Many people want to start a web hosting business in this modern technical age, in most cases because people see it as a cheap and easy way to make a quick bit of money - but for those who want to make a success out of their hosting business in the long term, time, hard work and dedicated are needed to ensure that their business turns out to be the success that they want it to be; however, establishing yourself in the web hosting market these days is becoming ever more difficult since most people have had the same idea and also because the main companies within this market are offering good quality hosting at dirt cheap prices - although this might sound daunting, a more competitive market means that you have the opportunity to make the most of your business by trying to promote it and get it out there in front of the consumer as much as possible. For most people, starting a web hosting business is a process which needn’t require any large amount of money, since most existing web hosts are able to provide cheap reseller package which allow you to resell the web space that you are assigned to your customers; some reseller packages also include useful tools which are there to help you get your web hosting business off the ground - for example your reseller package might include a license for a web hosting billing system so that you are able to bill your customers who have purchased your hosting automatically online without the need for any complicated and frustrating paper work. You should only start a web hosting business if you are dedicated to making your business successful, and are able to provide your customers with the necessary support so that they are satisfied with the experience that they have with you, and not if you are in it purely for the money and plan to just abandon your customers after a certain amount of time; this is because great frustration can be caused to customers if the web host that they have signed up with decides to cease existance after a certain amount of time since in most cases it means that the data they have stored within their shared website hosting space that they have purchased is wiped meaning that they are unlikely to retrieve it - on the other hand, if you want to make your business successful then it is important that you provide your customers with a good level of support since it means that they are then highly likely to refer you to their friends and colleagues who might need hosting, and it is commonly known that ‘word of mouth’ can easily help make a success out of any business. If you are completely new to the world of web hosting and web design, then it is important that you do a good amount of research before embarking on setting up your own web hosting business; this is because you will most likely require server administration skills amongst other skills as your business starts to grow - these skills will most probably not be needed at the establishment of your business since you will probably be using a reseller hosting package, which means that the administration of the server on which you are hosted is taken care of by the trained technicians who are employed by your web host. Website design skills would also be a big bonus for you if you were to start a web hosting business; this is because you will need a website on which you can show case your products, although you can eaily purchase a template to use on your website, these are known to turn customers away from web hosting businesses since they interpret it as saying ‘we can’t be bothered to build our own website, so why should we be bothered with anything else’. In terms of money to start a web hosting business, domains and reseller packages are cheap these days which means that you should be easily able to start a small web hosting business for under $50; although that price only covers the basics such as a domain and a reasonable specification reseller package, free or cheap alternatives of other expensive components of a website hosting business such as a billing system or help desk can be easily picked up.

Domains and Business Names

The first thing you need if you are to start a web hosting business is a domain name, so that people are able to find your business and website easily via the use of a search engine; a domain is used so that people can easily access your website from any web browser, at any internet connected location in the world. When choosing a domain that you are planning to use for your web hosting business, you should make sure that it is one which is linked to the subject, so that prospective customers get an idea of the purpose of the business before they actually reach your website; by using a domain name which is relevant to the subject of the actual website, you ensure that customers are able to easily recall your business’s name and its sole purpose - even if they do forget the purpose of the business, they can easily work it out again through the meaning of the name of the business. You should also make the domain which you want to use for your web hosting business short in length, as well as easy to spell; this means that it is easier both clients current and prospective to remember - for example, the sort length means that the word ordering won’t be forgotten easily, and the fact that it is easy to spell means that your current customers can easily refer their friends and colleagues who need web hosting to your business. As is the case with a domain for any purpose, you should always try and make your domain name as individual as possible; this is because it can help your customers prospective and current to remember your website’s address as well as your business’s name - an individual name also means that you are less likely to end up using the name of an existing company or finding that the domain name which you want has been taken for use by somebody else. It is highly important that the name which you have chosen to use for your business is not being used by another person or company which is already in existance, its for this reason that you should always make the necessary checks within your country to ensure that no one else is using the desired name; if someone does find that you have started to trade under their name, and have owned the name or have been trading longer than you, they have the right to sue you to ensure that you stop using the name in question if a dispute over the name does break out or if you refuse the original owners calls t stop using the name or brand. When purchasing a domain from any good domain regsitrar, they will ask the TLD which you want the domain have - the TLD is the ‘Top Level Domain Name’ which in most cases is relevant to the country which you want to aim the website in question towards, for example the TLD for the United Kingdom is ‘.uk’ with variations being ‘.co.uk’ and ‘.me.uk’; you should always ensure that the TLD which you choose to use for your business is relevant to the country at which you want your hosting to be purchased from, if you have no target country in question then you should use the ‘.com’ domain extension. One thing to note is that you can pick up domains cheaply from any good domain registrar on the internet; it is advise that you buy domains from an American registrar since in most cases they work out cheaper than UK based or other foreign domain registrars. Once you have chosen your business name and domain name, as long as it has not already been done so by someone else who is using the same brand, you should register your company name as a trademark to ensure that no one else is allowed to trade under that name; this means that if someone else does try to setup a business which has the same name as yours, they will not be able to since you will be able to sue them since a registered trademark is basically means that you own the name in question and that no one else is able to use it without your prior permission or consent - this is especially important if you are planning to make your business last and if you want to start earning a good income out of your investment - if you don’t then someone could easily come along and start trading roguely under your name, and even ruin your company’s reputation.

Reseller Package, VPS or Dedicated Server

Before you start taking on customers for your web hosting business, you need to have something on which you can host them; there are three choices for you to choose from when you are starting your web hosting business, these are: reseller hosting packages, virtual private servers or dedicated servers. Reseller hosting packages are packages which you buy from an established web host which allow you to sell on the disk space and bandwidth that it assigned to you to your customers - your customers in turn will have their own client accounts which they can then use to manage the domains and websites which they have chosen to host with you; the good thing with reseller packages is that the server administration is taken care of by your web host, which means although you aren’t allowed direct root or administrator access to the server to install the programs that you want to, you don’t have to have any advanced server administration skills since all that work is carried out by the trained technicians who are employed by your web host. Virtual private servers are not real servers in terms of them being physical, but they still provide you with a dedicated environment similar to that which is provided by a dedicated server when you are using it - this means that you can get the same control as you would have with a dedicated server, but at a fraction of the cost; the thing with virtual private servers that sets them apart from dedicated servers is the fact that you are still sharing a server with other people, since there are normally multiple virtual private servers hosted on one physical node - although you are assigned your own guaranteed bandwidth, disk space and RAM, the CPU of the physical node is normally shared between all the VPS hosted on a single node but not equally, but in some cases web hosts will split the CPU between the VPS so that each gets a fair share. Dedicated servers are the most expensive solution for any web host who is starting out in the industry; this is because what you are paying for is a physical server which is not shared with anyone else in any way what-so-ever. Dedicated servers, like virtual private servers provide you with a dedicated environment in which you are able to install any program of your choice, which in turn means that you are able to customize the server to work in the way that you want it to; this means that if you want to focus on a specific type of web hosting which requires for a special program to be installed on the hosting server, then you can - an example of this would be if you wanted to provide ShoutCast radio hosting for your customers via the cPanel control panel, in this case you would have to install ShoutCast and the necessary cPanel add-on which is required to allow your customers to manage their ShoutCast accounts through the cPanel control panel. Your choice of package should reflect which stage you are with your web hosting business; this means that if you are just starting out with your business then you should consider a reseller hosting package since they are fairly cheap and give you lots of room to allow you to expand over time - once you have outgrown your reseller hosting account you can then decide to move up to a virtual private server if you feel the need to and if your funds allow you to, if you have been running your business for a while and have built up a small customer base then you should consider a virtual private server - the same is applicable if you have a large customer base or if you want to provide your customers with a different type of hosting which means that you will need a certain program installed on the server which wouldn’t be available if you had a standard shared or reseller hosting package. If you have a relatively large customer base, but don’t have the funds to purchase either a virtual private server or a dedicated server then you could easily go with a higher end reseller package; this means that as your business starts to grow you can then upgrade through the various reseller plans that are provided by your web host, and as time and money allows you can then upgrade to either a virtual private server or dedicated server as you see fit. If you are starting out with a dedicated server of a virtual private server, then you should consider the resources that have been assigned to you; this is because you might have a server with a large amount of disk space which will allow you to host many websites, but you might not have a high enough specification processor or enough bandwidth to match the amount of disk space that you have been provided with.

cPanel provides you with many different features based around domains which you can use to expand the capabilities of your cPanel shared website hosting account in the form of being able to host more websites as well as features that you can use to expand the corporate identity of your website and products that you might market on it. The domain that you use for your website is the main identity that is given to it, and it is of the utmost importance that the domain which you use for your website relates both to the content that the site contains as well as the main subject of the website; this is because search engines normally relate the title of a domain name to the content that it contains, as well in reference to the main subject of the website - domains and content which relate more to each other normally receive a higher page ranking when search engines come down to scoring the pages of websites once they have been indexed. Your domain is also the most important factor of your website since it is what people will type in to the address bar of their browser when they want to visit your website, or what they will see when they visit your website through the means of a search from an ordinary search engine. The fact that you can have any domain you want is brilliant for both marketing and general branding; this is because you can create a brandable identity which you can then create a business around, or purchase domains entitled for special offers which you might be offering since this would ensure that if you have created a separate mini site for such offers, people are able to access them without having to type in any long confusing addresses and will only have to enter a standard domain name address. If you are unable to afford a new domain then you can use certain features within cPanel to gives the affect of a separate domain to the user or visitor without having to purchase a new domain; you can use this type of feature to aid with corporate branding when creating a new sub or mini-site for a new product or area of your website which might still be in the development stages. Other domains features within cPanel allow you to just attach your domains to your hosting account, but not necessarily use them - this is perfect for you if you are just planning to buy domains to sell them on at a later date at a higher cost.

The domain features within cPanel allow you to use it to help build your business portfolio if you are in a business such as the selling of high quality domains which people might be willing to pay a high price for; you can also use the built-in features to aid you in the creation of separate ‘mini-sites’ for your business as well as to create separate corporate identities for services and products which you might be wanting to promote and sell via the means of the internet which means you won’t have to pay the high costs to have them in shops. You can also use another feature to help shorten down the length of long URLs within your website which might confuse users then they are trying to navigate or search your website for content; you can also use this feature to send users to another web page on the internet when they try to access a specific one which you have stored within your shared cPanel website hosting space. With the use of the domain features within cPanel you can ensure that you can create separate corporate identities under your main corporate identity without the need to invest extra cash into new domains every time you want to market or promote one of your new products or services on the internet under your main identity. One thing to remember with domains is that they are the most important necessity of your website; this is because they are what your visitors see or type in when they want to visit your website - apart from content, a domain defines your website as well as your brand, for example if you are creating a company website then you should always try and get the branding of the domain as close as is possible to your real company if the main domain that you wanted has already been bought for use by somebody else - however, if it has been bought then it might just have been bought for parking which means you might be able to negotiate a purchase price with the owner of it. With the use of this article you should be able to understand what sub-domains, parked domains, add-on domains and redirects are as well as what their uses are; you should then also be able to apply their uses across your website appropriately in order to help boost your website’s search engine score as well as how visitors come across products and services as well as how the different types of domains can be used for the branding and promotion of products and services which you might want to sell through your website. You will also be given the ability to expand the use of your shared cPanel website hosting account by being able to host a number of domains on your account, if possible, and how you can use this to manage all the domains which you own effectively. All this put together means that you will discover how powerful cPanel is when it comes to managing multiple domains as well as how you are able to strategically market and promote your internet based products and services with the use of domains through cPanel; this should all help you increase your overall search engine ranking/score as well as the amount of visitors and products that you sell through your website.

Sub-Domains

Subdomains are domains that you can create under your hosted domain name; they take on the form of a new name as the forename, and then the second part of the address is your main domain name. Subdomains are a good way to section your website off into different parts if you are providing many different services, or if you want to give different parts of your website their own identity without the need for directories which can easily become very messy. Search engines can also favour subdomains in some situations because they see them as separate domain names, and will rate them above directories in most situations. If you are wanting to sell different products or services under the same company name, but don’t want the websites for each product to be collectively dumped under one domain name, then you should try and utilize subdomains within your website setup where possible. Subdomains are basically address DNS records that have been automatically setup by CPanel to point back to the same server that your website is hosted on; however, you can also utilize the advance DNS settings feature if you wish to use subdomains but want to have the content that they are going to display or the service that they are going to be used for hosted on another server - this will be done via the setup of advanced address records and with the use of IP addresses of other servers through the CPanel control panel. However, most people rarely use subdomains since they are seen as ‘tacky’ by some and others prefer to just use the simple structure of directories when they are designing and building their website which they will then host within their CPanel shared website hosting account. The good thing with subdomains though, is that like directories you can choose what you want the name of the subdomain that you are setting up to be - this means that you can use subdomains for hosting absolutely any content you want. Sub-domains can aid in the marketing and promotion of products or services that you might be selling through your website, and can even help increase on your current amount of sales through your website; this is because they can aid in the creation of ‘mini-sites’ for products and services which you might sell which inturn can help promote and increase products since it allows a product or service to have its own corporate identity under your main corporate identity - it is also much easier for a visitor to type in a subdomain address rather than a very long ‘directory’ address which could consist of many forward slashes before a user actually reaches the final destination of the product or service which they want to purchase. You can also use sub-domains if you wish to segment your website off into smaller parts if you feel that it is too large to be hosted under just one domain; this again can help aid in giving the separate areas of your website their own identities since they will more or less be ‘minis’ of your main website since you have made your main website much smaller, and the subdomains will be relatively small.

Add-On Domains

Add-on domains are domains that you can attach to your main website hosting account; this feature allows you to extend the use of your hosting account since it allows you to host multiple domains, and a website for each domain if you feel that each domain does need to have its own website - if it doesn’t then you could simply create a parking page for each domain. Add-on domains can be linked back to subdomains which you have created within your shared cPanel website hosting account; this allows you to host more websites since in most cases you have an unlimited number of both add-on and sub domains, which means that you can host as many websites as you want under your hosting account with the only constraints against you being the amount of disk space that you are supplied with as well as the amount of bandwidth that your account has been assigned - in some cases you might be limited by either the number of sub of add-on domains which you can use in your website hosting account, which will mean that you are only able to host as many separate websites in your account as is stated by the amount of each. This feature of cPanel is perfect for you if you wish to make the most of your website hosting account without having to spend any extra money; this is because you can try and get the most value for money by utilizing both this and the sub-domain features to ensure that you can host as many websites on your account as is physically allowed by the specifications of the website hosting plan which you have purchased from your web host. One other thing which can affect how many domains you host in your shared cPanel website hosting account is the amount of money that you have available to spend on things such as domains; this is because the cost of domains is relatively high, and means that every time you want to buy a new domain, you have to spend money. Add-on domains can also help in providing a separate corporate identity for other products or services which you may be wanting to sell or provide through the use of the internet and your existing website; you can use the add-on domain feature to host individual domains for the products and services that you have chosen to provide - you can then specify an individual layout for each website to help provide that much needed unique corporate identity for each product or service. If you own a business such as a website design agency then you can make use of this feature to help you host all the websites that you design for clients if you don’t have the finances to pay for a higher end reseller package - however, this situation should only be used if your customers don’t require control panel access to control their website and domain name; this is because only reseller packages give you the abilities to create separate client accounts for each individual website or domain - this in turn means that with a standard shared website hosting account there is only one set of login details for all the websites which you host which means that you are the only one who can control all the details about client’s websites such as email addresses and the contents of their actual website.

Parked/Pointed Domains

The parked/pointed domain feature of cPanel allows you to point existing domains which you might own back to your existing shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that when a user or visitor enters a parked/pointed domain into their web browser, they will reach your existing website which you have already set up under the main domain which you have attached to your shared cPanel website account. Parked/pointed domains are handy for you if you are wanting to reserve one name under an array of different TLDs, they will all lead to your existing website which means that you don’t have to develop an individual website for each domain - meaning that you have to do less work; this can also mean that if you are developing a large website which is going to be used in many countries accross a range of TLDs, then you will only have to place one parking page under your main hosting account then attach all the needed domains to your account - this means that you don’t have to upload a parking page for each individual domain that you are planning to use for your finished website. Parked/pointed domains is also a feature which you can utilize if you are a domain purchaser who purchases domains purely for the reason of then selling them on at a higher price to help you make a profit on your purchases - in this case you could use the parked/pointed domains feature to attach all the domains that you own to your shared cPanel website hosting account; you can then proceed to create one holding page under the main domain for your hosting account which will be displayed on all the domains that you have hosted under your account - this can help you out since it means that you don’t have to place up a holding page for every domain which you own - which means that if you own many domains, you can save yourself a lot of time by using this relatively simple method. One thing to note is that when using or adding add-on domains to your website hosting account, you should always make sure that you point your domains to the DNS servers which you use for your shared cPanel website hosting account; this is because you will then be able to control all aspects of your domain from your shared cPanel website hosting account, and if you don’t or forget to change the DNS servers then your add-on domains might not work at all with your shared cPanel website hosting account - you can normally change your DNS servers for your domains yourself over at the registrar from which you purchased the domain, as long as you know the new DNS servers which you want your domain to point to, if you aren’t able to do it yourself then you can normally contact the support department of your registrar who should happily do it for you at no extra cost than what you have paid for the domain.

Redirects

The redirects feature of cPanel allows you to automatically redirect your website’s visitors to another part of your website when they try to access a certain file or folder which you have hosted under your shared cPanel website hosting account; the redirects section of cPanel allows you to use different method of redirecting - permanent and temporary, permanent redirections (sometimes referred to as 301 redirects) are ones which tell the visitor’s browser to update any bookmarked URLs which link to the file or directory on the website which is trying to be accessed and is in turn telling the browser that it is redirecting the visitor, temporary redirections (sometimes referred to as 302 redirects) work in a similar fashion to permanent redirects, apart from that they don’t tel the visitor’s browser to update any bookmarked URLs which link to the resource such as the file or directory located on the website which is trying to be accessed by the visitor. The redirects feature is popular among most blogging programs, such as Wordpress - although it is normally found in its more technical form via the use of the .htaccess file rather than a simple panel contained within cPanel; this is because it can be used to shorten down long URLs - most blogs normally produce posts with long URLs so that informative information such as the date it was published as well as the full title of the post - however, thy normally shorten the lengths down with the use of a 301 redirect to only leave the title of the post so that others can refer to it in their own blog posts or in their websites without the need of posting a confusing URL but with the ability to post a much shorter and much more understandable URL to the actual blog post. This feature is generally used within websites to help make their web pages much more accessible if they have long URLs as well as to help boost their search engine ranking since this feature can help improve the search engine friendliness of a website’s URL; with a boosted search engine ranking, your website will probably receive more visitors that have been sourced from a search engine keyword search. If you utilize the wild card feature of the redirects feature of cPanel then you can redirect any requests for any file within a directory to another directory with the ability to maintain the file name in the web page request; this means that you can move directories within your website as well as renaming then without the need to change any links in your main website since any requests for files within the old directory will be forwarded to the new directory with the file name being requested retained in the request for the file in the directory concerned - this also means that you can create much more search engine friendly URLs for less search engine friendly URLs that are being used in your website.

Conclusion

In conclusion, you are able to use the domain features of cPanel to help give your products and services their own individual corporate identities which you can then use to market and promote them; this use of a separate mini-site and corporate identity for each product or service that you supply or sell can also help you get an increased search engine score which in turn can increase the amount of visitors that you actually receive from search engine searches of particular keywords which link to your products and services in some way or another. You can also use the domain features provided by cPanel to increase the amount of domains and websites that you are able to host on your standard shared cPanel website hosting account; this feature can help you make the most out of what you have paid for your hosting account since you are able to host more websites than just one without the need to purchase any new website hosting packages - this feature is perfect for you if you feel the need that you want to host more websites or if you just want to separate your site more into different segments so that is much easier for both you to manage and for your visitors or customers to navigate. The ability to park and manage your many domains which you are not using effectively has also been discussed, this means that if you own many domains of the same subject and want them all to display the same website then you can do that at ease without having to upload the website or parking page for each website individually, which in turn can help save you a lot of time and fuss when it comes to both the management of the domains and the uploading of the necessary files; you can also use this feature if you have a large corporate website which you want to have shown under many domains which you have purchased for this purpose - in this case you might want to build some sort of language translation feature into your website so that the text for visitors from foreign countries using a separate TLD is displayed in their native language and not the English that you have most likely written the content of your website in. Other features discussed allow you to make the URLs and file paths in your website much more search engine friendly thus giving your website a much higher search engine ranking (sometimes referred to as search engine score); this is done in the way that the URLs for your website are made much more readable and keyword rich which means that search engines are more likely to like your web pages because of this since the content will most likely link back to the title or the URL of the web page which it might not have done originally - this feature is heavily involved in the design of software such as blogs and content management systems where the URL of the content must be easily readable as well as where the title and URL of the web page must link back to the content that is will display in some way or another, in the case of blogs you might also find this feature being used since the originally generated URL is much longer and confusing and is not appropriate for use for people who want to link back to the article concerned in their own blogs or websites or for those who might want to refer others to the article via the use of email.

Shared website hosting is where multiple websites are hosted on the same server; each website is contained within its own folder or location on the server to keep it separate from other websites which are hosted on the same server. Shared hosting is seen as the most economical type of website hosting since the cost of server maintenance as well as other server related costs are spread across a large amount of customers, meaning that the cost of hosting for each customer is low; generally the more customers that can be fitted onto a high performance server, the less the website hosting package or packages will cost. Shared hosting is normally where most webmasters begin, and then work their way up the chain to eventually owning a dedicated server; this is because shared hosting packages are generally every cheap, and the amount of skilled needed to begin with is very low. Shared hosting is normally only available on two different types of operating system: Linux and Windows; this is because most web applications are built to suite either one of these platforms, and hosting control panels are only mainly made for Linux and Windows. One thing to note though is that there are a few hosts who do offer shared hosting on BSD based systems, although BSD operating systems are only normally available on dedicated servers.

Types of Shared Web Hosting

There are different types of shared website hosting, which can cover different areas and services that a site may require to be able to run. The owner of a website might choose to disperse the hosting of the services which they require for their website for extra redundancy; in most cases this is done because the website is ‘mission critical’ and they want to minimize the amount of downtime as much as they possibly can - but might not be able to afford a dedicated server or a clustered website hosting package. These different types of shared hosting also allow for people to only host what they need to host; for example a customer might only require email hosting, and not actual website hosting - this means that all they have to do is choose a shared email hosting plan that matches their specifications. One thing to note is that most shared hosting plans, whatever the type, provide some sort of DNS hosting in some way or another; without the use of a DNS server or servers, any service related to your website won’t be able to run - for example, you won’t be able receive any emails without the use of DNS because the email servers for your domain won’t be findable since your MX (mail exchanger) DNS records can’t be found since you don’t have any DNS servers attached to your domain. Examples of different types of shared website hosting are the following sections.

Application Specific Web Hosting

Application specific web hosting is the term that is given to web hosting which caters for specific website applications, or categories of website. In most cases, application specific web hosting covers categories such as blogging, image and video (multimedia) hosting, and in some cases specific applications have their own web hosting packages. This type of shared hosting can be of benefit for those who are looking to host a website which makes use of one of the three categories that are hosted for; those with little technical knowledge on how to get their website running with certain applications might also find themselves interested in application specific website hosting. Application specific can also take the form of free web hosting as well as paid web hosting; for example Blogger is an online service that allows you to create and write your own blog - it allows you to do this for free, on the other hand there might be a web host that is offering a hosting plan which has Wordpress already installed on it so that the customer is able to start their blog straight away. Both the free and paid types have their advantages, but the free versions tend to have adverts plastered all over them which can spoil both the environment and look of your website.

Game Server Hosting

Game server hosting is used by players to host league table matches; most games that are played over the internet require a connection to some sort of game server. Game server hosting rarely comes as a type of shared web hosting because of the bandwidth and CPU requirements of a game server to allow it to run; in most cases a host would advise a customer to go with a dedicated server to allow them to host their online gaming community. Game servers are also referred to as ‘listen servers’ and are run of the same machine as the gaming client; the server is normally shut down when the client is since both are hosted together. The gaming server has software built into it to limit the number of players that are allowed to play on the server at one time; this is because of the bandwidth and CPU restraints that even face a game server that is hosted on a dedicated server. Game servers that are hosted within a shared environment are normally placed on a server cluster; this can help ease the strain on both the CPU and bandwidth of each server and can ensure that the game can be played effectively without any problems. Game server providers, such as eUKhost, offer many titles for their customers to choose from when ordering their dedicated gaming server; this game will then be installed for them on receipt of the server so that they can get on with the thing that matters to them most straight away - gaming.

File Hosting

File hosting is a common type of shared hosting which people use mainly to backup data either on their home PC or that which is contained within either their shared hosting account, or on their VPS or dedicated server. File hosting normally doesn’t require the user to have a domain since the file transferring is done either through a web based control or via FTP (file transfer protocol). The amount of storage that you are assigned for hosting your files in is normally measured in gigbytes (GB) because of the size of files that we wish to store of backup these days; a few years ago the amount of space allocated to you would have been measured in megabytes (MB). With backup or file storage solutions that have been designed for use by large corporations or people who need to access the files whenever without any trouble, caches are normally deployed; caches ensure that the data can still be accessed even if there are bandwidth or connection problems on the host’s network. Open file hosting services are ones which don’t require users to register before they are able to upload any type of file - instead they only have to visit one page of the website and they are able to upload any file more or less instantly, services which take this form are normally free but plastered in adverts; this kind of service is preferred by people such as shareware authors since they are able to host the files for their free products without having to pay a penny - millions of people are also able to download the files in most cases, although with some premium services may have a restriction on something like this. File hosting is sometimes referred to as ‘off-site backup’; this is because the files are being backed up from the server and then transported over to the file hosting service where they are then stored - or in other words, backed up.

E-Mail Hosting

Email hosting is standard shared hosting, but without the ability to host a website; instead it only allows you to setup and configure email accounts for the domain which you have purchased the hosting for. Email hosting is normally purchased by a user who doesn’t require a website but needs email, or if the customer wants to host their website somewhere else for more redundancy. Another reason for the uptake of separate email hosting might be to take advantage of extra mail services provided by another company which aren’t available on your current hosting plan; for example someone might take up separate email hosting so that they could use Exchange Server 2007 email services which their current host doesn’t provide - however, this scenario is highly unlikely since if a business did need to take advantage of an enterprise email system such as Exchange server then they would most likely have it installed on their own servers. If you don’t need a website at the time you purchase your domain, then email only hosting will be perfect for you since the DNS servers will be provided for you to point your domain to, and you will be provided with a control panel which you can use to setup and configure email accounts for your domain; any good host will allow you to upgrade your account to one which does have support for a website at a later stage. There are already some free separate email hosting services that are available for you to use; two of the best known ones are based on the GUIs of two of the worlds most popular webmail interfaces - GMail and Windows Live Mail. Both Microsoft and Google have developed their own systems to allow members of the public to utilize the company’s services under their own domains; this has been a blow for the email hosting market since these systems also incorporate other enterprise class features such as calendar and contact sharing, as well as document storage.

DNS Hosting

DNS stands for domain name system and is the name which generally brands the technical working of domains; each domain has its own ‘zone’ on a name server which it has been delegated to, this zone contains all the data which other computers and servers on the internet use to communicate with the servers that host the domain in question to allow people to view a website and to allow for email to be delivered. DNS hosting is a type of shared hosting only the DNS records for a domain are held, and no other services such as the hosting of a website or email are involved. A DNS zone hold the DNS records for a domain, which control the location of the website as well as where the email for the website is routed to. One may choose to you separate DNS hosting to ensure extra redundancy in the current DNS setup, or so that they are able to control their DNS zone without having to be stuck to one host if they want to have all their hosting services dispersed amongst several different companies. DNS hosting is normally provided by domain registrars to allow their customers to take control of their domain without having to purchase a hosting account with them, and to allow them to utilize hosting that they might already have with another company; there are also some free services out there which can provide you with free DNS hosting if you are not able to provide your own or are not satisfied with the DNS hosting which is provided by your hosting provider or domain registrar. Your current DNS setup may not be that reliable, so you might choose to use an external DNS hosting company to ensure that if the DNS service with your web host does pack up, you have backup to ensure that your website is still reachable. If you have your hosting and DNS with one host, then the chances of your website going down are highly likely; if the DNS service on the server fails then your website will be completely inaccessible, and since most host’s use the single point of failure, they will have no backup which your domain can use - one thing to note though is that other services such as email and web services might still be running. If you utilize another DNS provider then your website will still be accessible if it is only the DNS service that had failed on the server, other services such as email might not be affected either.

Every web host uses some sort of web-based billing system to ensure that their customers are able to be notified of new invoices, be able to pay them online as well have the ability to edit and update their contact information; there is a market for web host billing systems, although some companies prefer to build their own in-house solutions. Some of the current market leaders include ModernBill, ClientExec and WHMCS; all these systems contain multiple features, but all vary greatly from each other. Choosing a billing system can be a hard task because almost every system has many features and gateways built into it; however, if you work out which features you need then choosing a system can be made easy. The core features of most systems include automatic WHM account setup, automatic domain registration and invoice generation if a cron is used.

Identifying Your Needs

Identifying your needs is important when looking for a web host billing system; many systems have many features so it is important you know what you want when you are looking. Most web hosts require a billing system which has features such as a helpdesk, knowledgebase, downloads section and a client area where a client can manage things such as packages and invoices. You should also make sure that the systems you look at allow for styling and customisation so that you can change the design to match your site; if you choose to stay with the default design then clients are going to be more cautious about entering their personal details. You should also take security into consideration when choosing a system; some systems have known vulnerabilities, and warez copies are also available meaning that a hacker could easily hack a system by take advantage of one of the vulnerabilities, or by finiding a vulnerability in the package themselves; security should be something that is at the top of your list whilst looking for a billing system as you should always consider the confidentiality of the data which it will be storing. All web host billing systems come at a cost, but there are a few which are free as long as you don’t remove their coopyright notice from the footer of the pages; the following is a list of free web host billing systems:

• PHPCoin - http://www.phpcoin.com
• Adore 2.0 - http://freedownloadscenter.com/Web_Authoring/Automated_Web_Publishing_Tools/Free_Billing_Software_from_Adore.html

The following is a list of the most popular premium web host billing systems which are worth a closer look at:

• ModernBill - http://www.moderbill.com
• WHMCS - http://www.whmcs.com

The Final Choice

You should make your final choice based solely on your requirements; you don’t want to end up buying a package with not enough features, or one too feature packed you don’t know what you’re going to do with half of it. There are some features which all systems come with which can be easily waived, these include helpdesks and built-in knowledgebases; most hosts have another system for support features, such as Kayako or SupportTrio. When trying out billing systems, most web hosts only trial the administrator panel and not the client panel; your final decision should always be based on the client since you want to make sure that you keep your clients happy; it is for this reason that you should always trial the customer control panel as well to see if it is easy to use, if you find it easy to use then your clients will most likely find the same, which should keep them happy. If you are to use the built-in support solutions then you should always make sure that it is easily accessible from the client control panel; you should also ensure that you have email piping and cron jobs setup so that you are able to support your clients in a organised and respectful manner.

Reseller Hosting allows you to host multiple websites which in most cases is impossible with regular Shared Hosting; most Reseller Hosting packages also allow you to create separate sub-user accounts for each website allowing you in effect to resell your assigned web space onto your clients – reseller hosting is seen as the starting point for web hosts. Getting started with reseller hosting can be a complicated task because of the many factors which you have to take into consideration when planning your web hosting business. Most webmasters and website designers would like to setup their own hosting business because of the appeal that it could have to their existing customer base, but don’t have the necessary skills to administer a dedicated server; this is the audience which reseller hosting is designed for – it allows you to host multiple websites for multiple clients, yet the administration of the hosting server is normally taken care of by the web host itself. To get started with your reseller hosting package, you need to make sure that you have a billing package of some sort and are able to receive support requests via any form of communication, whether it be phone or email; you also need to have your own active website so that the general public are able to find your web hosting plans, and purchase them if they find that they suite their needs. Once those two pre-requisites have been checked and complete, you can get on with starting out with your reseller package.

Where to Start

In general, your main starting point for getting starting with your reseller hosting package should be organising packages so that your web space can be divided up and sold on to clients; this process can be a lengthy one since you have to take into account the space and bandwidth that you have been provided as well as the likely needs of your clients. As well as the specifications of your web hosting packages, you should think about the different features which are provided such as an auto-script installer or a statistics tracking system. You will need to remember that all your clients have different needs, and you will most likely have people coming to you asking for custom hosting quotes – this is something which you should train prepare yourself for so that you quote the right price. You will also need to work out different pricing scenarios so that at the end of the day the prices you charge are making you a profit so that you can continue to pay for your reseller package but also have some money which you can keep for yourself as well as an amount which you can then invest back into your venture so that you can upgrade to a VPS or dedicated server when the time comes; working out the pricing structure of your business is critical to your success, because setting your prices too low can result in little to no profit leaving you out of pocket and could result in the business failing altogether.

Your Website

Your website is the first thing your customers see before they order any of your hosting packages; it is for this reason that it is important that you make it look as good as possible and that you use it to show case your hosting packages and any other products or services that you wish to sell. As well as having a good looking website, you should also make sure that all the text on the site is free from spelling errors and is readable as well as grammatically correct. Your website should be the place where your TOS, AUP and privacy policy are located so that they can be viewed by both current and prospective customers. SEO and link backs should also be used to ensure that your website receives the highest Google PageRank available and to ensure that it gets ranked high within search results - both of which can lead to increased custom.

Selling Domains

Selling domains can give your web hosting business a big boost and will definitely help you to make the most out of your reseller package, the main reason being that you can make a large profit out of selling domains alone. To begin selling domains, you must first sign up with a reseller registrar such as eNom or DirectI; eNom accounts are pricey but you can normally get a free one through your web host, DirectI accounts on the other hand are completely free. Once you have chosen a reseller registrar, you should then move on to choosing a billing package which can then register the domains for you.

Billing Software

Once you have your hosting packages and prices sorted, you will need to choose a billing package so that you can bill your web hosting customers as well as manage them with ease; there are many different web host billing systems on the market so choosing the right one can be difficult. You should always make an informed choice when choosing your billing software, meaning that you should always read reviews of the software which you are thinking of buying over at forums such as Web Hosting Talk, and also on the testimonials section of the software vendor’s forums. Things which you should take into consideration when looking around for a billing package include whether the package supports the control panel you are using, the domain registrar gateway you are using and what payment gateways are supported by the package; these 3 factors are the most important because you want to make sure that you are able to interact with your server from the package so that tasks such as auto-setup will run, registering domains is also something that most billing packages do so you must make sure that the one you choose supports the domain gateway which you are planning on using. Considering the available payment gateways within the package is important as well since you want to be able to receive payments from your customers online.

Legal Documents

Any hosting business, whether it is large or small, has several publicly-viewable legal documents accessible at all times; all clients agree to them whilst signing up for a hosting plan. These documents are known as TOS (Terms of Service), AUP (Acceptable Usage Policy) and then the standard privacy policy which nearly every business carries. A TOS normally consists of the full terms of the business including issues related to billing, support and ownership of the contents of websites as well as the minimum age a customer must be; AUPs normally consist of information to how a customer may use their allocated web space, the detailed information normally covers issues such as server overloading, the hosting of illegal content, the hosting of adult content and bandwidth overages; the privacy policy should consist of a description of what information is collected when a visitor visits your website and whether the information is passed on to third parties, and if that is the case then the third parties should also be stated – the sharing of information section should also be extended to cover information which is entered on the purchase of a domain or web hosting package. It is always good practice to have the three listed legal documents in place and easily viewable by anyone because it can give the customer assurance as well as giving you as a business something to fall back on or to refer to if a customer is no longer wanted because of reasons which you should always state within your TOS and AUP.

Conclusion

With the use of affordable web hosting packages along with a website where SEO has been applied in an effective way with an appealing design, you should receive a good amount of visitors which should lead to a good amount of custom at your benefit. Also, with the implementation of reselling domains and other services you should build a solid hosting business; all of these factors added together will help you make the host of your reseller package.

Blogs are online journals in which people write about things - whether it be the ramblings of their life or tutorials to help others along. The word ‘blog’ comes from the word ‘weblog’, and has many words which derive from it; these words being: blogger and blogging. The word blogger is the name given to the author of the blog, and blogging the name given to the process of writing to a blog; the world blog can also refer to the process of writing to a blog. Blogs have been becoming more popular over the last 2 years, and as of July 2007 there are around 70 million active blogs on the internet. If you are looking to start your own blog, there is no time better than now to do so.

To start your own blog, there are certain factors which you need to work out before you start anything, there are:

• What you are going to blog about.
• Your intended target audience.
• The name of your blog.
• Whether you are going to use a free or paid blogging service.
• If you are going to pay for a hosting service: what blog software you are going to use.

What You Are Going to Blog About

The most important factor to consider when starting your own blog is what you are going to blog about; this is because the content of the blog will determine how successful it is: if you write about personal stuff then your blog is not going to gain much traffic, as the only visitors will probably only be friends or family; if you write posts which will help others out in any way then they are most likely to recommend your blog to others which means that it will gradually gain traffic.

Identifying Your Intended Target Audience

Once you have worked out what you are going to blog about, you need to work out who is most likely to visit your blog, and why; this is important because when you come to promoting your blog, you want to make sure that you are promoting it to the right group of people. This also plays a huge part in the amount of visitors that you receive; if it’s only family and friends visiting your blog then the amount of traffic that you receieve won’t be a huge amount, however, if people are finding and visiting your blog from web searches then they are most likely to be returning visitors, and will recommend your blog to others.

The Name of Your Blog

You can name your blog anything you want, you can even name it after yourself. However, most blog names are normally linked to the blog’s subject in some way or another. The name of your blog must be simple to say, and easy to remember; simple names are more likely to stick in people’s heads which means that if people can remember the name and address of your blog then they will most likely recommend it to others.

Using a Free or Paid Service

There are many different services which you could use to host your blog. You could use a free service which gives you a sub of their main domain name; the main downside of free blog hosting services is that they normally fill your blog with unwanted adverts. The following is a list of free blog hosting services which you can use to help get you started:

• http://www.blogger.com/ - Blogger is Google’s free blog hosting service. It is one of the most popular in the world. The adverts that they place are rather discrete and blend in with the chosen design. The address given is normally ‘blogname.blogspot.com’.
• http://www.cjb.net/ - CJB.net run a free blog hosting service along with a range of other free services. Adverts placed by them aren’t that discrete and don’t blend in with the blog. The url provided is normally ‘http://blogs.cjb.net/blogname’.
• http://www.wordpress.com/ - Witth Wordpress.com you can create your own instance of the popular open source WordPress blog system, but hosted on their servers. The url provided is normally ‘blogname.wordpress.com’.

If you are not tempted to use a free blog hosting service, then you buy a cheap web hosting package with a web host along with a domain. With paid blog/hosting services you have full control of your blog and don’t have forced advertisements displayed. You can then install one of the following free blog software packages:

• http://www.wordpress.org/ - Wordpress is the world’s most popular open source blog system.
• http://www.b2evolution.net/ - B2Evolution is another piece of popular blog software. It is different from Wordpress in the way that you are able to create multiple blogs within one installation.
• http://www.mephistoblog.com/ - Mephisto is a relatively new piece of open source blog software. It is different from both Wordpress and B2Evo since it was written in the up and coming RoR scripting language.