Monday, October 13, 2008

Inexpensive Web Hosting

Inexpensive web hosting is great. Inexpensive web hosts are not. There are a ton of cheap/budget/inexpensive web hosts in the industry and they all follow the golden rule, YOU PAY FOR WHAT YOU GET. Web hosting is an extremely competitive field and this has been good for people like me and you who are trying to buy web hosting because it has driven prices down. Prices can be as low as $2 per month. The problem with that is along with the prices the service from the web hosts has also been driven down.

There are thousands of web hosts out there and they offer all different levels of web hosting that all cost different amounts. Shared hosting is the least expensive and therefore most popular type of hosting. Most web hosts in the industry offer this type of hosting for very cheap. These web hosts are companies trying to make a profit. In order for them to make a profit when they are selling such a cheap product they have to sell it to a lot of people in order to make a good profit. This means their servers have to handle more people, their support staff and system has to handle more people, you share the space on the servers with more people, and more than likely their IT staff has to handle more hardware and software problems because of the overload of people. This can all cause major problems and plenty of headaches for website owners. This is why many small web hosts fail because they simply do not have a big enough business structure to handle the load they would have to in order to be profitable business. It takes a big time web host to handle the load of customers they would have to have, but even they can still have some of the same problems.

So How Do You Get Inexpensive Web Hosting?


Fortunately there are ways to get inexpensive web hosting without resorting to going with low quality web hosts. You have to be a smart shopper in order to do this. The highest priority when you are looking for a web host is finding an all around quality web host. Second to that is price. Two strategies for getting high quality web hosting while at the same time getting inexpensive web hosting is to use web hosting rebates from sites like http://www.rebaterabbit.com/ or coupons from sites like www.couponcraze.com. You can get a lot of money off the cost of web hosting by using these sites. Getting money off gives you more options. If a web host costs $15/month they more than likely have higher quality web hosting than a web host that costs $2/month but, the $15 web host is just out of your budget. If you go to one of the sites above it can be in your budget after you get the money off. A Rebate would make it so you could get the quality of the $15 web host for the price of the $15 web host. Getting the best quality web host while also getting inexpensive web hosting is the best of both worlds and it is possible if you are a smart shopper and you shop around before you buy too quickly. Good Luck and Get Started!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

IXWebhosting

RebateRabbit will give you a $40.00 web hosting rebate after you sign up with IXWebhosting. With our rebate web hosting from IXWebhosting will end up costing you just $19.40 for your first year instead of the normal cost of $59.40 per year.

Price: $4.95
Space: 600GB
Bandwidth(Transfer): 6000GB

Normal Cost Per Year: $59.40
After Using RebateRabbit $19.40
You Save: 56%

The Web Host:

IXwebhosting is one of the top shared web hosts in the industry. This award winning web host got their start in 1999 and has been improving ever since. They are number three on hosting-review.com's top 10 list. They are good for small business and personal web hosting needs. IXwebhosting has solutions for both Linux hosting and Windows hosting.

IXWebhosting's Hosting Plan:

IXWebhosting basic hosting plan comes with great bonuses that most basic hosting plans do not offer. One such bonus is the fact that even with their basic hosting package (which they call their Expert Plan) you can host unlimited domain names with unlimited data transfer. That is something that almost no other host's offer with their basic hosting package. They also have deals with Google and Yahoo! among other search engines that enable them to offer up to $558 in free advertisements. Other features of their plan include 2500 email accounts scripting for all sorts of languages. They also are known for their great web statistics tools. These are just some of the features. If you would like to learn more visit their website.

IXWebhosting's Servers & Support:

IXwebhosting has their own data center operated out of the state of Kentucky in the United States . They have a fault tolerant system to ensure the fastest possible load time. They have SONET reliability, CISCO 12000 servers, and they run 750 servers. IXWebhosting has great support they offer all forms including live chat, email(ticket), and phone. All of the forms of support are 24/7 and the people you talk to are courteous and helpful.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Save $65 off hosting from EasyCGI

RebateRabbit will give you a $60.00 web hosting rebate after you sign up with EasyCGI Hosting. With our rebate web hosting from EasyCGI will end up costing you just $35.52 for your first year instead of the normal $95.52 per year.

Price: $7.96/ Month
Space: 350GB
Bandwidth(Transfer): 3500GB

Normal Cost Per Year: $95.52
After Using RebateRabbit: $35.52
You Save: 63%

The Web Host:

EasyCGI became a web host in 1998 after being an internet service provider for 4 years before that. They host over 25,000 domains to date. Windows hosting is more expensive than linux hosting because of various license fees that the web host has to pay which explains why their monthly price is slightly higher than most of the other web hosts on our site.

EasyCGI Basic Web Hosting Package:

EasyCGI is one of the few hosts to offer windows web hosting. With their basic web hosting package they offer a myriad of features such as 500 POP3 email accounts, 50 MySQL databases, and support for all types of languages. They offer free tools such as website builder. Their control panel is a basic version but it gets the job done and its very simple and easy to operate. These are just some of the features. If you want to learn more visit their website.

EasyCGI's Servers and Support:

EasyCGI maintains their own data center which is located in the same facility as their corporate headquarters which allows them to easily monitor and quickly fix any problems that will pop up. EasyCGI is well-known in the web hosting industry for reliable customer support. One downside is that they do not have 24/7 live chat support. However, they do offer 24/7 support by either phone or email.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Lunarpages Host Review

RebateRabbit will give you a $50.00 web hosting rebate after you sign up for hosting with LunarPages. With our rebate web hosting from LunarPages will only cost you $33.40 for your first year instead of the normal cost of $83.40 a year.

Price: $6.95/month
Space: 1500GB
Bandwidth(Transfer): 15000GB

Normal Cost Per Year: $83.40
After Using RebateRabbit: $33.40
You Save: 60%

LunarPages Review:

LunarPages got started in 2000 when Add2Net Corporation expanding its hosting offers into shared hosting. They have three datacenters completely run by LunarPages technicians. According to their website they host websites for 150,000 customers and they have 100 staff members. They are one of Hosting-review.com's top 10 web hosts. Overall LunarPages has a great reputation as one of the overall top web hosts in the shared web hosting industry.

LunarPages Basic Web Hosting Package:

LunarPages offers a ton of space and a ton of bandwidth, much more than most people or small to medium business would need for a website. They offer features such as unlimited databases and unlimited email accounts, along with support for all types of languages, and frontpage extensions. You also gain access to tons of website templates.

LunarPages Servers & Support:

LunarPages has three data centers in California and Nevada. They are operated completely by LunarPages' technicians, none of it is outsourced. This means that they will always have great service and uptime and if there is a problem there will not be a middle man to deal with which means no miscommunication and quicker problem solving. LunarPages is very good with their support. They can always be reached by phone or email and they also have a great forum that can help you out big time with any questions you may have. They give you a call to verify your account when you set it up and help you with anything you may need. They are also very fast answering email support questions which makes them stand out from the rest of the hosting industry.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Highest Hosting Rebates

Hey all,
I wanted to take the time to highlight some of our best deals on hosting:

IXWebHosting: IXWebhosting is a great host. They have plans to handle hosting for all different types of websites. They also have great support to answer any questions you may have. RebateRabbit offers a $40 rebate for IXWebhosting.

EasyCGI: EasyCGI is one of the top windows web hosts. They offer 3 different plans and all of them include a full script library, ASP.NET 2.0, and 99.9% and as with all hosts on our site they offer great support and they are able to be contacted 24/7 through phone or email. RebateRabbit offers a $60 rebate for EasyCGI.

Midphase: Midphase is a top host offering both linux and windows hosting. They have budget(shared) hosting, virtual private server hosting, and dedicated hosting. They have solutions for all different kinds of websites and they are able to help you with their support. They have the most extensive support database. They offere support blogs, video, community help, and ways to contact them 24/7. RebateRabbit offers a $60 host rebate for Midphase Hosting.

These are just three of the 16 hosts supported by RebateRabbit. We offer the highest rebates for all our web hosts and all our hosts are carefully selected and are some of the top hosts in the industry.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Small Business: How to Find the Right Web Host

So, you created an ecommerce website on your computer and you’re ready for the world to see it. There are tons of options for you to choose between. You could use a computer in your home that is dedicated to your website, but to be frank doing this can be very technical and it will definitely be time consuming and expensive.

What you need is a web host. A web host is a company that stores all the parts of your website such as: the pages, the html, and the scripts and they also connect your site to the internet so the world can see it. There are webhosts that provide free hosting, but they put ads all over your site and have restrictions on things like space and bandwidth and usually there is little if any support.

Your best bet is to go with a commercial web host. They are more geared towards the small business/ ecommerce world. You have literally hundreds of web hosts to choose from and all them offer different space, reliability, and price packages. Here are some good questions to ask when selecting a web host for your small business website.

Is Your Hosting Reliable? Reliability is a major concern among small business website owners. You never want your website to be down because if your sites down that means you’re not converting traffic into sales. You want to look for at the very least 95% uptime guarantee, but many hosts offer 99% and up uptime guarantee.

What type of Space/Bandwidth do you offer? You will want to make sure they offer enough space to hold your website in the plan you’re looking for. You will also want to make sure they offer enough bandwidth per month for the amount of visitors you will have. If you go over the limit there will be a charge. Watch out for oversellers who promise a ton of space and bandwidth but don’t deliver. Make sure you check the host’s terms of service and resource usage policies.

How good is your support? Support is an extremely important part of any host. They should have multiple ways to contact them including ticket system, live chat, and phone. They should be able to be contacted by either live chat or phone 24/7/365. Make sure you test the support and call in and ask them questions to test their competence.

How do you Handle Security? Ask them how they secure their datacenter and if they have secure servers and SSL certificates. Security Socket Layer (SSL) is a protocol that allows the secure communications to take place over the internet. This is important for doing business transactions over the internet.

How do you backup your servers? The web host should back up the data you have on your servers. You will want to make sure that if something happens to your website for any reason you will be able to recover the information that is lost. Make sure that the information is yours and not the hosts. This is an important question to ask the host.

Do you provide shopping cart software? Many hosts provide shopping cart software as part of their package. You’ll want to make sure the host you pick has shopping cart software as most ecommerce sites will need this software in order for their customers to buy products.
How much control do I have? You will want to make sure you are able to use a variety of background applications like PHP, PERL, and CGI Scripts. These allow you to truly create forms and a website that are tailored to your business.

How much will it cost? Shared hosting should not cost more than $20 per month. With that being said you don’t want to put too much weight on price because you want to worry about the factors above in a host than you do about the price. You can also use rebates and coupons to make the same hosting cheaper. Either way hosting can be one of the cheapest parts of starting a business.

What type of perks do you offer? Many web hosts have deals with other companies especially when it comes to marketing tools. Some perks are credits for Google Adwords or Yahoo! Search Marketing. There are also things like free Sitepal characters. You don’t want to put any weight on the perks when selecting a webhost but if all else is truly equal than it can’t hurt to take advantage of the perks a certain hosts offers. Also some hosts offer other services like web design and this is something to look into if you do not want to create your own site.
There are many things you have to do when creating a small business. Do not overlook choosing a web host. Don’t jump quickly into this because you could regret it. Do the research, ask the questions, and choose the host that is right for you. Good Luck and Get Started.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Shared Hosting vs. Dedicated Web Hosting


Here are some comparison points to look at when you are deciding whether to go with Shared hosting or dedicated hosting

Shared Hosting:
Shared, or virtual, hosting is when your website shares the space on a web host’s server with other websites. Each server has its own IP address which means if you choose shared hosting not only are you sharing the space, but you are also sharing the IP address with every other site on that server.
Benefits:
· Price- One of the biggest benefits of shared hosting is the price. Shared hosting is cheap running anywhere from $4.00-$20.00 per month.
· Ease of use- Shared hosting is good for those just getting into web hosting because most web hosts make it very easy to set up and do a lot of work for you.
Drawbacks:
· Slow Server Response- if your site is on web hosts server that has a ton of high traffic websites this will cause yours to load a lot slower. Think of it like the line at the bank if your 2nd in line you’ll be served a lot faster, but if your number 12 in line it is going to take a lot longer for you to get served. One thing to do before selecting a host is to ask them what types of sites are allowed on their servers and also how many sites are allowed per server. When you get a hosting account try to find out what the other websites are like that are sharing a server with you.
· Server Crashes- Most web hosts only allows certain types of CGI scripts on their servers. This is done with good reason because a poorly written one could crash a server and take all the websites it was sharing it with down.
· Who you are sharing with- If your site is on the same server as a known spam site this can cause problems for you as well. Your site may share the same IP address as the spam site which will cause problems with search engines and could even get you banned from them. This is bad for all types of websites
Dedicated:
Having dedicated web hosting is when you have your own server in the host’s datacenter. There is no sharing the server space, IP address, or CPU usage. You control everything that happens on the server.
Benefits:
· Control/Security- There is no one else sharing this server. Everything that happens on it is something related to your site. You can choose how the server is configured. You can host unlimited domains, with unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, etc. Another great advantage is the fact you get SSH access which allows you to control the server. The whole server is yours.
· Fast Response with High Traffic- Since you are not sharing anything with anyone else your users don’t have to be in the bank line. They are always the first in line to be served and this makes for a lot faster load time.
· No penalties- With shared hosting if you use too much of the host’s resources (such as CPU, bandwidth, or space) there are penalties you have to pay. This is not the case with dedicated hosting because it all belongs to you.
Drawbacks:
· Price- Price is about the only drawback to dedicated hosting. All the great features and security of dedicated hosting cost a decent amount of money starting anywhere from $75/month to a couple of hundred dollars per month. You have to make sure that dedicated hosting is the right thing for you before you select it.

Good Luck and Get Started!

Steve