Tips for Web Hosting
Web Hosting Sin #1: Too Few Databases
All blogging software, all forum software, and darn near every cool Web application you can think of requires a database in order to function. Unfortunately, most shared server packages only offer between 1 and 5 databases, thereby limiting your ability to expand with new sites or to experiment with new ideas.
In my opinion, this is completely unacceptable. If I want to see if I can tie 10 databases into one WordPress installation, then by god, I ought to be able to do that! Sadly, this would be an impossible task with just about every shared server package I’ve ever seen.
Because of this limitation, I have resorted to purchasing more expensive plans that offer more flexibility. Remember my first inadequate server that I told you about earlier? After that terrible experience, I opted for a more expensive server that cost me roughly $550 up front, and the primary reason why I went with the more expensive unit was because I could have unlimited databases.
But seriously, a $300 difference over a few databases?
What a joke.
Web Hosting Sin #2: Too Few Domains Allowed
Probably in an attempt to curb spammers, Web hosting companies usually limit the number of domains you can have on a shared server. Oftentimes, the limit is between 1 and 5 domains, but just like with the databases, this really affects your flexibility over time.
Want to start that new site you’ve been thinking of lately? Too bad, you’ll have to buy new hosting because you’ve already maxed out your domains.
Oh, and here’s another gem from the crazy world of Web hosting… I’ve seen shared server accounts before that would let you have 5 domains but only 1 database. If every site on the planet requires a database to run, how the hell can you run 5 domains with only one database?
Sanity? Anyone?
The bottom line—and the thing you really need to know here—is that good shared server plans will offer you at least 20 domains, and even better ones will let you add as many as you like (usually up to 999).
Web Hosting Sin #3: Crappy Developer Support
So, that new version of WordPress you want to run requires MySQL 4.0 or higher in order to work properly? What a shame, because your junky shared server only runs MySQL 3.23 and hasn’t been updated since 2005.
Of the three cardinal sins I’ve listed here, this one is probably the easiest to avoid. However, developer support is the ultimate litmus test for any Web host, and you can bet your bottom dollar that if the company you’re looking at doesn’t consider developers a priority (we’re a raucous, complaining bunch), then they damn sure won’t consider you a priority.
No matter what hosting package you’re looking at, make absolutely certain that you see support for the following developer tools:
- PHP
- MySQL
- Ruby on Rails
- Python
- CGI
- .htaccess
- cron jobs
Source: Web Hosting
Optimize the size of your JavaScript and CSS
Minimize HTTP Requests
80% of the end-user response time is spent on the front-end. Most of this time is tied up in downloading all the components in the page: images, stylesheets, scripts, Flash, etc. Reducing the number of components in turn reduces the number of HTTP requests required to render the page. This is the key to faster pages.
One way to reduce the number of components in the page is to simplify the page’s design. But is there a way to build pages with richer content while also achieving fast response times? Here are some techniques for reducing the number of HTTP requests, while still supporting rich page designs.
Combined files are a way to reduce the number of HTTP requests by combining all scripts into a single script, and similarly combining all CSS into a single stylesheet. Combining files is more challenging when the scripts and stylesheets vary from page to page, but making this part of your release process improves response times.
CSS Sprites are the preferred method for reducing the number of image requests. Combine your background images into a single image and use the CSS background-image and background-position properties to display the desired image segment.
Image maps combine multiple images into a single image. The overall size is about the same, but reducing the number of HTTP requests speeds up the page. Image maps only work if the images are contiguous in the page, such as a navigation bar. Defining the coordinates of image maps can be tedious and error prone. Using image maps for navigation is not accessible too, so it’s not recommended.
Inline images use the data: URL scheme to embed the image data in the actual page. This can increase the size of your HTML document. Combining inline images into your (cached) stylesheets is a way to reduce HTTP requests and avoid increasing the size of your pages. Inline images are not yet supported across all major browsers.
Reducing the number of HTTP requests in your page is the place to start. This is the most important guideline for improving performance for first time visitors. As described in Tenni Theurer’s blog post Browser Cache Usage – Exposed!, 40-60% of daily visitors to your site come in with an empty cache. Making your page fast for these first time visitors is key to a better user experience.
RSS Feeds
RSS or Really Simple Syndication, as it is commonly known, is a technology that gives webmasters the ability to easily distribute and publish syndicated content on the Internet. Once the feed is cached it will be read from the local hard drive for a specified amount of time. After the specified time has lapsed, the RSS feed will be fetched again. This allows the contents of the RSS feed being displayed to remain current, while expediting the whole process. Cache RSS feeds reduce bandwidth usage. The bandwidth is reduced because the web server does not have to repeatedly fetch the same RSS feed from your server.
Turn on HTTP compression
There’s a finite amount of bandwidth on most Internet connections, and anything administrators can do to speed up the process is worthwhile. One way to do this is via HTTP compression, a capability built into both browsers and servers that can dramatically improve site performance by reducing the amount of time required to transfer data between the server and the client. The principles are nothing new — the data is simply compressed. What is unique is that compression is done on the fly, straight from the server to the client, and often without users knowing.
HTTP compression is easy to enable and requires no client-side configuration to obtain benefits, making it a very easy way to get extra performance. This article discusses how it works, its advantages, and how to configure Apache and IIS to compress data on the fly.
Why Compress?
Most user’s knowledge of compression is from compressing a group of files that they download, extract, and open. But compression can also be used passively to compress documents as they are being transferred to a client’s browser. Because it’s a passive process, the server can reduce the size of the pages sent, therefore reducing the download time for users and their bandwidth usage.
Working the numbers helps clarify the gains. You can typically reduce an HTML document to less than half of its original size. This, in turn, halves the amount of time the client needs to download the page as well as the amount of bandwidth required. All of this is achieved without actually changing the way the site works, its page layout, or the content. The only thing that changes is the way the information is transferred. Unfortunately, there are limitations.
Suitable File Types
Not all files are suitable for compression. For obvious reasons, files that are already compressed, such as JPEGs, GIFs, PNGs, movies, and ‘bundled content (e.g., Zip, Gzip, and bzip2 files) are not going to compress appreciably further with a simple HTTP compression filter. Therefore, you are not going to get much benefit from compressing these files or a site that relies heavily on them.
However, sites that have a lot of plain text content, including the main HTML files, XML, CSS, and RSS, may benefit from the compression. It will still depend largely on the content of the file; most standard HTML text files will compress by about a half, sometimes more. Heavily formatted pages, for example those that make heavy use of tables (and therefore repetitive formatting content) may compress even further, sometime to as little as one-third of the original size.
Fortunately, with most HTTP servers it’s possible to select which types of files are compressed so the effects of trying to compress non-compressable data is limited.
Source: Server Watch.com
Switch to an external image provider
Preferably, we shouldn’t have to serve up any images at all: we can outsource the hosting of our images to an external website. There are a many free or nearly-free image sharing sites on the net which make this a viable strategy:
Be sure to read the term of service of these sites before using it.
How to reduce your website’s bandwidth and storage usage
Here are some tips and tricks to lessen your bandwidth and storage usage in your website. Each tips will be explain as we go on.
Unlimited Bandwidth and Storage is Fake
Unlimited Bandwidth – for real?
The right answer for the question is a “NO”.
The truth is unlimited bandwidth is only possible if the website hosting company possess their own internet broadband company. If they have own broadband company, then it is possible to offer their customers unlimited bandwidth per second.
So why do unlimited bandwidth hosting plans exist?
However, that’s not the full stop for our story.
To be fair, the bandwidth limitations we are talking about here are almost incomprehensible and would never be reached by a single website. Thus in practical, a hosting company could actually (very much) offer virtually unlimited bandwidth to its client.
Most websites only consume a very small amount of bandwidth and disk space. Web hosting companies that provide unlimited anything as a plan feature are banking on the fact that you won’t use very much.
This is the controversial area between truth and falsehood upon which marketing claims feed.
Source: Webhostingsecretrevealed
Free Blog vs. Paid Hosting
Pros of Free Hosting Platforms
- Cheap or free to run – Most hosted options are free
- Quick and easy to set up – Most of these sites like blogger or wordpress can be setup within a few minuetes. After filling out some personal info/signing up and picking your template. Ideal if you know nothing about html.
- Simple to Use – Once you get past the easy setup process, blogging will be very easy. It will be as simple as filling in a few text boxes and clicking publish. Blogger and Wordpress also have widgets/gadgets sections to add to your blog.
- Search Engines – Many of the free hosters are already hosted or linked from sites that attract search engines. For example Blogger is hosted by google themselves and is very easy to get indexed in google with them.
Cons of Free Hosting Platforms
- Configuration – With a free service the only options you will have are those available to you, this may not be a problem for you, but you will have fewer choices than self hosting.
- Templates – You will have fewer options on templates and designing your templates. People will be using the same templates over and over again, so your blog will look similar to others.
- Ownership – Not having complete control and ownership over there blog. You own your content, but the url is not technically your own and are at mercy of the platform if there blog is working or not working.
- Generic URL – There many successful blogs on free hosted programs, but bloggers believe that having your own url is easier to link to and more professional. For example your generic urls will look like with example.blogspot.com or example.wordpress.com.
- Upgrading or Moving to a New Host – If there comes a day you want to move your blog to a paid hosting program you will have a lot of work to do and will have to rebuild all of your links.
Pros of Paid Hosting Platforms
- Full Control – Depending on you knowledge with technology and web design, paid hosting blogs generally are very adaptable. Have full control over any aspect of your blog.
- Flexibility – One of the things I love about wordpress of self hosted platforms is the vast amount of plugins which will make your blogging easier.
- URL – Having your own domain like onlinemoneyspot.com is easier to remember, more professional, and easily brand able.
Cons of Paid Hosting Platforms
- Complicated – Again, this depends on your technical and web design knowledge. But most paid options include 1 click installs for programs like wordpress., making it easier to use.
- Cost –You can find free self hosting sites like 000webhost, but you will still have to pay for a domain name. But paid programs have way more features and most of the time will get you a free domain. For paid hosting I recommend justhost and godaddy for domains.
- Updates –Blog platforms go through different versions and changes over time, and can get complicated
Source: Online Money Stop
Tips on Blogging
Tips for creating a blog.
There are no hard and fast rules on how to blog. Having said that, bloggers will likely increase their exposure by following some simple blog guidelines.
- Stay on topic.
- Stay informative.
- Old news is not news.
- Adhere to a schedule.
- Clarity and simplicity.
- Keyword-rich.
- Quantity matters.
- Frequency.
- Spell checking and proof-reading.
- RSS.
Free Blog Host
Beside of Wordpress and Blogger there are still lot of free blog hosting services in the internet, few of them are the following, you might want to try those blog host also;
- GreatestJournal.com
- InsaneJournal.com
- JorunalFen.net
- LiveJournal.com
- Blogabond.com
- BlogCheese.com
- BusyThumbs.com
- Freevlog
- Trippert.com
- Ufem.com
- Word Count Journal.com
- Xanco.com
- Blogetery.com
- BlogRox.com
- Blogsome.com
- Edublogs.com
- Blog.com
- Blog Ladder.com
- Blogr.com
- BlogSpirit.com
- Blogster.com
- BlogYx.com
- Bloki.com
- Bravenet.com
- ClearBlogs.com
- Etribes.com
- Multiply.com
- Netcipia.com
- Open Diary.com
- ShoutPost.com
- SoulCast.com
- Squarespace.com
- Terapad.com
- Tooum.com
- Tumblr.com
- Weebly.com
- Windows Live Spaces
- Vox.com
- Xanga.com
- Yahoo 360
- Zoomshare.com
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