Clickfire Viewpoints, Tools and Content for Webmasters

Clickfire talks to Denis Motova, affiliate manager at HostICan. We asked Denis about the HostICan affiliate program, overselling and rumors about a new dedicated web hosting offering.

Thanks for taking the time to give the Clickfire visitors some behind the scenes insight into yourself and HostICan. Could you start off by introducing yourself and telling us how you came to be where you are at HostICan?

Thank you for giving me this interview. My name is Denis Motova, I’m the current affiliate manager at HostICan. I have been with HostICan since day one, so you may call me an “Old Hand”.

I’ve worked in the QoS (Quality of Service) side of the house for a while, and then finally moved over to the affiliate sector (when they needed more help). I have been working there ever since, providing our partners and affiliates with assistance as and when they need it.

Do you have a sense of who the typical HostICan customer is? Is he/she a corporate tycoon wearing a three piece suit sitting in his office suite or a pajama clad weekend webmaster kicking back in a loft?

From what I’ve seen most of the customers seem to be web savvy webmasters, or folks that are new to the web.

This is great; folks that are new to the web are the next generation of customers and webmasters. So it makes me happy to see / hear that new folks are going online to further expand their new or existing business.

How does HostICan serve the needs of the average webmaster?

HostICan is one of a few companies that I have worked at / for. In my experience it is also the best one I’ve ever worked for. The company constantly innovates, and works on new features and ideas.

We have a new feature set coming out that will expand the customers tools by about 15%, which will allow customers to achieve their results faster without having to really dig deep to find an answer to their questions.

There are many more features that will be provided, they are currently in development but, they will be out very soon… which is going to make a lot of customers very happy – I saw them in an internal demo at the companies show and I said wow! Literally.

I suspect that a lot of webmasters who have been able to monetize their sites with low cost shared web hosting are moving to dedicated hosting. I hear HostICan has a new dedicated product coming out. Can you tell us about the product? And, will it have cPanel?

Yes, the rumors are true. We do have a new product coming out. Its something that I have been reviewing from time to time, and I must say I’ve very excited about it.

Its going to focus on a certain market segment and allow us to expand our presence in that field while providing high quality service, that HostICan has become known for.

Yes! cPanel is one of the many options that this new product will have. We will support approximately three different version of the product on release with different options, but cPanel will be front and center.

Let’s talk a bit about the HostICan affiliate program. I know you recently migrated from Commission Junction and created your own program. Some affiliates are fans of the big networks. Why the move and what advantages does the current HostICan affiliate program offer over your competition?

Yes, this is true too. In my personal experience I have found that CJ (Commission Junction) is a great network. However, they don’t deliver the affiliate or the merchant the results that an in-house program can.

For example, CJ charges 30% commission on top of what you pay the affiliate, so if you pay the affiliate $100 per sale, you have to pay $30 to CJ meaning that you pay $130 total.

So instead of paying CJ 30% why not just give it directly to the affiliate? I think that would be much better. Hence I decided to take the program in-house as I feel that we can offer better value working directly with the affiliate.

One of the advantages of working directly with HostICan is we can provide higher commissions that we would be able to provide on a large network, and can provide higher performance bonuses to top performing affiliates.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that we provide FREE iPods to our best affiliates to show them how grateful we are for their support.

Where can someone sign up for the HostICan affiliate program?

Signing up for the HostICan Affiliate Program is easy and quick. Simply go to http://www.hosticanaffiliate.com and click the large “Sign Up!” button… and you’re on the way to making money!

HostICan seems to be pretty serious about capturing market share and growing aggressively. Where do you see HostICan going over the next few years in terms of growth?

Although it’s hard to tell the future, I look forward to HostICan growing in its current market share and being able to provide even more tools and features to its subscribers and allowing them to continue to grow their business. One thing we strongly believe in at HostICan is that success of our customers is our success.

Everyone seems to be discussing the business practice of overselling, ad nauseam, these days. Do you have an opinion on overselling? Does HostICan do this and if so how do you ensure that customers get their due disk space and bandwidth in times of high usage?

While I can not say that overselling is bad or good, we must really look at the cause of the problem rather then the façade.

When shared hosting started out originally, the offers where 10 – 50 MB (back then it cost from $15 - $70/mo) for one shared hosting account! But as we started getting more and more into PHP, XML, AJAX, JavaScript, the needs started to grow and expectations started to rise from customers.

Then we hit into a “media” age where music, movies, and things like this needed to be incorporated into websites, which drove the space and requirements even more…

So many hosts now rely on overselling their plans to be able to add more customers into their servers to make up for the lower prices and constantly growing cost of server software and hardware.

There are a couple of ways overselling, the light weight version and heavy version. Its ok to oversell a little like 2 – 3 more accounts per server, but not 100’s of accounts.

At HostICan we use a SAN network where the data is stored in a large array of hard drives, which allows us to add more drives and easily expand our hard drive capacity as much as 50% at one time.

You seem to have a lot of energy and enjoy your job. What do you do for fun? Not that web hosting isn’t fun

Yes, I really enjoy my job. After all, if you don’t enjoy your job, you can’t expect to be very good at it, especially in such a highly competitive industry.

For fun, I enjoy playing golf and tennis, and do some wakeboarding (when I get some time, and its not freezing outside)

Once again, thanks for having me on, I really appreciate it.

I wrote this SEO fiction for a SEO contest a while back. I had a lot of fun with this and simply cannot resist sharing. No worries, you’re safe from SEO poetry.

Retsambew Dash Klat for Charity

“You heard about retsambew dash klat for charity?” Bo Lynn asked.

“No,” Skippy said. “What’s that?”

“It’s between a guy and a girl. They get together real close and surf the Internet together. If the right search comes up, it’s like magic… whoa, well, that’s about all I can say right now. Trust me. It’s good,” Bo Lynn explained.

“Where do they do this retsambew charity thing?” Skippy demanded.

“Anywhere,” Bo Lynn said. “It’s best if it’s dark though, I heard.”

“Tell me more!” Bo Lynn insisted.

“They sit next to each other, mashing and pulling on the keys together while they search, post and submit links. Pretty soon they’re all hot and sweaty and sticky-like,” he said. “When they find it, the girl screams “retsambew dash klat for charity!” Then, it’s over. They start the same search again the next day. It’s supposed to go until September 1st.”

“How come they do this retsambew dash klat for charity thing?”

“Just for fun,” Bo Lynn replied glibly. “A guy up in New York was the first to try it. Now everyone’s doing it. You have to use something called Google. I know because I saw my brother and sister-in-law find it one time on their computer. He’s caught up in it too. He calls himself a “webmaster.” I asked him to explain and he said I’d understand when I got older.”

“I still don’t understand what retsambew dash klat for charity means. Where can I try it? Do I have to go to New York” Skippy asked?

“No, you just have to type it in Google and see if it comes up in the right place,” Bo Lynn said. “Tell you what,” Bo Lynn said. “I’ll bring my brother’s laptop tomorrow. Meet me in the bathroom at first recess.”

---

“Google sure doesn’t look like a very big web site.” Skippy said, nervously.

“It’s the biggest and best. You’ll see,” Bo Lynn said.

“Man, I can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“What if my Dad finds out? He told me to stay away from Google. I didn’t know it was a little web site, though.”

“He won’t find out.”

“But what if he does?”

“He won’t know what Google really is.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s mostly young folks who use Google. Can’t you see how simple it looks with just the letters G-O-O-G-L-E written there? It’s like a kids toy, so, parents shouldn’t care. But, the truth is there’s a lot of stuff behind it that parents don’t like. You know how your dad hates computers.”

“Yeah, but he was young once too, and smart. He got my Mom to marry him when she was only sixteen.”

---

“Mama,” Skippy said. “You know about retsambew dash klat for charity?”

“Where did you hear that word, son?” She asked.

“In the neighborhood.”

“From whom?”

“Bo Lynn.”

“It must be a bad word, then.”

“I just thought you might know.”

“Well, I might. Any clues?”

“He said something about a guy and girl who surf the Internet together real wild and hollering until they find it. Said it goes on until September 1st.”

“I do ever declare,” she said, intrigued.

“Bo Lynn acts like it’s catching on pretty big.”

“Tell me more, Skippy.”

“That’s about all I know.” “You sure? Try to think.”

“Well…It takes something called–”

“Yes, Skippy. What?”

“Google.”

---

“Hubert,” called Francine, his wife. She waited a moment.

“Hubert,” she repeated. “Put down that monstrous dictionary. I need to ask you something.”

“I am listening, Francine,” droned Hubert, her husband, continuing his lexical perusal.

“You ever heard of retsambew dash klat for charity?”

“No, Francine.”

“I hadn’t either until Skippy mentioned it. Apparently, it’s some new Web site youngsters play with. A boy and girl embrace each other and roll around in a frenzy while typing some gibberish into an Internet device.”

Hubert whisked off his glasses and looked at Francine, then put them back on, then took them off again.

“Seems to be a great deal of ruckus involved,” she resumed. “I don’t know what to make of it.”

“What on earth is the objective?”

“I’m not sure. Skippy wasn’t either. That’s why he asked me.”

“Sounds a bit violent for child’s play. And dangerous.”

“I’m afraid that it might spread to the neighborhood.”

“Who informed Skippy of this practice?”

“Skippy heard it from Bo Lynn.”

“Bo Lynn!”

“There’s something else,” Francine inhaled deeply. “It’s a web search piece, some sort of frolicsome tool both participants use. It starts with the letter G.” She paused.

“What is it?”

“I can’t recall. Gargoyle or GirlGirl or something like that.”

---

“Bo Lynn. Meet me in the bathroom at first recess. Bring the retsambew dash klat for charity.”

“Changed your mind, I see. Figures. The more you dwell on retsambew dash klat for charity, the more it grows, until you have to face it. I know. I know.”

“I can’t get it off my mind.”

“I’ve got an idea!” Bo Lynn said, convincingly. “Let’s try it on Lucy.”

---

“Francine. Francine,” Hubert signaled his wife. “I have a theory.”

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“I think that I have determined the significance of retsambew dash klat for charity.”

“No one at bridge last night had heard of it. What do you think it is?”

“I studied a few psychological journals and took notes on the relationship of the Internet and youngsters coming of age in modern society. The consensus is that there is a link between the erratic behavior you described and certain primitive practices found in adolescents.”

“Yes. Go on.”

“The G word that Skippy mentioned may be grammatical gender, the activities that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles. Add this to the orgiastic grapplings and groanings, and we stumble upon a very ancient human function. Francine, retsambew dash klat for charity is the very act of sexual intercourse. We used to do it ourselves.”

“Hubert, don’t be silly.”

“I am quite serious, Francine.”

“They don’t sound like the same thing. Besides, children don’t know about such things.”

“They must have discovered it somehow.”

“Not retsambew dash klat for charity. It’s something new. They’re not the same.”

“But they are, Francine. The characteristics match.”

“I don’t think you and I have ever retsambewed.”

---

“Lucy,” Bo Lynn shouted. “Come here, quick-like.”

“What is it?” She said, approaching.

“We need your help.”

“I’m in a hurry,” she complained. “What do you two want?” “We found this new thing for fun.”

“What’s it do?”

“It’s on this Google thing. If we search Google together, we’ll eventually find retsambew dash klat for charity.”

“What do you mean?” She said. “I’ve gotta go.”

“No, wait! You’ve probably never heard of retsambew dash klat for charity, but it makes everyone close.”
“What’s the purpose?”

“I don’t know exactly what is for. It’s the latest thing. It’s more fun if we do it together.”

“I don’t mind. Just tell me what I get.”

“Now, Skippy! Google it!”

All three watched in silence as Skippy held the laptop in his shaking hands. He tore open the main search page and then paused and tried to type the words retsambew dash klat for charity into Google search box.
“Do it, Skippy,” Bo Lynn exhorted. Skippy’s hands shook more intensely.

“I can’t spell it!”

“Go ahead, before she leaves,” Bo Lynn said.

Skippy tried to grip and unfurl it, but his wet, waggling fingers were unable.

“Don’t be afraid!” Bo Lynn yelled.

Finally, after typing frantically, Skippy was able to get the correct words in the Google search box: retsambew dash klat for charity. Grinning, he extended the laptop monitor toward Lucy.

“Sorry, boys,” Lucy said. “I’m in a hurry. See you later.” She dashed off, ignoring the the Google search results for the keyword phrase.

“Lucy! Come back!” Bo Lynn yelled to her disappearing figure. “Lucy!” Skippy echoed.

“Silly girl don’t understand its power yet,” Bo Lynn concluded. “One day we’re gonna retsambew.”

---

“Francine! Francine!” Hubert screamed terrifyingly as he dropped his dictionary and jaw. “Don’t move son!”

“It’s just Google, Dad,” Skippy said, stretching the laptop monitor to his gaping father.

“What’s going on in here?” Francine demanded, entering.

“Skippy’s holding some kind of technosexual device,” Hubert warned. “Be careful.”

“Mama, you told me to bring it to you.”

“The retsambew dash klat for charity thing. It’s right there at the very tip top of Google,” she wailed. “Hubert, you were right.”

“We tried to find retsambew dash klat for charity with Lucy,” Skippy admitted, “but don’t worry, it didn’t work.”

“Oh my!” Francine shrieked. “I’m calling Lucy’s parents right away.”

“Listen to me, Skippy!” Hubert instructed. “I want you to take that laptop and slowly set it down on the kitchen counter– here’s some wax paper–then I want you to scrub your hands in the sink with detergent and water. Hard! Son. I’ll call for help.”

HostGator (review), now based in Houston, started operations in 2002 as a Florida based company. A 1,300 mile drive northeast takes you to the home of HostICan (review), a company that was born in 2003 in Glen Allen, Virginia. While HostGator strives to “eat up the competition,” HostICan is busy providing “Unmetered Bandwidth.” The two hosts occupy similar areas of the hosting market. This review comparing HostGator and HostICan will look at the details of each in order to allow you to make an informed decision to select the right host.

Both HostGator and HostICan offer shared and dedicated hosting. HostGator also provides reseller hosting and HostICan provides Virtual Private hosting. The offerings of each host are summarized below:

HostGator

Shared: Linux (and Windows was coming soon at time of writing)
Reseller: Linux
Dedicated: Linux (Red Hat and CentOS) and Windows
Control Panel: cPanel for Linux, Plesk for Windows

HostICan

Shared: Linux
Virtual Private Servers: Linux and Windows
Dedicated: Linux and Windows
Control Panel: cPanel for Linux, Plesk for Windows
Merchant Accounts

If you are in need of a specific type of hosting the above information is helpful in deciding which host to choose. For example, if there is an interest in reseller hosting, the choice must be HostGator because HostICan does not provide this service.

Bandwidth

One of the main things that sets HostICan apart from their competition is that they offer unlimited bandwidth on their second tier plans. They offer two tiers of hosting plans in each hosting category: The first tier is limited bandwidth, and the second is the unlimited. HostGator only offers unlimited bandwidth on their highest shared hosting plan, but not on any other plans. Therefore if unlimited bandwidth is of value on VPS or dedicated plans, HostICan may be the choice to make. Unlimited bandwidth from HostICan can only be used for website related content, so the bandwidth cannot be used to host a download site. HostGator does not allow torrents.

Support

Support provided can often set two hosts apart. In the case of HostGator and HostICan, both hosts provide 24/7 support via toll-free numbers and email. Live chat is available from HostGator around the clock, but is provided by HostICan only during certain hours. Take a look at each host’s respective reviews individually for more information regarding the quality of support each host provides.

Money Back Guarantees

There are other important concerns when comparing hosts such as uptime and money-back guarantees. Both HostGator and HostICan guarantee 99.9% uptime. HostGator “eats up” the competition with their money-back guarantee of 45 days while HostICan provides the industry standard of 30 days. Both hosts also offer rewarding affiliate programs.

Conclusion

When choosing between HostGator and HostICan it will likely come down to what services each offers as they are both quality hosts. The specific numbers for price, disk space and bandwidth change often so check them out right before you are about to buy and see where each hosts stands for what you are looking for. If you need virtual private hosting, the choice has to be HostICan, but if you need reseller hosting you have to go with HostGator. Although you are bound to be satisfied with either host, the details can often be the difference between simply being satisfied and being happy with a host.

WWW.HOSTGATOR.COM vs WWW.HOSTICAN.COM

Web Go is continually expanding it’s service line and giving customers another reason to come onboard: Free Domain Names. Starting out as a promotion over Christmas Web Go decided to extend the offering indefinitely as a result of demand. Here’s Web Go’s experience…

A lot of we hosts often like to spruik their services, and allot do give more than most hosts. But people are often left scratching their heads, and are left wondering more often than not, “What am I getting for the money I pay?” Web Go started fielding these questions from existing customers and potential customers from all over the world. We were left about as stumped as they were, we couldn’t understand why some people might perceive our company as not providing more services and utilities than what was already on offer. We then decided to change all that, admitting that the great service, and excellent reliability probably wasn’t enough. We agreed there was something missing and we wanted to share the success of our business with our loyal and new customers. So starting out in December 07 we started offering free domain names to new and existing customers on the proviso that a new account would be opened or an existing account that stayed with us past 3 months was eligible. The results really speak for themselves. We noticed new and existing customers coming in and sharing in the fruits of an industry that is sometimes reluctant to give more.

Has your web host given you a reason to stay with them? If not, why not? Web Go is committed to providing excellent service, excellent reliability, value for money, and above all a free domain name for new, transferring and existing customers. On top of all of that Web Go still provides its services to Australian’s and people from all around the world at true value for money prices and our unrivalled genuine customer service is one our proudest achievements.

 Where does Web Go profit from all of this? We don’t. Web Go has always seeked to ask why the current industry is getting away with what we like to call, “Highway Fork Robbery.” It came as no surprise that a few close competitors started offering the same thing very quickly. As a result we have changed to a small degree the industry here in Australia, and are determined to do more. Competition needs to provide not just rock-bottom low prices with little or no customer service, or slow and jam-packed servers. It needn’t cost the earth either, but in our experience we believe any web hosting company should back up their services with offers, coupons and free trials, as well as special discounted rates for pensioners. Above all, the need to offer more has never been greater in the current economic climate. Whilst some companies may be doing it tough, the giving can result in good dividends to ride out the wave of cash flow and other related problems.

The benefits of giving a service, such as free domain names have never been greater. Customers who receive them are grateful, and more often than not customer retention will go up. In Web Go’s experience the time is right to start offering domain names at no charge. For the industry to improve and take on the 21st century challenges that lie ahead particularly in high-tech, every stake holder must choose to either move forward with innovative ideas like this one, or be left behind.

Both Lunarpages (review) and HostICan (review) are established web hosts. Lunarpages was founded in 2000 in California. HostICan, a new host, was started in 2003 and is based in Virginia. The two companies have similar service offerings, but as always, it is the small details that can make the biggest difference. This review of Lunarpages and HostICan compares those small differences so that you can make an objective decision on the right host for you.

Each host offers various shared, virtual private server, and dedicated hosting plans. Lunarpages also offers reseller hosting, while HostICan does not. The offerings are summarized below:

Lunarpages

Shared: Linux and Windows
Virtual Private Servers: Linux and Windows
Dedicated: Linux and Windows
Reseller: Linux
Control Panel: cPanel for Linux, Plesk for Windows
Sitebuilder plan

HostICan

Shared: Linux
Virtual Private Servers: Linux and Windows
Dedicated: Linux and Windows
Control Panel: cPanel for Linux, Plesk for Windows
Merchant Accounts

Bandwidth

A big difference between the two hosts is that HostICan provides “Unmetered Bandwidth.” They define this as no restrictions on bandwidth or how an individual uses it. In HostICan’s terms of service, they do restrict the use of this unlimited bandwidth so that it may not be used for the purpose of providing a download service for movies, torrents, images, etc. They require that the unlimited bandwidth be used for website-related content only. HostICan offers two tiers of hosting, with unmetered bandwidth only available on the second tier plans. Since Lunarpages only offers one plan in each hosting category, HostICan’s unmetered plans are not compared below.

Shared Hosting Plans

The shared hosting plans at each host offer similar features. The pricing on the most basic plan may even look identical ($6.95 at the time of writing). Yet look closer and you will find that the pricing stated at each host is for their longest billing cycle. At the three month billing cycle, Lunarpages is two dollars cheaper a month, and they offer much more disk space and bandwidth than HostICan (1,500 GB vs. 600 GB and 15,000 GB vs. 6,500 GB, at time of writing).

VPS

When it comes to virtual private hosting, Lunarpages offers more disk space and bandwidth and charges less for any given billing period. Lunarpages offers one plan each for Linux and Windows VPS, while HostICan offers the choice between two.

What about Dedicated Hosting?

It is more difficult to compare the two companies’ dedicated plans because their pricing, disk space and bandwidth vary widely. On their first tier dedicated plan HostICan provides more than three times as much disk space, three times as much bandwidth, twice as much memory, and about the same processor, but for $100 more a month. On HostICan’s second level dedicated plan you get their advertised “Unmetered Bandwidth” and roughly the same disk space and memory as Lunarpages for $30 more a month than Lunarpages. If the unmetered bandwidth is valuable to you, it may be good to choose HostICan.

Both hosts state that they provide 99.9% uptime. While HostICan guarantees this, Lunarpages only makes a promise that their uptime is within these limits. If uptime is critical, it may be worth going with HostICan as they back their claim with a guarantee.

Lunarpages wins on shared, virtual private, as well as dedicated hosting when it comes to price. If unmetered bandwidth is of value, then it may outweigh the cost savings to go with HostICan. Both hosts offer common features with their hosting, yet they do each have a few of their own unique offerings that may make up your mind for you. For example, if reseller hosting or a site builder is of interest, choose Lunarpages as HostICan does not provide these services. If a merchant account would be of value, go with HostICan.

The quality of hosting is bound to be good whether you choose Lunarpages or HostICan. Yet it’s likely you will find that those small details can really make all the difference.

www.Lunarpages.com vs www.HostICan.com

Free web hosting has been around just as long as paid hosting. If you think back 5 or 10 years (maybe even further), you can probably remember playing around with some free web hosting. I can very clearly remember my first web site from the late nineties, hosted at Angelfire. I later “upgraded” to Tripod and eventually found a free cPanel host. The cPanel host disappeared and I made the leap to paid web hosting. I haven’t looked back since.

Free web hosting hasn’t changed too much since it first started. The technology has improved, but free web hosts still offer far less space and bandwidth than most paid web hosts. Many of them still place ads on your free web sites. Others make you post on forums and become active in order to qualify for free web hosting. The exact offers differ from host to host, but there are common themes. Some major hosting companies (Lunarpages is probably the most prominent) started off as a free web hosts and then moved to paid hosting exclusively.

The adage of “you get what you pay for” seems to apply in web hosting. There is a huge difference in the level of service and support you receive from a paid versus a free web host.

Most free web hosts don’t offer any sort of company-provided support. If support is offered by free hosts, it’s usually very limited and very slow. There is not a reputable paid host that will require ads to be placed on your site, but many free hosts do.

When looking for a free web hosting company, the most important thing to consider is the reputation of the hosting company. Free web hosts come and go a lot. If one of them happens to go while you are hosted with them, your web site (and the time you spent creating it) could be gone forever.

If you see a free web host that offers some really nice features and plans, be skeptical. Providing high quality web hosting for no money is obviously not a sustainable business, so there is almost always a catch if the offer seems too good to be true. Free web hosts that actually offer an upgrade to paid hosting or that show ads are probably safer since the companies actually have business models and income to pay for expenses like servers.

Like with paid hosts, hosts that have been around for a while are a safer bet than those that are brand new. You want to see a company with a hopefully positive track record before deciding to move your web site. Free web hosts are a lot more likely to disable your site for no reason, so be sure to keep frequent backups of your work. If you don’t, you risk losing your data. Be sure to login to your account regularly because many free web hosts will disable accounts that they think are inactive.

With free web hosting, keep in mind that you don’t “own” your URL or web site address. Since most free hosts let you use a subdomain (i. e. freehostclient.clickfire.com) or a folder on their site (clickfire.com/freehostclient), they maintain ownership over your URL. Unlike with a top level domain (clickfire.com), you don’t own this URL and can’t take it elsewhere. If you build a popular site using freehosting.com/freehostclient as your URL, you have to stick with freehosting.com in order to keep that URL. Some free web hosts will let you use a paid, top level domain name (clickfire.com), but may charge extra.

Freewebs is a well known and reputable free web host. You can use their tools to create a full featured web site very quickly. The company has a nice wizard and set of WYSIWYG tools that non-technical web site creators can use to create a web site.

All of the free sites feature banner ads above the main site, but for $1.25 per month, you can upgrade the package and have the ads removed. Some of the features included:

• About 300 free templates
• 0.5 GB of bandwidth
• 40 MB of web space
• Site Builder
• Ability to easily add logos, edit header and footers, etc.

Before making the decision about which free web host to go with, Google the company’s name and try to find information about them. If they’ve been around a while, there are probably plenty of stories and experiences (good and bad) from current and previous customers. Like with any major decision, you want to do your research and be well informed beforehand.

Free web hosting is good for those looking to experiment with web hosting and the process of web site creation and maintenance. If you need a web site for your business or for something important, then it is worth the money to upgrade to a paid web host.

HostNine is a young, Jupiter, FL web host offering shared, reseller, and dedicated hosting. It was founded in 2006 by individuals with hosting industry experience. The HostNine.com web site presents them as a good choice for hosting, but it is also valuable to consider personal experience, as presented in this HostNine review.

Features and Pricing

HostNine provides flexible choices offering four different plans for both shared and reseller hosting, and three plans to choose from for dedicated. These plan offerings allow customers to select the option that suits them best, without having to pay for space and bandwidth they don’t need. While many hosts offer large amounts of space and bandwidth that many individuals will never use, HostNine offers a realistic amount that is adequate for most. For example, at the time of writing, the basic shared plan included 5,000 MB of disk space and 100 GB of bandwidth. This is sufficient if the plan is not being utilized for video or volume image hosting – which many hosts that offer large plans block anyway.

Shared

The shared hosting plans offer quite a bit less space and bandwidth than the competition, but again the allocations are suitable for the average user. Although it does seem that they could provide a bit more for the price, what they charge is definitely acceptable for what they offer, as they provide countless features.

Reseller

The reseller plans at HostNine include a unique feature. HostNine allows a customer to choose where they would like a reseller site to be physically hosted. A site may be hosted in one of eight U.S. or three global locations. Therefore, it allows the ability to manage multiple servers from one control panel. This relieves a reseller of the risk that all of their sites will go offline due to one server failure as sites are hosted across multiple servers. This is just one component of Reseller Central, which is HostNine’s proprietary reseller control panel. The reseller plans, like shared, offer slightly less than the competition in terms of disk space and bandwidth.

Dedicated

HostNine also provides hosting to those in need of dedicated servers. They have three different dedicated plans which are very comparable to those of other hosts, and which offer a good deal of features for the cost. The dedicated plans include WebHost Manager, the industry-standard control application for dedicated hosting administration. The dedicated plans are available with three choices of operating system: CentOS, RedHat, and Windows.

If the reason behind using a reseller or dedicated account is to resell hosting, a nice feature of HostNine is the ability to receive a complete reseller solution. They provide customers with ModernBill billing software, as well as a merchant and domain reseller account. Therefore, an individual is ready to effectively resell hosting without having to acquire the ancillary services elsewhere in order to do so.

Terms of Service

To demonstrate their responsibility for customer satisfaction, HostNine provides a 30 day money back guarantee on shared and reseller hosting, but not dedicated. The policy was once for 45 days, but has since been changed – a possible sign that too many customers cancelled between 30 and 45 days of service. When canceling an account, if it is canceled no sooner than 15 days before the next billing cycle a customer does not receive any penalty and they only lose the hosting fees that have already been paid. Therefore, if a customer thinks they may cancel for whatever reason, the monthly billing cycle should be selected as HostNine does not offer any discount for the selection of longer billing cycles. That way the customer would not be losing three, six, or twelve months of hosting that they prepaid for.

HostNine also guarantees industry-standard 99.9% uptime. In general, their terms are commonplace. They do explicitly state server limitations that users may not exceed, yet these are very reasonable. They do impose a “250 email limit per domain per hour” that applies to both shared and reseller hosting. Most individuals will fall well under this limit, yet this may pose a problem if the plan is to use the account to provide a help desk to service customers, or support a community – any situation where large volumes of emails may be sent or received through the server. In that case, it is required to make use of a dedicated plan, as their this email limit is not imposed on their dedicated hosting.

Control Panel

To allow a customer to effectively administrate their hosting account, HostNine provides the user with the industry standard cPanel control panel. cPanel allows for the easy administration of files, email, databases, domains, security, and more of the hosting account. It a commonly used application and provides excellent management features.

Reseller account customers are provided with the aforementioned Reseller Central control panel. This allows resellers the ability to easily manage their clients and control the sites they host.

Dedicated accounts are provided with the sister application of cPanel called WebHost Manager (WHM). WHM makes it just as easy as cPanel to manage an entire server and the hosting accounts that are served by it.

Testing

My tests of HostNine were favorable. My test site opened fast. When uploading a file, FTP responded quickly with the server. In a website speed test by HostPulse the test site ranked 10th among other hosting, with an average ping time of 21ms. On a traceroute test it required eight hops to reach the server, which compared to other hosts is good. During another speed test the speed of a page with a large amount of text yielded a rate of nearly 1,000 KB/s.

Customer Support

HostNine states that their sales, billing, and technical support services are provided 24 hours a day. Their toll free number is prominently displayed across their site. Some hosts force their customers to dial a local phone number, but HostNine does not. Although they claim 24/7 support via phone, live chat, email and instant messaging, I tested it on multiple occasions and found that it is not true 24/7 availability.

On one of my tests, I made a phone call at 9 PM on a Sunday. I was presented with a professional quality recording identifying the company as HostNine. After selecting the support extension, some annoying triumphant music filled my ear. After some time, the song replayed, and I waited, and it replayed yet again. Eight minutes went by before the system disconnected me and I was left without any service. I waited eight minutes only to be hung up on. It didn’t give me an option of any sort, or tell me to check the web site; I was just left staring at my phone! So much, I thought, for the 24/7 support via every possible medium. The instant message support was not available at that time either. So I tried the Live chat at 9:12 PM on that Sunday night. My approximate wait time was 4 seconds – perhaps I would get someone to answer my late night question. I had chatted with a sales representative half an hour earlier. This time I was connected to someone with that same name. Perhaps the support was understaffed that Sunday night? Maybe they just had the one guy at the time (the representative I later contacted could not say how many employees HostNine has on their support team).

After being connected with a representative this time, it took him 11 minutes to respond to my basic question with its obvious answer. He may have never responded if it wasn’t for me asking “Are you there?” after the first five minutes, which seemed to wake him from his late night slumber at the help desk. I do assume the support is in-house – he did have an American name and a good control of the English language.

The phone number, the live chat link, the screen names, and the email are all there, but it doesn’t mean you will get a timely response to any of them. They are available for you to contact 24/7 but it doesn’t mean you will get a response within a reasonable amount of time.

Later that night I tried sending them a support email. I sent the email at 9:28 PM and received a reply a 9:34 PM. That response time is good, but the reply was made by the same representative that managed the chat.

On a later date, I tested the phone support again. This time it was on a Saturday at around 3 PM. I placed a call at 2:57 PM and was connected after only a minute of hold music. The technical support representative I spoke to was clear, polite, and answered my question promptly without placing me on hold. This demonstrated to me that support is good during the day, but should not be relied upon late at night.

The overall support experience was good – though it was not truly provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week as claimed.

Conclusion

HostNine, as a whole, is a good host. They provide a good featuring offering for a competitive price and offer a wide array of services. They are especially a good choice for resellers as they provide a convenient, total solution through their Reseller Central control panel and merchant, domain, and billing services. The support is good, but is not available around the clock as claimed.

Bottomline: An overall good host backed by good support (when available) and a promising service
Pros: The ability to host sites on multiple servers with Reseller Central, complete reseller package
Cons: Support is not truly provided 24 hours a day as claimed, disk space and bandwidth is slightly more expensive than competition
Rating:

-Reviewed and tested by Kyle J. Summers

www.hostnine.com

Is there only one match out there for each of us? Dr. Helen Fisher, Chemistry.com’s Chief Scientific Advisor, doesn’t think so. Dr. Fisher believes there are multiple people in the world who are compatible for each of us, but she thinks there is more to finding a person like that than searching for someone who has a big list of things in common with you. You’ve got to have chemistry—hence the name.

At first glance, the Chemistry.com website looks like just about every other online dating site, but look closer and you’ll see multiple references to Dr. Fisher. By clicking on these, you can find out more about Dr. Fisher’s connection with Chemistry.com, her research, and her methodology for online matchmaking.

Well, I’ve gone ahead and done that for you. It turns out that Dr. Fisher hasn’t just endorsed the site in return for plugging a book; she is actually quite involved with the direction Chemistry.com has taken. Dr. Fisher has designed many of the questions for Chemistry.com, not only taking into account the usual personality, interest, and demographic questions, but also questions involving genetics, hormones, and other physical characteristics.

You also have the opportunity to view videos of Dr. Fisher’s answers to frequently asked questions. I must say she comes across as a lot less nerdy than that Dr. Warren from eHarmony. But enough about her; let’s move on to the sign-up process.

Chemistry.com Sign-up

The sign-up process in one of the most in-depth ones out there, but you’ll probably find it fun and enlightening if your goal is to be matched up with people on more than just the simplest of criteria. If you’re looking for the basics, there are always sites like Date.com and Matchmaker.com.

You’ll be asked some unusual questions like these:

• Is your index finger shorter or longer than your ring finger?
• Which of these smiles are fakes?
• How do you feel when you see a public display of affection?

I don’t want to influence anyone’s possible answers by explaining what they can reveal about one’s personality, but I will say that these questions combined with the more traditional personality questions really hit the mark on assessing my personality. In fact, I had my fiancée take the test, and her resulting personality type matched the one that Chemistry.com says fits me best.

After you finish filling out your new profile, you’ll see that Chemistry.com has a link to your top five matches. Some of my top five matches didn’t sound too appealing to me, but maybe Dr. Fisher knows what’s best for me. The only way to know for sure would be to meet the matches in person. Of course, Great Expectations is the matchmaking service best known for doing that.

There is no search function. Chemistry.com picks your matches, and the only way to get more is to rate the ones they’ve already brought your way. That’s good for increasing the level of feedback, but it’s bad for control freaks. Also, the only way to do any of this is by first subscribing, and the costs are pretty steep, especially when there is no way to tell how many members are in your area. Costs range from $49.95 a month for one month down to $26.65 a month for six months. That is about twice the cost of Yahoo Personals and a little more than Perfectmatch.com’s price of admission.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, an online dating site like Chemistry.com best fits those of us a bit on the detail-oriented (some might say anal-retentive) side. People simply interested in a quick sign-up and search are less likely to join, increasing your odds of being matched with like-minded singles. Therefore, if you’re the type of person who lacks patience and planning regarding the online dating scene, Chemistry.com won’t be your bag. In fact, you probably couldn’t remain undistracted long enough to finish reading this Chemistry.com review. Hey, look at that colorful ad in the margin!

Cartoons are popular, and can be used in magazines, books, newsletters, newspapers, catalogs, greeting cards, brochures, direct mail pieces…you name it. It’s been happening for many years. Along came the Internet and the explosion of the electronic information age. Now the use of cartoons in any electronic format has been elevated to yet another level.

Gag cartoon humor and the Internet have developed a symbiotic relationship which supercedes many other forms of visual conveyance, whether it be a story on a web page, a blog item, an Intranet article or specific area in a website devoted to cartoons or humor in general. Cartoons lend themselves well for this medium.

Dan Rosandich

Cartoonist Dan Rosandich took control of his existing archive of cartoon panels and categorized them into a searchable database, so that publishers and other professionals can easily locate the type of cartoon they might be looking for. Whether it’s a medical cartoon or a cartoon relating to pets, Dan makes appropriate gag panel cartoon humor available. Dan makes appropriate gag panel cartoon humor available. Visitors can sort through an archive of over 3000+ cartoons at Dan’s web catalog, by clicking the daily web cartoon at the top of this article.

Professional web designers can also use the daily web cartoon offered by Rosandich, which updates automatically via php script at 2am eastern time 24/7/365 and all that’s needed is a simple line of code to paste into your HTML. Dan guarantees all cartoons scheduled are 100% family friendly and the daily image is a static 500 pixels wide, but the height varies from day to day.

Custom cartoons & humorous illustrations are also a specialty. Some of the other uses where cartoons are also popular are PowerPoint presentations, email templates and email “blasts”, ezines, electronic newsletters, ebooks and for web templates. Dan also launched several new sites which can be accessed at http://www.danscartoons.com/web_sites.htm and he has introduced a free kid’s coloring book site at http://www.coloring-booksforkids.com

Comparing any two hosts is usually like comparing apples and oranges. Some of them (think: AN Hosting and midPhase) are very similar because one company owns the other, but when you compare two independent hosts that have radically different approaches towards business (such as 1&1 and HostGator), it’s like comparing fruits to vegetables.

HostGator (review) is a cPanel shared, reseller, and dedicated host based in Houston, Texas. The company hails from South Florida (hence the gator part) and moved to Houston in September 2006. HostGator is fiercely independent and uncommonly straight forward with its business and business practices. Their servers are leased from The Planet and are located in Texas.

1&1 Internet (review) claims to be the world’s largest and fastest growing web host. The German company is owned by United Internet AG, a conglomerate that serves as an ISP to more than two million German customers. The company’s newest datacenter is in Kansas City and they own or operate 4 others. 1&1 offers a lot of services ranging form exchange hosting to dedicated servers.

Which company you go with should primarily depend on what you’re looking for. 1&1 doesn’t offer cPanel and HostGator does exclusively. HostGator doesn’t offer SharePoint or Exchange hosting, but 1&1 does. The differences in services, addons, and incentives between the two hosting companies are huge – and change frequently.

Here is an overview of the services offered by each host:

HostGator:

• Domain registration
• Shared hosting (Linux only. Windows coming soon.)
• Reseller hosting (Linux only)
• Dedicated hosting (Managed. Linux only. Windows coming soon.)

1&1 Internet:

• Domain registration
• Email hosting (Exchange and regular)
• Shared web hosting (Linux and Windows)
• VPS hosting (Linux and Windows)
• Dedicated hosting (Managed and unmanaged. Linux and Windows)
• Eshops
• SharePoint

The pricing and plans from both of these web hosts are competitive. You’ll get more space and bandwidth than you could ever need for a reasonable amount of money. Like most web hosting companies, 1&1 and HostGator encourage you to signup for months and years in advance by offering discounts. They guarantee their uptime (99.9% at HostGator; 99.99% at 1&1).

One thing to keep in mind is the size of each host. 1&1 has over 3,000 employees. HostGator’s head count is around 150. There is going to be more personal attention with HostGator and you have a chance of talking to the same representatives. HostGator is largest enough where you don’t have to worry about it disappearing, but it is not huge like 1&1.

Both companies provide 24/7 support via the phone and over their respective helpdesks. Both 1&1 and HostGator have good reputations as reliable hosting companies that back their services. Both hosts offer sitebuilders with their shared hosting plans. HostGator offers a 45 day money back guarantee; 1&1 offers a 90 day money back guarantee.

You can’t go wrong with either 1&1 or HostGator. If you’re looking for a keep it simple type web host that offers good service at a reasonable price, go with HostGator. If you want more bells and whistles in terms of marketing and software extras or if you have requirements beyond standard web hosting, you probably want to go with 1&1.

It is important to look at the history and personality, as well as the services provided when considering web hosts. This web host review of sorts covers HostGator (review and rating) and Lunarpages (review and rating), two award-winning hosts which have many years of experience. HostGator was founded in Florida in 2002 and later moved to Texas. Lunarpages was founded in 2000 and is based in California.

The personalities of these two web hosts are very similar. Both hosting companies are comparable in size. HostGator employs about 150 people, and Lunarpages employs about 100 employees. Since both hosts are relatively small and neither has changed hands since their inception, they each maintain that “family feel” that provides their customers with a more personable experience. HostGator provides 24/7 phone support, but the phones at Lunarpages are only staffed on weekdays from 6-8. They both provide around-the-clock support via email help desk, and HostGator also offers live chat online. HostGator emphasizes their customer service as they prominently display their toll free number, while Lunarpages forces their customers to dial their California-based number. Neither company outsources their technicians. If a customer wishes to collaborate with others, Lunarpages provides a forum with about 36,000 members. HostGator customers are also provided access to a similar community with nearly 13,000 members.

Each host provides a quality level of hosting. HostGator’s network is comprised of four datacenters in Texas backed by 10 carriers. Lunarpages has three datacenters, all of which are located in the southwestern U.S. Both hosts provide 99.9% uptime, although Lunarpages does not provide a SLA guarantee for this while HostGator does. If either is found to be dissatisfying, it is helpful to know that both provide money-back guarantees. HostGator offers a superior money-back guarantee allowing a customer up to 45 days and allowing them to cancel unconditionally. Lunarpages offers a comparable guarantee, but only for 30 days and it only refunds certain things.

The basic hosting plans of each are very similar in terms of bandwidth and disk space. As expected, they are competitively priced.

An overview of the services provided by the two web hosting companies appears below:

Lunarpages:

• Shared hosting (Linux and Windows)
• Dedicated hosting (Linux and Windows)
• Virtual Private Servers (Linux and Windows)
• Reseller Hosting (Linux only)

HostGator:

• Shared hosting (Linux with Windows coming soon)
• Reseller hosting (Linux only)
• Dedicated hosting (Linux with Windows coming soon)

Both hosts use cPanel for Linux hosting and Lunarpages uses Plesk for Windows hosting.

Each web host provides some extra features that may be of interest to certain customers. Lunarpages provides their customers with at least one free domain for life, depending on the hosting plan. They also offer free design software. If a site builder is of interest, both hosts offer one as well as free design templates. HostGator provides a WYSIWYG editor with their site builder while Lunarpages does not. Both hosts offer affiliate programs that are very rewarding, with HostGator offering up to $125 per sale and Lunarpages giving $65 and up.

When comparing two similar hosts whose plans change often, it is useful to look at the defining qualities of each host, as these can often make or break them. For example, webmasters requiring the convenience of toll free telephone support will go with HostGator. With 99.9% uptime backed by a SLA and a 45 day money-back guarantee, HostGator may be the choice to make. Although, if Virtual Private Hosting is required, the best choice is Lunarpages since HostGator does not offer this service. You can be assured that both of these hosts are reputable, offer competitive services, and provide valuable means for service and support.

www.hostgator.com vs. www.lunarpages.com

HostICan is probably one of the lesser known hosts. Based in Virginia, they were founded in late 2003. Their slogan is “Unmetered Bandwidth” as they offer unmetered and unrestricted bandwidth on their upper level plans. Their customers generally consist of those with at least some knowledge of web sites and hosting as they don’t provide a site builder.

HostICan provides shared, virtual private, as well as dedicated hosting. They offer two plan levels for each hosting category and all upper level plans offer the unmetered bandwidth. Their virtual private hosting is available on both Linux and Windows platforms. For a control panel, HostICan offers cPanel as an option for all plans, as well as Plesk for VPS hosting, both of which are hosting industry standards for easy and efficient administration. As an additional service, HostICan can also provide merchant accounts through a partner to those who need to manage transactions on their web site.

HostICan’s plans likely are not the ideal choice for a new user since they do not provide a site builder, but the company does offer templates. Their hosting is priced a bit higher than some of the competition, but they offer large discounts (nearly 50%) if a two year billing cycle is selected. They don’t disclose that the advertised price is based on large billing cycles until you get to the order form. HostICan’s services are backed by a 30 day money-back guarantee that ensures satisfaction.

The customer service they provide is valuable as they offer 24/7/365 toll-free phone and email support. The toll-free number is displayed clearly on every page of HostICan’s web site. They also offer live chat online, available seven days a week from 8:30 AM to 10:30 PM. A searchable knowledgebase and flash tutorials that cover various aspects of the control panel interface, DNS management, FTP access, etc. are also available to customers. Although small, they have a forum community with about 250 members. This scope of a support offering is comparable to that of competitive hosts like HostGator.

The reliability of their hosting is backed by Equinix, a leading datacenter provider. Though backed by a reliable provider, HostICan only utilizes one datacenter, which is located in Virginia. They do provide a 99.9% uptime guarantee and if this is not met, they will refund one month of hosting to the customer.

During the review of HostICan, FTP access was fast and the test site loaded quickly. When your site is first created it creates some default pages such as a placeholder homepage and some default error pages with the HostICan logo and a few links. These should be changed, unless you want to give the company free advertising.

HostICan Customer Support

As part of my HostIcan review of customer support, I tested the HostICan live chat online and received a response to my question in less than two minutes. When submitting another support question via email I received an automated response that told me that “support staff representatives will be in contact shortly with a reply.” It also listed some support resources that I could check out in the mean time. My support email was sent on a Saturday at 4:01 PM. I received a response to my basic question four minutes later. Although my question was as simple as asking about a feature offering, the response time was impressive.

For the next part of the customer support review, I called their support on the same day with the same question and my phone call was just as quick. I was prompted by one level of options and then I was directly connected with a representative. The menu recording and the representative did not demonstrate a high level of professionalism. I had to listen to the menu twice to understand which option I needed to select as it was obviously not a voice studio quality recording, and the company name given didn’t even sound like HostICan. The representative I spoke to was nice enough when I asked him to repeat his question, but not impressively so. My basic issue was answered without being put on hold or having to wait at all. This conveyed to me that they know their service well and they care, although a more difficult question could have thrown them off. I was also glad that the support wasn’t outsourced and that I got to speak to a human quickly.

The conversation went something like this:

Call placed at 4:48 PM.
Prompt: Good afternoon and thank you for calling – what doesn’t even sound like “HostICan” –, an industry grade web hosting service provider, for technical or billing inquiries please press 1 (…continues with other options, I press one)
Me: Hi, I was wondering if Ruby on Rails is supported?
Rep: What plan? (Speech unclear)
Me: I’m sorry, what?
Rep: What plan are you talking about?
Me: Oh, just the shared hosting.
Rep: No
Me: Oh, okay, thank you. Bye.
Call ended 4:52 PM.

HostICan appears to be an overall good host offering competitive services and features. Their plans are a few dollars more than the competition, but their customer service is accessible and quick. They provide all of the qualities of a reputable host and at a reasonable price.

Pros: Accessible support with a quick response time, unmetered bandwidth on all upper level plans
Cons: Slightly more expensive than other hosts, no site builder for new users
Bottom line: HostICan is a good choice for individuals with at least some experience in web hosting and who are willing to pay slightly more for fast service.
Rating:

HostICan

HostGator (review here) is a top notch host. They provide quality support and have a good reputation as a quality hosting provider. All of the pros, cons, and benefits can be overwhelming, though. Here are the five best things about HostGator in my opinion:

1. 24 / 7 Support

Getting true 24/7 support from hosts is difficult. Many hosts claim to offer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but are not available have the time. Sometimes their night shifts are understaffed and the support is basically useless after hours. HostGator, though, provides true 24/7 support is available over the phone, live chat, and email whenever you need them.

2. cPanel 11

cPanel is a very powerful, industry standard control panel that comes with all of HostGator’s account. cPanel lets you manage all virtually every aspect of your web site ranging from emails to databases. The control panel is fully supported by HostGator and works great to manage a web site of basically any size.

3. 4,500 Templates

HostGator accounts come with 4,500 free templates. They are professional, high quality web templates. The templates are divided into about 50 categories ranging from accountants to web design.

4. Solid Guarantees

HostGator provides two solid guarantees: an uptime and money back guarantee. The 99.9% uptime guarantee means that HostGator will pay for a month of hosting if your web site is down more than 45 minutes per month. The money back guarantee means that HostGator will cover the cost of your hosting for the first 45 days if you are unhappy with your service and decide to cancel. These two guarantees give you an extra peace of mind and some compensation if things go wrong.

5. Generous, Affordable Hosting Plans

Like many shared hosting companies (essentially any large company), HostGator provides a lot of space and bandwidth for an affordable price. If you decide to pay a year or two in advance, the cost of HostGator’s plans gets very low. All of HostGator’s plans offer more than enough space and bandwidth for just about any web site.

HostGator is a good host with a great reputation. Like with any web host, though, be sure to do your research before signing up. With HostGator, you should find mostly good things, but this web host still may not be right for you.

WWW.HOSTGATOR.COM

Working at a web hosting company is a unique experience. The environment is technology-centric, the industry is hyper competitive, and the people all vary. There is no typical person that works at or owns a web hosting company and while many of the companies seem similar on the outside, most of them operate very differently behind the scenes.

I’ve covered the web hosting industry as a journalist since 2005. Through my reporting, I’ve covered and written about countless web hosting companies. While I can be considered a relative newbie to some people, the industry is still pretty new. Many of the industry’s hottest players and companies are young. The people are in their twenties and thirties and their companies have only been around for 3 – 5 years. It’s still easy for newcomers to enter the industry and make a significant impact. That is one of the reasons web hosting appeals to so many and is such a fast growing industry.

Intense competition can make working at a web host, especially in a marketing role, very difficult. Because the barrier to entry is so low, there are thousands of web hosting companies. Even when one ignores the very small companies (which still have customers), there are still hundreds of serious players in the industry. These serious players are extremely competitive and the competition for customers is fierce. They all try to out market each other, offer more features, and essentially differentiate themselves however possible. They increase space and bandwidth allocations (often in vain), promise better support, and load every imaginable feature onto a budget hosting plan. This can make a working environment stressful. However, many people like, and excel under, that level of stress and with such intense competition.

The web hosting business can be complicated. A large web hosting company is in charge of managing hundreds (sometimes thousands) of servers. There are thousands of things that can wrong with each of these servers, especially when you put a couple of hundred clients on each one of them. The abuse department at a sizable web hosting company will be deal with spamming, phishing, and pornography on a day to day basis. The three situations/problems are to be expected at a web hosting company. Tens of thousands of clients, hundreds of thousands of web sites, and thousands of servers make for a very complicated business. When businesses get complicated, operating the business smoothly can become very difficult.

When web hosting companies put “fast paced working environment” on their employment, they mean it. Working at a busy web hosting company can often seem like a blur because the businesses move so quickly. There is always work to do, the management is always busy, and something is always happening. A big web hosting company will see hundreds or thousands of questions come in from existing and potential customers a day. At most companies, 95% of these questions are pretty simple and can be solved by level 1 (usually the lowest level with the least experience) technicians. The rest have to be elevated to level 2 or level 3 technicians who have more experience. Elevations can be frustrating for customers and stressful for employees.

Some web hosting companies move slower, though. I’ve worked with and covered relatively small (under 15 employees) companies. At these companies, things are still very busy, but calmer. There are statistically fewer things that can go wrong and the staff at the smaller companies is often closer. The management at smaller companies is often more involved with day-to-day operations and has a closer eye on what’s happening at the front lines. Working at a smaller host is a much different experience than working at larger one. Who enjoys which environment more depends entirely on the person.

Something that is important to keep in mind is that the most finely tuned, most advanced web hosting companies can still be hectic. Rackspace Managed Hosting, one of the largest dedicated server providers in the industry, was hectic when a truck crashed into one of their power sources and a chain reaction of events caused one of their major data centers to go down. This happened at a web host with one of the most advanced networks and arguably the most technical talent of pretty much any web hosting company in the industry. What will happen to a particular host can’t always be predicted and it is that level of unpredictability that makes the industry so hectic.

A web host company organization vary’s depending on size. This is a very general idea of what a web hosting company org chart might look like:

• Top Level: CEO / Owner
• 2nd Level: Director of Customer Service, Sales/Marketing Director, CTO, sometimes a General Manager
• 3rd Level: Senior Administrators, Frontline Supervisors, Bookkeeper, Human Resources, etc.
• 4th Level: Level 1 and 2 Reps (Sales, Tech, Billing)

No matter what your title at a particular web hosting company is, if you work in the industry, be prepared for a set of unique challenges. You’ll deal with every sort of person with every sort of situation you can imagine. It’s fun most of the time and frustrating some of the time. Regardless of the situation and the company, working at a web hosting company is certainly a unique experience. If you enjoy a fast paced working environment that is constantly changing and evolving, web hosting might be for you.

HostGator (review) and DreamHost (review) are among two of the most popular shared web hosting companies. They are both well established companies with excellent reputations. The companies are pretty close in size (about 150 at HostGator, 70 employees at DreamHost) and host a comparable amount of domains (700,000 at HostGator, 500,000 at DreamHost).

HostGator and DreamHost have slightly different company cultures. A review of HostGator.com’s web site reveals it’s personal and informative approach. The HostGator web site doesn’t venture into humor or carefree talk. HostGator.com has few jokes. On the other hand, DreamHost likes to laugh at itself and sports a web site that contains obvious jokes and light hearted comments among more serious information. Some web hosting customers like the jokes, others don’t. Both web hosting companies, though, are highly technical and know when to take their work seriously.

HostGator’s shared hosting plans are competitively priced and offer a lot of space and bandwidth. Dreamhost has always offered vastly oversold (they admit it) and very generous plans. The entry level plan offers 500 GB of disk space and 5 TB of monthly bandwidth. Both numbers increase by the gigabytes each week. Both companies include plenty of email accounts, databases, etc with all of their plans.

DreamHost’s cheapest plan will cost you $7.95 per month if you pay for three years in advance. HostGator’s cheapest shared hosting plan is $4.95 per month if you pay three years in advance. HostGator’s next plan up (the Baby plan) offers more space and bandwidth than DreamHost’s comparably priced plan, but does not increase weekly.

Both web hosts offer lengthy money back guarantees. HostGator’s is 45 days. DreamHost’s money back guarantee period is 97 days.

It is important to note that HostGator uses cPanel exclusively whereas DreamHost uses a custom control panel. DreamHost’s control panel offers all of the expected features and is very powerful, but it is not cPanel. If you have a particular affinity for cPanel, DreamHost won’t be the choice for you.

As far as customer support goes, HostGator provides more options. All of HostGator’s plans come with unlimited, toll free phone support. DreamHost only offers 3 call backs per month for an extra $9.95 per month. HostGator also offers 24/7 live chat, which DreamHost does not. Both companies have active communities forums and extensive knowledge bases (a wiki in DreamHost’s case). Both companies provide 24/7 email support, though. At DreamHost, you have to be logged into to your control panel to send in a ticket. While it is purely a personal pet peeve, DreamHost does not publish its office address (they publish a PO Box).

Which web host you go with is entirely up to you. As always, spend time researching both companies. Since both companies have such generous money back guarantees, you can even give them a try and see which one you prefer.

www.hostgator.com  vs www.dreamHost.com

After failing to make a connection on OKCupid, I moved on More »

With speculation about the possibility of seeing Google Personal Ads, let’s review the search brand that got there first: Yahoo! Personals. More »

Matchmaker.com is an online dating website that is powered by Date.com, and the connection is obvious right away. They practically use the same website template, and once you sign up you will see that the two websites share the same profiles. It’s basically like signing up for two different poker websites that both take you to the same tables. You only need to sign up to one of the two matchmaking services for you to be able to use both of them. More »

A review of the Great Expectations online dating service, a destination for meeting and dating quality singles More »

Date.com has been around for a decade, and it has grown to be a site where millions of singles search for new relationships. The website has the basic features one would expect from a large online dating service, and it is fairly well organized, user friendly, and clutter free. You won’t really find out much about how compatible you are with other members, but you shouldn’t have any trouble using the service as a starting point to establish contact for a casual date. More »

Shelly’s review of eHarmony includes an excerpt from the eHarmony ‘Guided Communication’ stage and some thoughts about using the service. More »

Dating after you graduate from college can be tricky. You no longer have possible soul mates around you in class. Plus, you will spend most of your time working in your new career with people who the human resources department says you aren’t supposed to date. So what are you supposed to do? Turn to online dating resources like eHarmony. More »

Here’s my review of one dating site that is very different from the rest. eHarmony (www.eharmony.com) is unlike other online dating, matching, relationship or social networking site. In comparison, many others are not actually match-making but give you a cafeteria style way of choosing your mate online. Founded by relationship expert Dr. Neil Clark Warren who you have likely heard pitch the service on radio and television commercials, eHarmony’s “Everlasting Love” campaign is a true testimony to what the site is trying to achieve. eHarmony is the first and only site that helps users build serious relationships for life-long love and happiness. It gives the opportunity for people, who would not normally meet, a way to find each other. More »

So, you’ve got some successful SEO experience under your belt, your skills and confidence are growing and you’re ready to sell your services to the highest bidder, or at least someone who will properly appreciate your SEO skills. More »

BlueHost and HostGator are two well known web hosting companies. They’ve both been reviewed here at Clickfire and are both regarded as leaders in the web hosting industry. Each company received a 5 star rating in its respective review and both companies had far more pros than cons listed.

So which one is better? This little analysis will hopefully help answer that question. More »

You think you’re ready for love? Dating, what a quagmire! Over the years I’ve watched various psychometrically based programs emerge on the Internet and I’ve tried my share of online dating; some with interesting results and some disastrous ones as well. Your online date might be the man of your dreams, or he might be the man of another woman’s nightmare out catting around on her! So where do you go from here? More »

Stardate -316458.1

The Lunarpages Web Hosting company got its name from a Star Trek episode. I am not sure which episode or series, only that it involved images of a moon, planets and lunar material, if that helps narrow it down. After discovering this trivial fact, I set out on mission to go where no reviewer has gone before: determine whether Lunarpages’ hosting performance is stellar. More »

by Liora Stein

Few lives must be more satisfying than the life of a Web Designer. You live the life of a god/goddess as you create something amazing from nothing all day long and the colors, movement and sound fill you with delights you’d never imagined. Nothing you do is ever boring and the diversity of work is never ending. More »

HostMonster is a hosting company that was founded more than ten years ago–in 1996. The company says they host more than 100,000 domains. They are a reputable company that isn’t going anywhere. HostMonster is actually owned by BlueHost, a large web hosting company which we reviewed a while back here at Clickfire. More »

1&1.com is a giant web hosting company. They have almost 6 million customers and more than 2,400 employees, and in excess of 37,000 servers. You’ve probably seen their 10+ page ads in magazines or heard about them from friends or colleagues. They are definitely an industry leader and a well known company in the web hosting industry. More »

by Michel Barakat

Requirements:

1. Basic HTML Knowledge
2. Basic Programming Logic Knowledge

More »

midPhase (www.midphase.com) is a fairly large and well known web host based in Chicago. The company, which was launched out of its founders’ dorm room, has been around since May 2003 and is adding over 4,000 new accounts per month. Some people I know say midPhase is the best host others, while others would never get near it. One would assume a company that is getting so many new customers per month is doing something right. This review will find out if they are, and if so, what. More »

HostGator (HostGator.com) has become one of the better known web hosts in the industry by being themselves. Though nothing they do is completely spectacular or unbelievable, they do what they should do. That is, HostGator actually answers their phones, replies to their emails, responds to live chat requests, doesn’t rip you off, and provides quality hosting. It’s actually quite sad that most hosts can’t seem to get these things right, but it’s great for HostGator as they’ve banked on it and it’s translated into success. More »

I was excited to write a review about BlueHost, mainly because I’ve heard a lot of good things about them. With so many web hosts, and so few (good and honest) reviews, it’s really hard to tell who’s good and who isn’t.

From looking at the BlueHost.com web site, the company appears to be a serious and professional web host. A visually appealing web site, clearly posted contact information, lots of awards (from legitimate places), and grammatically correct text on site, all help make BlueHost seem like a formidable web host. A great feature (that seems to be awfully rare) is that BlueHost provides a demo of their control panel (a very slightly customized cPanel using the X skin) that actually works and isn’t impossible to find. It’s a great feature that allows you to review how cPanel works if you aren’t familiar with it. More »

The year is 2007. HTML is still here. HTML for Dummies is the popular book series by Ed Tittel and Mary Burmeister for new web designers. This dummies book series has helped introduce coders to the nuts and bolts language needed to design web pages. The book is still in demand as the number of “dummies” wanting to learn to code web pages remains significant. More »

Have you been searching the Internet for weeks looking for a free HTML tutorial and just haven’t been able to find one that’s easy enough no matter how hard you looked? The web abounds with free tutorials. Let this insultingly easy Simplest Ever HTML Tutorial prepare you for them. More »

What happens when you do everything right and Google drops all of your web site’s best pages from its search results? Many webmasters from weekend tinkerers to corporate site managers were asking themselves this question recently. On February 21, 2006 the Google datacenter update known as “Bigdaddy” began killing high ranking spam sites from the index. Not a bad thing for searchers and for most webmasters. But soon after Bigdaddy began rolling out, many webmasters managing sites full of useful content for searchers couldn’t find their pages listed in the Google index. In most cases, the main page still appeared, but in others, sometimes tens of thousands of pages were “supped.” Supplemental results are always viewed negatively by webmasters and search engine optimizers because it indicates that Google has assigned those pages a lower crawl frequency, perhaps because the pages are viewed as duplicate or inefficient for the Googlebot spider to crawl. Pages that go into the much feared supplemental results are not known for coming back to life. More »

CSS Tutorial Requirements:

• Beginners Only
• Basic knowledge of HTML
• No knowledge of CSS
• 5 - 10 minutes
• 2 brain cells of any size and color

More »

“Forget your button maker,” says Steffen Gerlach, creator of ZPaint, a sexy little program for making 3D-looking graphics. You can also forget your wallet when you download this 286K installation package. It’s free. Of course, ZPaint is not a real 3D program. It paints shapes with shadows that simulate 3D objects like buttons, rings, and boxes. More »

A Freeware Solution When Graphics just don’t “Seam” Right

How many times have you patted yourself on the back for creating a snazzy graphic, then thought “wouldn’t it be cool if I could use this as a web background, wallpaper, or 3D texture?” When you try, you often notice that when the images are tiled, they usually appear with some degree of unwanted “seams” where they join. Blending edges in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop can take time. These programs weren’t especially designed for seamless tile creation. sTile is. More »

Fast Freeware Image Viewer by Irfan Skiljan

What do you call a compact, fast and friendly image viewer that allows multiple ways of viewing and even editing images directly? IrfanView (pronounced Ear-Fan-View) is named for Irfan Skiljan, a very generous programmer from Bosnia. Irfan keeps his users happy by giving them the best Windows picture viewer available with regular updates that expand the program’s features. New IrfanView releases have continued virtually nonstop since I first discovered the program around version 1.70, released in January 1996. More »

9/1/02, updated 1/28/06

A formerly freeware icon editor that even iconoclasts will like More »

AN Hosting is a company that is owned by the much larger midPhase Services, Inc. (our review). AN Hosting, which has been around since 2001, seems to be more “webmaster focused” than midPhase. AN Hosting offers similar guarantees (30 day money back and 99.9% uptime) and promotions (advertising credit, etc.). More »

Omnis Network (www.omnis.com) is a host that has been around for a while. According to their site, they’ve been around since 1999 with over 200,000 served (accounts, not fast food). Omnis has a team of “very successful and proven industry veterans, intent on delivering the best value in Internet hosting.” Marketing hype? We’ll see if it’s true during this hands on Omnis review. At first glance, the company seems just fine. The Omnis.com site isn’t bad, but I doubt it’ll win any awards, same with the text on their site. All of their policies seem pretty standard and straight forward and for the most part, it’s pretty easy to find what you need on the Omnis site. More »

This review of Netfirms doesn’t qualify as one of our hands on reviews, but never-the-less, we’ve taken some good observations here to help get things rolling. Netfirms is undoubtedly a world leader in website hosting and domain name registration. The company offers comprehensive features at an economical price. Netfirms supports over 1.2 million businesses and individuals in getting their websites online. Netfirms is committed to providing easy web hosting solutions for beginners along with advanced flexible features for hardened webmasters. More »

This is a different type of review. It’s not one where a reviewer briefly evaluates the web host service and reliability, but where the reviewer has actually used this host for quite a while. I’ve had a few sites with HostDime for close to a year. Overall, I’ve been quite happy but want to point out some important details based on my experience. More »

Easy CGI is by most standards, a fairly large host. Founded in 1994 as an ISP (the hosting section came four years later), they’ve prided themselves on providing word class support and services. At first glance, Easy CGI’s web site isn’t bad - it’s easy to navigate, easy to get information, and all of the things you’d expect from a web site. While EasyCGI.com not visually stunning, it does work. More »

I had a site that took up quite a bit of space and even more bandwidth, and basically nothing else. I needed a host that could support it (for cheap) and I found DreamHost. DreamHost gives you an insanely huge amount of space and bandwidth for not very much money. I signed up with them and so far, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. More »

Robots are programs that automatically crawl the Web and retrieve documents. Web browsers like Internet Explorer or FireFox are operated by humans and don’t automatically retrieve text from referenced documents. Robots are are most often referred to as crawlers, bots, or spiders. These robots visit sites by requesting documents from them. Search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN Search employ robots to crawl web documents for the purposes of being indexed and provided as search engine results. More »

Perfectmatch.com (4/2/06), an eHarmony clone? The relationship matching of today looks a lot different than the online dating services of the 1990’s. Online dating has become more mainstream and may even one day become the norm for singles to find a statistically compatible match. Instead of displaying pictures and profiles to rate and choose from, users of Perfectmatch and similar sites are presented with professionally packaged online matching applications. Words like “scientific” and “compatability” and “expert” appear in site descriptions. Sponsors are often PhD’s who have done research in sociology or psychology. Free dating services seem to be a thing of the past. But that may not be so bad. More »

Banner ads just seem to get deader and deader every day. A young upstart company called “Chitika” has just supplied the eulogy and a few sharp coffin nails to the once hot banner ads of the 1990’s. Chitika goes far beyond the static banner ad concept and into the world of contextual advertising made popular by the Google AdSense program introduced in 2003. The antithesis of the pop-up ad, contextual advertising from Chitika targets the content of the page on which the ad is placed, then displays advertising relevant to that page’s topic. If your visitors are pouring over an article about MP3 audio technology, they won’t see an ad for cosmetics. You can guess what they will see! More »

In future time, through all coming coding standards, let the developer, who may write code in any development environment, observe the XHTML rules which W3C has written in their white papers. Let the developer not alter the rules which W3C has given, the standards which W3C has enacted, the wording, let him not change. If such a developer has logic and is able to keep his code error free, he shall o