Top 5 Web Hosts

Here are the top 5 hosts in the following categories

PHP Hosts | ASP .Net Hosts | Managed Server Hosting | Free Hosting

After years of working in web hosting industry and interacting with almost every major host in the industry, here are the editor's lists of the Top 5 web hosts.

Top 5 PHP Hosts

1. HostGator.com - Hostgator.com is one of the few larger webhosts that actually goes above and beyond the call of duty for their customers. And the company's growth shows it! They went from being founded in 2002 to being on or the largest web hosts on the internet. They offer 24/7/365 support by chat, phone, and ticket system. And with 5 datacenters and redundant internet links, you shouldn't need to waste you time worrying about whether or not your site is up.

2. Godaddy.com - Godaddy.com is the largest web host in the US. They offer some of the best prices on the internet (in the $4 per month range) and are pretty reliable. The only downside to them is that with all those domains their support is just ok. If you are fairly technical and looking for a deal then godaddy would be a great host for you. Also if you haven't bought a domain yet, I would definitely recommend them. They are the best domain registrar hands down as far as I am concerned.

3. HostMonster.com - Hostmonster.com is a good web host with really good support. They offer a ton of extra features with your account and are reliable.

4. Yahoo Hosting - Yahoo Hosting is probably the most reliable of all of the hosting services. If you are technically competent, have a really low tolerance for downtime, and shouldn't need much in the name of help, Yahoo would be a great choice for you.

5. Intermedia.net - These guys are very geared toward small and mid-sized business hosting. They are kind of expensive but they are good. If you need one of their other services, I.E. hosted exchange, or sharepoint hosting, these guys are a good choice.

Top 5 ASP.Net Hosts

1. DiscountASP.net - Hosting ASP.net is all that these guys do. If there's a demand for an asp.net feature, odds are that these guys have it. They rolled windows server 2008 hosting out shortly after it first became available. They're a good host with economical plans which makes them my top pick for asp.net hosting.

2. StartLogic - These guys are great. They have a great .net install with all of the features that you could want. Their control panel is set up in a way that make it really easy to administer your account. Their prices are very low for windows hosting. Finally, they have absolutely amazing customer support. Check them out!

3. APlus.net - Aplus.net is a reliable host that offers .net hosting at all of their package levels. They have every bell and whistle your may think you'd

4. Godaddy.com - Just as I said in the PHP section, Godaddy.com is the largest web host in the US. They offer some of the best prices on the internet (in the $4 per month range) and are pretty reliable. The only downside to them is that with all those domains their support is just ok, also as far as ASP.net is concerned there are a few nice features that they don't have. If you are fairly technical and looking for a deal then godaddy would be a great host for you. Also if you haven't bought a domain yet, I would definitely recommend them. They are the best domain registrar hands down as far as I am concerned.

5. Network Solutions - Network solutions is very expensive but they also have one of the better support groups out there, and they have many features with their .net plans that you don't find anywhere else.

Top 5 Managed Server Hosts

1. Fastservers.net

2. Rackspace.com

3. LunarPages.com

4. ThePlanet.com

5. Hostgator.com

Top Free Web Hosts

1. Doteasy is the leader in providing quality and cost efficient web hosting services. We provide flexible hosting services, ranging from the affordable $0 Hosting package to unparalleled Unlimited Hosting package, to suit your needs. With Doteasy, you know you're getting the best quality, reliability, and service!

Not sure how to get started with hosting? View our Introduction To Hosting!

Picking a dedicated web server.

Hosting websites on a dedicated web server brings a wide range of benifits with it. Not competing with other people's sites for system resources, the ability to optimize the environment to your business, and more control of system downtime are just a few of the benefits offered by a dedicated server. There are also some downsides to having your own web server, though. Having your own web server requires a much higher level of technical knowlege than using a shared web host does. It also is more expensive, and requires more of your time to maintain. If you make the right choices when you first purchase the server, however, making the decision to use a dedicated server to host your web sites and web applications will be one of the best choice that you've ever made.

The first thing that you need to do when getting ready to purchase a dedicated web server is to evaluate your current and future business needs. Once you've evaluated your needs, you can then pick a hosting provider, and move on to setting up your web server. Here are a just a few of the items that you should take into consideration when evaluating your needs.

Current Traffic Patterns

Because of the recent explosion of dynamic web applications such as ASP.Net and PHP, it is no longer possible to give out a maximum number of hits that a given web server can support in a day. There are just too many variables that come into play for a given web app. In spite of this, I will throw out a ballpark figure based solely on experience. Your typical Dell server running either Apache or IIS should be able to handle about 100,000 page requests per day if your PHP or .net web application is well written. If you are primarily serving static content that number gets closer to 1 million.

Expected Traffic Growth

If you already have strong traffic rates and expect to grow at a rapid rate, you will probably want to overbuy when you purchase a server. Migrating can be a painful process, so try to make sure that you have room to grow when choosing a web server to host your new site. You may also want to consider running your site on more than one server. Often running your database and web server separately will give you huge performance increases. In very high traffic scenarios, some people will serve the static content (i.e. html, images etc.) from an entirely different server than they serve their dynamic content from (this is not recommended unless you have a very high level of technical ability).

Data Storage Needs

When evaluating your storage needs, try to think of how much data a typical user action will create multiply this by the number of users you anticipate having in 2 years or so, throw in 10 kilobytes or so per page hit per day for logs (times the number of days you want to keep the logs), and add 20 Gigs or more for your OS and things that you don't expect. Also keep your backup needs in mind. You may want to include a tape drive in the system, or perhaps you will need to backup to external disk. Whatever you do don't neglect this step. If you aren't going to back up your server you might as well not have an online business. Finally consider adding a performance boost to your system by using 10k or 15k scsi drives to house frequently accessed data.

Uptime Requirements

If your site isn't up then you aren't making money. On the flip side of the coin very high levels of uptime are very very expensive. Redundancy is a good way to maximize uptime at a fairly low cost. Two power supplies, two network interface cards, two cpu's, and multiple drives configured to use RAID 1 or RAID 5 are all good ways to make sure your system doesn't go down due to system failure. Making sure that your server uses less than 1/4 to 1/2 of the processor, disk, and RAM available to it on average is also a good way to increase your uptime. If you have very high uptime requirements (less than 30 minutes downtime per year). You will probably want to look at a clustered solution. You will also want to make sure that you are hosting with a top-notch web host, since in that situation technical expertise is key.

Technological Requirements

If your site was developed with ASP.NET/MSSQL it's better to stick with Windows Servers. If it was developed in PHP, a Linux Server is probably a better option for you. If you are running a language that runs equally well on either distribution, then it is usually a good idea to go with the platform that you are the most familiar with.

Security Needs

If your business model requires high security, you will want to make sure that you are hosting your server in a secure location. You will also want to use an SSL to protect data transmissions to and from your clients. If your security needs are very high, you will want to make sure that your servers are behind a dedicated firewall such as the ASA from Cisco.

Bandwidth Requirements

Even if you are going to be hosting your own web server, determining your bandwidth requirements during the planning stage of your web deployment is important. Most ISPs and web hosting providers charge much more per Mbps for overages than they do for pre-planned usage. A little careful planning before you purchase a data plan can save you from costly overage fees.

Once you've evaluated your requirements it is time for you to either make a decision on a web hosting provider or to go out and purchase the web server on your own. Follow this link for more information on things to look for in a web hosting company.

After you've purchased a dedicated web server from a reputable web host or bought a server on your own, it is time for you to begin configuring it. We have some hand-picked links to sites with great information on configuring a windows or Linux web server.

Five reasons why email is a bad business tool

I've been working in the web hosting field for quite a while now and out of all the support calls that we get, at least 70% relate to email. This isn't due to the fact that our email service is unreliable when compared to other's. Most of the support requests end up being caused by something out of our control. It's also not due to our customers being less technically inclined then other customers. The higher volume of email related support requests is due solely to the fact that email is a terrible medium for the important business communications that our customers use it for.

Here are five reasons why email is a horrible communications medium for businesses.

1. Networks fail, and hard drives crash.

No matter how well built or redundant a network is, something will go wrong at one point or another. When it does, the calls start rolling in. When a person sends them a message, they expect to have it in front of them within seconds. When that expectation is broken, things get tricky. The powerpoint that you need in order to prepare for the meeting that you have in an hour was in your email? Too bad your hard drive crashed and it's gone. You have to get a build out before you can leave for the day and are waiting on the specs from Sales in order to start? That stinks because the network is down and sales doesn't know that their email can't get to you.

Problems like these are caused by problems in the systems. They are aggravated by the fact that users assume that email will always work and will always be nearly instant when, in fact, that is not always the case.

2. Spam Filters can make messages vanish.

Spam is the worst thing ever to happen to computers. And if people knew the trouble that we go to to keep it out of their inbox, we'd all get medals (fat chance). No spam filter is perfectly precise, though, and invariably some legitimate email will be caught. Most spam filters will send an email listing the messages caught in the filter and, 9 times out of 10, this message gets deleted while unread.

Oftentimes people have no idea an email is coming to them, so when an email is caught by the spam filter it goes totally unnoticed. Sales emails are notorious for this since the customer usually initiates the conversation.

We had one customer who ran an entire marketing campaign that relied on email from his website. This was fine until he found out that his web server's IP was blacklisted and most of the email he thought he should have been getting was going to junk mail. He lost 2 weeks worth of clients because of his late reaction.

3. Users assume the recipient got the message.

When you make a call, if the person on the other end doesn't answer, you call back. When you send an email, you assume they got it and finish up with whatever else you are doing. If you were expecting a reply, you might bother checking back a couple hours later. If not, then whatever information you were trying to send will probably just be lost. This often results in missed opportunities and greatly increases the amount of time that it takes for a team to get a project done.

4. The written word is easily misunderstood.

A single word can mean hundreds of different things depending on the way you look and sound when you say it. That's the beauty of language. Unfortunately, it's also one of the limits of the written word. Because of this, miscommunication in email are very common and have the potential to ruin a perfectly healthy business relationship.

5. It's less secure than you think.

Email is still sent primarily in plain-text over the internet. There are hundreds of ways for people to intercept emails before they reach you and read whatever is in them. This is fine if you are talking about timmy's baseball game, but what if you are receiving a customer list or, worse yet, a list with sensitive financial information in it. Also don't forget that once the files are stored on your computer, they can still be compromised if your machine is hacked.


I'm not really sure what a better option than email is. Perhaps that's the problem. Email has become so ingrained into business that it will either have to morph into a better version of itself, or something else will have to rise up and take it's place. One thing is for sure, though, email in it's present form does leave a lot to be desired.

5 reasons not to be your own webhost

5 reasons not to be your own webhost.

With the growing proliferation of high speed internet, cheap hardware, and readily accessible hosting software, more and more people are choosing to host their own web sites. Hosting your own website can definitely be a good way to save money, and gain some experience configuring a server, all while keeping total control over the environment that your site is running in. In spite of the upsides to hosting your own site, in many situations it will not be a web host's best option. Here are 5 reasons not to be your own web host.

1. Your data is worth more than it would cost you to host the site

There are literally thousands of things that could cause your site's data to be lost when you are hosting your own site. When your site's data disappears, you are going to lose money.

When you are considering whether or not to be your own web host consider what you stand to lose if all the data on your server suddenly disappears. Many stand to lose customer data, unfulfilled orders, hours of work spent creating content, and potentially, customers. A good web host will have invested a substantial amount of money on system redundancy and backup processes that ensure the integrity of your site and it's data.

3. Monitoring and Uptime

Extremely high levels of uptime are extremely expensive, so if you are hosting your own site at some point it will go down. When it does go down how will you know about it? Web hosts have a variety of monitoring tools that inform them the second there is a problem with your site or the server that it is on 24x7. If your site dies and you don't know about it for days, or even weeks, it can cause you to look unprofessional, your search engine rankings can drop, and you can potentially lose customers.

4. Security

The internet isn't called the world wide web for nothing. When you open your server up to the internet anyone in the world can attack it. Web hosts have hardware that is dedicated to detecting and preventing these attacks. Web hosts also have servers that are designed from the ground up to be hard to compromise. When you host your own website, you are opening the network that you use to do your taxes and check your bank accounts up to attack from any wannabe hacker with a computer.

2. Getting a static IP isn't cheap

Many people host their own web sites in order to save money. In order for your site to be accessible to the world, the world needs to be able to find it. Having an IP address that is constantly changing is much like having a phone number that is always changing. If you don't have a static IP address people will constantly have issues finding you.

The vast majority of ISPs will charge extra if you want a static IP address. The price that they charge is often quite a bit more per month than the amount of money you would pay to just have a web hosting company host the site for you. In cases where you are hosting only one web site this charge often makes it more expensive to host your own site.

5. Support Personnel

The reason you hire a professional to do anything is because they can do it better and for less money than you can do it on your own. A seasoned web host will have run into almost any situation that you can think of at least once. This means when something goes wrong with your site, and you're sure that it's not a code issue, all that you need to do is make one call and it's not your problem anymore. Every minute that you save not having to deal with hosting issues is another minute that you can spend improving your business, and that’s really what your presence on the web is all about.

This article was taken from the Picking a web host site.