WhoIsHostingThis

The big day has come and it’s time to move to a shiny new hosting account. Whether you’re upgrading to a larger account to handle your traffic, getting away from a bad host or simply getting a better deal, you probably want to make the move go as smoothly as possible.

However, everyone has heard stories about hosting moves going bad, resulting in hours, even days of downtime and it is enough to make any sane Webmaster worry a bit about making the jump.

Fortunately, you can easily move your site or sites without experiencing any downtime whatsoever. If you do the move correctly your data will be safe and your visitors will be almost completely unaware that you’ve changed anything at all. That is, until they see how much faster the new server moves.

Here’s the seven steps you need to take to ensure that your host transfer goes as smoothly as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Most bloggers and other hosting customers seem to be pretty happy with their host. However, if you’re among the minority who are not, you need to ask yourself the question: Why am I staying here?

Whether you’re fed up with slow servers, too much downtime, bad support, high prices or just not happy with what you’re getting, you need to get out as soon as possible.

Yet, whenever it comes time to pack up and move to a better host, excuses for why they have to or want to stay are legion. Even if their host is bad enough to actively be doing harm to their site, many simply do not want to move even though the consequences of staying are much worse than the consequences of leaving ever could be.

So here’s a look at the top 5 reasons bloggers give for staying with a bad host and why they are absolutely insane. Read the rest of this entry »

No matter what you may think about it, GoDaddy.com is one of the few Internet brands that people who don’t spend all day on the Web immediately recognize. It’s up there with Google, Yahoo and other giant companies of the Web, at least in terms of recognition, and it is one of just two brands (the other possible one being Hostgator) from the hosting and domain industry that your computer-fearing relatives may actually recognize.

So when word leaked late last week that GoDaddy putting itself up for sale, it became instant news for the mainstream media. Everyone from the Wall Street Journal to Reuters was talking about it.

Much of the attention was on the estimated price for GoDaddy, which could reportedly go for as high as $1 Billion, and some of it was on the unusual timing, the middle of a deep recession, but the news seemed to catch most of the press completely off guard. But, as the public face of the hosting and domain industries, a fact most in the hosting industry are loathe to admit, the potential sale of GoDaddy drew a great deal of attention to an industry that doesn’t get a lot of press, that is, unless something goes wrong.

So what does the sale of GoDaddy mean for the hosting industry? It’s very difficult to say and the answer isn’t very straightforward, but I’ve made a few guesses below! Read the rest of this entry »

If you were looking for domain hosting in the mid-to-late 90′s, there was one hosting feature that every host was promoting: Server-Side Includes (SSI).

In a time where many sites were still built using raw HTML code and the main choice was whether to use a visual or a text-based HTML editor, SSI added a dynamic element to website development and made maintenance of a very large site much more bearable.

However, it is a feature that has been largely left behind, made obsolete by modern CMSs and Web development languages. Though nearly all hosts still support SSI, few mention it and almost no user actually takes advantage of it.

So what is SSI and why should you case? The answer is actually fairly simple. Read the rest of this entry »

The Internet is filled with great rivalries. Digg vs. Reddit. Apple vs. Microsoft. Facebook vs. Myspace.

Sadly, there are very few good ways to settle them. After all, which side you come down on is usually a matter of personal taste and not something that can really be based on fact.

However, one site dares to give us a way to put these rivals head to head in a way that is backed up by cold, hard numbers. Which Loads Faster?

This site loads any two Web pages side by side in your browser and, using client-side code, tracks which site loads faster, giving you raw data on the load times of each site and, most importantly, which was the quicker of the two. Best of all, you can repeat the test several times to ensure accuracy and, if you want create team matches with up to three sites per side.

However, for today, I’ve decided to put seven pairs of the Web’s biggest rivals head to head to see which of their sites load the fastest and the answers, in some cases, were nothing short of shocking. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve only been a hosting customer for the past few years, you probably take a lot of features for granted that those who have been around for longer do not.

Web hosting, like all technology-based industries, is a very fast moving one and the hosting accounts that users purchased just five to ten years ago look very different from the ones that are routinely sold today.

Though there are countless differences, one of the best ways to illustrate the changes is to look at five features you almost can not find a host without today but were almost unheard of just a short while ago.

Though most of these features were available and have been for some time, they were either extremely rare or very expensive, definitely not a part of a “standard” hosting package a regular customer would expect to get.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you run a Web service, or even just a network of popular sites, you know how difficult but important it can be to communicate with your visitors any technical issues that you might have. If a site goes down, you likely get barraged with emails from well-intended (or angry) visitors letting you know about the outage, even if you are fully aware.

Many companies worked to mitigate this problem by having “system status” pages that make it clear what services are online and which are not. This not only communicates the current situation to the visitor, but lets them know you are aware of the issues and working on them. More importantly though, it reaffirms to the visitor that the problem is system-wide and not just related to their use.

Google Apps has one of the more famous and better-loved system status pages, Craigslist has one in a blog-like format and OpenDNS has managed to combine the two styles.

But while these status pages can be great, both from a customer service and a convenience standpoint, they can be complicated to set up and operate, requiring new software to be installed (which can create its own set of reliability issues).

However, the remote site monitoring service has introduced a new WordPress plugin that will enable their customers to easily and effectively create a page like the one Google Apps uses and let their visitors know what the status of their service is.

Best of all, it is free and can be used with any self-hosted WordPress installation. Read the rest of this entry »

Barely a week ago I attended OpenCamp Dallas 2010, my talk there was on copyright and licensing issues but I also spent a great deal of time talking to other bloggers about an issue close to my heart: their hosting.

With Neospire Hosting and Layered Tech being a major sponsor of the event, it was a difficult topic to avoid but one that actually produced some of the best conversations of the evening.

So what did the bloggers there think of their current hosting situation? I had dozens of conversations over the days I was there and learned a great deal. However, some of the answers, quite frankly, surprised me. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you had a great experience with a host that you couldn’t be more thrilled about? What about a nightmare experience that you just couldn’t wait to get out of? Either way, you may want to share your experience with others who are looking for hosting to act as a sign post to direct potential customers on where to go.

There are many sites out there that allow you to post hosting reviews, including this one and read what others have to say. It’s a great way to have your voice heard and then catch up on what others are saying.

But not all hosting reviews are created equal. If you want your review to be heard and taken seriously, you need to make sure that you do a good job not only conveying what you want to say but saying it in a way that others will listen to. You don’t have to be a master poet to write a good review, but you do have to know what people are looking for and what they don’t want.

Doing so will not only help you write a better review, but will help that review have a greater impact and will be well worth the time and effort you took to submit it. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in June, I penned an article about five lies your host may be telling you, aimed at debunking, or at least questioning, some of the more common marketing claims that hosts use.

However, the misinformation doesn’t necessarily end when you’ve become a customer. In many cases, the fibs have only begun.

To be clear though, that doesn’t mean that your host is a bad company or even doing anything wrong. As you’ll see, many of the lies you’ll likely hear after becoming a customer are, quite frankly, for your own good. Though they are all aimed at keeping you on board as a customer, a lot of it is about ensuring that they can provide you the best service possible.

Still, it is well worth being aware of what these lies are so you can be on alert and, perhaps, know how to not ask questions you don’t want or need the answer to. Read the rest of this entry »