When launching a website, one of the most important decisions that you have to make is selecting a good web hosting company for hosting a website, for which you have worked hard to design and develop. While the importance of selecting the right CMS and hiring a good designer is outlined in every other technology blog or magazine nowadays, hardly anyone talks about the importance of a good web host. That’s why we have prepared this web hosting guide, that will help beginners and experts to choose a good host. As good web hosting provider is not just important but also indispensable. After all, you wouldn’t want your visitors to find your site offline 9 times out of the 10 visits that they pay to your website, would you?
Best Web Hosting for Designers? We recommend BlueHost!
Yes, that’s right. While the allure of earning big bucks by getting others to click on links is tempting, I have ensured that this article is totally unbiased – trust me, this article does not contain affiliate links because 1WD knows the importance of a proper web host.
Table of Contents:
Web Hosting Guide For Beginners – Things To Consider when Choosing a Web Host
Things You should NOT Consider when Choosing a Web Host
Web Hosts You Should Consider
Taking the Next Step: Picking a Content Delivery Network
10 Best Web Hosting Services Reviewed!
6 Tips Before Registering a Domain Name
Everything You Need To Know About DNS
Which Is The Best Managed WordPress Hosting For Professionals?
9 Great File Hosting Services Reviewed
Backup Solutions for Designers and Developers
Bonus: MySQL Guide for Beginners
Web Hosting Guide For Beginners – Things To Consider when Choosing a Web Host
Here at 1WD, we have taken upon ourselves to help you find the ideal web host. In this article I shall be discussing the things that you need to consider, plus the things that you do not need to consider (or, in other words, things that need to be avoided), and then finally wind up the discussion with a small round-up of some major web hosting providers. And, most importantly, unlike the zillions of web hosting related articles that you’ll find on the internet, this one does not have any affiliate links.
The Basics
Everyone knows what shared hosting is, VPS, and reseller hosting packages. Just in case you don’t, simply do a Google search!
Always do your home-work before finalizing a web host
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What matters is picking the ideal hosting package for you. If you have a personal blog or a small website, shared hosting will suffice. But you should consider a dedicated server or a VPS if you have a large website that generates a good deal of traffic. Also, make sure you have ample space and bandwidth in your plan. The worst thing that can happen is to see your website growing, and then noticing that there isn’t enough room for it to grow anyway. Plus, a good web host will allow you to easily upgrade from one plan to another as, and when, the need arises.
Bandwidth v/s Disk Space
Assuming that your main website runs Drupal, and you also host your blog using WordPress on a sub-domain, and your kid is experimenting with Joomla! on another sub-domain, your website space will still be within 300 MB. Add another 1.5 GB for media like photos, and you can have a decent sized small website within 2GB of space. Of course, if you are running a huge website, 2 GB will not suffice. However, even in this case, bandwidth is of greater importance.
Never under-estimate the bandwidth!
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Long story short, the less bandwidth you have, the less traffic your site is capable of handling, period.
Know Your Web Host
Hosting a website can be like purchasing a home – you don’t want to purchase it from an unknown vendor. Make sure your web host has a good reputation, and some noteworthy clients (we take a look at this later on in this article). A good way to assess your host’s skills is to drop a test support ticket – say, inquiring about a package that you wish to opt for, etc. BEFORE you actually buy their services. You can assess the host’s overall support abilities by looking at the response that you get.
Not the kind of tech support one would hope for!
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Here is what I did:
Dropped this support ticket to two different hosting firms (not a fake ticket, by the way, I actually needed Ruby on Rails):
Hey,
I was wondering if you offer Ruby on Rails on your shared hosting packages? I need to run an RoR based CMS, and I can’t afford the bigger packages. I’ll just opt for the 1 GB shared hosting package.
Thanks!
The response from Host A:
Hi,
Yes, we have Ruby on Rails.
Host B:
“HelloSufyan,
Yes, we offer Ruby on Rails, and shared hosting or dedicated, all our servers offer 99.9% uptime guarantee and 24×7 support.
Let me know if you have further queries.”
Wow! I got two emails! Let’s bug them further. Another (legitimate) query:
Hello,
Many thanks for your reply.
Can you please comment on the discounts, if I purchase hosting in bulk, say for a year?
Also, I am not very good with RoR, so if I ever run into trouble with my CMS, will you help me?
Thank you.
And, the replies:
Host A:
Hello,
You can look up our discounts’ section <URL>.
Sorry, we do not provide support for third-party software.
Host B:
HiSufyan,
Of course, we have discount coupons and promotional packs. If you purchase a year’s hosting in advance, you can get 20% off directly, and then use the coupon code <CODE> to get an additional 40% off for the first year! More info can be had at our blog <URL>.
Sadly, we do not really provide support for third-party apps, but if you tell me the CMS that you will be using, I can give you more info about their forums and docs, and see what I can do for you.
Thank you.
I refrain from commenting further. Both of them have similar services, but the tone of support staff evidently shows that I should be opting for Host B.
Things You should NOT Consider when Choosing a Web Host
This section will help you understand where you should never compromise when choosing you web hosting company. Make sure to read it thoroughly.
Read Reviews Online Using Google Search
Do this: go to the Hosting Recommendations page at Drupal.org
Now, check the links to each web host. What did you see?
Yes, all of those links are affiliates, wherein each sale pays a small fee to the recommending site. Drupal.org is just one example – all across the internet, hosting reviews are all about affiliate links. This is why certain firms score well in hosting reviews (owing to heavy affiliate commission), but fare badly in overall user service.
Not the best way to search for a web host
While this does not mean that ALL reviews on the internet are fake, but you should think twice before blindly trusting one.
Go UNLIMITED!
You know how it goes – for a given fee, you can now have unlimited web space, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited everything in web hosting. Sounds like a deal, right?
In reality, there isn’t any such thing as ‘unlimited’ in web hosting. Seriously, is there a hard disk with unlimited space?
Remember: Everything under this sky is Limited.
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These unlimited promises are based on the assumption that the websites hosted on any given server will not use more than a stipulated percentage of the resources, and thus, the server space is oversold with each website being given the promise of ‘unlimited’. Actually, the web hosting firm restricts you to using a given amount of system resources, and if your website crosses that, it can be taken offline, or temporarily disabled. All of this is mentioned in the Terms and Conditions. While this does not mean that all web hosts that offer unlimited hosting are evil, in general, ‘Unlimited’ is a marketing ploy that you shouldn’t really fall prey to.
Web Hosts You Should Consider
Now, we take a look at some of the best web hosts out there.
I’ve divided this list into two parts: Hosts for bigger projects, and hosts for smaller/medium-sized projects. The former consists of web hosting providers that specialize in VPS and dedicated hosting, while the latter is primarily shared hosting. Of course, such demarcation is often blurred — shared hosting providers do offer VPS to their clients. Yet, many times, a good VPS hosting provider fails to be a good shared hosting provider, and vice versa.
My criterion for this list has been simple — I have avoided online review sites, for reasons mentioned above. Similarly, any web host that specializes in affiliate links first and hosting second has not been considered — as a result, this leaves out BIG hosts such as GoDaddy and Bluehost. I do admit that certain users have had a good experience with both GoDaddy and Bluehost, but in general, their servers are super-oversold and the good reviews on the internet are mere affiliate gimmicks.
I have also kept room for ‘exceptions’ — Unlimited hosting is generally something not to buy into, but I’ve included HostGator on this list. Why? Because they seem to be managing Unlimited promises really well, unlike most of their competitors.
Another thing that needs to be stated is that certain awesome hosts for shared hosting packages (such as HawkHost) failed to make the cut because of minor reasons (support ticket responses taking longer than others, blog not being updated regularly, and so on).
Lastly, it is worth mentioning that I’ve avoided talking about pricing in this list, reasons being: (a) all bigger hosts seem to have a more-or-less identical pricing structure; (b) all smaller hosts seem to be running some sort of promotion almost all throughout the year. Still, for the sake of clarity, a VPS with 1 TB of bandwidth will cost you approximately $50 per month. Speaking of shared hosting, well, you can get roughly 20 GB of bandwidth for $4.50 per month, without any promotional discount.
Bigger Projects (such as Managed/Unmanaged VPS)
Bigger projects require big budget hosting. A shared hosting package will not suffice if your website gets millions of views and thus, dedicated or cloud is the way to go. Following are five of the most preferred and trusted hosting providers when it comes to big-level hosting, such as VPS. I’ve also tried to include one example of a heavy traffic website hosted by each of these, and, since you are reading 1WD, there is a good chance that you are a designer/developer, so I’ve ensured that such examples are strictly design-related websites.
Media Temple
Media Temple
Media Temple is arguably the de-facto standard when it comes to VPS and other big-budget hosting packages. They are known for their rock-solid reliability, and serve many big names out there. For instance, SpeckyBoy uses Media Temple.
ServInt
ServInt
ServInt is another well known hosting provider for heavy traffic websites. Apart from managed hosting solutions, it also offers cloud-based hosting for JAVA applications. WordPress Lift uses ServInt.
Rackspace
Rackspace
Rackspace offers Hybrid Hosting solutions (such as dedicated cloud servers) along with managed and cloud hosting for sites that are traffic-intensive. Blogs such as Spoon Graphics and Six Revisions use Rackspace.
Web Hosting Buzz
WebHostingBuzz
Apart from Dedicated and Reseller hosting, WHB also offers Shared solutions, though it is more well known for its high-end offerings. Inspired Magazine uses WHB.
HostGator
HostGator
Alright, I admit: earlier I told you to stay away from Unlimited Hosts as these are mostly oversold. However, HostGator is perhaps the only Unlimited Host that manages overselling well. They hardly have an over-stacked server, and provide good support to users. HostGator is used by the likes of WPTavern.
1stwebdesigner Recommends Bluehost
Do you want to know why 1stwebdesigner recommends Bluehost? We’ve written a short review about Bluehost and the conclusion is just they’re great!
Firehost
Firehost offers secure cloud hosting with servers located both in US and Europe. It offers great set of features such as enterprise-level protection from DDoS attacks and managed backups (14 days). FoxyCart, the e-commerce solution, trusts Firehost for its hosting needs.
Smaller Projects (such as Shared Hosting)
What if you are just planning to launch a hobby site, or a small personal portfolio that does not require a VPS? Well in that case, shared hosting will suit your needs. In fact, if you are using services such as Blogger to host a blog, but need advanced features without burning a hole in your pocket, you can always find solutions with shared hosting providers (most of them offer 10 GB bandwidth for as little as $3.50 per month). Ideally, a good shared hosting package will suffice for small projects with little traffic, as well as medium-sized sites with as many as 200k unique hits. However, with Shared Hosting, often times web hosting firms tend to have over-stacked servers, thereby resulting in slow websites. Following are some hosts that stay aloof from such practice for their Shared Hosting servers (click on the screenshots for links to websites):
Stable Host
StableHost
Unique Aspects: Excellent support, competitive pricing.
MDD Hosting
MDD Hosting
Unique Aspects: Great infrastructure, good plans.
Host Nexus
HostNexus
Unique Aspects: Offers both Linux and Windows hosting, good support.
Speedy Sparrow
Speedy Sparrow
Unique Aspects: Excellent support, mind blowing pricing.
HostNine
HostNine
Unique Aspects: Good pricing, especially if you are migrating from another host.
Taking the Next Step: Picking a Content Delivery Network
So, let’s say you’ve picked the ideal host, setup an awesome website, and are gaining visitors as we speak. Congrats! The next crucial debate that we come across often is: Do I opt for a CDN? If so, which one?
To begin with, if your website is generating loads of traffic, a Content Delivery Network can help you distribute the load across multiple networks, instead of hosting the files on a single server. Also, the above mentioned bigger web hosts come with special CDN features in many of their plans. However, if you wish to pick a CDN yourself, the following are some of the choices you should consider:
CloudFlare
CloudFlare
CloudFlare comes with both Free and Paid plans. The Free Plan gives you basic CDN services and security features such as hotlink protection and browser integrity check. If you want more, you can opt for the Pro Plan at $20 per month for your first website ($5 per month for every extra site).
MaxCDN
MaxCDN
MaxCDN does not have a free plan, but their pricing is pretty simple: $39.95 per month for 1 TB. You get features such as real-time reports and free Shared SSL.
Amazon CloudFront
Amazon CloudFront
Amazon CloudFront is one of the most reliable (and most expensive) CDN services out there. For a US-based plan, you’ll have to pay $120 per month for one TB, and so on. However, Amazon CloudFront is one of the most reputed CDNs, and is definitely worth the money. Also, it works well with WP plugins such as W3 Total Cache.
To Conclude…
With that, we come to the end of this web hosting advice piece. Which web host do you use for your website? Are you satisfied with the service that you’re offered? Is there scope for improvement? Feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments! We already have talked about some web hosting services, but still, we wanted to give you a more in detail look of them.
10 Best Web Hosting Services Reviewed!
Every website requires hosting in order to be live on the Internet. Designers and bloggers are well aware of its importance; they use it to establish their brand and business. It is also helpful to stay connected with existing and potential audience. Choosing really good web hosting services can be as important as the information available on your website. If the server of your web host goes down any time, it can hurt your business or even destroy your hardwork. It is very important for designers to choose a web host that makes their work uninterrupted. There are plenty of options when it comes to choosing a web host provider. Some are free and offer very limited features while others charge you little but offer unlimited features. I would recommend you to use price-based web hosting because they provide you more facilities than those free or cheap service providers.
1. Bluehost
Bluehost is one of the leading web host service providers. Due to their excellent WordPress hosting, they are officially recommended by WordPress. It can easily manage large traffic without slowing down your website. Bluehost offers:
Shared hosting – best for those designers and bloggers who are not expecting millions of hits monthly
VPS hosting and Dedicated hosting – best for business purposes that need more server resources. You can get all the help that you want with trained experts ready to help you 24/7.
Reseller hosting – best for people who are in web hosting business. You can purchase the reseller hosting and use the allocated disk space and bandwidth to host your client’s websites.
Here are some important features of first two options as they are suitable for designers and bloggers. Bluehost ‘Shared’ hosting offers many features such as:
Unlimited domain hosting
Unlimited hosting space
Unlimited file transfer
Unlimited email accounts
Free domain name
You can get these features and many more included in the plan for only US$3.95/month. On the other hand, ‘Dedicated’ web hosting is expensive but offers more server resources such as:
2 x 2.0 GHz CPU
4GB available RAM
500GB storage (mirrored)
5TB bandwidth
3 IPs
Free domain
24/7 support
Money-back guarantee
Standard dedicated hosting solution will cost you US$74.99/first month.
We also made this quick video showing how you can get started super fast and have live WordPress website in 10 minutes!
2. WP Engine
WP Engine is a professional web hosting service for WordPress. WP Engine gives you an interruption-free hosting server with the ability to handle pressure. Don’t worry about getting hacked because it’s hacker proof. A strong and lighting fast customer service makes this a very strong candidate for your website hosting. With its WordPress experts, you can feel relax about any issues that come to your website. WP Engine is considered a very good option for designers and bloggers who are looking for a Web host provider in a reasonable price. WP Engine offers all these plans and pricing with a risk free 60-day cancellation. If you are not happy with the services or platform, you can simply cancel within 60 days and get a full refund of your money. Some of their offers include:
Daily backup
One-click restore point
A high quality security
Automatic caching
One-click staging area
Risk-free 60-day cancellation
Currently, WP Engine is providing a personal plan for US$29.00/month which offers:
1 WordPress installation
25,000 visits / month
Unlimited data transfer
10GB Local Storage
Other plans include:
Professional plan with same features as personal plan but more server resources starting from US$99.00/month.
Business plan with same features but more server resources than professional plan to host large business websites starting from US$249.00/month.
3. Media Temple
Media Temple offers a world-class hosting experience especially for designers and bloggers. It doesn’t matter how big your website is, Media Temple can handle it for you. It is the complete value for money. There are plenty of options and plans offered by Media Temple that vary in price, features and capability. Every plan offers an upgrade version so that you never stop growing. Plans that are offered by the Media Temple include:
Grid: shared web and cloud hosting
DV Managed
DV Developer
DV Enterprise
Helix Private Hosting
When we talk about designers and bloggers, the best plan to choose is the Grid. The Grid is the ideal package for WordPress integration with many benefits for the beginners. Some of its features includes
Host up to 100 websites
1TB monthly bandwidth
SSD database storage
100 GB storage
1,000 email accounts
24/7/365 live support
All these features are available in US$20/month. It is easy to use and can be upgraded whenever you think it’s time. Other offered plans are: DV Developer for US$30/month and DV Managed for US$50/month.
4. Arvixe
Arvixe is a well-known web hosting company for developers, designers and bloggers. The best thing about Arvixe is its reliability, quality and affordability. There are many plans offered by Arvixe for developers and designers including:
Personal Plans
Business Plans
Reseller Plans
There are also VPS and dedicated servers that are based on Windows and Linux platform. If you are looking for a simple tool to handle the all the heavy traffic on your website and making sure that website remains online all the time, use Arvixe. With its superior Shared hosting, designers and bloggers can feel relax about handling their websites traffic and growing further. It offers different features including:
Unlimited disk space
Unlimited data transfer
Unlimited e-mail Accounts
Free domain
Free site builder
Free online store
Easy control panel
24/7 US-based phone support
All these features cost you just USD $4/month only. With no hidden fees, you also get a 60-day moneyback guarantee in case you are not satisfied with the platform. Other plans include:
Business hosting for USD $22/month
Reseller hosting for USD $20/month
VPS hosting for USD $40/month.
5. HostGator
HostGator is one of the top web hosting sites. It is famous for its award winning 24×7 customer support, which many designers and bloggers prefer. It is very affordable too. It offers different server plans including:
Shared Hosting
Reseller Hosting
VPS and Dedicated plans
It is designed to work perfectly with both beginners and professionals. The process of coming from another host can be very difficult but with HostGator it is very easy to switch host. When you are coming from another host, it offers:
Free domain transfer
Free file transfers
Free database transfers
Free script transfers
Features that HostGator offers for its users include:
Unlimited disk space and bandwidth
Easy control panel
One-click script install
24×7 technical support
4,500 free website templates
You can get all these features in only US$ 3.96/month. Other plans include:
Reseller hosting starting from US$19.96/month
VPS Hosting starting from US$15.96/first month
Dedicated servers starting from US$139/first month
HostGator offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee and a 45-day money back guarantee as well.
6. Go Daddy
GoDaddy is one of the most well-known website hosting companies in this industry. Every designer and developer knows about it; it is the number one choice for designers. The service offers many plenty of facilities for the beginners and experts. GoDaddy knows how important your website is for you so it takes all the care for it. Everything from file manager, domain manager and database manager is exceptionally great and very easy to use. You can get all the help that you need from its 24/7 customer support available at phone or e-mail. However, managing millions of domains makes the support a little slower but the support team is always quick to respond and the complaints are resolved usually within 24 hours. Features that GoDaddy offers for its every plan include:
Free domain with annual plan restrictions
Free email addresses
One-click install of 200+ free applications
Unlimited monthly bandwidth
1GB storage MySQL Linux and 200 MB storage Windows SQL databases
Flexible, easy-to-use control panel
24/7 security monitoring and DDoS protection
Although these features including many more are available in every plan but prices vary in terms of storage and hosting number of websites.
You can host a single website in US$3.99/month with 100 GB storage
For unlimited website hosting and unlimited storage you have to pay US$ 4.99/month
Other plan includes hosting WordPress/Blog starting from US$6.29/month
7. Eleven2
Eleven2 is a highly recommended web host provider due to its service quality, support, hardware, features and uptime. It is very affordable and mostly preferred by designers and bloggers as shared web hosting. It offers a free Site Builder to help you out in creating a fully featured website in few minutes. You can easily manage your site with its standard cPanel tools and features that help you to manage your site easily. With their customer support, they are available 24/7 to help you out. They also offer a unique feature of live chat with which you can chat with experts live about your web hosting matters. It is truly the hosting done right. Eleven2 offers feature according to their different plans that are monthly and yearly based. The standard S-200 plan is available for US$10/month and includes:
250GB Storage Space
20,000GB monthly bandwidth
Unlimited domains
Free instant setup
SSL Certificate +$69.99/yr
Dedicated IP +$4/mo
The only difference is in the prices when the plan is taken with yearly package. Other plans include:
S-300 for US$20/mo with 500GB Storage Space and 40,000GB Monthly Bandwidth
S-400 plan is available for US$40/mo with 999,999GB Storage Space 999,999GB Monthly Bandwidth
8. Fatcow
Fatcow is a very good choice for designers and bloggers that have little capital or are launching the website for personal purpose. Its features and plans can keep your website running all the time. People find it very reliable and friendly. Fatcow makes sure that their every customer gets uninterrupted website connection with the help of server backups every day. The customer service is highly reliable and available on the toll-free help lines 24/7. You can also communicate with them through e-mail. Fatcow also offers tutorials and FAQ library for its users as well. Different hosting solutions that Fatcow offers include:
FatCow Plan
WordPress hosting
Domain parking
VPS hosting
Dedicated hosting
Domain registration
Free Farm-Fresh icons
Features that Fatcow offers include:
Unlimited disk space
Unlimited bandwidth
90% up-time and speed
Free domain
Unlimited MySQL database
Unlimited domains hosted
Unlimited POP mailboxes
All these features are available in the lowest price ever which is US$ 3.15/month. Other plans include
WordPress hosting starting from US$3.75/month
VPS servers starting from US$19.99/month
Dedicated hosting starting from US$119.99/month.
9. InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting is very famous among small and large sized businesses. Whether it is website hosting or blog, they can do anything for you. InMotion is very famous due to its award winning technical support and an uptime of 99.9%. They handle every growing business need, from a small business to an enterprise level. InMotion ensures a better speed and high service availability with multiple data centers. It offers a feature called ‘Max Speed Zone’ to VPS and Business class plans with which users that are near to the data centers of InMotion can enjoy browsing six times faster than anyone else. InMotion makes sure that you get uninterrupted connection with your users with their 24/7 customer support availability. WordPress hosting is highly optimized for bloggers and offers you some great features to make your blog grow. InMotion Web hosting includes:
Business class hosting
Cheap hosting
VPS hosting
Dedicated servers
Reseller hosting
Features that InMotion offers include:
Unlimited disk space
Unlimited bandwidth
FREE 1-click installer with 310+ applications!
FREE cPanel & WHM server management tools
FREE $300 advertising credits
FREE domain name
There are plenty of others features included in the plan and it is available for US$5.99/month. Other plans include
VPS hosting starting from US$29.99/month
Dedicated hosting starting from US$119.99/month
Reseller hosting starting from US$13.99/month
10. TMDHosting
When you are running a popular site or a blog, you need various marketing tools and knowledge. TMDHosting makes it easier for you to run a website or a blog.
With a guaranteed 99.9% uptime in all the hosting plans, it gives you the best hosting experience
It offers a 30-day money back warranty in case you are not satisfied with the platform.
TMD also provides hosting for open source applications including; Joomla Hosting, and Magneto hosting etc.
The advantage that TMDHosting has on its competitors is the quick customer support. With 24/7 available support, your inquiries are resolved within 15 minutes. It also offers top level assistance with the latest technologies available. For starters, TMD hosting gives step-by-step tutorials to help you out in any web hosting matter. Daily promotions are updates on the site with lowest price plans for the customers. Hosting services that TMD offers include:
Web hosting
Reseller hosting
VPS hosting
Cloud hosting
Dedicated servers
Different features that TMD hosting offers include
FREE domain forever
CloudLinux-powered servers
UNLIMITED space & traffic
Multiple PHP versions
UNLIMITED MySQL
Many more features are included with the package. The web hosting plan is available for USD $2.85/mo. Other plans include:
Reseller hosting starting from US$11.95/mont
VPS hosting starting from US$35.95/month
Cloud hosting starting from US$44.95/month
Dedicated servers starting from US$229/month
Wrap up!
Each web hosting service is highly recommended for you if you are a designer or a blogger. However, I would recommend you to have a close look at each plan to decide which is best for your purpose.Customer support is sometimes the only difference between an ordinary service provider and the best. Before leaving, please tell us about which web host are you using for your website? What is your satisfaction level with your web host provider? Also, if you would like to add some points for any service provider or if you want to share your thoughts, feel free to do it by commenting below.
You got your hosting selected, however what about domains? The next section covers what you should be watching out, before registering domain name.
6 Tips Before Registering a Domain Name
There are many things a web designer has to think of when designing a website. Moreover, if he has full responsibility, he has to come up with a good domain name as well. Although many think it is not so important, the domain name is as important as your company name, the website or the Facebook page. Having a good domain name will many times not only bring you more traffic, but also make your webpage easier to remember – and this brings traffic too.
Finding the perfect domain name is not easy in today’s web. Many of the domains which you could think of using are either used by another company or bought for profit by individuals or even other businesses. Web professionals often spend more time finding the right domain name than designing an identity or a website.
Branding
Branding is a very important concept for a business. Every company has a brand, which represents their name, logo, color schemes and visual identity. However, not all of them are branded. The difference is in the brand awareness. A company with a brand awareness relies on their customers’ ability to recall and recognize their brand in different conditions and link them to their brand elements. It has something to do with clients being satisfied with a product and recognizing the products. It is the difference between Coca-Cola and a no-name Cola company. Or the difference between Apple and a Taipei-based unknown tablet producer.
Ten years before it was not the case, but today if you have a company and want a powerful brand, basic knowledge of domain names is very important, as it is similar to your office address. It is where people can find and get in touch with you.
Extensions
The three most used extensions in the world are .com, .net and .org. A domain name with one of these extensions might seem ideal for any kind of business. Going for a free international domain such as .tk might not be so successful. It happens many times that visitors can’t remember your website, so they try the name and these three popular extensions. This is what I also do most of the time, as I assume a company I would be interested in doing business with, or a website I would be interested in visiting would have one of these three extensions. The three top extensions got so popular that, as I just said, visitors just expect companies to use them.
Some domain names providers offer the option of buying all three at a discounted price. Having all three of them with your brand name will be very useful for you in the future – this is a very intelligent move that will put you in pole position.
Another advantage of using all three (or one of the three) is that they are very cheap to buy. The support for them is also all over the place and it it more difficult to find a provider which doesn’t sell them than one which does. Now I am not saying you simply have to own one of these three. WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg has one of the coolest domain names ever: www.ma.tt. Yes, he has a Trinidad & Tobago domain, but it fits his name perfectly. If you can find something intelligent like that, go for it. But think of the fact that people who don’t know too much about the web don’t even realize there is something else besides .com, .net and .org.
This section should be food for thought. However, choosing the domain extension should be one of the easiest task in creating a powerful brand. But wait, there is much more to follow.
Location
Talking about extensions, location is something else you might want to think of. It depends a lot on your business and its purpose. It depends a lot on the audience, market and their behavior. If you have a Danish company targeting only Danes, having a website ending in .com would make no sense, when the option of having a .dk extension is easy to spot. All countries have their own domain extensions. TLDs (top-level domains) are obviously not the only ones available.
Using a country-code TLD is mostly for companies and individuals in the respective country. Wikipedia has a long and complete list of worldwide TLDs. It is easy to notice that some of them require either having a company registered in the country or at least a permit of residence, therefore registering them might not be so easy if you look at coming up with a trick as Matt did.
It is also an option for the ones targeting nations not using an English alphabet, like the Asian or Arabian countries; or Russia. Those are called IDNs (Internationalized Domain Names) and you should only use them to supplement a .com address (or any other TLD); otherwise it will get confusing for visitors whose main language is English or whose alphabet is the one we use in Europe or America.
Hacks
We talked about them a bit earlier. Hacks are those smart things you can do to integrate the domain extension into your domain name. Surprising or not, there are even tools out there on the web that can help you find possible combinations. Domai.nr is probably the best one to use, as it gives you very many options at a simple search. People decide to use hacks not only because they are cool, but mostly because they are very close to finding the right domain name for their company, but it is taken. This is so frustrating and it will happen so many times when you search for a domain name. Finding the right domain name for you is not going to be easy, therefore you might want to look into hacks.
Before buying
Great, now you found your domain and are ready to buy it. No, you are not! Something is missing. You need to make sure your domain name does not create legal issues. Make sure it is not similar to the one of another company doing the same business as you do.
Microsoft vs. MikeRoweSoftis the most popular dispute regarding domain name infringement. This happened almost 10 years ago and was a huge case in the media, when the young web designer Mike Rowe was disputing his domain name with the American giant because of the domain name’s resonance.
Applying for a trademark is something huge companies do, as they know their websites will be popular by default, but this is really expensive to go for. If you are just in the beginning, you might want to protect your name some other way and leave purchasing a trademark for later down the road. Some technique you could use is called bulk purchasing. Many individuals prefer to buy lots of domains with different extensions, but the same name, and redirect all of them to the main website.
WHOIS services
A mistake many individuals make is registering their domains under a WHOIS privacy service. This is a very dangerous technique, although it seems like it is a helpful one first time you hear about it. What happens if you register your domain under a WHOIS privacy service is that your contact details are hidden. Instead, the fields are filled in with the name of your provider. Why is this dangerous? Because according to ICANN policies, is the name in the WHOIS details that owns the domain.
This means that if your website gets hacked, you have little chance of proving the domain was actually yours. If their name is in the records, it is actually them owning the domain you paid for. So even if you want to protect your name, I don’t advise you to do it by using these services, as it is very dangerous.
Conclusion
Having a good domain name can also improve the user experience on your website. Even if today many of a website’s visits come from search engines and referrals, having an easy to remember domain name is always going to be helpful. They are likely to reduce the percentage of people forgetting how to find you.
Keep in mind that top-level domains can help you in search engine results. A .com will always be indexed faster and better than a .ru. Spending time to think of all details and find the right domain name is something that will take a lot of time.
Is there a specific way you search for a domain? Have you ever paid for a domain through an auction? Do you think the domain name matters?
Well you know a lot more than you knew before, but we are not finished yet. Our guide is more then just what you read until now. Let’s take a look at DNS.
Everything You Need To Know About DNS
DNS. Three letters that can make or break your website. A fault with DNS and your website can go down for 24 to 48 hours. What is DNS? From where does this 48 hour delay come from in the age of super fast Internet and high-speed technology? Why hasn’t the ever evolving technology replaced the age-old DNS and the frightening 48 hours delay? This discussion will shed some light on most of the queries about DNS. I hope that you will see DNS from a completely different perspective after this write up.
What is DNS?
That is the customary question that we got to answer when we are discussing something as vast as DNS. Basically, DNS (Domain Name System) is responsible for translating human friendly website URLs like www.1stwebdesigner.com to computer readable IP addresses like 148.68.30.27 (just an example). You know, our mind cannot remember combination of such digits so we devised a system which helps convert these IP addresses to English names and vice versa.
Please understand that DNS isn’t a localized system where all the IP addresses corresponding to every website present on this planet is stored. If that was the case then an unimaginable amount of care would be required to keep such a huge database working. Also, having a localized DNS would be against the distributed character of the Internet.
Rather, DNS is a distributed service which is actually a collective group of name servers (which we call as “nameserver” in Internet lingo). These nameservers constantly refer to each other in order to stay updated with the changes that are rolled out every now and then. The process sounds simple but it is quite complex.
So, every website has a nameserver?
Well, technically speaking, yes! Though it’s a different case that one nameserver will be used for multiple websites. Otherwise, we would end up having 100 million nameservers for 100 million domains – which makes no sense. Like, I host a domain of mine on DreamHost.com. So, they give me nameservers like ns1.dreamhost.com, ns2.dreamhost.com and ns3.dreamhost.com. Now, DreamHost is giving these nameservers to almost every client that they have. So, these three nameservers basically have almost all the IP address to URL details of every DreamHost client.
A basic flow of request on the Internet
When you type Google.com in your browser then a lot of stuff happens behind the scenes before you get to see the Google homepage. The image below tries to explain the flow of request.
Let me try to make it bit more clearer:
When you visit a website URL via your browser then Windows will look for the corresponding IP address stored in the nameservers of your ISP.
If the IP address is found then the request is directly sent to that IP address henceforth reducing the execution time.
If the IP address is not found locally then the request is sent to the cloud of Internet and your browser waits for the virtual world to do its job.
Every website has a nameserver associated with itself. Henceforth, that particular nameserver receives that request and sends it to the respective IP address.
If that nameserver does not have the IP address details then it communicates with other nameservers and they with others. The request flows in the Internet till correct IP details are attained.
Once the IP address is known then the request is sent to the particular IP address and data is served.
What is “48 hours delay”?
Usually, when you are about to change the nameservers for your domain or when you are hosting a fresh domain then your hosting company will tell you that it might take up to 48 hours for the information to be updated. Technically speaking, they are correct. It might take up to 48 hours for all nameservers on this planet to connect with every other nameserver and keep themselves in sync. You see, it’s a huge virtual world out there. But, my personal experience says that it usually takes less than 24 hours for the global update to complete. Still, you should consider the 48 hour delay in your time plan before you make any changes.
The below image via Wikipedia will give you an idea of hierarchical DNS, organized into zones, each served by a nameserver.
How and when does caching occur?
Nice question. You got the information for Google.com request that you had sent some time back. Now, that information is saved in the local ISP’s nameservers so that next time your request isn’t sent to third-party nameservers. But, after a stipulated time period these nameservers contact other nameservers so that their information isn’t outdated. This is where the term TTL comes into play.
What is TTL?
TTL (or Time To Live) is the time period that comes in along with the IP address info. This time period information is sent by the third-party nameserver along with the IP address. The value is usually in seconds and it is more like a suggestion from the third-party nameserver that you can stay away from me for X seconds and still stay updated. Come back after X seconds and I will pass on the latest information.
Usually the TTL value is 12 hours or 24 hours. This can be set to a custom number as and when required to reduce traffic.
Other types of DNS lookups
Once DNS started to serve the IP address lookup (as discussed above), then it was time to expand. DNS was later on used for other type of lookups, two of which we will discuss below:
A Record – A Record lookup is something that we have already discussed. The IP address lookup is actually the A Record lookup for DNS.
MX Record – MX (which is acronym for “mail exchanger”) is used for email address lookups. Usually when a tool tries to send an email to mail box related to your domain then it will look for MX record of your domain. This MX record will have another domain (something like mail.yourdomain.com) as its value. Now the A Record for this MX record will be checked to get the target IP address.
CNAME Record – CNAME (stands for Canonical Name Record) is actually an alias for another domain name. This comes in handy when you want to use your own domain and data from another website. Like, during the ancient Internet Age (when blogspot.com was luxury), blogspot.com had a feature (they still have it) where you can use your own domain (yourdomain.com) instead of using the bogspot’s sub-domain for your blogspot hosted blog. In this case all that Google would do was ask you to change the CNAME of yourdomain.com to your blogspot’s sub-domain and the job is done. Whenever one would visit yourdomain.com then the data from your blogspot’s sub-domain will be delivered although the sub-domain won’t be visible in address bar.
Other usage of DNS
Other then the three lookups that I discussed above, DNS can be used for many other functions like:
As I discussed before, domain names and nameservers do not have a one-to-one matching. This gives the hosting companies the chance for shared hosting and save a lot on money invested. Here, multiple domains can result into one IP address. This means one machine can host many websites. Additionally, one domain can point to multiple IP addresses. This helps in redundancy and high availability.
The DNS system can be used to save and share IP addresses of blacklisted email hosts. Such databases are available for free in order to fight spam.
These days software makers save the version of a software in the DNS database. This way the client machine connects to find out the latest version of the software available. It connects to the software maker’s server only if a new version is available. This helps in reducing the requests that client machines get.
We talked about a lot of hosting services. How about specifically WordPress hosting. Read on!
Which Is The Best Managed WordPress Hosting For Professionals?
Do You Want A Fast WordPress Hosting? What is The Best WordPress Host For Professionals?
Hi there! For this #EspressoMonday episode, we will go in-depth with a question focusing on web hosting. If you have been wondering about where to host your WordPress site and some of the most important factors regarding what a good web hosting site is, then this is for you. Let’s have another great day learning beyond just web design.
What are you waiting for? Grab a cup of coffee and let’s dive in.
Web design and web hosting go hand in hand. You can’t design a website without a reliable and fast hosting service. It would be like building a house without a ground to build it upon, which is impossible. Like looking for land which will provide a solid foundation for your house, looking for a good web hosting service works similarly. Therefore, the web hosting provider you choose can either be a blessing or curse for you because it can either help you build a solid foundation or give you a headache for failing to deliver what it had promised. Thus, this question we’re going to tackle today is one of the dilemmas most web designer often encounter.
What WordPress Hosting Service Do We Recommend?
The question seems easy to answer but the choice you make will greatly affect your website. Therefore, it is not child’s play where you play “Rocks, Scissors, and Papers” or “Eenie Mini Miny Moo” and then choose the website hosting provider randomly.
Most often than not, the next questions that follow are:
Do you host your clients’ websites yourself? – It reflects the uncertainty on some web designers whether they are doing the right move/decision or not.
Do you use web hosting sites, such as GoDaddy, etc.?
Whats your advice on web hosting in general? What are the pros and cons of web hosting your clients sites?
While a lot of go