Home // 2005 // June

The Big Secret of Fabulous and Mediocre Web Site Hosting Companies by Paul Kelly

Most web site hosting services like the one you’re probably using right now, provide you with space on which you can host your web site. These mediocre web site hosting companies will even help you set up your own email addresses and provide you with the ability to run your own scripts and programs.

Some of the better ones out here will even let you use a nice Eye Candy control panel to help you manage your site. If your lucky they’ll even throw in a website statistics app as well. For most web site hosting companies that’s about it! Most web site hosting services won’t bother giving you more service for you money.

To be honest most people (me included) always thought this was okay until we woke up and realized that there’s a lot more to running a internet business than simply hosting our site.
I quickly realized there are some new companies out there that offer way, way more than other companies. Some of these web site hosting services are really raising the bar several notches for all web site hosting services on the internet.

In this short summary you’ll find some of the features you need to be looking out for if you’re looking for a new web site hosting service or planning to transfer your web site.

You need to be on the look out fore:

1) A web site hosting service that helps you add new domains for a small fee without having to pay any additional monthly fee. So you can host many domains and still pay one monthly fee, thus saving you money.

2) A web site hosting service that will help you publish and manage your own newsletter so that you can regularly follow-up with your prospects and customers and thereby increase your sales. Look if they give you the option to publish a newsletter in both HTML and text format.

3) A web site hosting service that can set up an unlimited number of follow-up auto responders. So you can automatically follow-up with your prospects and send them a series of emails one after the other on any day you prefer.

4) A web site hosting service that helps you personalize all your newsletters and follow-up emails. So you can let all your newsletters and emails begin with something like “Hi Paul” or “Hi Peter”. Most people know that personalizing emails has proven to increase response rates by as much as 40% – 50% in some cases. Prospects love it when they receive mails like this!

5) A web site hosting service that helps you set up your own affiliate program so that other website owners can promote your site or products and earn commissions on the sales or leads they produce for you.

6) A web site hosting service that gives you the possibility to track the results of all your advertising campaigns like banner ads, eZine ads, ads in pay per click engines like Google Adwords or Overture. By using such a feature you will know exactly how many visitors you are receiving from each source, but also how many sales you are receiving from each source. This information will help you make better decisions what to optimize and what to dump.

7) A web site hosting service that gives you the possibility to sell multiple items from your web site using a shopping cart that calculate things like taxes and shipping costs in real time!

8) A web site hosting service that helps you protect your download page if you want to sell digital products like e-books or software from your site. Or protect your members only site or signup page so that only legitimate customers can download your products or sign up for your membership site.

9) A web site hosting service that helps you set up junk mail filters so that any junk mail that you receive is filtered out before they reach your account.

10) A web site hosting service that contains a built-in anti-virus software so that any virus containing emails you receive will be automatically deleted.

11) A web site hosting service that has great costumer support. Fast response is important is this field. A good web site hosting service respond to you within 24 hours.

About the Author

Author Paul Kelly

Article source http://web-site-traffic-building.blogspot.com/2005/06/big-secret-of-fabulous-and-mediocre.html

Home page http://web-site-traffic-building.blogspot.com/

Linux vs FreeBSD by Teeyes Siva

Why this Comparison ?

While there’s overwhelming similarity between the operating systems in most cases, there’s a lot of differences. As you probe more into the differences, you find that they emerge from deep-seated disagreements. Some are disagreements over development methodology, some over deployment and usage, some about what’s important, some about who’s important, and some about which flavor of ice cream is superior. Just comparing the surface differences doesn’t tell you anything; it’s the deeper differences that both explain and justify why each group does things the way they do.

Why FreeBSD

Here are some of the reasons why (according to the FreeBSD.org website):

– Supports a variety of platforms: x86 compatible, AMD64, Alpha, IA-64, PC-98 and UltraSPARC® architectures
– Open Source – available free of charge and comes with full source code
– Well-suited for a number of desktop and server applications
– Can be installed from a variety of sources

Extends the 4.4BSD operating system feature set:
– merged virtual memory and filesystem buffer cache
– compatibility modules – to run programs for other OS including those for Linux, SCO UNIX, NetBSD, and BSD/OS
– Kernel Queues – programs respond more efficiently to a variety of asynchronous events
– Accept Filters – improve performance by allowing connection-intensive applications (ex. web servers) to push part of their functionality into the OS kernel
– Soft Updates – improved filesystem performance without sacrificing safety and reliability (analyzes meta-data filesystem operations so they’re processed more efficiently)
– Support for IPsec and next-generation Internet Protocol, IPv6 – improve security in networks
– kernel support for stateful IP firewalling, as well as IP proxy gateways etc.
-supports encryption software, secure shells, Kerberos authentication, “virtual servers” created using jails, chroot-ing services to restrict application access to the filesystem, secure RPC facilities, and access lists for services that support TCP wrappers

Popular Articles on FreeBSD

BSD license is much more open than the Linux license :

– Unlike Linux, with its many distributions, BSD has only 3 open source flavors that (vary according to focus) are all stable, secure and usable: OpenBSD (security), NetBSD (portability), and FreeBSD (usability and stability), which is ideal for x86 architecture

– the kernel and drivers are more stable than Linux (although it takes longer to get the drivers installed, they are more reliable)

– almost no loss of usable applications as FreeBSD package and ports system is consistent and easy to use with many open source applications available; offers the same crash protection of a journaling filesystem without much overhead (via its native filesystem, FFS, and the Soft Updates extension)

Still Not Convinced ?

Click the links below to see articles :

Top Five Web-Hosting Companies Use FreeBSD (Netcraft)

Nearly 2 Million Active Sites Running FreeBSD (Netcraft)

About the Author :

Teeyes Siva heads the Sales Operations @ aalpha NET , India’s leading domain name registration, web hosting service provider. He can be reached @ siva@aalphanet.com or 00 91 0 93441 05858.

Domain Name – How To Pick One by Halstatt Pires

Picking a domain name should be easy, right? Why, I’ll just use my business name. Not so fast, Sparky. A good bit of thought should be given to selecting a domain name.

A Cautionary Note

Picking a domain name is like getting married. You are going to have to stick with it till the bitter end. People the use your site will come to know it by the domain name. Repeat visitors will often simply type in the domain name to get to the site, better known as “type in traffic”. As an example, do you search for “Amazon” when you want to buy a book or do simply type in amazon.com? If Amazon were to change its domain name to Desert, there would be a lot of confusion. The same goes with your domain. Once you pick something, stick with it.

Your Choices

Well, the obvious choice is your business name, but it may not be the best. There are four significant issues to consider.

First, is there something about your business name that makes using it as a domain an unwise choice? This situation typically arises if you have a long business name or have plural words. “Halstatt’s Rip’n Marketing Campaigns, Inc.” is going to be a horrible domain name. Clients are going to find it difficult to type in such a domain name.

Double letter problems are a second issue that is entirely unique to the Internet. What if Sams Salon wants to use its business name as a domain? The “s” at the end of first word and beginning of the second can cause confusion. Is the domain name Samssalon.com or Samsalon.com? Confusing your users is a bad way to run a site.

The third issue concerns the nature of your site and search engine optimization. If you are shooting for a particular keyword phrase, you may be better off using that keyword phrase in your domain name. Google, for instance, looks at the domain name when evaluating a site. If the words in your domain name are spaced with dashes, many believe it will help in the ranking process. This is why you see so many xxx-xxxx-xxx.com domain names on the net. If your business focuses on a very specific area, strong consideration should be given to using relevant keywords in your domain name.

Finally, your domain name should end in “.com” and I don’t want to hear any argument or see any rolling of the eyes. The simple fact is that when people think of sites, they always type in .com. Yes, there are other extensions and .us, .net, .biz, etc., may seem unique, but it kills your traffic. Pavlov and his dog experiments had it right. People have been mentally conditioned to type in .com, so don’t select any other ending. If you do, a smart competitor will register the .com version of your name to get some free traffic. If you are really lucky, a porn site will do it!

Take a breath before you select a domain name. Like a spouse, it can be either a good or bad choice.

About the Author

Halstatt Pires is with Marketing Titan- an Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and programming services.

Comparing Free Blogging Software by Don Beavers

With the increased interest in Blogging (web Logging), many web hosting providers now provide an assortment of free usage, open source blogging software packages. Among the most popular of these blogging tools are B2evolution, WordPress and Nucleus. Each of these programs offer similar basic features, so the question arises as to which one is easiest to use and would be appropriate for the requirements of your particular website.

The answer lies in the true purpose of your blog website. If your primary goal is to share your opinions and ideas with the general public, you would want to utilize a different blogging tool than a user who was creating product blogs as a commercial sales effort. A blog for search engine promotion would have entirely different requirements. All of these uses are viable reasons to create a blog, however each requires different features to be successful.

WordPress Blogging Software

Available for free download at: http://wordpress.org/

It is hard to beat WordPress for general personal blogging. WordPress is an open source, state-of-the-art personal publishing platform with a focus on presentation and usability. Everything related to creating and updating your blog is available through an intuitive graphical interface. With WordPress there is no need to compile your work. You simply write your column. You then select the features you want and your blog is instantly created and published to your website.

If you are on vacation, you can schedule your uploads for some date in the future or even email your column to the server! The system allows multiple users with multiple blogs divided into categories and sub-categories. This allows multiple family members or friends to create their own blogs along with yours.

Easy customization and the availability of many “plug-ins” that provide more functionality (add new features as you learn) makes this software a very good choice for most individuals.

B2evolution

Available for free download at: http://b2evolution.net/

B2evolution is another advanced web log tool that features an integrated XHTML validator. It supports recursive subcategories, cross posting and has a really cool integrated “skinning” system.

The “skinning” system allows you to create multiple blogs in separate categories with different appearances for each blog. You simply “change the skin” for the blog to create a totally new look and feel.

The “skinning” feature, combined with the built in multi-user administration management tool, makes the system robust enough for more commercial endeavors, such as product promotion blogs. If you have much to publish with multiple themes, this is the software you are looking for.

Nucleus Blogging Software

Available for free download at: http://nucleuscms.org/

Though Nucleus is an extremely robust blogging tool in its own right, it also contains some powerful features that can provide benefits in promotion of your blog.

Nucleus offers the ability to optimize its URLS, creating simple page addresses that do not have and “&” or “=” characters. This makes the pages search engine (and user) friendly. Another great feature is the ability to show the contents of multiple weblogs on one page. This could allow a website owner to manipulate the optimum text / keyword balance on pages for better search engine rankings.

Nucleus also provides RSS and Atom feeds that can be extremely helpful when promoting a website. If part of your blog’s function is to work as a search engine marketing and promotion tool, Nucleus is an exceptional software package.

Each of these blogging software packages offer the basic tools that you would need to create a successful blog and all three are PHP – MySQL open source (free to use) packages. You should try to select the software that helps you achieve the long term goal that you have in mind for your website based on the unique extra features offered by each.

About the Author

Don Beavers lives in Bryan, Texas and is an enterprise level PHP-MySQL programmer at the Datavor Web Directory and at the Shopping Elf directory Shopping Guide

Comparing Free Blogging Software by Don Beavers

With the increased interest in Blogging (web Logging), many web hosting providers now provide an assortment of free usage, open source blogging software packages. Among the most popular of these blogging tools are B2evolution, WordPress and Nucleus. Each of these programs offer similar basic features, so the question arises as to which one is easiest to use and would be appropriate for the requirements of your particular website.

The answer lies in the true purpose of your blog website. If your primary goal is to share your opinions and ideas with the general public, you would want to utilize a different blogging tool than a user who was creating product blogs as a commercial sales effort. A blog for search engine promotion would have entirely different requirements. All of these uses are viable reasons to create a blog, however each requires different features to be successful.

WordPress Blogging Software

Available for free download at: http://wordpress.org/

It is hard to beat WordPress for general personal blogging. WordPress is an open source, state-of-the-art personal publishing platform with a focus on presentation and usability. Everything related to creating and updating your blog is available through an intuitive graphical interface. With WordPress there is no need to compile your work. You simply write your column. You then select the features you want and your blog is instantly created and published to your website.

If you are on vacation, you can schedule your uploads for some date in the future or even email your column to the server! The system allows multiple users with multiple blogs divided into categories and sub-categories. This allows multiple family members or friends to create their own blogs along with yours.

Easy customization and the availability of many “plug-ins” that provide more functionality (add new features as you learn) makes this software a very good choice for most individuals.

B2evolution

Available for free download at: http://b2evolution.net/

B2evolution is another advanced web log tool that features an integrated XHTML validator. It supports recursive subcategories, cross posting and has a really cool integrated “skinning” system.

The “skinning” system allows you to create multiple blogs in separate categories with different appearances for each blog. You simply “change the skin” for the blog to create a totally new look and feel.

The “skinning” feature, combined with the built in multi-user administration management tool, makes the system robust enough for more commercial endeavors, such as product promotion blogs. If you have much to publish with multiple themes, this is the software you are looking for.

Nucleus Blogging Software

Available for free download at: http://nucleuscms.org/

Though Nucleus is an extremely robust blogging tool in its own right, it also contains some powerful features that can provide benefits in promotion of your blog.

Nucleus offers the ability to optimize its URLS, creating simple page addresses that do not have and “&” or “=” characters. This makes the pages search engine (and user) friendly. Another great feature is the ability to show the contents of multiple weblogs on one page. This could allow a website owner to manipulate the optimum text / keyword balance on pages for better search engine rankings.

Nucleus also provides RSS and Atom feeds that can be extremely helpful when promoting a website. If part of your blog’s function is to work as a search engine marketing and promotion tool, Nucleus is an exceptional software package.

Each of these blogging software packages offer the basic tools that you would need to create a successful blog and all three are PHP – MySQL open source (free to use) packages. You should try to select the software that helps you achieve the long term goal that you have in mind for your website based on the unique extra features offered by each.

About the Author

Don Beavers lives in Bryan, Texas and is an enterprise level PHP-MySQL programmer at the Datavor Web Directory and at the Shopping Elf directory Shopping Guide