SOHO Internet

A match made in heaven? Far from it methinks. It seems that Microsoft are admitting that live.com has been a significant disaster for them and are looking to do what they do best - buy better technology. If you look back over the years, many of Microsoft’s flagship products were acquisitions rather than creations of their own.

One has to wonder though, whether they would allow Yahoo engineers to ‘take the reigns’ or whether they would expect to have their engineers ‘tweak’ Yahoo. Only time will tell. Obviously there are two main choices … amalgamate Yahoo with live.com or continue both as separate entities but share ideas and research in the ‘back room’. One thing is for certain though … regardless of what their collective minds come up with, they have little hope of taking a significant piece of the search pie.

If you have landed on this post it is probably because you were searching for help with web hosting, free web hosting or looking for someone to explain web hosting to you.

Sit back and relax … your search is at an end. I’m going to answer some of the most important questions about web hosting that the others don’t usually mention. For example, most guides will tell you to look for a host that has good uptime and is reliable. That’s not something you, the average Joe or Joanne, can measure. If you are looking for information about what web host to choose then the chances are that a whole lot of specifications and numbers to look for aren’t going to help you at all. So, lets begin at the beginning.

What Is a Web Host and Why Do You Need One?

A web host is an internet service provider who has one or more servers on which you are permitted to upload files and have them viewed on the Internet. You need one because operating a web server that serves files to the Internet isn’t as simple as installing a program and running it. You will most likely have your own domain name and in order for that domain to be visible on the Internet it has to be properly configured on Domain Name Servers (DNS) which tell the rest of the Internet where your domain can be viewed. It’s like a massive telephone book except that instead of having peoples names and telephone numbers it has domain names and IP address numbers. If you plan on running any scripts such as blog scripts, address books etc, then the web hosting server has to provide support for that as well. I’m not going to go into all the technical details, but suffice to say that you should now be able to see that web hosting isn’t like running your Microsoft Word program. It requires technical knowledge and expertise in several Internet protocols and procedures.

How About Free Web Hosting?

Have you ever heard of TANSTAAFL? It stands for ‘There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch’. If you decide to place your web site on a free host then keep in mind that you don’t generally get any guarantees as far as performance goes and your website will probably be ‘embellished’ with advertising that is placed there by the free host. Most free hosts make their money through the advertisements that are placed above, below or within your web site. That’s not a very professional look if you are trying to promote a business. It’s fine for hobby or personal sites, but how seriously would YOU take a business if you could see that they were hosted on a free web host?

So How Do I find The Right Host For My Site?

Most guides will tell you to look for things like a minimum of 500MB of hard drive space, some random amount of bandwidth and blah, blah, blah! Let’s break it down to the basics though. There are basically two types of sites. Little ones and big ones. Yup, it’s that simple. Well, perhaps we should also say little ones that hope to be big ones some day. If you are just starting out then the chances are that your first site is going to be a little one. Let me define ‘little’. It’s a website run by an indicidual or a small business person who wants to sell a few bits and pieces, or put up a few affiliate links, offer advice etc. The site you are on right now (yes, my site) is a ‘Little’ one. Little, in hosting terms, can be a web site with several hundred pages, some videos and some downloads. Big, on the other hand, is a web site with thousands of pages, archives of old pages etc. Sites like CNN, Microsoft, Apple for example are BIG sites. If you plan on going that big then you need to be hiring your own IT professional to oversee your team of webmasters and designers!

Chances are that you just want to get your business on the net, so lets stick with ‘Little’ sites for the moment. Now rather than fire a whole lot of numbers at you I’m simply going to say ‘trust me’ and tell you why. I’m only going to recommend one host (though I can think of several that I’d be happy to recommend) and tell you why I’m doing that as well. I’ll even provide two links. If you click on one of the links, I get a small commission. If you click on the other I don’t. Whilst I like commissions, just like anyone does, I don’t want you to think my recommendation is tainted by that. I was using this particular host long before I knew they had any sort of affiliate program.

Anyway, enough of that … the first thing I’m going to say is CPanel.

Why Should I Use CPanel?

Every hosting account has some sort of control panel. Some are very good and some are very very bad. CPanel just happens to be one of the very good ones and is used by many of the largest internet hosting companies. Like anything it has a learning curve but the latest CPanel has a whole lot of videos to show you how to do things like add email addresses, password protect some of your content and do all of the things you might need to do with your hosting account. There are also many good guides and videos elsewhere on the Internet. Another advantage of using a hosting company that has CPanel is that if you ever need to change hosts then you will more than likely be able to change to another host that has CPanel and avoid the learning curve. On the other hand, if you use a host that has their own control panel then you are back at square one.

Unix Is Better Than Windows

Bill Gates and some of his followers would tell you otherwise, but the reality is that there is much greater support for Unix based web hosts than Windows web hosts. Unix has been around a lot longer than Windows and has always been the primary operating system that Internet servers have been hosted on. Most of the Internet protocols such as TCP/IP were developed on Unix and Unix servers tend to be more stable than Windows servers. The only time you would want a Windows web host would be if you were going to upload a script that was written specifically for a Windows server.

So … we’ve learned that we are going to have a ‘Little’ web site and it should be hosted on a Unix web host with a CPanel control panel. You’re probably still wondering about those other numbers and factors though. Unless you have lots of videos and files that you will be offering, 250MB should be more than enough disk space. The same goes for bandwidth … it’s relative to whatever you have on your web site. Web pages are small. Videos and some files are big. If your site is mainly web pages with pictures then 1GB (1000MB) of monthly bandwidth will be much more than you would ever need.

Now, about that host I’m going to recommend. I’m recommending them because of the one thing that far outweighs any numbers or specifications … it’s called real life experience. Yes, I’m recommending based on my own experience of having had ‘Little’ sites and ‘Big’ sites hosted with them. The hosting company is HostGator. Go with the ‘Baby Croc’ if you think you might set up more than one web site. Go with the ‘Hatchling’ type if you only plan on having the one web site. Click on one of the links below to find out all the nitty gritty details!

HostGator (Affiliate Link - I get paid if you sign up)

HostGator (Bare Link - I don’t get paid if you sign up)

One thing I have learned (the hard way) is that it is easy to half finish jobs. I’ve read countless stories about internet marketers and entrepeneurs who start working on projects with some great ideas and a lot of enthusiasm, only to move onto something else before the current project is complete.

It’s easy to become sidetracked … especially on the Internet. You start working on a new site which is going to make loads of money and secure your future, and then you see or hear about something else that is going to ‘take the internet by storm’ or ‘make you a millionaire’ and instantly you forget about everything you’ve been working on and start creating another ’sure thing’.

At some point, most likely when your credit cards are maxed and you’re wondering how you’re going to pay the bills - you will realise that you are working your butt off but getting absolutely nowhere. I’ve been there. Over a period of around 18 months I purchased more than 100 domains and built maybe 50 sites and blogs. I probably made a couple of hundred dollars over that time. Why? BecauseI kept moving on to new things and either left sites incomplete or simply didn’t take the time to develop and promote them.

When people say that you can make a living online they are telling the truth. But it takes time, effort and more than anything, focus, to build a successful online business. You’re not going to make money by throwing up a web page or two and waiting for it to happen. It’s like any business. You need to provide something that is useful and good value. Once you have a good product or service, you have to promote it. When you start to make some sales you have to back your product up with good customer support. If it all sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Running a business on the Internet is much the same as running any business. Build your product, attract some customers and provide good service.

I’ll be adding some links to the ‘Building Your Business’ page soon so keep an eye out for that. There’s a huge amount of free information out there that can help you build a succesfull online business

Well.. I’ve moved the SOHO Internet site to a different server anyway! It’s been living on a server at GoDaddy for over 12 months now and I had a minor database problem recently so I figured it was a good time to close the GoDaddy account and move this site to one of my own servers. It will save me a few dollars and gives me a chance to give the site a much needed facelift AND change it’s purpose and content.

Way back when I first created the site it was going to be a membership portal with some free internet marketing bits and pieces as well as other services such as hosting and general consulting for small businesses. How things change in 12 or 18 months!

I got caught up on internet marketing for a while there until I realised that I’m much better off sticking with what I know … IT consulting, system admin and programming. So, this site will be as much a personal site as a business one with some regular ramblings by yours truly and a few links here and there to free tools and information.