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, Blogroll, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
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 Platforms, Hosting News, Linux, Blogroll | No Comments »
