»Natural Healing Center
»Aromatherapy Oils
»Massage Oils
»Carrier Oils
»Vegetarian Info
»Famous Vegetarians
»Meditation, Manras
& Prayer
»Magazine Online
»Healers, Teachers &
Creative People
»Discussion Boards
»So You Want a Website
»Web Site Designs
»Get your own
NHC Web Page
»Events Calendar
»Useful Info
»Contact Us
»Links

What is Hosting? Why do I have to pay for it? How much does it cost?

Hosting companies have special kinds of computers called a web servers. Basically you rent space on their computer. That and service is what you are paying for. Your website is held on this computer and that is how people access your website when they type your web address into a browser.

A web server needs to be connected to the internet 24 hours a day. If their web server doesn't work for some reason people won't be able to view your site. It is a good idea to choose a stable company that is going to stay in business. Things do go wrong sometimes so choosing a hosting company which has 24/7 support available is wise. You should choose a company has a security expert who keeps hackers out. (Learn the Net. Finding a Home for Your Site, 2004)

Your webmaster will make the website on their computer and then upload them to the web server you have rented space from using a File Tranfer Protocol program. (Learn the Net. Finding a Home for Your Site, 2004)

You should choose a hosting company that guarantees that your website will be available online 99% of the time.

Most hosting companies charge monthly or yearly fees for web hosting. Paying for hosting using a credit card is probably the easiest. If you pay monthly they will automatically charge your credit card each month.

You can get hosting here:
naturalhealingcenter.com/hosting.html
Most sites will require Deluxe hosting with CGI or ASP as the cheaper hosting only offers 50MB of space. It is US$8.95 a month or $9.95 a month depending on which paln you choose. If you buy the wrong kind of hosting you may not be able to have the features you want on your site (bulletin boards etc.).

Consult wih your website designer on the kind of hosting you will need. For example if you want a bulletin board which uses ASP coding or if your Web site uses a Microsoft Access Database you should choose a Windows server from the naturalhealingcenter.com/hosting.html site.

If you are using CGI or Perl, we recommend you use our Deluxe with CGI or one of our Linux Enterprise plans.

If you are still unsure of which type of hosting server to choose, please contact our customer support team in the US at 1-480 -624-2500 and they will assist you in determining which server and hosting plan is right for you. (NaturalHealingCenter.com, 2004.)

INTERVIEW WITH TECHNICAL SUPPORT AT GO DADDY INC. By Sascha Hewitt (They give tech. support to NaturalHealingCenter.com, Godaddy and Wild West. They are one of the largest companies.) (Go Daddy Inc., Nov. 2004)

What would happen if I was hosting a site paying on a monthly basis and my credit card details changed (dates changed with new card, card stolen and replaced with new number etc.) and I missed the emails that you sent me about it (I'm on vacation, changed my email address and forgot to notify you, thought your email was just more advertising so I didn't read it etc.). How long would it take before my website was taken off the internet?
10-15 days after the payment is due your website would be taken off the internet.

What if I change my email address and forget to update my email details with your company, but still have my login & passwords. Will I be able to update to my new email address or will you send an email to my old account asking for confirmation of the changes (which I would be unable to answer)?
That is OK. As long as you have your passwords you can change your email address and detail by logging into your account.

"What Is a Software Spider (or Robot)? What is a Search engine spider or search engine robot?
A "software spider" is an unmanned program operated by a search engine that surfs the Web just like you would. As it visits each Web site, it records (saves to its hard drive) all the words on each site and notes each link to other sites. It then "clicks" on a link, and off it goes to read, index and store another Web site.

The software spider often reads and then indexes the entire text of each Web site it visits into the main database of the search engine it is working for." (Website Promotion & Ranking Services, 2001 -2003)

INTERVIEW WITH IAN HEWITT - SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZER & WEBSITE OWNER. By Sascha Hewitt

What will happen if your website goes down (is off the internet)?
If your site goes down for up to 2 days and then comes back online there is not much damage. However any longer than that and people who link to your site will notice or they will be notified that the link is not working. They will remove the links from their sites which will be very damaging.

Most providers (hosting companies) advertise 99% up time. You should keep them to that & get a credit or refund if your site goes down for more than 2 days.

What will happen to your site in the search engines such as Yahoo and Google if your site goes down?
If you are unlucky enough to have your site spidered while it is down it will be removed from the search engine results. You'll lose your listing in the search engines. If they came while you were down you could lose your listing for 3 months.

There are companies which you can pay to monitor your sites down time. They will contact you if your site goes down. You can try www.netwhisle.com and www.linkalarm.com. Some of them offer free services. They will also check to see if your site has broken links (links to webpages that are no longer available because they have changed address or the website no longer exists).

Recently you had a website go down due to an electrical fire at your hosting company. How did that affect your site?
The worst bit was that the company only had voice phone so it seemed like the hosting company had gone out of business. I didn't have a monitor on the site to check whether it went down or not. Luckily my website designer visited the site soon after it went down, so we were able to change the site to a different hosting company and the site was only offline for about 12 hours.

However I lost ALL sales for about a week which hurt.

Do you have any other advice?
Don't try to scam the search engines by hiding keywords (placing all the words you think people will search on in a text color similar to your background color so the viewer can't see them but the search engines can). You may be banned from the search engines. You will then have to take the keywords out and wait for the search engine robot to visit your site before you get back on.

The best thing you can do for your site as far as search engine ranking is concerned is to get incoming links (sites that link to your website) from sites that are similar to yours but do not compete directly with your site. Put your URL on bulletin boards and guest books. Put a link to your site on the signature of all your emails.

How about submitting your site to various search engines?
Yahoo charges $299 PER YEAR to submit the site. If they reject your site they do not refund the money. It isn't worth it for a lot of small businesses. But for some it is. Depends what you are doing.

Don't forget to submit your site to DMOZ.org. They have a real person check it before they add it to their search engine.

Use long titles packed with keywords. (If you look at the top of your browser window now, the row at the very top part of the browser window you will see the title.) Even if you can't read the whole thing in the browser window the search engine spiders can.

REFERENCES
Edward, I. Interview. 16th Nov. 2004.

Go Daddy Inc. Interview by telephone with technical support advisor 17th Nov. 2004.

NaturalHealingCenter.com, 2004. Retrieved November 20th, 2004 from: http://www.naturalhealingcenter.com/hosting.html

Website Promotion & Ranking Services, 2001-2003. What is a software spider or robot? Retrieved on November 15th 2004 from http://www.website-promotion-ranking-services.com/tutorials/3.htm

Nihongo • Home • SHOPPING ONLINE • Healers, Teachers & Creative People • Magazine - Online • Discussion Boards
Events Calendar • Get your own NHC Web Page • Web Site Designs • So You Want a Website • Website Hosting
Useful Info • Meditation, Mantras & Prayer • Vegetarian Info • Famous Vegetarians • Contact Us • Links