Web Hosting XL

Rather than the usual language selection (e.g English, Spanish, French) we are talking here about scripting language. When you are looking at creating a new website, selecting your scripting language before you start is one of the most important things to consider.

Some of the factors that can sway your thoughts one way or another are :
1. Ok, you get a web design company to do the website build.
2. Which programming languages you yourself are familiar with.
3. Past experience of web design builds.
4. Repository of code that will assist you in speeding up the completion of the build.
5. You are using an out of the box package that is written in a specific language.
6. Cost of hosting.

1. If you have decided that a professional company are going to do the website design for you, it does negate the concern over which language to choose. However, don’t forget that if you do not know how to program in the language they choose you will be beholden to them forever more for website updates.

2. If you have spent some time programming in a particular scripting language, it is reasonable to assume this is the language you will choose. If you only know html you may want to look into php or asp to increase your knowledge, abilities and possibilities.

3. Perhaps you have built websites before, this will sway you decision quite strongly as your familiarity with the language will not only open up a lot more control over the running of the program but also minimize the time required for bug fixing.

4. Having a repository of code is a great way to decrease the amount of time required to complete a new web design project. If you have multiple programmers working on a project, keeping a repository is important to avoid duplicating work and increasing work load.

5. If you have chosen an “out of the box” package, like for instance the Magento oscommerce package. This is written in PHP so therefore your scripting language is chosen for you.

6. The cost of hosting is as a general rule more expensive for ASP and MSSQL hosting account than it is for PHP hosting accounts with MySQL, if cost is important this could affect your decision.

Don’t forget to always consider future updates, even if you get a custom built CMS (content management system) as your website grows you will more than likely need this CMS to be reconfigured.

Your interested in purchasing hosting, you have a great business venture or personal website that you would like to release upon the public. After a short while searching for hosting online you quickly become confused…

What are all the options about?

Why would I ever choose a Linux cPanel hosting account, I use windows 7 at home surely I need a windows hosting account?

Hopefully the following information will help you to remove some of the confusion.

Firstly, if you are having your website designed by an independent web design company; ask them which hosting account you require as they may have specific requests.

Ok, lets think for a moment about the type of website you will be creating.
There is a very simple rule I use when I offer advice on this question.

Q. Is your website going to be : Programmed in ASP (what is asp?)? Will your website be using an MSSQL or an Access database?

If the answer to any of those is yes, then you need a Windows hosting account.

However if you do not need any of the above features, my recommendation is a Linux web hosting account.

This will support all of your html pages, plus provide you the ability to grow your site, install blog or online shop software, online galleries (pretty much anything anyone needs!)…(yes I am biased towards Linux!) But for good reason, Linux offers more security and reliability on a server platform. You won’t need to know anything at all about linux to get you hosting up and running, your hosting provider will take care of that. Hopefully this has cleared the air a little around this question. Comments are welcome.

If you are new to the idea of domain registration and hosting hopefully this article with clear a few things up.

1. What is a domain name?
A domain name is an address that browsers use to access websites, e.g my domain name on this site is “hostingxl.com” the domain name is made up of two parts, the first part “hostingxl” is the unique identification of your domain name. The second part “.com” is called a tld (Top Level Domain).

2. Which TLD should I choose?
My advice is that if the .com of your choice is available then go for that as the .com domain TLD is the most commonly recognized. However, it can also be beneficial to register a country specific TLD (e.g .co.uk is a UK TLD); This helps search engines like Google to geographically target searchers searching in your country.

3. Should I just register my business name?
Not necessarily, registering a business name is good for brand building but not necessarily good for search results. Since Google Caffeine has been released Google has placed more weight on the domain names that contain the search term. Therefore it is beneficial to register domain names that include the main search term for your subject. Like for instance if you were setting up a website for a dentist in London you could check availability of the domain “londondentist.co.uk” or “dentistlondon.co.uk”.