There are many people who are not switching to new web host due to fear of old web host and so are bound to suffer from old web host. The users are even ready to pay any amount which can be even ten times more than what they are paying just because of fear of switching over process which they think is quite complicated can even lead to loosing of their website.

The new entries of the customers in this web world will themselves presume that expensive and branded names such as yahoo or MSN or MasterCard can definitely provide the best service.

But there is need to think again.

One should never choose the hosting plan only in terms of money whereas he/she should opt the plan on the basis of return he/she is getting from it.

One can easily find sufficient space for his/her site with all the required features for a mere amount of less than $10 per month – with discounts for paying quarterly or yearly.

The following are the aspects to be looked at while choosing a hosting company-

SPACE: There are several websites, which uses less than 100 Megs of space. However 50-100 megs of space is quite sufficient even if one is planning to build a large community or upload entire albums of photos. By keeping this point in mind one should be able to upgrade with no additional charge.

EMAILS: One should check for a new host that can at least offer 10 Pop3 emails. If one is running a home based business, he/she needs at least 10 addresses or even more if there are many members like own staff or family and friends who would love to use email address and effectively advertise for him/her every time they send out an email. The new host should also offer web-based emails, so as to enable to check emails anywhere.

SUPPORT: One should check if the new host could answer to questions within 24 hours. If this facility is not available then surely it is not the right choice. The host to be selected must offer some sort of live chat capability during regular business hours as well, and a 24-hour a day help desk where one can email in questions. One should also check before signing the contract that proper physical address and phone numbers are available. To ensure one must Email their support or use their chat live capability before agreeing to their service. Thus support is another feature to be taken as serious issue before signing a contract.

USER FRIENDLY RATING: Most important feature to look at is the kind of control panel new host is providing. One should also ask for a demo and should also check if he/she is having a free 24-hour FTP access so as to make modifications as per choice when required. Also it is necessary to have a site builder, bulletin boards, or chat rooms so as to enable one to interact with his/her customer using a new host’s services. One more thing to check is that, if one is having access to popular features such as PHP, CGI, ASP, Java scripts, Perl scripting then will the new host can handle all this?

Now after deciding to shift to new host, there are still some things to take care of like firstly one must make sure that all of the files that have created his/her current site are on his/her computer so that they can be moved. If one has created own pages using something like FrontPage or Site Builder or Dream weaver, then surely he/she is having these files. However if one uses a web based builder, then there is need to download each and every page of his/her site along with their dependent files to a folder on his/her PC.

It seems to be a complicated process but it is not so. One can either use an FTP tool to download files or can download them using the “File – Save As” method outlined below. If one chooses to FTP own files down to own computer, all what is required is just availability of an FTP tool.

In case one opts for another method i.e. to choose the “File – Save As” method, then the following steps must be followed-

The first thing is to do is to go to one’s own browser can be Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, or Mozilla. Thereafter find the toolbar and look for the “File” button, as this will be required. Now simply one should go to the first page in his/her website. After it is fully loaded, one must click on “File” then “Save As” and save the file and all dependent files to a folder on his/her website. This procedure is required to be done for every page. After completion of that the possession comes in the hands of owner. It is always advisable to keep one’s site backed up to his/her own computer in a separate folder, as well.

Once one is having all the files the second thing is to make sure that any other files on one’s web host are backed up. In case one is using web-based mail, then he/she should forward emails to an ‘off-network’ email address or even should archive emails to the computer’s hard drive. As soon as user switched to new hosts his/her all mails get deleted. Deleted. Now it’s required to upload all of the new files to the new host’s servers. Also the new host should provide with the FTP info needed and to do this and/or live support one should keep in mind the following things in order to play safe. The next thing to do is to create an email account to match each email account from the old web host. If case one is having 3 email accounts then it is must to have matching accounts on the new servers as this will prevent to have bouncing emails later when the switch goes through. Now one can change the domain name’s name servers and for this the new host will give the

information. Thereafter one will probably have a primary and secondary name server.

If a user is registering own domain name then the registrar should have a management area. However if one registers his/her domain name through the current host, then one must make sure that he/she is having the access to change these items once.

It will take around 24-48 hours for the name server change to propagate so that the domain name is pointing to new servers instead of the old ones. Now one must make modifications as early as possible lets say within a week time else he/she have to suffer from a long waiting period problem. Before canceling the old host one must allow at least a week so that one can make sure that everything works properly on the new host, all the files and email accounts are there and to check if the new host is working as per expectations or not.

However one has to be very careful if he/she is leaving the current host before next billing cycle, as if the cancellation date falls after the normal monthly billing cycle date, then he/she will be billed again for that month’s service and worst is most of the hosts do not give refunds for less than a month of service.

Now after knowing all the pros and cons of providers and the problems that one can face while switching to new host there is need to remember all the above points to remain safe.

It’s quite difficult and confusing to start any type of online marketing or Internet business.

There are many aspects to be taking care of such as domain name registration and purchase, purchasing of Web site host and “construction” of the Web site by own. Generally users don’t want to follow this difficult path rather chooses the easy way of getting everything from one place.

This results in growth of “total packages” by many hosting and Internet development companies, in which domain-name registration, software for design of a site or an online method of building a site, professional design of the site, and of course, the hosting are included. The users commonly use this, as it looks quite easy especially to the beginners.

But the story is different which brings problems afterwards. There is no road as paved “with gold” and this type of registration, hosting and design package deal is no exception.

The real problems emerge afterwards which are discussed below: -

1.On the popularity of a website, most of the host providers use to increase the prices. With increasing traffic there is no other option for a user than to pay more. Thus it forms a very big problem for larger business sites than for smaller business sites or “personal” or “theme” sites.

2. In the beginning some providers provide some “specials” but they are only for a limited amount of time, and rises with popularity of website.

3. Another major problem faced by a Web site owner is that his/her needs changes with passage of time and there arises need to change the package and then the user is confronted with problem of inability to change the pages on his/her own, another problem which puzzles is the inability to effectively track traffic, as some come with traffic statistics packages.

4.Another problem, which occurs after wards, is the Downtime i.e. when a site is down and can’t be viewed. This asks for change of host or change of domain name registrars.

5.Often situation comes when a Web site, registration, and web hosting package company suddenly disappears, leaving a client with no way to contact them. This not only causes loss of the registered domain name, but even the loss of revenues while the site is “down”.

6. The hosting companies make contracts which states that the “special” prices are only offered conditional i.e. which are applicable on remaining with a certain company and for a specified amount of time only.

7. The actual “name” of one’s site may not be even actually registered to “him” but to the hosting and registrar company that initiated the purchase through the package deal. By this way the Web site hosting, design and registrar packages “save” money several times for consumers, as they advantage of buying in bulk, registering hundreds of sites on a monthly basis.

The above problems can be easily resolved by simply switching to other Web site hosting and domain name registrar.

But wait! Wait! Wait! It’s not so easy as some hosting and domain name registrars don’t allow to “handing over” a site to any other company, as it means loss of customer or more interesting loss of money. The current hosting company tries all to create problem in the form of delays in transfer, by refusing to provide sufficient information to a new host or registrar to effectively conclude a transfer. Most worse is, if the name of a site has been registered to them.

At this point of time a real “nightmare” for the user starts. He tries all to get the response but all is vain.

There are several incidences, which shows that it’s really hard to shift to another provider.

One of the users named Rahul after much downtime wrote to the initial hosting company, and domain name registrar, stating his disappointment in the service. The response was quite annoying it was that he should either “like it or lump it” and that nothing is in their hands, as a contract was in place that could not be “broken” by any means. The language of the e-mail correspondence was quite harsh and uncalled for with no phone number for personal contact; even the name of the support person that wrote the e-mail was missing.

The site remained down consistently, as well, over the next few weeks, forcing Rahul to sign up for a different hosting plan with a different host, and also re-register the domain with another registrar. Thus it was just waste of time and money but still he was fortunate as the registration of the site was in his name and there was no need to purchase a new name. However at the time of transfer, old host refused to initiate a transfer, claiming that the contract remained intact, and therefore the site could not be transferred. Thus forcing the new hosting company to “maneuver” the site onto it’s own servers without the cooperation of the previous company and putting the unnecessary money burden on the user.

Chapter was not yet over, few months later Rahul was billed repeatedly by the previous hosting company for monthly hosting, even though a site no longer existed on their servers. In order to stop all the Copies of all correspondence had to be sent to the billing service to “dismiss” this recurrent billing, which was the only option left to Rahul at this point.

Thus it is not just one incidence but also one out of the many.

The following are some of the ways to avoid trap of these companies-:

1. One must read all paperwork and contracts thoroughly. The copy of the contract should be clearly visible and each word of the contract should be read thoroughly as this will help in saving from frustration and misunderstandings later on.

Not only this, one must make sure that the registration will be done in “his/her name”, as the loss of a popular name, at that moment when there is large amount of traffic, is a great loss for any user. Most preferable is that one should register his/her domain name him/her self. Registering domain is not a big deal with so many online domain registrars. The only thing one is supposed to do is that after buying a hosting package immediately he/she should change the “name servers” through the control panel provided by the domain registrar.

The best advantage of doing so is that if one is not satisfied with his/her hosting company and would like to shift to a different company, simply he/she is required to change the name servers to point to the new company.

2.In order to avoid problems afterwards one must sure there is a contact phone number and physical address for correspondence with the companies. As most of the times the both are missing and user is left with no option than to feel harassment as well as time and money loss as seen in above example.

3. One must do his homework properly before finalizing any hosting company. He/she must do proper research on different plans and different companies. One must check through references the image of the company and also must ask from their current customers about the support being offered at the time of crisis.

4. One must take time to correctly ascertain his/her own needs and the needs of any site he/she is planning to build. The package must be “as per requirement”.

5.It is most advisable to use different providers for each stage of a Web site: hosting, domain-name registrar, site building. As everything is online it does take longer to get a site up and running with this method, but the best part is by doing so the overall control remains with the user. If one is disappointed with the service of his/her provide simply he/she is required to shift to new provider and that is quite easy as to replace one is easier than to replace everything.

Thus it can be seen that sometimes “time saving” strategies are not really fruitful and they can lead to heartbreak and headaches afterwards. The moral of the story is “slow but steady” wins the race. So act wisely.

First of all, there are a large amount of several kinds of hosting – from dedicated servers to image hosting. The type of hosting that you need generally sets the guideline on how a good deal you are going to spend. I am going to break down the categories by pricing only but should include the types you can get for the price.

$0 Free Web Hosting Plans

These are generally your free website hosting, image and file hosting. Free website hosting aide is exorbitant if you wish to make a quick mini site, want to test out your website building skills, trouble a place to test scripts, etc. Free web hosting is not argued for any websites you plan to initiate money from.

$1.00-$10.00/m – Shared Web Hosting Plans

This price range covers hosting plans for your general website. Any medium income website should be OK within the price range. Be levelheaded though – do not expect to get wonderful service from a host offering 100GB disk space and 1000GB bandwidth for $2.00/m.

$15.00-$40.00/m – Virtual Privet Server (VPS)

These price ranges include high end shared hosting, reseller plans, and VPS plans. These are by and large reserved for special websites like a web hosting reseller or a website such a requires root access(a VPS plan) for whatever reason.

$45.00/m -$400+/m – Dedicated Server Hosting
This price margin can key in some above the usual end VPS plans as well as dedicated servers. You will want to go amongst a dedicated server if you have a high traffic website or high resource usage website (forums amongst 100+ active users(users online at a single point in time) very much ask for their own dedicated servers because SQL usage goes through the roof.

I pray that by now you suffer a well indication on how a great deal you want to spend/need to spend on your web hosting. I also wrote a more detailed article that can be found over the resource link below. This will help you additional if you a good deal are unsure about the price duration you must be in.

Full article on how much you provided spend on a web hosting service for your website.

Check out The Web Hosting rating Blog

First of all, the question arises, WHAT ARE WEB HOSTS? They are the service provider companies that give place to the net users on their servers that provide space on their servers for internet users. Web hosts provide online systems for internet connectivity and for storing information, image mediums and other internet content to their users. If a company wants web as a medium of conducting business, then selection of web host is a crucial step in any internet marketing strategy.

The user can get various kinds of web hosting services from the market. They are broadly divided and described below:

Free Hosting: Least expensive, however, very restricted when one talk about services and space; though one can began with a free web host when the person is an individual professional or obtained a small business to begun with. For a company looking for rapid growth, boundations like restrictions on advertising, bandwidth and permissible edit sites, can adversely effect.

Shared Hosting: Here the user’s site is placed in the company of several other sites (estimating about hundred), centralized on the same server. However, they give more liberties as compare to free hosts.

Reseller Hosting: Hosting providing the facility of an ample amount of bandwidth and space to an e-business on its account and split the space as per requirement. This is however similar as compare to a shared hosting due to the reason that user’s server is located on the same server related to others. However the user possesses the right to judge about the number of divisions and along with whom he/she has to share.

Hosting Choices providing liberty

One can find total resemblance in the inferences of dedicated hosting and Virtual Private Server. A dedicated hosting however demands more money for its service but the user can enjoy several features in comparison to other hostings discussed earlier. With dedicated hosting, the user not only gets his/her own server but can also indulge in services without many restrictions.

With the help of Virtual private server technology a server gets the potential to host numerous virtual environments. Such environments possess the features of individual stand-alone servers. Though, the inferences are the same, still, a virtual private server hosting is cheaper as compared to others. Along with Collocated hosting, the user can install own server at the data center of the host. For the cost of services generally related to other types of hosting, has to be paid by the user of collocated hosting, making this option quite expensive.

It is obligatory that the user should have an existing website, if he/she wishes to acquire a web-hosting service. Thus after the development of website, the next very important thing would be the selection of web hosting service for the website. Thus one should act very careful while selecting a web hosting service for his/her business.

One should consider several things before searching for a cheap hosting web package. One really needs to do homework and explore via Internet for the ideal host for finding a hosting web package cheap. But beware; just because of the reason that a company might offer a hosting web package cheap one must need to look at what the package offers.

Ensure the Disk Space. Many companies offering a hosting web package cheap may provide the user with a restrict amount of Disk Space for e.g., 100 or 150 MB (megabytes). It’s all right if the user is preparing a site to let friends see and is only hoping 100 people or so per month.

If one should require an e-commerce site (a site that sells products to make the user money) then he/she requires additional disk space if he/she planning to increase the no. of customers.

The amount of Transfer given by the host is the aspect that one must look for while trying to find a hosting web package cheap. Transfer is the traffic or rather can say the amount of visitors that the host permits to come to the user’s site. In the condition of increasing in the quantity of visitors what host offer in there hosting package, they may charge the user according to per month for extra Transfer. A user must be aware that through a cheaper hosting package he/she may only get 10 or 15 GB (gigabytes) of Transfer.

If talk about companies for e.g. Lowest Hosting may only give 100 – 200MB disk and 10 – 15 GB of Transfer whereas sites like Globat and Bluehost can propose much more of a hosting web package cheap. One can get a list of quality hosting web packages cheap just by clicking the link below.

While searching for a hosting web package cheap one should also ensure to see what quantity of email accounts the host offer. Just about every host present a good number of email accounts. If the user is more advanced he/she may want to check if the host is offering php, Perl, Asp, MySQL and other types of secure directories. However if the user is inexperienced to hosting the Disk Space and Transfer are the things he/she should be looking for.

CGI

It denotes Common Gateway Interface, which is a protocol script applied to make the user’s site dynamic. Flash banners, moving objects etc. along with the use of right web design program or else scripting knowledge and possessing a host that offers CGI one can easily bring his/her site to life.

FrontPage Extensions

In the current scenario prevailing more sites are offering FrontPage extensions. Microsoft FrontPage is a WYSIWYG (What one see is what one get) web design program that permits the user to easily create web pages while the software does all the coding behind the scenes. The top most thing to tell about using FrontPage and having a host with FrontPage extensions is that once the user design his/her WebPages all he/she have to do is click one button that says “publish site” and all the pages of the user go from his/her computer to his/her hosting space right with a single click.

One should keep in mind, while choosing a hosting web package cheap he/she must make sure that there are no hidden fees for excess usage of transfer and when one find a hosting web package cheap he/she must make sure that they possess a good support team that will assist the user.

These days finding a hosting web package cheap isn’t hard since there are several to choose from and companies offer a hosting web package quite cheap to stay in the race of competition with other companies.