Archive for the ‘Hosting News’ Category

Hosting Loyalty – Too much Hassle to Change Domains!

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

The web hosting industry serves arguably the most loyal customers in the entire business world. Whether the host is bad, too expensive and simply doesn’t cut it, once people have chosen a web host it will take more than plain disappointment to change host.

Little Know-How

This makes even less sense if you keep in mind that web hosting customers are generally very needy. People are launching websites everyday, often without any knowledge in server hosting or the ability to host their own sites. The demand of good service in web hosting should hence be a critical requirement. But still we stick dutifully to our web hosts because in this business of domain re-directs and advanced configure parameters, changing to a new and better host means simply too much hassle.

The hassle of moving your domain

Much of the “hassle” with a web host change is not buying new storage space or enrolling in a new hosting plan. No, what is perceived a problem by many is in fact the domain transfer. Depending on the current web host the process of bringing your registered domain name with you can be either very hard or done by 2-3 mouse clicks. Unfortunately, if you’re stuck with a bad web host they might be less than happy to help you move, declining to offer any assistance at all.

Furthermore, hosting plans can have the right to hold your domain on their server for several months before allowing it to moved. An example is the blog host Blogger that does not allow registered domains to be moved to another host within 6 months after registration.

Bridging the gap

Since most web hosting customers today lack the know-how when it comes to web hosting and they find the prospect of switching web hosts quite complicated, there is really only one way to solve the “freedom of choice” problem.

Web hosting companies must come down from their pedestals and understand that the web hosting experience right now is paralyzing their customers with incomprehensive technical terms and other mumbojumbo.

“Freedom is not a matter of choice, it is a destined path, an undying yearning for the peace of one’s soul until attainment.”  /Unknown

 

Posted in Domains, Hosting News | 2 Comments »

China to lead global Internet traffic & the prospect for the web hosting industry

Friday, January 18th, 2008

The latest statistical figures released by the state-owned China Internet Network Information Center reveals that China is due to surpass the United States as the nation with the most Internet users, some time this year.

The figure reported by the Chinese government institution was a 53 percent jump from 137 million Chinese Internet users reported at this time last year. The Sydney Morning Herald reports: China says number of Internet users rises to 210 million, could overtake US this year

“Currently China’s online population is about 50 million less than that of the United States and is the world’s second-largest,” the agency, also known as CNNIC, said on its Web site. “CNNIC forecasts that (China) will become the largest online country in 2008,” it said.

The U.S. Census Bureau said last year that about 218 million of the country’s 310 million people used the Internet.

China promotes Internet use for education and business but tries to block the public from seeing material deemed pornographic or that opposes communist rule.

This latest figure only consolidates the fact that China is a very ripe market for web hosting.  With a population of  1,323,128,240 [over 1.3 billion], China currently ranks as the most populous country in the world with the USA coming 3rd after India. China’s current population is 19.83% of the world’s total population whilst that of the USA is 4.55%. Economists are predicting that China and India would be the world’s next super-powers in as soon as ten years time, going by the strong annual economic growth the two countries have been marking over the years.

Having realised all the above-stated points, many of the leading dot-com companies have opened shop in China to reap from the economic windfall: Google, Paypal, ebay, Microsoft, Yahoo etc

Now, China is not exactly a virgin market if the figures by WebHosting.info are anything to go by. Chinese web hosts share 2,735,314 domains amongst themselves whilst Chinese ICANN-accredited registrars have registered 3,275,345 generic domain names.

My point is simple: web hosting firms in other parts of the world that can target a section of their marketing website at the Chinese population stand to reap economic benefits from China’s fast-growing Internet population. A website with a Chinese language version would be a first step though its important to point that many educated Chinese individuals can handle the English language fairly well. Read my previous post for some more ideas about how to go about this: SEO Web Hosting and how its good for you

Posted in Hosting News | 10 Comments »

2CheckOut now accepting PayPal!

Saturday, December 1st, 2007

That’s right, 2CO is now allowing its users to pay via PayPal on all Checkouts, after what they call “popular demand”.

We all have been the position before – You want to sign up to a web host who sounds reliable, worthy and generally just right for you; But they use 2CheckOut, and you haven’t got an account. Well, now, rather than having to change host, or sign up using your credit card, and/or waiting a week for money to come in from your bank account, you can now pay via Paypal with their PayPal Express CheckOut Option.

A quote from 2CO’s website; “This will allow customers to pay for products and services with the funds in their PayPal account, even if the supplier does not have their own PayPal account and only uses 2Checkout.

The PayPal payment option will be available for all non-recurring orders in the following currencies:

  • Australian Dollar (AUD)
  • Canadian Dollar (CAD)
  • Euro (EUR)
  • British Pound (GBP)
  • Japanese Yen (JPY)
  • U.S. Dollar (USD)”

I know this will come in handy for me; What about all of you out there? Leave me your views!

Posted in Hosting News | 1 Comment »

SEO Web Hosting and how its good for you

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

If there is a phenomenon that is making waves in the web hosting industry in recent times, it would be SEO Web Hosting. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Web Hosting basically encompasses all the strategies involved in ranking well for a particular country-specific version of a popular search engine.

Leading search engines especially Google and Yahoo have country-specific versions for several countries across the globe. The mere fact that one’s website would necessarily rank better if hosted in the target country has given birth to the new genre – SEO Web Hosting.

According to Travis aka “The Farmer“:

SEO Web Hosting is the art of hosting your marketing efforts across multiple IP ranges using multiple name servers. By doing so you are ensuring the true success of your online business.

What web hosts do is to provide multiple IP addresses and multiple nameservers spread across different countries such that the website appears to be hosted in these different countries and thus have the chance of ranking better in the respective countries. The specialized SEO packages typically have the following range of specifications: [20 IPs / 10 class C; 2 IPs per Class C; 10 Nameservers] and [120 IPs / 60 class C; 2 IPs per Class C; 60 Nameservers].

Understandably, these SEO Web Hosting packages come at a relatively high cost since immense effort is put into sourcing this different IP ranges. This makes it feasible for companies with deep pockets, who are specifically targetting web users in specific countries.

It is important to point out however that aside web hosting that provides local IP addresses, successful search optimization for international markets may require professional translation of web pages, registration of a domain name with a top level domain in the target market.

If SEO Web Hosting is not for you and you still want to rank better in specific countries, you want to consider registering your domains under the Country code Top-Level Domains (cc-TLDs) for your target countries. You would then have to put up localized content for maximum effect.

Posted in Hosting News, Uncategorized | 13 Comments »

2Checkout now accepts Paypal. And so what?

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

Not too long ago, 2Checkout added Paypal Express Checkout to their checkout process “by popular demand“. The essence of this blog post is to examine the impact of this on the web hosting industry.

Online payment systems are very popular with web hosting [and domain name registration] companies. Paying online speeds-up the order process for getting a new web hosting account and leading the pack of online wallets is Paypal. Aside Visa and Mastercard credit/debit cards, online wallets like Paypal have become increasingly popular online. What makes Paypal even better is that it can function as a 3rd-party credit card payment processor. Paypal has thus been enabling several Small-Office-Home-Office [SOHO] businesses worldwide to accept payment online.

That said, Paypal is not available in every country and available in some countries on a “Send money only” basis. This makes accepting payment online via Paypal very difficult for online merchants in such countries where Paypal is not fully functional or not available at all. The fact that 2Checkout now includes Paypal as a checkout option empowers millions of online merchants [web hosts included] to accept payment from Paypal’s over 130 million users. Several leading global brands have increasingly been adding Paypal as payment option on their respective websites, in recent times.

According to 2Checkout’s blog post on this issue:

This will allow customers to pay for products and services with the funds in their PayPal account, even if the supplier does not have their own PayPal account and only uses 2Checkout.

The PayPal payment option will be available for all non-recurring orders in the following currencies:

  • Australian Dollar (AUD)
  • Canadian Dollar (CAD)
  • Euro (EUR)
  • British Pound (GBP)
  • Japanese Yen (JPY)
  • U.S. Dollar (USD)

2Checkout is much easier to join and use though they would verify your information if they have any reason to suspect you/your business.

In case you’re a web host helping your clients with e-commerce solutions, the e-commerces scripts under Fantastico (if you’re using CPanel) have modules that allow merchants to accept payment via 2Checkout. CubeCart, OSCommerce and Zen Cart are all available for installation via Fantastico and there are several other equally good e-commerce shopping scripts out there that integrate well with 2Checkout.

Do you run a web hosting business? How do you accept payments online? Has the addition of Paypal to 2Checkout’s checkout process had an positive/negative impact on your web hosting business or online store? Share your thoughts here and now.

Posted in Hosting News, Linux, Platforms | 3 Comments »

Windows Server 2008, cPanel, And You

Friday, November 9th, 2007

July past, Microsoft attended HostingCon 2007 to talk about their new addition to the Windows Product line – Server Edition 2008. This boasts new IIS7.0 with its out-of-the-box PHP support, enhanced Management Console and further debugging / error handling improvements; DotNetPanel – A New Web Control Panel from a new partnership with Microsoft and DotNetPanel Software Company; and built-in Virtualization support.

They also announced – wait for it – cPanel Web Control Panel for Windows Server 2008! That’s right, you heard me, cPanel for Server 2008. Woah, at last cPInc =)

With 111 days from date to launch of this new Server OS however, we may as well forget about it for a good couple of months, and with limitless price possibilities for Microsoft, for some of us, forever.

Posted in Control Panels, Hosting News, Platforms, Scripting | 4 Comments »

cPanel 11 Review and Report

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007

cPanel Inc. released their stable version of their world-used cPanel 11 on August 15, 2007 – complete with a makeover and masses of new features; making it more compatible to the end users desires.

This powerful web panel has served the industry for years, and with its new oncoming of the x3 theme, with ajax, DHTML galore and friendly tips and reminders, it is the latest up-and-coming product for web users everywhere.

This massive update includes the following:

Enhanced Security
Foolproof Aesthetic Design
Friendly Video Tutorials
And Further Compatibility and branding options

cPanel 11 promises a click-and-its-done interface, intuitive help system, new Web Disk (WebDav) access built-in, and more email configuration options. I have tested this new update for a couple of months now, and in my opinion is it a more than worthy upgrade for all you system admins out there; with its new and improved speed, reliability and ajax form checking, your users will finally recieve what they want from their web control panel, and this edition doesn’t exclude human beings.

Posted in Control Panels, Hosting News | 1 Comment »

Cpanel takes control of Windows servers

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

Cpanel, one of the leading providers of control panels for Linux and FreeBSD web hosting servers has announced that it would be releasing a beta version of a new Cpanel Server Suite that would be its first Microsoft Windows Server® 2008-based product line.

A Slashbot job advert seems to suggest that Cpanel is recruiting Windows application developers for this new venture.

Cpanel has been working on this Windows version for some time now. The only difference this time is that they are re-staffing and commiting more time and resources to it. Cpanel is expecting to release the beta version of the product on December 15th 2007 and have the production release available by March 30th 2008.

A press release by Microsoft quotes cPanel CEO J. Nick Koston as saying:

“Microsoft has shown a strong commitment to the hosting industry over the past several years. cPanel’s Windows development team feels that IIS7 offers a robust, high-performance Web server with increased security that the industry will quickly adopt. Microsoft Server 2008 and IIS7 with its modern architecture and support for legacy products was the natural starting point for our expanded product offering.”

Posted in Control Panels, Hosting News, Platforms, Windows | 1 Comment »

End of the road for PHP4

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

A solid 3 years after PHP5 was released, The PHP Group has finally announced that support for PHP4 will henceforth be discontinued.

In those three years it has seen many improvements over PHP 4. PHP 5 is fast, stable & production-ready and as PHP 6 is on the way, PHP 4 will be discontinued.

The PHP development team hereby announces that support for PHP 4 will continue until the end of this year only. After 2007-12-31 there will be no more releases of PHP 4.4. We will continue to make critical security fixes available on a case-by-case basis until 2008-08-08. Please use the rest of this year to make your application suitable to run on PHP 5.

Already, several web projects using PHP have announced their intention to switch to PHP5 soon. These include: The Symfony, Typo3, phpMyAdmin, Drupal, Propel, and Doctrine project.

With this new announcement, it is expected that many more web hosts will upgrade their Linux server currently using PH4, to PHP5.

Posted in Hosting News, Linux, PHP, Platforms, Scripting | 2 Comments »

More PHP Projects to require PHP5

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

This vicious circle has been going on for sometime now but its about to stop, come 5th February 2008.

PHP5, a successor of PHP4 was launched about 3 years ago but has not witnessed widespread use mostly due to its incompatibility with PHP4. Most scripts and software today are written in PHP4 even though PHP5 comes with vast improvements including better security and improved functionality. The PHP Group has thus been forced to continue offering support to users still on PHP4.

This is about to change though. An organization was formed, exlcusively for that:GoPHP5.org The objective is simple, gather more support for PHP5, and make sure most software required PHP5, by February 5th 2008. In their words:

It is a dangerous cycle, and one that needs to be broken. The PHP developer community has decided that it is indeed now time to move forward, together. Therefore, the listed software projects have all agreed that effective February 5th, 2008, any new feature releases will have a minimum version requirement of at least PHP 5.2.0. Furthermore, the listed web hosts have agreed that effective February 5th, 2008, they will include PHP 5.2 (or a more recent version) in their service offer.

The news this week though, is that some leading PHP software have joined the massive effort to switch to the latest PHP upgrade. The Symfony, Typo3, phpMyAdmin, Drupal, Propel, and Doctrine projects have all announced that their next release after February 5, 2008 will require PHP version 5.2 as part of a coordinated effort at GoPHP5.org, and have issued an open invitation to any other PHP projects and applications, both open source and proprietary, that want to participate in the effort.

According to phpMyAdmin’s project lead, Marc Delisle: “The phpMyAdmin project is very enthusiastic to join the GoPHP5 initiative. We see GoPHP5 as a way both to improve our product’s new versions — not always having to add workarounds to remain PHP4­compatible — and improve the experience of our users — by projecting the correct message about the PHP system itself and its evolution.”

The first-ever version of PHP appeared on 8th June 1995 and as of October 2006, PHP6 is under-development.

Posted in Hosting News, Linux, PHP, Platforms, Scripting | 5 Comments »

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