Things to Know When Searching for a Web Host Part 2

A CGI is short for “Common Gateway Interface” and is use most commonly for such things as online shopping carts, what this does is keep a live record of you totals and items placed on the docket. This allows the shopper to keep a tab on how much money they have spent, or going to spend before they head for the check out. But CGI is also used in many other ways such as how webserver software can delegate the generation of webpages to a console application. CGI can also be used for searching and database control.

PHP is sometimes use as a webpage format mainly because it supports java scripting and other forms of scripts better them HTML or even XHTML. However as of writing this I have heard that a new form of HTML called HTML5 will be more superior to even CSS style WebPages but I cannot confirm nor deny this being that I have not seen or experienced HTML5 as of yet.

However PHP is an awesome tool for affiliate marketing for anyone who know a little bit of PHP scripting knows how to build up redirect pages to your affiliate offer. Not only will it allow you to make redirect without having to opt in to another domain name but when using this method in allot of ways can keep you from breaking a lot of article websites TOS’s that will not let you link directly to an affiliate site but only to a site you personally own.

SSL stands for (Secure Sockets Layer) or in other words a secure channel from your website to the person who is currently viewing your site. SSL creates a secure channel over which data can be exchanged. This if found most commonly with online shopping sites that require securing your personal data from onlookers who might like to access your information. With most sites that use this you can usually find a SSL certificate with their business information attached to it.

TLS, standing for (Transport Layer Security) is the latest version of SSL. It is an enhancement of SSL version 3.0, and is a proposed Internet Standard so basically it is the same thing as SSL just an upgraded version.

Secure Shell or SSH is a network protocol that allows data to be exchanged using a secure channel between two networked devices. A program and protocol for securely logging in to and running programs on remote machines across a network, with encryption to protect the transferred information and authentication to ensure that the remote machine is the one desired; To use ssh to connect to a remote computer.

There are many other scripts that you can use on a webhost so when you look into it make sure you take a peek at what kind of scripts you are allowed to us when using them.

When referring to Activity logs I am speaking of tracking program much like Google Analytics but this only have to do with your pages and not so much with Google AdSense tracking even thou they both very much work in the same way. Now don’t get me wrong Google Analytics can track incoming and outgoing traffic so it doesn’t hurt to also use them when figuring out where your traffic sources are coming from.

Some sites have their own programs for helping you track your traffic such as Awstats or some other form of program which is good for you. Not only do they track your incoming and outgoing traffic but can also tell you what type of browsers they are using, how much bandwidth you have used / they have used. What pages did they visit, and how long did they stay at each page. Now this is where you can get the information to help you work on your SEO of the site; figuring out where you can make changes and knowing where they went from there can help you know the motivation that got them clicking thru.

So be sure to see if the webhost has a way for you to track your traffic for this will become invaluable to you later on down the road when you start drawing in a lot of people to your site so you can make their visit even more pleasant.

Now this might not seem all that important but if you ever had a wordpress or blog before and you have dabbled in Google AdSense before you know how much this can make a difference not only in income but as a very strong lead for your own business.

Having a wordpress or blog on your business website can in fact drive even more people to your business. How can that be if they have to go to my website to find my blog or wordpress?

 First off this isn’t entirely true in fact if you have made a blog or even a wordpress or you might be thinking on building one then you will soon realize even though it is on your site that it takes on a life of its own. Let me give you an example; say you have your site and you build up a blog and people start coming to the blog and start reading what you have to say and then they leave comments on your blog. If you are giving out good solid information then you will realize that people will start linking back to your blog which in turn starts building up your back links to your site. Not only do you start getting back links but over time Google starts to rank you higher and higher in the search engines to your blog. So even if your business site is not ranking on the top of Google search engines you blog in itself might. So you see even if they are connecting directly to your blog most people will discover that you have something to offer before they ever made it to your business page therefore giving you another outlet for advertising.

Some webhost allow you to have multiple domains under a single account well OK! OK! Most of them do. This is good because you don’t have to buy a whole new service to host that new domain name. However you will still have to pay for the new domain name which cost most commonly only $10.00 per domain name per year, that’s right for the entire year.

However if you don’t want to go buy a new domain name you can go with a sub-domain name. Now not all webhost let you have sub-domain names and some that will let you but cost you a few dollars per sub-domain.

For the ones that let you have them for free all the better. What is a sub-domain name? Unlike Domain names that get their own personal web space and does not have to share its name with anything else. A sub-domain is like a mini website inside a website so to speak; so in other words it has to share the mother domain name along with its own name. For example you have a domain called (Example 1: http://www.yoursite.com) this is the mother domain site. Sub-domains will look something like this (Example 2: http://yoursub-domain.yoursite.com) where “yoursub-domains” is your sub-domain site.

With most Webhost they will let you have Unlimited sub-domains for free however sometimes navigating your website folders can get rather confusing at times.

FTP stand for (File Transfer Protocol) this is more like a backdoor door your server where you will upload and download you website files and pages. A lot of webhost only give you one FTP account where you control all your domains from but I find this difficult to navigate or control more than one website at a time with just one FTP account. I mainly say this because when you have more than one site going on you have to know which directory you are in before you go loading up your file or you could be overwriting a website you didn’t intend to overwrite.

So finding a webhost that allows you more than one ftp account is a nice feature to have. I also would like to state that when you have more than one account you can set it up where you can have more than one person working on any given site at any given time. This is much like Virgin Que with Adobe Dreamweaver. Some even allow you to set up sub account for the people working on your sites so they don’t have access to your personal information and when their done you can just delete that account to restrict them from coming back in. If you don’t want to go out and buy an FTP Program then here is a short list of FREE FTP clients you can download.

· Core FTP Lite

· FileZilla

· OneButton FTP

· Curl

· Cyberduck

No matter which one you use most of them function the same for the most part however I will make a personal recommendation because I use it myself and find it user friendly and that is FileZilla. I have been using it for Years now and I still love it.

I personally can only talk about one type of server being that I have not ever used the other different types out there.

The Apache Server is the most common of all the server’s that I personally know of and all this is really about is the type on server/ file structure that there servers use and host your sites on. Also this is most commonly used when you are hosting a dedicated server where people will have a 24 hr, 365 days a year access to it.

Traffic Limits is really suggesting Bandwidth limits. Some host will give you something around 3 gigs of bandwidth which is a lot and more than enough for most. However if you start to grow in size they will tighten the noose around your neck where you will have to upgrade your account to allocate more bandwidth for your site. So when you are looking for a webhost try and find one that offers unlimited bandwidth. Every visitor will use a little bandwidth no matter if they are just peeking at your site or downloading something from your site. This is because even if they are just visiting they still have to use some bandwidth to download the images and text and anything else that decorates your site to their computer in order to see your site at all.

If people come to your site to watch a movie or download some software or an e-book this can start to add up in how much bandwidth you are using. So having unlimited Bandwidth will insure that your visitors will be able to load up your site and see what you have to offer.

This will help you from generating fees that you otherwise would not have accounted for in your budget. Because of it being the internet it is nearly impossible to predict how much traffic you can generate from you ads on any given day.

Another thing you have to look at is how much storage space they will allow you to store your files on. If they only give you something like 10 gigs of storage to build up your site you will no doubt find this restraining a bit later down the road. Don’t get me wrong 10 gigs is a lot for a site that may only be blogging or just posting text messages on their pages, but if you are uploading software, e-books, or even movie files you will find yourself running out of space real fast and will be looking to acquire more web space asap.

There are some out that today that now offer Unlimited web space and this is new to me but notice it while researching on this topic myself. Finding these types of host are like diamonds in the rough and I personally would jump on them.

For Many new beginners going in and not knowing what to do next can become overwhelming and trust me I have been there and done that many times before. So knowing a site that has an easy to understand faq sheet as well as a very well written tutorial is an absolute must for people starting out. However I found it even easier to learn the inn’s and out’s of a web server if they provide video tutorials on everything that had to offer.

Video tutorials allow you to see it in action as they walk you through the whole process on how to do everything from making up your first web page to setting up your e-mail client. So if you’re new to building your first ever website and / or business site then you want to make sure you check and see if they offer tutorials to help you get started, and if you don’t see it on their web page most often you can call them to get any questions you have answered over the phone.

Now this doesn’t sound like a big deal to some but many people who start a business would like to know they support the .com and fortunately most webhost do support that. But when seeking out your new home for your WebPages you want to be sure that what prefix you have your heart set on is supported before you opt in to their services.

Most common of all domains end in the dot com prefix but if you are an organization you will most likely be seeking out an .org.

Most hosts handle the most common prefixes which are .com, .net, and .org. However there are many others out there that handle a lot more than the 3 most common such as .tv, .ws, .info, .uk, and even .us so when you are looking into what you want you might also check and see if they support what you had your heart set on.