP server provides the email to the remote IMAP or POP server and then the email is finally delivered in the corresponding mailbox. An SMTP server is necessary if you are using a contact page form on your website too.

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InnoDB

InnoDB is a very popular storage engine for the MySQL RDBMS. It’s an alternative to the default engine – MyISAM, and it has got a lot of upsides that have made it the preferred engine for a lot of script-driven web apps, including Joomla^™ and Magento, which have shifted over to InnoDB permanently. For example, adding huge data volumes will be faster with InnoDB, due to the fact that it locks only one row to complete a given task, not the entire table, which makes the engine ideal for scalable apps. InnoDB also supports foreign keys and transactions – these refer to the way in which the information is handled. Put simply, importing new or modifying existing data will either be fully completed, or will be annulled and the operation will be rolled back in case any issue occurs in the meantime, which means that the content that remains in the database won’t be damaged.

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Guide to Email List Manager Scripts

A mailing list manager script allows you to send batch emails to a group of subscribers. Also known as newsletter script, it proves to be extremely useful to send bulk emails for your email marketing campaigns including newsletters, publicity lists and other notification emails.

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How Mailing List Managers work?

1. A user signups up (opt-ins) for your mailing list using an online form or via a subscription center.
2. The subscriber might receive an email notification asking him to confirm his opt-in (double opt-in) and receive a welcome email acknowledging his subscription.
3. The mailing list manager will treat his email address along with other profile information as a subscriber and assign him to the mailing list he opted-in.
4. The administrator (also known as email marketer) can create an email campaign blast for that mailing list by using built-in email templates.
5. The subscriber will receive the email in his email account (can be either desktop or webmail client)
6. In the event that the subscriber wants to stop receiving future emails from that mailing list, he can unsubscribe (opt-out).

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Types of Mailing List Managers

Script based

These types of mailing list managers can be purchased for a fee (either on a per license or server basis) and installed on your server. You’re then free to use it for as many subscribers, mailing list and email sends. They are usually available as

• – PHP Mailing Lists Managers
• – ASP Mailing Lists Managers
• – CGI & Perl Mailing List Managers
• – ASP.NET Mailing List Managers.

Remotely Hosted

There are also remotely hosted mailing list managers that are offered as SaaS which will allow you to send emails for a recurring subscription fee. While it can be expensive in the long run, they can be more reliable in terms of delivery and SPAM-Compliance.

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Major Components of a Mailing List Manager

Most mailing list manager differs from each others in terms of functionality, however the following major components are to be found in each one.

List and Subscriber Management

This is an admin-only management system that allows you to import, export, edit, update and delete subscribers of your mailing list. The ability to maintain a cleanse mailing list relies on the ability of the script to manage the subscriber list via automated tools like bounce processing, duplicate email address remover, etc.

Opt-in and Opt-out

Opt-in and opt-out are processes that subscribers use to either join your mailing list or unsubscribe from them. Opt-in can happen via an online form or subscription center, but can also be done manually by the administrator via batch file import. On the other hand, opt-out are usually placed as unsubscribe links in the footer of each emails. (as per CAN-SPAM Acts). Some mailing list managers will also offer double opt-in option whereby which a subscribe has to validation and confirm his email address before he is added to the list.

Campaign Management

Campaign management is the heart of a mailing list manager. It allows you to compose emails using either custom or pre-built email templates, set personalization preferences and send the email either immediately, scheduled or on defined intervals (auto-responders).

Tracking and Statistics

To measure the effectiveness of your campaign, most mailing list managers offer tracking of key metrics for your campaign including open-rate, click-rate, bounce-rate, etc. Statistics are usually provided in the form of graphics, charts or click-overlays.

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Choosing a Mailing List Manager

The key in choosing a mailing list manager ultimately relies on one that meets your email marketing needs, however we recommend that you take the following tips into consideration:

CAN-Spam Compliance

The CAN-Spam Act is a set of rules that establishes requirements for commercial messages. Mailing list managers that are CAN-Spam compliant will offer features like automated bounce back handling, one-click unsubscribe and forced contact information in the footer of your messages.

Email Speed Throttling

Most web hosting companies applies strict rules on the number of total outgoing emails to prevent their SMTP servers from being blacklisted in RBLs.  If your mailing list size is above 500 and you send frequent mailings, it is recommended to ensure that your mailing list manager can limit the number of outgoing emails per hour.

Web Hosting Requirements

It can be tricky to install and configure a newsletter script on your hosting company’s server. Some will require that you use mail agent (Sendmail), PHP Mail() function or even an authenticated SMTP service. Always check with your hosting company to ensure that that it meets the requirement before purchasing.

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IonCube

What precisely is IonCube? Why is it present on almost every present-day hosting server running PHP?

In order to avoid the reverse engineering of script applications, a lot of developers encrypt their code with tools like ionCube PHP Encoder and make it human unreadable. The latter is valid for paid apps in particular, since anybody could possibly use and modify the unencrypted code without paying the needed license fees. If you buy web software protected with ionCube PHP Encoder, you’ll be able to use it without any problems as long as an instrument called ionCube Loader is present on the website hosting server. This loader makes it possible to execute encrypted files and you will often see it as one of the prerequisites for a certain script application to be installed. As the encrypted files are already precompiled, they’re ordinarily executed more rapidly and this will boost the overall speed of your website.

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Debian

See why a lot of system administrators head straight for Debian whenever choosing an Operating System for their servers.

Debian is a Linux distribution, that’s widespread for desktop machines, but it has been becoming more popular as a server OS over the last few years as well. It is very dependable and secure, as fixes are released in just a couple of days after a problem is discovered. Debian has a huge support community, so when you have any questions or problems with the OS or with any of the 30,000+ packages it is equipped with, you can easily contact the developers immediately through email using special e-mail lists and receive a response within 15-20 min. The Debian community offers the best level of support possible, as your questions will be handled by the very same people that built Debian in the first place, so they have a detailed knowledge of how their own system works. Because the Operating System is absolutely free to use and distribute, no license charges will be included with your web hosting fees and you can customize the program code files and any other software that you install with no restrictions, so as to optimize the software environment for your websites. In addition, Debian performs very well on any kind of hardware, because it’s light and fast and doesn’t need a lot of memory.

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Node.js

Node.js is a leading-edge event-driven system, which is used to set up scalable web apps. It is built with the Google V8 JavaScript engine and it handles HTTP requests and responses between a server and an immense number of online users much more efficiently than any conventional platform. What makes Node.js unique is the fact that in difference between traditional platforms that handle the info in giant hunks, it handles everything in little bits. For instance, when a user needs to fill in several fields on an Internet site, Node.js processes the info from the first field as soon as it’s entered, utilizing the server’s processing resources more efficiently. In comparison, conventional platforms wait for all the fields to be filled and while the info from them is being processed, requests from other users remain in the queue. The difference may be negligible for a single person, but it absolutely does make a difference when a large number of individuals are navigating a site at the very same time. Several instances of sites where Node.js can be applied are dinner booking portals, web-based chat rooms or interactive browser-based game portals, in other words sites that need quick real-time interaction.

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Create Your Own PHP Error Log File Archive

Since most Web Hosts don’t provide access to Apache error logs on shared hosting packages for technical reasons, you can create your own error logs for debugging PHP Scripts.

Insert the following code in your PHP script. (Or create separate file and add the code in it. Include the file using include().)

/* we will do our own error handling. */error_reporting(0); // Turns off all error reporting./* user defined error handling function. */function userErrorHandler($errno, $errmsg, $filename, $linenum, $vars){    // timestamp for the error entry.    $dt = date('Y-m-d H:i:s (T)');    // define an assoc array of error string    // in reality the only entries we should    // consider are E_WARNING, E_NOTICE, E_USER_ERROR,    // E_USER_WARNING and E_USER_NOTICE.    $errortype = array (                E_ERROR => 'Error',                E_WARNING => 'Warning',                E_PARSE => 'Parsing Error',                E_NOTICE => 'Notice',                E_CORE_ERROR => 'Core Error',                E_CORE_WARNING => 'Core Warning',                E_COMPILE_ERROR => 'Compile Error',                E_COMPILE_WARNING => 'Compile Warning',                E_USER_ERROR => 'User Error',                E_USER_WARNING => 'User Warning',                E_USER_NOTICE => 'User Notice',                E_STRICT => 'Runtime Notice'                );    // set of errors for which a var trace will be saved.    $user_errors = array(E_USER_ERROR, E_USER_WARNING, E_USER_NOTICE);    $err = "<errorentry>\n";    $err .= "\t<datetime>" .$dt. "</datetime>\n";    $err .= "\t<errornum>" .$errno. "</errornum>\n";    $err .= "\t<errortype>" .$errortype[$errno]. "</errortype>\n";    $err .= "\t<errormsg>" .$errmsg. "</errormsg>\n";    $err .= "\t<scriptname>" .$filename. "</scriptname>\n";    $err .= "\t<scriptlinenum>" .$linenum. "</scriptlinenum>\n";    if (in_array($errno, $user_errors)) {        $err .= "\t<vartrace>" .wddx_serialize_value($vars, 'Variables'). "</vartrace>\n";    }    $err .= "</errorentry>\n\n";    // save to the error log file, and e-mail me if there is a critical user error.    error_log($err, 3, '../error_log.log');    if ($errno == E_USER_ERROR) {        mail('bgates@gmail.com', 'Critical User Error', $err);    }}$old_error_handler = set_error_handler('userErrorHandler');

PHP’s error_reporting() function sets which PHP errors are reported. The error_reporting() function sets the error_reporting directive at runtime. PHP has many levels of errors, using this function sets that level for the duration (runtime) of your script. The script’s error_reporting(0) turns off all error reporting so the script can catch and save the errors to a file.

PHP’s error_log() function sends an error message somewhere. Now you have your own error log archives file that you can link to and look at!

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Perl Scripting

Perl is an efficient programming language that’s widely used for creating CGI scripts and also different web-based applications. Among its main advantages is the fact that it supports modules – ready-made batches of code that are designed to execute numerous tasks and to enhance the efficiency of a given script without slowing it with unnecessary lines of code. This means that, if five processess have to be executed, you can employ five lines of program code to call each one of the modules instead of including hundreds of lines used to create the actual modules within your script. Perl is very handy and it can be used for a variety of purposes, that’s why a lot of corporations have integrated it in their web products or on their resource-demanding sites – cPanel, IMDB, Craigslist, BugZilla, BBC and many more. It is generally used with other programming languages like PHP or Python.

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The best developer-friendly web hosting services

It is fascinating to note how web hosting services have evolved so rapidly in the last few years to cope with web applications that are always on the look out for more resource allocations, faster processing speed and scalability. While shared, managed or VPS hosting services are still popular choices, it is now more common for developers to opt for developer-friendly web hosting, platform as a service (PaaS) or CMS-specific web hosting services.

These trending web hosting services allow developers to easily create, deploy and fine-tune their web applications without dealing with much sys-admin. They come preinstalled with a variety of developer-friendly tools like one-click staging, versioning, full shell access and some would even offer coding environments. Some hosting company will even allow you to choose your own software stack whereby which you can easily deploy your development environment like Python, Ruby, Django, Node.js and more.

This article takes a look at some of these services including the tools they provide and their base pricing.

DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean provides cloud hosting services especially tailored for web developers. You can deploy your own SSD cloud server in less than a minute by choosing your own Linux distribution. DigitalOcean also provides you to choose from a selection of data centers and comes with a simplified control panel with one-click install for popular applications. Finally, it has a very robust API that gives you total control over your virtual private server.

Pricing starts at $5/mo for 512MB, 1 Core Processor, 20GB SSD Disk and 1TB transfer.

Thexyz

Thexyz is a premium Node.js application hosting platform. It enables you to go from code to live application in minutes. Never worry about how your application is going to scale again. Integrated modules means you can have your entire technology stack under one roof. Finally, know exactly how your application is performing by using the built in performance statistics.

GearHost

GearHost is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud built for .NET, PHP and Node.js developers who need to launch and scale applications quickly. GearHost offers free account that you can use during your development and then upgrade to their paid plan when you’re ready to go live. Pricing for paid account is flexible and starts at $5/month.

Kodingen

Kodingen is a cloud development environment combining an online code editor, cloud hosting along with both web based access to file-system and FTP. It is free and provides developers with a feature-rich collaboration and social coding tools along with integration with a wide variety of existing frameworks and third party APIs. Kodingen also offers one-click installs for popular open source scripts like Drupal, Joomla and WordPress – great for testing something in a safe sanbox.

Modulus.io

Modulus is a premier Node.js application hosting platform. It enables you to go from code to live application in minutes. Never worry about how your application is going to scale again. Integrated MongoDB hosting means you can have your entire technology stack under one roof. Finally, know exactly how your application is performing by using the built in performance statistics.

Windows Azure

Windows Azure is Microsoft’s cloud services operating system that provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale and manage web application through Microsoft’s datacenters. The Windows Azure platform supports multiple languages including ASP.NET, Java, PHP and Ruby along with standards and protocols like SOAP, REST and XML. Other than its scalable hosting environment, Windows Azure also provides durable storage in the cloud and a content delivery network (CND).

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a collection of different web services platform in the cloud. With AWS, developers can requisition computer power, networking, storage and other services. AWS provides the flexibility to choose whichever development platform or programming model you want to use. Amazon Web Services’ offerings are accessed over HTTP, using REST and SOAP protocols. All are billed on usage, with the exact form of usage varying from service to service.

Google App Engine

Google App Engine enables you to build and host web apps on the same systems that power Google applications. App Engine offers fast development and deployment; simple administration, with no need to worry about hardware, patches or backups; and effortless scalability.With App Engine you write your application code, test it on your local machine and upload it to Google with a simple click of a button or command line script.

Database.com

Database.com from SalesForce is an enterprise cloud based database service designed for developers who build online applications regardless of the language, platform or device they use. Developers will also be able to use Database.com plug and play storage with other cloud based services like Amazon EC2, Windows Azure or Google AppEngine. Some of its features include user management, row-level security, triggers, authentication, API and stored procedures. Databases are also automatically tuned, upgraded, replicated and backup to other remote data centers.

GridGain

GridGain is a cloud application platform that enables development of highly scalable SaaS based or traditional enterprise applications that work on any managed infrastructure. You can develop with GridGain using Java or Scala programming languages – both of which are supported natively.

Codeita

Codeita is a powerful, easy to use, cloud-based, web development environment. It’s a powerful code editor, an advanced svg image editor, and an out of this world project management and collaboration tool. It allows users to code, develop, brainstorm, communicate and then publish projects and files to your web server. No more hassles with backups and syncing your laptop with your desktop. Or your personal laptop with your business laptop. Complete with code highlighting, local/live editing, project sharing, image editing and more.

CodeRun

CodeRun Studio is a cross-platform Integrated Development Environment (IDE), designed for the cloud. It enables you to easily develop, debug and deploy web applications using your browser. CodeRun features native support for C#/.NET (3.5), PHP (5.1), JavaScript, HTML and CSS. C# support includes ASP.NET, WCF, Silverlight and WPF browser application development and deployment. Database support includes SQL Server 2005 and Amazon SimpleDB.

Heroku

Heroku is a cloud application platform for Ruby. It provides a new way of building and deploying web applications by allowing developers spend 100% of their time on their application code, not managing servers, deployments, ongoing operations or scaling. One of the most powerful features of Heroku is its support of addons that allows you to add functionality to your apps with ease.

Engine Yard AppCloud

Engine Yard AppCloud is an ideal Platform-as-a-Service for a range of Rails applications, from smaller-scale web applications that run within a single compute instance, to production applications that require the elasticity, scalability and reliability of a Rails Application Cloud. With Engine Yard AppCloud you only pay for what you use—there are no setup or environment fees, and you don’t need your own Amazon account.

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Do I need a dedicated IP address?

Of the numerous hosting features and extras available from just about every hosting provider out there, the dedicated IP may just be the one that gives Web publishers the most pause. Is it necessary? Does it have any benefit? Do I really need one if I’m using a dedicated server? Do I really need one at all?

The debate rages on. Ultimately, whether you spring for a dedicated IP address or not is your decision, but knowing a few facts, and then throwing in a bit of opinion, may help you make an educated decision. Let’s start with the basics.

What Is An IP Address?

This is completely separate from your domain name or the URL of your site. The IP (Internet Protocol) address is a sequence of numbers assigned to every device that accesses the Internet. Whereas your domain is essentially your website’s address—the location where it can be found on the Internet—your computer’s IP address is a unique label that allows the Internet, websites, (and let’s be honest, probably the NSA) to identify your specific device when it accesses a website.

In addition to computers and mobile devices, servers also have their own unique IP addresses.

Shared IPs Vs. Dedicated IPs

Most data centers and website technology providers offer variations on two different types of hosting – shared hosting and dedicated hosting. With shared hosting, all of a server’s resources are pooled together to host many sites without regard for who owns the site, how much traffic a site receives, etc. With dedicated hosting, all of a server’s resources are still applied to a specific set of sites and applications, but the way those resources are allocated is at the discretion of the person renting the server space – not the hosting provider.

So, in the case of shared hosting, there are often hundreds, sometimes thousands of sites that all reside on the same server – therefore, they all have the same IP address. In the case of dedicated hosting, sites may share the same hosting provider, but do not all have the same IP address.

Shared IPs and Dedicated IPs operate in the same way. While each hosting account has the same IP in a shared hosting scenario, a dedicated IP is an exclusive address that is unique to your hosted server. While a dedicated IP address is exclusively yours, you might choose to serve different sites from that IP address. Ultimately, you are in control of who’s using it.

This normally isn’t a problem in any way, whether you’re considering hosting or search engine optimization (SEO) factors. But in some cases, a dedicated IP can be helpful, and in others, it’s necessary.

What Is A Dedicated IP And What Does It Actually Do?

To truly understand dedicated IPs, we need to understand how IP addresses work.

IP addresses route internet traffic to the right place, much like a zip code or post code. Like postal codes, different people can share the same IP.

If you have a shared hosting account, you probably share your site IP address with dozens of other people. In some cases, you might share it with hundreds of other sites. Sharing is not a problem. The host has software to interpret requests for different sites on the same IP, ensuring that it can serve the right content to each person, and it takes milliseconds.

A dedicated IP address is exclusively yours. You might choose to serve different sites from that IP address, but you’re ultimately in control of who’s using it.

You would think that a dedicated IP was better, right? Let’s look at some of the benefits we associate with them.

When Do I Need a Dedicated IP Address?

As far as hosting goes, you’ll encounter as many as four major reasons why a dedicated IP will either be helpful or necessary to the success of your site.

 

• You need to maintain a secure site via SSL certificate.
• Your site is high traffic and needs dedicated resources to maintain performance.
• You need to access your website via file transfer protocol (FTP) on a regular basis
• You need to view your website via IP address

 

Many of these reasons would also signal that it is a good time to upgrade your hosting platform from shared to dedicated, as well! With that said, dedicated IPs are not dependent upon dedicated hosting to function correctly. You can have shared IPs on a dedicated server if you host multiple sites on one server, and you can have dedicated IPs pointing to sites on a shared hosting server (if an online store uses shared hosting and SSL, it likely has a dedicated IP).

Of the reasons listed above, the most common reason that signals you will need a dedicated IP is if you plan to attach a secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate to your site.

Why You Need A Dedicated IP For SSL Certificates

Say you’re building an e-commerce site. If you expect customers to enter their credit card and other personal information, you want to offer them the security of protecting that information with an SSL. You must have a dedicated IP in order to get an SSL certificate on your site. Most hosts will charge an additional fee both for the dedicated IP and the SSL certificate, but some may include the dedicated IP with the purchase of the SSL certificate. Check with your preferred hosting provider to be sure.

Why You Need A Dedicated IP For High-Volume Traffic

Specifically purchasing a dedicated IP just for a high traffic site is not as necessary as securing dedicated hosting for a high traffic site. E-commerce sites that purchase an SSL certificate will likely already have a dedicated IP and will probably also have dedicated hosting. Whether it’s an e-commerce site or not, if your website sees a large volume of traffic on a daily basis, you may want to consider getting a dedicated IP. With dedicated hosting (and a dedicated IP), your website is more likely to increase or at least maintain your speed and performance your visitors are accustomed to while accommodating so many visitors. It will also reduce the likelihood of your site crashing under the strain of so much traffic – a far more common problem for high traffic sites that use shared hosting.

A Brief History Of Dedicated IP Addresses As An SEO Strategy

Much of the debate over whether to incur the extra expense of a dedicated IP address comes from the question of whether or not the dedicated IP offers any sort of SEO benefit. The answer has changed over the years, but there’s a good reason why that’s happened.

It’s all Matt Cutts’s fault.

OK, not really. But sort of. Matt Cutts is the head of Google’s Webspam team. He communicates regularly with many members of the digital marketing and search industry, and often speaks at industry conferences. He also releases videos on a regular basis where he answers questions people send to him, and discusses Google updates and functions.

In a November 2006 blog post, Cutts addressed the dedicated IP address question, saying at the time that it was not a ranking factor.

In August 2010, Cutts released a video in response to a question about whether shared hosting negatively affects a site’s ranking. The question and response dealt specifically with the presence of spammy websites on the same server as “normal” websites. However, a lot of people took Cutts’s response to mean dedicated IP addresses were not necessary to “protect” those regular sites, and would not offer any SEO benefit.

However (You knew there was a “however” coming, right?), 2006 was a long time ago, and by Internet standards, so was 2010. Things have changed since then, including Google’s algorithm, and how rankings are determined. One of the factors Google now looks at when ranking sites is page load speed.

Fast forward to an August 2013 video, where Cutts explains that page load speed is a ranking factor, and that this is true across the board, whether sites are accessed via mobile or desktop. He also says Google will “…continue to look at ways to improve the ways that we [Google] find out how fast a site is, the page speed for a particular page, and then try to figure out whether it makes sense. OK, if we want users to be less frustrated, then maybe it does make sense to incorporate that more into our rankings…”

Now, let’s apply some logic…

 

• A dedicated IP can help increase your site’s speed.
• Google considers page load speed to be a ranking factor.

 

Therefore, a dedicated IP address may be a factor to improve the SEO value of your site.

That said, a dedicated IP address is not going to magically transport your site to the number one position in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). But here’s the thing—if you’re trying to help your site rank well, don’t you want to give it every advantage possible? If there are 15 things you can do that may help your site do better in the SERPs, why would you only do 12 of them if you can do them all?

So along with creating high-quality content, ensuring that content isn’t over-optimized, building a solid site architecture, and the numerous other things you can do to make Google like your site just a little more, paying a little extra for a dedicated IP can be a good investment in your site’s future.

Do Professional SEOs Believe A Dedicated IP Can Really Help Your Site Rank Better?

There are two aspects to the SEO argument for dedicated IPs: ranking and spam.

Some search engine optimization (SEO) professionals believe search engines are more likely to trust a site on a dedicated IP address and give it a higher search engine ranking. There is a lot of debate about that theory, and almost no evidence to back it up.

Google does use IP addresses in some of its calculations, but mostly to determine how much to trust an inbound link. Links from similar IPs are usually trusted less. But the odds of being impacted by this are slim, even on a shared server.

In terms of spam, Google may distrust sites that share an IP range with spammers, junk blogs and other violators of their ‘best practices’. On a shared server, the unethical behavior of someone on your shared IP could result in a penalty for everyone – in theory.

But it’s not really clear cut. Google obviously understands that millions of websites use shared hosting, so blanket penalties would be counter productive.

Page Load Speed And Dedicated IPs

Can a dedicated IP address help your site load more quickly?

In some ways, you’d expect so. After all, there’s less traffic flowing to that IP.

But look at it another way. Every server has to inspect a packet, examine the request and deliver it to the correct domain. This holds true if there is one site on an IP or one thousand sites. Every server has to go through this process; the number of possible destinations doesn’t really matter.

As such, the difference in processing time is so small as to be imperceptible.

So Then What’s The Big Benefit Of Having A Dedicated IP?

There is one clear benefit of owning a dedicated IP. It allows you to do more with your server.

You need a dedicated IP address to host your own SSL certificate, for example. You can also run an FTP server off the IP address. You could run a gaming server or some other IP-based server (with your host’s permission).

Most Web hosts offer shared SSL certificates at will be good enough for the vast majority of sites, and very few people will ever need to run an IP-based FTP server. But in some cases, the benefits are clear.

Should You Bother With a Dedicated IP?

A dedicated IP is preferable, but you’ll get by just fine without one.

The benefits are quite specialized, and the SEO angle is now largely discredited.

The only thing to watch out for is spam. Subscribe to Google Webmaster Tools and stay on top of what Google thinks about your site. If it seems to be located in a ‘bad neighborhood’, migrate to a new host, and don’t rely on a dedicated IP to solve the problem.

Should You Buy A Dedicated IP?

There’s a lot of debate around dedicated IPs and the pros and cons of using one. Let’s look at the arguments both for and against using a dedicated IP:

Pros:

• Dedicated IPs are an essential feature to improving the security of your site through SSL certificates.
• You can access your site via FTP and also load it in a browser via IP address.
• High-traffic domains are less likely to experience downtime when they are being loaded through dedicated resources.

 

Cons:

• Despite alleged SEO benefits, there is no definitive positive correlation between hosting
  your website with a dedicated IP and better search optimization.
• A dedicated IP addition to your hosting package is NOT the same thing as a dedicated server or virtual dedicated hosting.
• While a dedicated IP may benefit your page load speed, the impact will be not be significant enough to greatly improve your rankings in the search engine results.

 

If you need to secure your website, then buying a dedicated IP as part of your SSL package is a good investment. However, it probably makes sense to avoid simply buying a dedicated IP as a standalone addition to your hosting package if you are staying on a shared hosting server. Instead, upgrade to dedicated hosting and lock in your dedicated IP as part of the upgrade from a shared to a dedicated plan.

Originally posted on whoishostingthis.com. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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NetFirms

NetFirms Hosting Review

NetFirms is one of the oldest web hosting service providing company which was founded in 1998. Netfirms is regarded as the leaders in the field of website and domain hosting. Netfirms provide both the services separately such as the domain registrar and web hosting service. It provides the global web hosting solutions and technology to individuals, small, medium and large businesses.

Hosting Plans

Netfirms gives individual plans in different sub types. The lowest and cheapest ‘Plus Plan’ gives one free domain, the ‘Advantage’ plan gives two free domains and the ‘Business’ plan gives five free domains. Each of these plans gives $100 worth of Adwords credit, a free $25 credit to Yahoo, Bing search engine along with unlimited bandwidth and disk space.

Its domain registrar services boast lowest domain price and it just charges an initial $9.99 per domain name. Netfirms also charge an additional $5.99 a year for the domain privacy. It also provides premium customer support and a dedicated SSL certificate which would helpful for the users with E-commerce websites.

Reliability

NetFirms gives a guarantee of 99.9% uptime which means your website would be accessible to your prospective audience all throughout the day. Netfirms would also provide you with password protected directories as well as .htaccess and even shared and dedicated SSL certificates. NetFirms had successfully hosted over 1.2 million websites which is an example of its reliable services. It provides 24*7 customer support system for its users which help them in all the matters pertaining to the web hosting with distinction.

Ease of Use

NetFirms hosting plans provide access to a web-based control and administration panel which lets the user to access their account from anywhere in the world. Its systems are extremely user friendly and allow the users to make the changes in swift and quick manner. You can easily upload and delete the file, make changes in the web pages, examine the logs before making any marketing decisions in order to change the campaigns, all of it a simple and quick way.

Pricing

NetFirms provides an excellent value for the customer’s money. It provides unlimited bandwidth and disk space to the users even at the introductory hosting plans. It comes up with the top-notch services with additional features at just $3.49 per month.

NetFirms provides excellent web hosting services complemented with additional features which happens to be worth each penny. Its hosting plans could help you in achieving your online goals without going over your budget.

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JustHost

JustHost Hosting Review

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Jushost is a web hosting service provider which has provided promising services across the years. Justhost also operates under Endurance International Group which is a very large web hosting service provider and has more than 60 hosting companies under it which operates under their original name. Justhost has been attracting clients with their quality service and competitive rates. The speed in their service and their free instant setup policy is well appreciated in the market.

Features and supports

The basic plans for web hosting with the usual privileges include free domain, free site builderalong with unlimited email account and file transfer. It offers unlimited disk storage, free drag and drop site builders, supports international domain names and for a proper mailing protocol it has IMAP –mail support. They have special support for e-commerce like SSL Secure Server and password protection directories for safe money transfer. Other online money transfer like Zen Kart Shopping cart and Cube Kart are also provided for e-commerce transactions. The websites can have multimedia features like steaming video and audio support along with MIDI file support.

When it comes to opening a website, strong traffic inflow is a very essential thing in order to uphold the commercial viability of the venture. This is why, Justhost is a preferable choice as it offers free advertising support o Google. For web designing also it has WordPress support and various other useful apps and programs will be provided to develop and design the website. These may include Drupal, concrete 5, Joomla etc.

Reliability

Jsuthost provides a 24/7 customer support service, that is if any problem arises you are just a call away to clarify it. You can directly speak to the representatives who can understand and deliver to our problem promptly. They also promise any time money back guarantee. If you want to walk out in between a billing cycle, they will pay back the money for the remaining period of time.

Pricing and plans

On their website there are mainly three hosting plans and they are presently upholding an introductory offer of $2.50 per month. This is for the starter package which includes a 100 GB website space and many more beneficial features. The Plus Plan comes at $4.50/month with an unlimited storage space. It also offers $200 for marketing. The best is the Business Pro which is tagged with a $9.95/month price tag and offers 2 spam experts, 1 dedicated IP and a backup protection.

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Hostmonster

Hostmonster Hosting Review

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Hostmonster is a quality web host for both personal or e-commerce site and also serves well for small businesses. They always attend to their customer’s problems and customers are quite satisfied with the service with respect to what they charge.

Features

Unlimited domain hosting and email accounts and you can get web designing support from WordPress and for images and templates, they will provide you with their own gallery. You can use their free drag and drop site builder to develop your website and you will get a cPanel Account control panel to work on also. You can hold on to your domain name for one year.

The starter plan has certain restrictions on privileges. The website space offered is 100GB and includes one Domain, 5 Parked Domains and 25 sub-domains and 100 email account. There is no CDN and spam prevention support under this plan. This plan doesn’t provide any SSL Certificates or dedicated IPs.

Ease of Use

They have sufficient database support for storing information and content of the website. They provide MYSQL Databases and PostgreSQL Databases. For programing and CGI purpose, they provide Javascript and HTML support to develop the webpage and other high level languages like Python and Ruby on Rails.

They have Message Forums like PHPBB, Form-mail Scripts, social networking scripts, Blog Support and to make it easy for you to take poll or reviews from your customers they also have Poll and Survey Software. Other apps that you can embed on your webpages like Moodle, Tikiwiki, and Drupal are also made available for free. For a proper CMS, you can use Joomla also.

Support for e-commerce sites included in Business Pro plan

If you are planning to build an online shopping site or e-commerce website where you can sell services and products, you will get full assistance from Hostmonster. You can get free generated certificate and for money transaction you can get support from Zen Cart Shopping Cart, Cube Cart Shopping Cart and many more such service providers. For customer account security, you can also avail the Password protected directories.

Plans and Pricing

The three packages are Starter, Plus and Business Pro. They are all under sale now and for the Starter you have to pay $3.95 per month. For the plus plan, the price tag is $6.95 per month and for the Business Pro it is $14.95 per month. As far as marketing plans are concerned, the Starter comes with a $50 of free advertisement while the Plus and Business Pro includes a $200 worth of free advertisement.

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A Quick and Easy Guide to FTP Hosting

Are you wondering, “What is an FTP hosting service?” For that matter, what exactly is provided by an FTP host? File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a crucial mechanism for copying files to and from a Web server. In fact, many of the world’s Web-hosting solutions utilize FTP as the primary way for customers to upload their websites. The following explores FTP, its applications, and common options provided by FTP hosting providers.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) in a Nutshell

You are probably aware that all website URLs begin with “http://.” This is referred to as the “protocol”—the mechanism in which the client computer communicates with the Web server. In this case, “http” stands for hypertext transfer protocol, and is used to request Web pages (i.e., hypertext). FTP therefore is the protocol used to request and upload items between the client machine and FTP host, and is relegated strictly to files.

Using FTP

As mentioned previously, FTP is predominantly used for data transfer. Common use cases include copying images, videos, music, application files, and a plethora of other media types for access via the Web. Website development is commonly done on a user’s local computer, with the site (images, HTML files, scripts) uploaded in bulk to the server once complete. Some text editors used to create and modify HTML files also use FTP to copy files back and forth between the Web server and the user’s local computer. With these editors, users open and save files as if they were stored locally, with the FTPing occurring as a background process. To get an idea of what companies may offer Web hosting—including free FTP hosting—check our breakdown of Web hosting solutions.

 

If you have used Dropbox or Box, an FTP hosting service provides similar functionality. The latter offers cloud storage in a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering, while FTP hosting requires the use of special software—an FTP client—to upload and download files. Often, FTP hosting providers will give their customers a special Web interface to easily drag and drop items to be uploaded and downloaded. Hardcore users can also utilize FTP through the command line.

By far the most common way to copy and download files from your FTP host is with FTP client software. This desktop software allows for easy, explorer-like file manipulation. Using an FTP client enables easy operations of common file actions like uploading/downloading, modifying file permissions, and moving entire directory structures. Popular and free FTP client applications include Filezilla, SmartFTP, and CoreFTP, among others.

About Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)

SFTP is a version of FTP that offers advanced security mechanisms to ensure that the files transferred are encrypted during uploading or downloading. This offers stronger security, as regular FTP transmits data in clear text and is readily viewable by anyone. Many are moving toward SFTP as a replacement for standard FTP, as today’s threat landscape calls for more stringent security controls to reduce exposure to cyber-attacks. SFTP requires the use of SSH—or secure shell—to transmit encrypted uploads and downloads over a protected channel.

Getting Started with FTP Hosting

FTP hosting usually comes standard with Web-hosting plans, but check with specific vendors for their range of options. For example, some may not offer SFTP in certain plans, while others have strict file quotes limiting server space, file size(s), and daily upload limits.

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Guide to a Successful cPanel Migration

Performing a cPanel server migration may seem intimidating. If you have Linux-based Web hosting, chances are you are using the popular tool to manage your hosting services. Perhaps you are moving to a new server and need to configure cPanel to reflect the new changes.

The following covers the basics on how to perform a cPanel migration, tools you will need as you go along, and some helpful tips and advice. The cPanel’s graphical user interface (GUI) allows users to easily perform most administrative tasks like adding and removing FTP accounts, file/folder and email account management—among others—without using the command line. Fortunately, migrating cPanel accounts is also mostly a point-and-click affair. It is a bit involved, though, so be sure to have technical assistance in case of a need for urgent help.

Web Hosting Preparation

You will need the FTP information for your new cPanel Web hosting account, as well as an FTP client application for uploading and downloading files. Many free options exist such as FileZilla and CyberDuck. It’s also advisable to ensure that your original Web host’s version of cPanel matches that of the new hosting provider. This can be confirmed by logging into cPanel and checking “cPanel version” under “Stats” in the left-hand column. If both versions are the same, you’ll be less likely to encounter problems.

 

Backup and Download of Existing Site

After logging into cPanel, navigate to a section called “Backup.” Under “Partial Backups,” you will see two options: “Download a Home Directory Backup” and “Download a MySQL Database Backup.” Click the “Download” button under “Download a Home Directory Backup” and save the file somewhere on your local computer.

Backup and Download of Existing MySQL Databases

Under “Download a MySQL Database Backup” you will see a list of current MySQL databases installed on the server. Clicking on each link will download the backup file for that particular database instance. As in the previous step, the downloaded files will be used in restoring the website to the new server.

It’s worth noting that both files may be quite large and are compressed for easier manipulation and faster uploading and downloading. These files must remain in their compressed format. Upon downloading, some utilities such as WinZip may prompt you to unzip or decompress the files. Do not select this option, as the destination Web host requires the files to be in their downloaded format. Simply download and save the files as they are.

Uploading Site and MySQL Databases to New Web Host

After logging into cPanel on the old site, navigate to the “Backup” section. You will see options to “Restore a Home Directory Backup” and “Restore a MySQL Database.” Under “Restore a Home Directory Backup,” select “Browse” to navigate to the location of the website backup file. Clicking “Upload” will copy your old site’s file to the new server, keeping intact all folders and file locations.

The last step is to restore any MySQL databases associated with your website. Under “Restore a MySQL Database,” select the “Browse” button and navigate to the location where the website’s MySQL database backup was saved. Clicking “Upload” will restore the database—you will need to do this for each MySQL database that was saved (and needs to be restored on the new server).

In short, cPanel to cPanel migration is mostly painless with the provided migration tools. For cPanel to Plesk migrations, similar tools such as the Parallels Plesk Migration and Transfer Manager tool can also aid in easy, error-free migrations of your website.

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RAID

What is RAID? What are the benefits of a RAID-equipped server?

Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of saving content on several hard disks at the same time. A RAID can be software or hardware depending on the drives which are used – physical or logical ones, however what’s common between them is the fact that they all operate as just a single unit where information is saved. The top advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy as the data on all of the drives will be identical all of the time, so even in the event that some drive fails for some reason, the information will still be available on the other drives. The general performance is also better as the reading and writing processes can be split between different drives, so a single one won’t be overloaded. There’re different sorts of RAIDs where the capabilities and fault tolerance may differ depending on the exact setup – whether info is written on all drives in real time or it is written on one drive and after that mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, etcetera.

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Memcached

What is Memcached?

Memcached is an object caching system, which is used to increase the overall performance of database-driven sites by caching the queries and the responses between the visitor and the server. In other words, anytime a given page on such a site is accessed, the script sends a query to its database to request the information that should be shown to the visitor. If the latter clicks on a link to go to another page, the entire operation is performed again and this results in plenty of database requests and high server load, even more so if the site has lots of simultaneous visitors. Memcached “memorizes” this exchange of information, so if any of these web pages is requested again, the script no longer has to call any information from the database, since everything is delivered by the Memcached platform. Thus, the overall speed of your site will “soar” and you’ll enjoy more gratified visitors and they will be able to navigate through your site faster. At the same time, the Memcached platform “refreshes” its cache whenever any info in the database is changed, so the website users will never see old content.

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cPanel

What is cPanel?

Find out more about one of the main hosting Control Panels (the cPanel Control Panel) and its many advantages.

cPanel is the most widespread Control Panel tool on the hosting market. It is feature-rich and it features an easy-to-use interface which will provide you with full control of your sites. It’s easy to manage files, emails and databases, view usage statistics, install script-driven applications, and so on. The software is preferred by many website hosting companies, due to the fact that it also has a reseller counterpart named WebHost Manager (WHM). This software instrument will supply you with a web-based graphical interface, through which you are able to handle many server-side settings, set up web hosting packages or new client accounts and change their features with just a couple of clicks. You can also install different modules and applications, modify DNS records, brand the cPanel accounts that your clients will get, add and remove features from their Control Panels, and so on. cPanel and WHM are compatible with almost all billing apps out there, so this is among the top platforms in case you want to become a reseller.

 

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StartLogic

StartLogic Hosting Review

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StartLogic is one of the leading websites providing hosting services in the world. Starting off from a small vision of a team of two entrepreneurs, this brand has seen growth in leaps and bounds to acquire over 50,000 satisfied customers and counting. The goal of the company is to provide small scale businesses all the services they require to set up a flourishing business online and build up websites to exploit the full potential the World Wide Web has to offer.

Google partnership

The company has a successful partnership with the most renowned browser in the world, Google. The web giant chose StartLogic as a partner to help other small scale businesses in their endeavors to go online. The program Get Your Business Online has been implemented in the partnership which provides the tools for allowing budding websites attract more customers as well as providing the necessary knowledge about the tools required to succeed in the business.

Technology

The company uses two centers for encoding the data, situated in Boston and Massachusetts area. With a total 2400 square feet area with thousands of servers and a gigantic petabytes of storage, the company uses a pooled server to access any file whenever requested. This allows the customer to receive the quickest attention of the first free machine. The facility has extreme security features and DC back-up for uninterrupted access.

Architecture

The data is first parsed by the load balancers of the company and then sent to the high quality servers of the company which is then split into different application pools. This architecture is helpful as it allows the customization of various machines based on functionality and thereby, more density in each of the boxes which in turn leads to a greater reliable service. The pools are not fed by individual racks, thereby, even in case of a malfunction in one particular rack due to switch problems or power unavailability, the entire pool does not suffer. The machines can access any customer’s data and is clustered with another identical machine having ditto copies of the data which serves as back-up in cases of power failure.

Pricing

The website offers three different plans priced differently to address each and every type of customers. The plans are named Express, Pro and Supercharge. The Express plan is priced at $4.50/month, Pro at $5.99/month and Supercharge at $8.99/month.

Take your business to a new level by a small investment today and reach millions of customers tomorrow. StartLogic takes care of all your problems and gives you the best options for creating a successful online business.

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MySQL Databases

What are MySQL Databases?

When you use a script-driven application for your website, any data that both you and the site users generate shall be stored within a database – a collection of data, which is arranged in cells and tables for easier reading and writing. The latter is accomplished by using special software called database management system and one of the most widely used ones globally is MySQL. A lot of script applications are built to work with MySQL because it’s easy to use, it functions perfectly on a hosting server and it’s universal as it can function with widely used web programming languages (PHP, Perl, Python, Java) and on several server Operating Systems (Windows, UNIX, Linux). There are thousands of scripts which use MySQL, including very popular ones like WordPress, Moodle and Joomla^™.

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Web Hosting Hub

If you are looking for quality web hosting services and a trustworthy customer support, webhostinghub.com is a viable option. They have been attracting customers with there all time chatting portal that provides assistance to the customers round the clock. Customers also praise their domain registration and hosting system that is taken care in no time. Customers have been associated with this web hosting provider for years and they keep on renewing their service without complaining.

Plans and features

Webhostinghub.com has mainly three hosting plans for the customers, depending on the extent of services and privileges and obviously the pricing. The lowest tier plan is called the spark and it offers free domain and you can have 2 websites and for the database purpose, you will be offered 10 MySQL Databases. You can also enjoy a free advertisement of up to $50. You will have 5 Parked Domains with a total of 25 sub-domains. A backup support is tagged at $1 per month. Above all these, the best part is the Auto-install CMS from WordPress and in case you are opening an e-commerce website or a direct commercial one you can take the support of Auto-install shopping Cast from Prestashop.

The Nitro Plan is way better than the Spark scheme and here you can enjoy unlimited websites and databases. The free advertising budget rises to $150 as here you will have 25 parked domains and unlimited sub-domains. If you want a backup support, it will cost you $1 per month. You can obviously get support from WordPress and Prestashop. This plan comes with 5 free website transfers and you can choose your data centre. You can enjoy a 20% discount on the over-all web designing cost. Dynamo is the most premium plan where the free advertisement budget is $200 and you can enjoy unlimited websites, databases, parked domains and sub-domains. The backup cost is the same as the other plans. Under the Dynamo plan, Web Hosting Hub allows 10 free web transfers and gives a 30% discount on web designing cost.

Ease of use

Best customer care support among all web hosting service providers. They also bestow a money back guarantee if someone withdraws in between a billing cycle. They offer lots of free tools to buid and design your website.

Pricing

The great starter plan-Spark is tagged at $4.99/mo. The Nitro Plan, fit for small business hosting purpose comes at a rate of $6.99/mo. The Dynamo plan that comes at $8.99/mo is for highly dynamic sites that requires high resources.

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GreenGeeks

GreenGeeks have changed the scenario of web hosting and server installation as they have shown much concern about the eco-friendly outlook of their enterprise. They demand that they are the most eco-friendly web hosting service provider and they vary their words backed by a 300% renewable energy commitment. They provide three types of hosting which are Reseller Hosting, VPS Hosting and Dedicated Server Hosting.

Plans and features

Under Reseller Hosting Plans, they have five sub plans that shall be chose according to the customer’s need. In all the plans you can create unlimited number of accounts but the other features like the storage capacity and Bandwidth varies. The lowest plan is Seed which comes with a 50GB SSD storage and 500GB bandwidth. The highest tire plan is the Forest which comes with 200GB SSD storage and 2000GB Bandwidth. The price tag also varies vastly but the advantage is that customer can find a plan just perfect for his business and you can change the plans as your business grows.

If you have quite a big business and you are willing to have a very secure and quite personalised hosting support you can go for the VPS hosting plan. They have sub plans depending on the capacity of the virtual server and the memory range from 1GB to 8GB and you can enjoy a CPU with 4 cores. With every upgrade in the plan you can enjoy a higher bandwidth and the RAID -10 storage will also increase. The VPS with 1GB comes with a 25GB SSD and the highest one with 8GB Memory comes with 125GB SSD.  They have 4 different categories of powerful CPUs for this plan.

Ease to use

If you are worried about the task of web building and wondering how to make the website attractive, Hostmonster has the solution to your worries. You can work on a wide variety of website script for free.

Pricing

The Reseller Plan ranges from $19.95 per month to 99.95 per month. In case you opt for the VPS plan, it will cost you $39.95 per month for the 1 GB memory plan but it will rise with the capacity and the 8GB comes at $159.95 per month. The dedicated plan is quite expensive and fit for big business and ranges from $169 per month to $439 per month.

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Python

What is Python?

Python is the most preferred programming language for countless programmers these days. Learn why.

Python is a well-known general-purpose computer programming language, that is employed for the development of various apps, for example CGI scripts and web software. What makes it popular with programmers is that it provides clear syntax and it works with modules – pieces of code which include some subroutines and perform certain things. Using modules can save you considerable time and effort since you can simply “call” some module in your script, rather than writing all the computer code for the very same feature. Python is used for a number of applications like online games, cms, database administration systems, RSS readers, text and data processors and many more. Any Python-based script can be implemented in a website which is written in a different computer programming language.

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Register.com

Register.com is one of the most prominent web hosting providers under the web.com company label. Web.com is a big web hosting service provider by itself but it also has a number of subsidiaries that are also dedicated to providing various technology solutions to customers who want to open their own website. Other than just web hosting solutions, register.com also provides internet marketing solutions through content optimisation and advertisements.

Plans and features

They have three major web hosting packages for the customers. The lowest plan is the Essential Hosting plan which is very useful for personal use and for blogs and all. Under the Essential plan, the customer is provided 300GB of disk space with unlimited data transfer facility. The customer will get 1 domain with 100 domain pointers and 3 directory pointers. If you choose the essential plan, you can use 10 email boxes and a total 20GB of Email storage. It also comes with IMAP for proper mailing security and protocols.You can also get access to a wide range of website development support like Ruby on Rails, PHP 5, Zend Libraries (Unix Only), Python and many more. But under this plan, JSP (Unix Only) is not available. ASP.NET 2.0 & 4.0 can also be used but only from Windows.For proper management of the website, you will be provided 25 FTP accounts and to know the website statistics, AWStats is there.You can have access to various database management supports like MySQL but for MS Access and MS SQL Databases.

The Professional Hosting plan gives 500GB of storage with unlimited data transfer. Domain features are same as the Essential plan only the directory pointers provided here are 5. Email features also witness an upgrade with 25 mailboxes and 50 GB storage. All the web development provided are as same as the Essential Plan. Here the databases are same but they are available with a higher storage capacity.The premium hosting plan has unlimited storage and 10 domain pointers. The same set of web development tools with the addition of JSP. With this plan you can enjoy unlimited database space.

Ease of use:

They have quality customer service and money back policies that are very useful. They have packages for all kind of hosting demands like for personal website, small businesses or large corporations.

Pricing

The Essential plan bears a price tag of $5.95 per month. The Professional Hosting is the best service for value pack and comes at $7.95 per month. Premium hosting plan comes at $9.95 per month and is the costliest plan fit for big businesses.

 

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Dedicated IP Address

What is a Dedicated IP Address?

A dedicated IP address is a unique numeric identifier on the net that is allotted to a device or a site. Shared website hosting servers usually have a number of websites under a single IP, while dedicated ones have their own IPs which are not shared with anyone else. Even if you use a standard shared account, however, you will be able to purchase a dedicated IP address that will be used only by your websites – one or a few. Because this can add up to the speed of a site, it is more likely that the site will get superior search engine result rankings. Of course, that isn’t the only factor, but it is likely to help you have more website visitors and potential clients. The dedicated IP is also needed when you wish to encrypt the info exchanged between a website and its visitors using an SSL certificate.

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Email Aliases

Making an email alias means creating an email address which shares the very same mailbox as a different email address both for the inbound as well as the outbound emails. For example, you are able to create an email address sales@domain.com and it will be connected to its own mailbox. After that, you can create an alias support@domain.com, that can use the mailbox of sales@ and will not have a mailbox of its own. When you look at your emails, you’ll see messages sent to both of the two addresses in one location, which can be far more convenient in some instances because you will not need to sign in and out of various email addresses using webmail or configure numerous email addresses in an email program. This feature is frequently used as a substitute for forwarding email messages from one e-mail address to another one if numerous email addresses are mentioned for contact on a site.

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ModSecurity

ModSecurity is a potent web application layer firewall for Apache web servers. It monitors the entire HTTP traffic to a website without affecting its functionality and in case it discovers an intrusion attempt, it blocks it. The firewall furthermore keeps a more thorough log for the site visitors than any web server does, so you shall manage to monitor what is happening with your Internet sites better than if you rely merely on standard logs. ModSecurity employs security rules based on which it stops attacks. For instance, it identifies if someone is trying to log in to the admin area of a certain script multiple times or if a request is sent to execute a file with a specific command. In such cases these attempts set off the corresponding rules and the firewall blocks the attempts in real time, after that records detailed info about them in its logs. ModSecurity is among the very best software firewalls available and it can easily protect your web applications against thousands of threats and vulnerabilities, particularly in case you don’t update them or their plugins frequently.

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Web.com

If you are willing to launch your own website you need to find a proper web hosting company or website which provides such services. One of the best services in the market is provided by web.com which is a web hosting and website building service provider. Web.com provides the most competitive price for web hosting in the market and it is way cheaper than its major competitors.

Services and Hosting packages

Their basic package comes for just $0.50 in which they offer unlimited bandwidth which is way cheaper than what other big hosting websites like Hostagator and GoDaddy offers. This package also includes free templates for the web designing and building. They also have web development and designing options that are very useful for launching a new website. They have three major hosting plans and they are Essential Hosting, Professional Hosting and Premium Hosting. Each a little costlier than the previous one. They have other services on online marketing like Pay Per Click assistance, local leads, online visibility report etc. They also assist in online reputation management through reputation alerts and also provide products like SSL Certificates.

Reliability

This hosting website provides a bunch of attractive hosting features that can be of great benefit for the client. Some of these advantageous features that web.com provides its clients are as follows:

• There are no limitations on the website’s bandwidth from the host.
• It provides huge storage space of nearly 300GB for each website.
• Building a webpage with web.com is very easy and interesting as it offers a handsome collection of templates for the developers to use.
• There are dozens of app which you can embed in your website and make it more attractive for the visitors. They provide you with apps like Joomla, Drupal and for designing purpose there is WordPress.
• They have a responsive customer support that will assist you round the clock.
• They also promise a 99.99% uptime guarantee which assures you about the stability.

Ease of use

Web.com has a wide range of open source programming language like PHP and Python to develop websites as well as to design apps for the website. Python is one of the best high level programming languages which is very user friendly and it can be used to develop really useful apps. They have MySQL for database management for the website. They have got other languages like Ruby, Perl and Rails for easy and quick programming.

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HostUpon

Reliable and Intuitive Web Hosting Platform

HostUpon provides web hosting solutions both for the personal and business use alike. It is based in Ontario, Canada and it has created a name for itself with its intensive and precise customer support response. It serves the web hosting needs of its clients with distinction. It provides affordable pricing for hosting solutions bundled with 24*7 customer support which provides quick solutions. Currently it doesn’t provide any VPS or dedicated server packages.

Hosting Plans

To begin with HostUpon offer two basic packages to its customers named the Starter and the Business. Starter package is a comprehensive package which provides unlimited disk space, bandwidth and MySQL databases. It also gives a free setup to the users for just $7.95 per month with a validity of two years. In offer season this offer could also be availed at as low as $4.95. The Business package compromises all the features of Starter along with a dedicated IP and search engine submission. It also offers FFMPEG which are great for videos and social networks. The elite features of the Business package make it bit expensive at $12.95 for two years.

Reliability

HostUpon provides a guaranteed uptime of 99.9% which your website would be available online all the time. Its giant network is monitored closely 24/7/365 by dedicated staff. It also offers 30 day money back guarantee which could compel the users to try its services for a couple of weeks and take a measure of its services themselves.

Ease of Use

HostUpon is extremely user friendly and could be easily operated by the newcomers. The tools for developing the website are listed in a very descriptive manner and its support staff provides all the relevant information to make the webhosting more happening and engaging. It works in graphic based system which posses labeled icons and options are available in an intuitive manner which doesn’t confuse the user.

Pricing

HostUpon services are comparatively low priced than the other web hosting service providers. HostUpon also provides discount coupons to its user from time to time which makes its services extremely cheaper. Just under $10 HostUpon gives unlimited disk space and bandwidth along with a money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with its service.

It would be wise for the prospective customers ‘not to be tempted’ by the extremely competitive rather low pricing and money back guarantee. HostUpon isn’t as upbeat in its services as it may sound. Many users had complained about its poor performance and its unusually slow process for cancellation and refund.

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Network Solutions

Network Solutions is an American company that deals with various technology services and presently it is into the business of domain name registration. The company was founded in 1979 and presently it is managing nearly 7 million domain names. The company is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, US and the company’s CEO is Tim Kelly. The company has multiple interests like web hosting, website design, e-commerce, Search Engine Marketing, SSL certificates etc.

Ease of use

You can avail a wide range of useful features with your sign up. You can built your own website using Do-It-Myself Website plan and then you can get Custom Website that is powered by web.com for hosting, custom page design and mobile website. They also have lead generation programs to increase traffic in a site. It helps in promotional activities through the net like marketing through SEO.You will be provided with a many library tools like PHP for web development, Joomla for CMS, Drupal and many more open source apps.

Plans and the features offered

Their hosting programs are modified according to the customers’ necessity. Their web hosting plan comes for a 1 year term. They provide easy to use website builder to develop the website and also to design it. They have a very easy File Transfer Protocol to upload files, images and other contents onto the web. You website will enjoy unlimited bandwidth and you will be provided with a 300GB storage space. If you are willing to safeguard the commercial aspect of the venture with a proper marketing scheme, you can go for the second option, the web hosting and marketing plan. If you choose this program, you will get advertisement support from Google Adword, Yahoo! and Bing. Your business profile can be accessed by your customers through dozens of search engines.

The third plan is for Hosting, Marketing and Store support which is useful in case of an e-commerce site and if you are planning to sell products or service on your website. You can create offers and publicize it over the net and you can accept credit cards from customers for online transaction.

Pricing

The web hosting plan costs $9.96 per month with a 1 year term. If you want your plan to include marketing facilities as well, your plan will be charged $17.64 per month. The all-inclusive plan with Hosting, Marketing and store support comes at a price tag of $25.97 per month.

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FatCow

FatCow Hosting Review

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FatCow was first launched in order to bring a change in the web hosting and it wanted to simplify the plans and make it easy for the customers to choose a plan of their choice. They tried to develop a more customer friendly approach by avoiding confusing pricing schemes.FatCow was started in the year 1998 and they have climbed the ladder by providing best value and customer service to small business owners. In order to get your small business successfully on the website they specialises in a one plan one price philosophy.

Ease of use and features

FatCow as a web hosting service provider provides a wide range of service to facilitate their customers on their internet venture. They have special wizards to add open source apps to the website. If you are planning to launch an e-store for your business where you can sell your product online, they can help you with E-Store builder that is a special website setup from ShopSite. There are ample site templates to design the perfect website.

The only plan on which FatCow sticks to is the Original FatCow Plan for simply smart web hosting. Their plan includes ample disk space and ample bandwidth. They have all the user friendly site creation tools to help design the website. They have interfaces where you can implement drag and drop option to design your website. Under the same package you can also install Blogs and Forums easily. They also have domain service where you can have a considerable number of domain access which shall be sufficient for a small business.

Bonus features and Pricing

They also provide efficient marketing support through Free Google and Yahoo! Advertising.Bonus features included in every FatCow plan consists of the following:

• $100 bonus on Google Adwords, which is a very popular advertisement host.
• $50 search credit from Yahoo! and Bing combined.
• $50 Advertisement credit on Facebook.
• 1GB of cloud storage free from JustCloud.
• To design a quality website, you can access all the blogging Tools from WordPress.
• For quality SEO and content management support, you can get help from Joomla.
• A new blessing from Nextiva enables you to have a free Toll-free Phone Number.

Theses help fulfil the commercial viability of the website and help gain more traffic. You can also enjoy unlimited mailboxes for complete email storage assistance.They are presently offering their services at just $40 for a year which is after a 67% discount.

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1&1 Hosting

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1&1 was initially started in 19898 under the name BTX where it was hired by T-com (a part of T-mobiles) which was in a critical condition. The company decided to take a risk and launched a major advertisement for a website. The ads simplified the technology and were an instant hit. This led to the formation of a standalone company called T-Online. Though it started off under T-Mobile, the company soon started to branch out and expand its bases to all over the world. The first expansion was made to UK, London from where 1&1 grew to become a multi-national company.

Services Offered

1&1 offers an array of services to suit every need of the consumer. With various different plans and offered, it is one of the most recognized names in hosting, domain registration and website creation. With 19 million domains and over 70,000 servers operating all over the world, 1&1 has the perfect tools for hosting personal businesses and the support and resources to help your business grow and prosper.

Hosting Plans

The website offers unlimited hosting plans providing options for hosting unlimited websites, allows unlimited traffic and provides unlimited storage space which is an added bonus for people looking to promote their websites to reach a greater demographic. The packages also provide options for launching websites quickly within hours, apps, FTP accounts and design software. A package also includes free domain, free registration of private businesses and 100 email addresses that can be linked to the website.

Customer Support

1&1 provides a toll free 24*7 phone lines for any assistance. The website can also be contacted via email; however the basic grievances are covered under an extensive manual on the nooks and crannies of the entire website through the 1&1 Help Center.

Reliability

With 19 million domains and years of expertise to their credit, you can easily count on the reliability of the website. Additionally, 99.9% pay back is guaranteed and the data is stored on two different servers as a precaution.

Pricing

The Plans are priced differently. From a mere $0.99 per month for 12 month cycles in the Unlimited hosting plan followed by $7.99 per month. The monthly plan is priced at $8.99. With a basic amount, you can be secure in the thought that your website gets the visibility it deserves. The plans also include a host of free advantages.

With over 20 years of experience in the field, 1&1 has the perfect means for helping small businesses grow. Through a host of different services, 1&1 can provide the right tools for the growth of your business.

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Bluehost

BlueHost is an esteemed web hosting service provider that operates from Utah, USA. It is not long since BlueHost joined the web hosting business, but in a very short period of time it gained enough popularity. It was founded in the year 2003 and till now it has more than 2 million satisfied clients whose website is hosted and registered by BlueHost. They have a 50,000 square foot establishment as their head office which has an excellent infrastructure and an impressive interior decoration.

Reliability

BlueHost provides quality customer support from trained staffs and they also provide a 100% in-house service, for which they have a specialized team. They never involve a third party for their services and every part of the service is owned and controlled by the company and nothing is outsourced. They have their own data centers and optical fibers to ensure quality connection and the data servers are set over a large 20,000 square feet space and even the OS they use for the hosting service is a custom Linux Kernel that runs on their self-designed server.

Hosting Plans

The only type of hosting provided by BlueHost is Linux Hosting. They mainly have two primary hosting plans- low cost share hosting and the other is reseller hosting. The various other plans are secondary and can be classified under these two. The best web hosting plan, which is actually the low cost one, offers unlimited domains, bandwidth, hosting space and e-mail accounts. This also comes with a 30 day money back guarantee that is very useful for new clients with who lack big budgets.

The Powerful Reseller Hosting package is actually for corporates and big business and it offers unlimited domains with WHMCS that is powered with WHM, cPanel and Plesk. They also have a next generation VPS hosting plan that offers advanced SAN based storage. This package comes with a fully managed support system that will be provided by Bluehost directly. Next Generation VPS posting is all about having your own virtual private server that implements cloud technology and thus increases your flexibility and control.

Pricing:

Bluehost provides quality web hosting services starting at $3.95 per month. They have also got optimised hosting for WordPress which provides easy web designing features and assures that the service is fast, secure and simple. If you are going to take this package, this is going to cost you $12.9 for the first month.

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Hushmail

This baby works like a dream on a wide variety of mobile and PC platforms. On signing up you get encryption out of the box, a generous 25GB of storage and no ads to distract and irritate you. Not to mention a list of rather funky domain names the sort Santa might have forgotten on your porch from which you can pick and choose from. All in all, when you are looking to replace your Gmail account, Hushmail clearly got your back.

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