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(The Hosting News) – HP and 3PAR Inc. today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase 3PAR through a cash tender offer of $33 per share in cash, or an enterprise value of $2.35 billion. The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

Combining 3PAR’s leading-edge utility storage products with HP’s existing storage solutions will strengthen HP’s unparalleled storage, server and networking portfolio. 3PAR will accelerate HP’s highly successful Converged Infrastructure strategy by driving growth in the fast-growing virtual data center and cloud computing markets. HP’s global presence, commitment to innovation and proven track record of integrating acquisitions will provide growth opportunities for 3PAR going forward.

“HP and 3PAR is a winning combination that will accelerate HP’s Converged Infrastructure strategy and bolster our ability to provide customers with the industry’s highest levels of performance, efficiency and reliability,” said Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking, HP. “We intend to invest in 3PAR’s technology to create long-term value for our stakeholders.”

“As part of HP, 3PAR’s agile, efficient storage solutions will truly thrive, particularly given HP’s ability to accelerate investment in our products and reach new customers around the world,” said David Scott, president and chief executive officer, 3PAR. “3PAR has built a reputation for delivering enterprises and cloud computing service providers the ability to do more with less. HP’s global reach, strong routes to market and our shared culture of innovation will allow even more organizations to experience the transformative value of 3PAR’s technology.”

3PAR also announced that it has terminated its merger agreement with Dell Inc. and paid Dell the $72 million termination fee required to be paid to Dell as a condition to terminating the merger agreement.

HP’s cash tender offer commenced on August 27, 2010 and it is scheduled to expire at 12:00 midnight, New York City time on September 24, 2010, subject to customary tender offer conditions being satisfied. The final closing of the acquisition is expected to occur by the end of the calendar year. HP also announced today the satisfaction of the conditions to its tender offer related to (1) the termination of 3PAR’s merger agreement with Dell and the execution of a definitive merger agreement with HP, and (2) the inapplicability of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law to HP’s tender offer and proposed merger with 3PAR.

Source: HP Acquires 3PAR

(The Hosting News) – AT&T today announced that it has completed the sale of its domestic Japanese outsourcing services operations to Internet Initiative Japan Inc. The companies originally announced the transaction in June 2010. As part of the sale, AT&T will transfer approximately 1,600 domestic Japanese business customers and approximately 245 employees who support those customers to IIJ.

AT&T remains committed to serving multinational corporations (MNCs) with operations in Japan and offers a robust portfolio of services including managed global connectivity, hosting, mobile enterprise applications, cloud computing, application management, security, Telepresence and unified communications. AT&T’s strong presence in Japan includes substantial operations and employees to support the domestic Japanese AT&T Global Network infrastructure, which includes four global network service nodes, remote access infrastructure for corporate clients, an Internet Data Centre and significant international subsea cable capacity.

“Japan is an important market for AT&T, and we are focused on providing a world-class level of service to our multinational customers with a presence there,” said Bernard Yee, vice president AT&T Asia Pacific.

AT&T intends to continue to sell domestic telecommunication services, including IIJ products, to the MNCs it serves that have operations in Japan. And IIJ intends to purchase global connectivity services from AT&T to support its Japan-based customers’ global communications needs.

The sale price is approximately ¥9.2 billion, or approximately US$109 million, based on the exchange rate on August 31, 2010. AT&T has also exercised a call option on NTT’s 15-percent stake in AT&T Japan.

Source: AT&T Sells Japanese Domestic Network Operations

(The Hosting News) – As the recession looms, internet marketers are finding it increasingly challenging to convert traffic into sales. Industry wide EPC (earnings per click) and CTR (click thru rates) have been steadily declining in part to the summer slowdown and the rapid change of technology. The internet is undergoing a transformational change as traditional web users migrate to mobile devices.

NicheAppSystem.com has released and launched a new software to take advantage of this mobile wave. Their software lets users create apps witthout programming. Blog owners and affiliate marketers can now generate traffic to their site or blog without search engine marketing (SEM).

The mobile market is growing at a rapid pace, and is an estimated 5 times larger then the internet.

Gerard Connely, the founder and developer of this innovative software and career affiliate marketer, has shed light into mobile marketing. According to Connely, “Technology is all about rapid change, and only the early adopters will benefit and survive. The traditional ways of getting quality traffic is becoming obsolete. I changed my title from Webmaster to Appmaster because that’s where the traffic is, and it’s really paying off.”

This web-to-mobile transition has given birth to a new breed of affiliate marketers who are taking advantage of this new and emerging growth trend. Top affiliate marketers are finding innovative ways to exploit this emerging trend, using apps as their favored delivery platform; NicheAppSystem.com is filling the void.

Learn more about this innovative software: NicheAppSystem.com

Source: NicheAppSystem.com Launches Affiliate SEO Traffic Software

(The Hosting News) – topseos.com, an independent authority on Search vendors has named the Top 50 Pay Per Click Management Services for the month of September 2010. All the Pay Per Click Management Service providers identified next to thousands of other Pay Per Click Management companies have gone through a comprehensive process evaluated by a qualified and experienced team of researchers. The Pay Per Click Management providers evaluated and ranked have displayed a concrete understanding behind the services they provide.

“A good pay per click management firm is one who is able to understand not only its clients, but also the nature of the internet. Where should a message appear? How long should it appear for? These considerations are just the tip of the iceberg. In order to find the best among the thousands of Pay Per Click Management optimization companies, our team has designed an evaluation system to identify the leading firm in this field. All top ranking Pay Per Click Management Firms displayed a thorough knowledge in PPC services,” said Jeev Trika, Managing Partner of topseos.com (http://topseos.com).

The Best Top 50 Pay Per Click Management Optimization Companies in the US for September 2010 are:

1.    JumpFly, Inc.
2.    WebiMax
3.    SEOP
4.    Pepperjam Agency
5.    ThinkBIGsites
6.    WebMetro
7.    SEO Image Inc.
8.    Customer Magnetism
9.    eVisibility, Inc.
10.    SEO Inc
11.    NETexponent LLC.
12.    Outrider
13.    Bruce Clay Inc.
14.    Reprise Media
15.    Enquiro Search Solutions Inc.
16.    Morpheus Media LLC
17.    Target Logics
18.    KeyRelevance
19.    SpiderSplat Consulting Inc.
20.    Efficient Frontier Inc
21.    Distilled
22.    RedFly Marketing
23.    WebRanking
24.    Internet Marketing Inc.
25.    Spark Inbound Marketing
26.    SEER Interactive
27.    iProspect
28.    Netvantage Marketing
29.    Marcel Media
30.    Stone Interactive Group
31.    Exclusive Concepts, Inc.
32.    Best Rank Inc.
33.    Jenesys Group
34.    JellyFish
35.    LoveClients Inc.
36.    Zero Company
37.    The DG Group
38.    Levert Marketing
39.    eVision LLC.
40.    Page Zero Media
41.    Mindfire Interactive
42.    Advance Design Interactive
43.    NetMark Essentials
44.    iMajestic Performance Based SEO
45.    StraightForward Media LLC
46.    Keyword Search Pros
47.    ROI Revolution
48.    The PPC Auditors
49.    Leverage Marketing, Inc.
50.    Loka, Inc.

With the purpose of finding out the best pay per click management firms in the industry, topseos.com has designed an evaluation criterion. Their research team has gathered feedback from three (3) clients of these firms to get information about their performance and services. A list of questions has been provided that include both general and project-specific queries such as, “What type of needs analysis was conducted before work initiated?”, “What type of a ROI were you anticipating, what was achieved and in what time frame?”, “What would be 3 things you would change about your experience?”, “What was your total investment?”, “Rate your overall experience (1-10; 10 being the highest)”, “How is your PPC campaign monitored actively and how are the bid adjustments made?”, “How were your click-through rates improved?”, “What techniques were utilized to lower the cost per conversion?”, “Are the PPC campaign reports useful and easy to understand?” and “By what % have you increased your PPC budget and over what time?”

Pay Per Click Advertising is one of the rapidly growing forms of online advertising. On the other hand, popularity also represents a number of players in the same field. There is a large number of companies that started to provide pay per click management services but there are only a small number of competent providers that have the capacity to deliver what they have promised to their clients.

Source: topseos Names Top 50 Pay Per Click Management Companies

(The Hosting News) – IT hosting company, OneNeck IT Services, has been recognized by the Governor’s Celebration of Innovation (GCOI) Selection Committee and honored as a finalist for the Governor’s Celebration of Innovation’s Innovator of the Year—Small Company Award.

“OneNeck is extremely honored to be recognized by the Governor’s Celebration of Innovation Selection Committee,” said Chuck Vermillion, CEO of OneNeck IT Services. “The GCOI Innovator of Year award is Arizona’s highest honor for technology innovation and being recognized for this award validates us as a premier enterprise hosting and managed services provider.”

The Governor’s Celebration of Innovation was established in 2003 by combining two technology award ceremonies: the High Tech Industry Cluster’s 17-year Innovator of the Year awards ceremony and the Arizona Software and Internet Association’s 10-year “Celebration of Innovation.” With the addition of the Governor’s support, the Governor’s Celebration of Innovation has become the premier technology community gathering of its kind in Arizona. For more information on GCOI, please visit http://www.aztechcouncil.org.

This year’s event will feature a Technology Showcase with more than 50 booths, providing an opportunity for sponsors and award finalists to demonstrate and discuss their exceptional products and services to attendees. Entertainment includes a theatre-style awards ceremony followed by dinner and a VIP networking after-party.

The 2010 Governor’s Celebration of Innovation Awards Showcase will be held on November 18, 2010 in the heart of downtown Phoenix at the Phoenix Convention Center, 100 North Third Street, in the South Building Ballroom form 3:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Interested parties can visit http://bit.ly/acsDld for more information.

OneNeck’s business philosophy is built around accountability. Their solutions and services allow customers to have a single service provider for complex and critical system management and hosting. The resulting value and synergy easily differentiates them from a typical Application Service Provider (ASP) or hosting provider. Although every environment OneNeck manages is unique, they provide the same consistent level of service. OneNeck has the depth and breadth of knowledge few other companies can provide.

Source: OneNeck Named Finalist for Innovator of the Year

(The Hosting News) – HostGee.Com, Inc. Web hosting now supports JavaServer Pages (JSP). JSP is an advanced programming language that allows users to display dynamically-generated content.

Leading domain and Web hosting provider HostGee.Com announces that the company’s UNIX® hosting packages will now support JavaServer Pages. Also known as JSP, JavaServer Pages is an advanced, enterprise Web programming language that allows users to create Web site pages that display dynamically-generated content. The HostGee hosting package will support simplified, quick development of robust and scalable applications using JSP technology.

HostGee’ Web hosting team has already been making regular updates to maintain status as one of the Web’s premier hosting providers. In addition to the new JSP capabilities, other recent upgrades include adding support for a number of open source Web applications, including DotNetNuke®, WordPress® Blogs, and osCommerce.

“Remaining a leader in the Web hosting market we helped to pioneer is important to us,” said Shafiq Ur Rehman CEO/Founder of HostGee.Com, Inc. “Supporting JavaServer Pages allows us to continue to be of service to Web developers and other Web professionals who are looking for the latest and most advanced hosting capabilities.”

HostGee hosting packages remain fully customizable, allowing users to integrate Web sites with already existing software. This includes programs and languages as varied as CGI-Bin Directory, Ruby on Rails, PERL, Python, and Java Servlets. Cron job support allows users to schedule activities to run regularly and automatically as a specific date or time, making common system administrator commands easy to duplicate and automate.

To learn more about HostGee Web hosting or JSP, visit http://www.hostgee.com

About HostGee.Com Corporation

HostGee Corporation provides domain name registration, Web hosting and ecommerce, colocation, managed dedicated hosting, SaaS hosting, Web design and online marketing services to over 1 Hundred Thousand Web sites and 80,000 customers worldwide. It operates over 250,191 square feet of state-of-the-art data centers that reduce the complexity and cost of Web-based technologies for small businesses and large enterprises. Founded in 2009, HostGee is one of the world’s largest Web hosting companies with a direct presence in 3 countries, 3 worldwide operation centers and more than 150 employees.

HostGee Media Relations
0092 21 4661920
marketing@hostgee.com

Source: HostGee.Com Web Hosting Now Supports JSP

Budget Web Hosting Content Provided by iPage iPage Web Hosting

A common question that arises among webmasters and small businesses with a web presence is: ”My website and traffic are growing, how do I know when it is time to move up to a bigger hosting account?”. In order to answer this question there are several factors that need to be carefully considered. Presuming that the average small business launches their website on a smaller, shared web hosting account, here are a few points to consider when contemplating the move to a larger (potentially more expensive) hosting account.

Size - The sheer size of a website often determines the most appropriate web hosting plan that will suffice for proper operation. Besides the obvious specifications listed by the hosting provider, there are two main measures of website size which relate to the hosting account – disk space and bandwidth.

Disk Space – This term refers (literally) to how much hard drive disk space is required to house your website. A very general formula for disk space required by your site is the following formula: (number of pages in your site) x (average page size) = minimum disk space required. A very broad rule of thumb is to consider the html component of your pages (if well written and clean these should be less than 30kb) and then add in any CSS (cascading style sheets) or JavaScript files and then add on any embedded images. Using very broad strokes, a ”typical” flat html web page will then be somewhere around 100kb. Ergo, a site with 50 pages would require: (50 pages x 100kb) = 5MB. Similarly, a site with 100 pages requires 10MB. A website with 1,000 pages would require 100MB disk space at a minimum.

Remember an important caveat – any video files or extremely large graphics can increase these numbers by 100 times. So the type of content you display on your website will dramatically impact the disk space required.

Bandwidth – A second measure of website size is the amount of bandwidth (sometime referred to as ‘transfer rate’ or simply ‘transfer’) required. This is usually a reflection of the number of visitors your website is serving – and also the size of the files being delivered by your site. The more visitors you have to your website – the more bandwidth required to serve them. As noted above, streaming files, large video or music downloads are also bandwidth intensive. While there is no really easy formula to calculate bandwidth requirements, your current web hosting provider should be keeping a record of how much bandwidth your website consumes each month. Alternatively there are online tools to let you calculate bandwidth usage.

Clearly if your website is growing fast in terms of disk space and/or bandwidth you should consider your options for a larger web hosting account type.

Security – In order to make your website hosting affordable on the lower end of the spectrum, hosting providers will place multiple websites together on one web server. This practice is referred to as ‘’shared hosting”. Literally, you are sharing the server with other websites. The benefits of this arrangement are the lower costs – since the server costs are also shared between many websites. The vast majority of beginning websites are hosted on shared servers. For many purposes this hosting configuration is quite adequate. There are reasons, however, that one may choose to migrate their website services to a server with lower contention rates (that means fewer websites per server).

The most pressing of these triggers to migrate is security. While the vast majority of web hosting providers are hyper-vigilant regarding site security, a shared environment poses an additional loophole for problems to occur. Due to the fact that there may be over 100 websites on the server, each with its own user name and password, that means there are 100 opportunities for a weak user name / password combination. Believe it or not, every hosting provider has customers who use ‘password’ as their password. Not smart. What this means for your website, if you are on a shared server, is that the security of your server (and therefore your website) is only as strong as the weakest user name / password combination of all the shared accounts. Further, while not as common, there are unscrupulous characters out there that will purchase a shared hosting account for spamming or other malicious activity. If such a user is on your server then your website is at risk. A further drawback of this situation may be getting ”blacklisted” (blocked) by large ISP’s. The end result is often that emails are not sent and received properly. The best way to protect your website from undue influence by others on a shared server is to move to a server with fewer (or no other) websites on it.

Reliability – Reliability (also referred to as ”uptime”) is a key consideration in migrating upward in the web hosting hierarchy. At its most basic reliability boils down to this: Does your website ever fail to load when called for in a browser? You are paying your good money to a hosting provider to ensure that your website is always available. Every reputable web hosting company will have multiple connections to the Internet, a solid data center with lots of backup power and uninterruptible power supplies, and physical security to prevent downtime. These elaborate precautions are for naught if one of the websites on a shared server goes haywire. The most common cause of server downtime on a shared server is simple human error caused by webmasters on a shared server creating a script which is malformed and then proceeds to absorb all the resources of that server (usually RAM). The only way to completely eliminate this potential issue is to house your website on a server that is dedicated to only your site (virtual or dedicated server). If you are wondering exactly how reliable your web hosting is, there are many monitoring tools available to measure uptime. One popular free tool is Alertra. Simply type your website URL into the box in the upper right and you can see if your website is currently up. For a modest monthly fee you can have Alertra check your website every few minutes to determine reliability.

Remember to consider the growth of your databases and files when considering moving up to a new hosting account. Also, if you are on a shared web server and everything is working well with great uptime and good security, then you may want to stay where you are until you hit the next level of growth. When you do get ready to move up to a higher level web hosting account, be sure to work with your hosting provider to get tips on migrating your files and transitioning smoothly.

Source: Budget Web Hosting – Does Your Site Fit Into a Shared Host?

Budget Web Hosting Content Provided by iPage iPage Web Hosting

A common question that arises among webmasters and small businesses with a web presence is: ”My website and traffic are growing, how do I know when it is time to move up to a bigger hosting account?”. In order to answer this question there are several factors that need to be carefully considered. Presuming that the average small business launches their website on a smaller, shared web hosting account, here are a few points to consider when contemplating the move to a larger (potentially more expensive) hosting account.

Size - The sheer size of a website often determines the most appropriate web hosting plan that will suffice for proper operation. Besides the obvious specifications listed by the hosting provider, there are two main measures of website size which relate to the hosting account – disk space and bandwidth.

Disk Space – This term refers (literally) to how much hard drive disk space is required to house your website. A very general formula for disk space required by your site is the following formula: (number of pages in your site) x (average page size) = minimum disk space required. A very broad rule of thumb is to consider the html component of your pages (if well written and clean these should be less than 30kb) and then add in any CSS (cascading style sheets) or JavaScript files and then add on any embedded images. Using very broad strokes, a ”typical” flat html web page will then be somewhere around 100kb. Ergo, a site with 50 pages would require: (50 pages x 100kb) = 5MB. Similarly, a site with 100 pages requires 10MB. A website with 1,000 pages would require 100MB disk space at a minimum.

Remember an important caveat – any video files or extremely large graphics can increase these numbers by 100 times. So the type of content you display on your website will dramatically impact the disk space required.

Bandwidth – A second measure of website size is the amount of bandwidth (sometime referred to as ‘transfer rate’ or simply ‘transfer’) required. This is usually a reflection of the number of visitors your website is serving – and also the size of the files being delivered by your site. The more visitors you have to your website – the more bandwidth required to serve them. As noted above, streaming files, large video or music downloads are also bandwidth intensive. While there is no really easy formula to calculate bandwidth requirements, your current web hosting provider should be keeping a record of how much bandwidth your website consumes each month. Alternatively there are online tools to let you calculate bandwidth usage.

Clearly if your website is growing fast in terms of disk space and/or bandwidth you should consider your options for a larger web hosting account type.

Security – In order to make your website hosting affordable on the lower end of the spectrum, hosting providers will place multiple websites together on one web server. This practice is referred to as ‘’shared hosting”. Literally, you are sharing the server with other websites. The benefits of this arrangement are the lower costs – since the server costs are also shared between many websites. The vast majority of beginning websites are hosted on shared servers. For many purposes this hosting configuration is quite adequate. There are reasons, however, that one may choose to migrate their website services to a server with lower contention rates (that means fewer websites per server).

The most pressing of these triggers to migrate is security. While the vast majority of web hosting providers are hyper-vigilant regarding site security, a shared environment poses an additional loophole for problems to occur. Due to the fact that there may be over 100 websites on the server, each with its own user name and password, that means there are 100 opportunities for a weak user name / password combination. Believe it or not, every hosting provider has customers who use ‘password’ as their password. Not smart. What this means for your website, if you are on a shared server, is that the security of your server (and therefore your website) is only as strong as the weakest user name / password combination of all the shared accounts. Further, while not as common, there are unscrupulous characters out there that will purchase a shared hosting account for spamming or other malicious activity. If such a user is on your server then your website is at risk. A further drawback of this situation may be getting ”blacklisted” (blocked) by large ISP’s. The end result is often that emails are not sent and received properly. The best way to protect your website from undue influence by others on a shared server is to move to a server with fewer (or no other) websites on it.

Reliability – Reliability (also referred to as ”uptime”) is a key consideration in migrating upward in the web hosting hierarchy. At its most basic reliability boils down to this: Does your website ever fail to load when called for in a browser? You are paying your good money to a hosting provider to ensure that your website is always available. Every reputable web hosting company will have multiple connections to the Internet, a solid data center with lots of backup power and uninterruptible power supplies, and physical security to prevent downtime. These elaborate precautions are for naught if one of the websites on a shared server goes haywire. The most common cause of server downtime on a shared server is simple human error caused by webmasters on a shared server creating a script which is malformed and then proceeds to absorb all the resources of that server (usually RAM). The only way to completely eliminate this potential issue is to house your website on a server that is dedicated to only your site (virtual or dedicated server). If you are wondering exactly how reliable your web hosting is, there are many monitoring tools available to measure uptime. One popular free tool is Alertra. Simply type your website URL into the box in the upper right and you can see if your website is currently up. For a modest monthly fee you can have Alertra check your website every few minutes to determine reliability.

Remember to consider the growth of your databases and files when considering moving up to a new hosting account. Also, if you are on a shared web server and everything is working well with great uptime and good security, then you may want to stay where you are until you hit the next level of growth. When you do get ready to move up to a higher level web hosting account, be sure to work with your hosting provider to get tips on migrating your files and transitioning smoothly.

Source: Budget Web Hosting – Does Your Site Fit Into a Shared Host?

Budget Web Hosting Content Provided by iPage iPage Web Hosting

A common question that arises among webmasters and small businesses with a web presence is: ”My website and traffic are growing, how do I know when it is time to move up to a bigger hosting account?”. In order to answer this question there are several factors that need to be carefully considered. Presuming that the average small business launches their website on a smaller, shared web hosting account, here are a few points to consider when contemplating the move to a larger (potentially more expensive) hosting account.

Size - The sheer size of a website often determines the most appropriate web hosting plan that will suffice for proper operation. Besides the obvious specifications listed by the hosting provider, there are two main measures of website size which relate to the hosting account – disk space and bandwidth.

Disk Space – This term refers (literally) to how much hard drive disk space is required to house your website. A very general formula for disk space required by your site is the following formula: (number of pages in your site) x (average page size) = minimum disk space required. A very broad rule of thumb is to consider the html component of your pages (if well written and clean these should be less than 30kb) and then add in any CSS (cascading style sheets) or JavaScript files and then add on any embedded images. Using very broad strokes, a ”typical” flat html web page will then be somewhere around 100kb. Ergo, a site with 50 pages would require: (50 pages x 100kb) = 5MB. Similarly, a site with 100 pages requires 10MB. A website with 1,000 pages would require 100MB disk space at a minimum.

Remember an important caveat – any video files or extremely large graphics can increase these numbers by 100 times. So the type of content you display on your website will dramatically impact the disk space required.

Bandwidth – A second measure of website size is the amount of bandwidth (sometime referred to as ‘transfer rate’ or simply ‘transfer’) required. This is usually a reflection of the number of visitors your website is serving – and also the size of the files being delivered by your site. The more visitors you have to your website – the more bandwidth required to serve them. As noted above, streaming files, large video or music downloads are also bandwidth intensive. While there is no really easy formula to calculate bandwidth requirements, your current web hosting provider should be keeping a record of how much bandwidth your website consumes each month. Alternatively there are online tools to let you calculate bandwidth usage.

Clearly if your website is growing fast in terms of disk space and/or bandwidth you should consider your options for a larger web hosting account type.

Security – In order to make your website hosting affordable on the lower end of the spectrum, hosting providers will place multiple websites together on one web server. This practice is referred to as ‘’shared hosting”. Literally, you are sharing the server with other websites. The benefits of this arrangement are the lower costs – since the server costs are also shared between many websites. The vast majority of beginning websites are hosted on shared servers. For many purposes this hosting configuration is quite adequate. There are reasons, however, that one may choose to migrate their website services to a server with lower contention rates (that means fewer websites per server).

The most pressing of these triggers to migrate is security. While the vast majority of web hosting providers are hyper-vigilant regarding site security, a shared environment poses an additional loophole for problems to occur. Due to the fact that there may be over 100 websites on the server, each with its own user name and password, that means there are 100 opportunities for a weak user name / password combination. Believe it or not, every hosting provider has customers who use ‘password’ as their password. Not smart. What this means for your website, if you are on a shared server, is that the security of your server (and therefore your website) is only as strong as the weakest user name / password combination of all the shared accounts. Further, while not as common, there are unscrupulous characters out there that will purchase a shared hosting account for spamming or other malicious activity. If such a user is on your server then your website is at risk. A further drawback of this situation may be getting ”blacklisted” (blocked) by large ISP’s. The end result is often that emails are not sent and received properly. The best way to protect your website from undue influence by others on a shared server is to move to a server with fewer (or no other) websites on it.

Reliability – Reliability (also referred to as ”uptime”) is a key consideration in migrating upward in the web hosting hierarchy. At its most basic reliability boils down to this: Does your website ever fail to load when called for in a browser? You are paying your good money to a hosting provider to ensure that your website is always available. Every reputable web hosting company will have multiple connections to the Internet, a solid data center with lots of backup power and uninterruptible power supplies, and physical security to prevent downtime. These elaborate precautions are for naught if one of the websites on a shared server goes haywire. The most common cause of server downtime on a shared server is simple human error caused by webmasters on a shared server creating a script which is malformed and then proceeds to absorb all the resources of that server (usually RAM). The only way to completely eliminate this potential issue is to house your website on a server that is dedicated to only your site (virtual or dedicated server). If you are wondering exactly how reliable your web hosting is, there are many monitoring tools available to measure uptime. One popular free tool is Alertra. Simply type your website URL into the box in the upper right and you can see if your website is currently up. For a modest monthly fee you can have Alertra check your website every few minutes to determine reliability.

Remember to consider the growth of your databases and files when considering moving up to a new hosting account. Also, if you are on a shared web server and everything is working well with great uptime and good security, then you may want to stay where you are until you hit the next level of growth. When you do get ready to move up to a higher level web hosting account, be sure to work with your hosting provider to get tips on migrating your files and transitioning smoothly.

Source: Budget Web Hosting – Does Your Site Fit Into a Shared Host?

Budget Web Hosting Content Provided by iPage iPage Web Hosting

A common question that arises among webmasters and small businesses with a web presence is: ”My website and traffic are growing, how do I know when it is time to move up to a bigger hosting account?”. In order to answer this question there are several factors that need to be carefully considered. Presuming that the average small business launches their website on a smaller, shared web hosting account, here are a few points to consider when contemplating the move to a larger (potentially more expensive) hosting account.

Size - The sheer size of a website often determines the most appropriate web hosting plan that will suffice for proper operation. Besides the obvious specifications listed by the hosting provider, there are two main measures of website size which relate to the hosting account – disk space and bandwidth.

Disk Space – This term refers (literally) to how much hard drive disk space is required to house your website. A very general formula for disk space required by your site is the following formula: (number of pages in your site) x (average page size) = minimum disk space required. A very broad rule of thumb is to consider the html component of your pages (if well written and clean these should be less than 30kb) and then add in any CSS (cascading style sheets) or JavaScript files and then add on any embedded images. Using very broad strokes, a ”typical” flat html web page will then be somewhere around 100kb. Ergo, a site with 50 pages would require: (50 pages x 100kb) = 5MB. Similarly, a site with 100 pages requires 10MB. A website with 1,000 pages would require 100MB disk space at a minimum.

Remember an important caveat – any video files or extremely large graphics can increase these numbers by 100 times. So the type of content you display on your website will dramatically impact the disk space required.

Bandwidth – A second measure of website size is the amount of bandwidth (sometime referred to as ‘transfer rate’ or simply ‘transfer’) required. This is usually a reflection of the number of visitors your website is serving – and also the size of the files being delivered by your site. The more visitors you have to your website – the more bandwidth required to serve them. As noted above, streaming files, large video or music downloads are also bandwidth intensive. While there is no really easy formula to calculate bandwidth requirements, your current web hosting provider should be keeping a record of how much bandwidth your website consumes each month. Alternatively there are online tools to let you calculate bandwidth usage.

Clearly if your website is growing fast in terms of disk space and/or bandwidth you should consider your options for a larger web hosting account type.

Security – In order to make your website hosting affordable on the lower end of the spectrum, hosting providers will place multiple websites together on one web server. This practice is referred to as ‘’shared hosting”. Literally, you are sharing the server with other websites. The benefits of this arrangement are the lower costs – since the server costs are also shared between many websites. The vast majority of beginning websites are hosted on shared servers. For many purposes this hosting configuration is quite adequate. There are reasons, however, that one may choose to migrate their website services to a server with lower contention rates (that means fewer websites per server).

The most pressing of these triggers to migrate is security. While the vast majority of web hosting providers are hyper-vigilant regarding site security, a shared environment poses an additional loophole for problems to occur. Due to the fact that there may be over 100 websites on the server, each with its own user name and password, that means there are 100 opportunities for a weak user name / password combination. Believe it or not, every hosting provider has customers who use ‘password’ as their password. Not smart. What this means for your website, if you are on a shared server, is that the security of your server (and therefore your website) is only as strong as the weakest user name / password combination of all the shared accounts. Further, while not as common, there are unscrupulous characters out there that will purchase a shared hosting account for spamming or other malicious activity. If such a user is on your server then your website is at risk. A further drawback of this situation may be getting ”blacklisted” (blocked) by large ISP’s. The end result is often that emails are not sent and received properly. The best way to protect your website from undue influence by others on a shared server is to move to a server with fewer (or no other) websites on it.

Reliability – Reliability (also referred to as ”uptime”) is a key consideration in migrating upward in the web hosting hierarchy. At its most basic reliability boils down to this: Does your website ever fail to load when called for in a browser? You are paying your good money to a hosting provider to ensure that your website is always available. Every reputable web hosting company will have multiple connections to the Internet, a solid data center with lots of backup power and uninterruptible power supplies, and physical security to prevent downtime. These elaborate precautions are for naught if one of the websites on a shared server goes haywire. The most common cause of server downtime on a shared server is simple human error caused by webmasters on a shared server creating a script which is malformed and then proceeds to absorb all the resources of that server (usually RAM). The only way to completely eliminate this potential issue is to house your website on a server that is dedicated to only your site (virtual or dedicated server). If you are wondering exactly how reliable your web hosting is, there are many monitoring tools available to measure uptime. One popular free tool is Alertra. Simply type your website URL into the box in the upper right and you can see if your website is currently up. For a modest monthly fee you can have Alertra check your website every few minutes to determine reliability.

Remember to consider the growth of your databases and files when considering moving up to a new hosting account. Also, if you are on a shared web server and everything is working well with great uptime and good security, then you may want to stay where you are until you hit the next level of growth. When you do get ready to move up to a higher level web hosting account, be sure to work with your hosting provider to get tips on migrating your files and transitioning smoothly.

Source: Budget Web Hosting – Does Your Site Fit Into a Shared Host?