Search engine optimization is the best way to get consistent traffic to your web site without having to continuously invest money in advertising and other forms of marketing and promotion. By optimizing your web sites properly you can bring in a steady flow of traffic and forget about marketing and other annoying and repetitive aspects of online business. In fact, many webmasters spend the majority of their time trying to find more ways to increase their search engine ranking and traffic. Unfortunately, many webmasters don’t realize they’ve already hurt their chances of being as successful online by choosing the wrong web hosting plan. Contrary to popular belief, there is a solid connection between web hosting and search engine optimization.

IP Addresses and SEO

For the advanced SEO expert that routinely does link building through various web 2.0 properties, the most obvious aspect of a web hosting plan that has an impact on SEO is the amount of IP addresses given to each webmaster. When search engines index web pages they do so with automated crawlers that index every aspect of the page and site, including the web site’s IP address. If you own a network of web sites and you would like to build a link network using these sites, then you will need to have a separate IP address for each web site. Fortunately, IP addresses are not a major factor for webmasters that don’t own a lot of web sites that are interlinking in the same niche.

Hosting Reliability and Features

Most people don’t realize that an unreliable hosting network can have a negative impact on a web site’s search engine ranking and site indexing. When your web site is down (as it often may be with unreliable web hosting) search engine robots will be unable to index your new pages. This may have a very negative impact on the amount of pages that are indexed for your site, and how often updated pages are indexed in the search engine results.

A powerful hosting plan will also be able to handle more software installations and tasks, which can be especially useful if you are using automated software for link building or to perform  other mundane tasks involved with SEO.

Robots.txt

The robots.txt file is another overlooked connection between your web hosting plan and your SEO efforts. The robots.txt file is a file that is located on your web server, which dictates how robots (particularly search engine bots) interact with your web site. If the robot.txt file is set to dis-allow all robots then your site will not be able to get ranked by any search engine, leaving you without any form of SEO traffic. Most hosting companies leave this file blank or do not include, so it is important to verify whether or not the robots.txt file is present in the web server that hosts your web site.

Colocation web hosting is very different from every other hosting service, primarily because it is not a service in which web servers are leased. Instead, colocation hosting is a web server storage service in which adequate server storage space is provided in a state-of-the-art data center that is equipped with highly trained staff and maximum security 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

In essence, you are simply paying for storage space so that you can store your dedicated server without problems such as hardware damage and theft occurring. While this may seem as if it is a great service that everyone should use, only a small percentage of webmasters will ever need colocation hosting. If you are not sure whether or not your business needs access to a colocation hosting service then you may want to consider the following information.

Do You Own a Web Server?

If you do not own a web server then you should know that you will need to purchase one before a colocation hosting service will be of any use to you. Web servers can cost anywhere from $1500-$10,000, depending upon the model and its capabilities. If you can afford to invest that much money in to a web server, and you are ready to pay for the monthly cost of colocation hosting, then it may be within your budget ton purchase a colocation hosting plan. However, if you are like the majority of webmasters, then you will not be able to afford or justify such a purchase.

What Kind of Sites Do You Own?

If you own a single medium sized web site then you may not have a need for a dedicated server at all. Dedicated web servers are ideal for people that have dozens of web sites or a single corporate web site that needs to be maintained professionally and kept at peak performance. With the availability of cheap and powerful web hosting you should be able to find a plan that will accommodate your needs with ease. Dedicated servers and colocation hosting is only recommended for corporations and enterprises, or people that own hundreds of sites.

How Technically Skilled Are You?

As mentioned, a colocation hosting service is simply a web server storage service, which means that most colocation hosting plans do not come with technical support. As such, you will need to provide your own technical support for server maintenance and administration. Most administrative duties can be done remotely, however this requires an advanced level of knowledge in the way web servers work. If you do not have a decent amount of experience in dealing with web servers then you may want to consider a colocation hosting solution that includes technical support.

Unfortunately, in order to have full technical support included with your colocation hosting plan you will need to pay an extra fee each month. When you add this fee to the mountain of other expenses associated with colocation hosting, it becomes clear that this type of hosting solution should only be utilize by highly successful online businesses.

Many cPanel sections and their numerous functions have been reviewed. Another important area within the cPanel software is Mail. Within this module users can add and manage email addresses, filters, spam blocking and engage many other features.

The basic menu contains the following items:

• Email accounts
• Webmail
• SpamAssassin
• BoxTrapper
• Forwarders
• Auto Responders
• Default address
• Mailing Lists
• User Level Filtering
• Account Level Filtering
• Email Delivery Route
• Import Addresses/Forwarders
• MX Entry
• Email Authentication
• Additional Login Methods

The email accounts option allows users to find information and add, delete and manage all email addresses on the site. Webmail is a common and convenient feature allowing the owner to utilize their web browser to access email. Both BoxTrapper and SpamAssassin are modules featuring many configurations for blocking unwanted email.

Forwarders are configurable options which forward email from one address to another, similar to physical mail forwarding from the post office. AutoResponders are excellent functions for internet marketers as it automatically responds to all incoming email with a specific message.

A default address catches any unintentional email that is sent to your domain address. Mailing lists are another beneficial feature for internet marketers. They allow mass emails to be sent to those on the list. This can help promote a new product, send out a news letter or just keep in constant contact with customers.

User level and account level filtering allow the webmaster to create mail filters for a specific address as well as for the domain’s primary email account. Email delivery route is a nice visual that shows the path of any emails you send from your domain. The important addresses/forwarders feature helps you add several email addresses or email forwarders at once simply by uploading a list of names.

MX Entry lets you route incoming mail from a domain to a specific server location. Email authentication adds extra security to both your email and mail servers. Finally the additional login methods area is helpful for users that need to login to their sent and spam email folders instantly as a shortcut.

Within each of these selections are additional options that allow for more functionality and customization of email management within a website. User-friendly features are some of the primary reasons cPanel is at the forefront of the control panel industry.

CoreLink Data Centers, an industry-leader in providing colocation hosting and management services, recently announced a major move of their headquarters from Phoenix, Arizona to Mount Prospect, an area outside of Chicago. In addition, the operations of their newest data center, also located in the Chicagoland area, are fully functional.

The data center is 80,000 square feet and linked to the companies four other colocation data centers in Seattle, Las Vegas and Phoenix. The new data center is located on 5.4 acres of land and provides all of CoreLink’s solutions under one secure roof in control environments.

The center features the latest security and management technology. Some of these features include; diverse connections to the internet, redundant emergency power equipment, the best fire detection and suppression systems as well as biometric security scanners. Also, neutral connectivity, uninterruptible power supplies N+1 cooling and critical redundancy on all equipment.

The center will provide customers with extra expansion capacity, reliable and redundant access to the internet and high-density installation. This is the perfect addition to the area.

CoreLink has selected Chicago because it has become a booming business and technology epicenter. This will have a considerable impact on the local economy through investment in the community as well as job creation.

The biggest focus of the new data center is the scalability. Due to the size and server technology, it can accommodate all business needs as they continue to evolve and consume resources.

The primary highlights of the new data center include:

• Scale systems up
• Decrease labor expenses
• Lower capital costs
• Add redundant systems

The ability to scale information technology systems up or down is major draw to many large corporations as the needs of their business constantly change. Also, the new center will provide efficient facility management thus decreasing labor expenses. By outsourcing internal infrastructure, the company will save on overall capital costs.

Finally, the new data center provides redundant systems that do not contain a failure point and have a maintainable infrastructure that is capable of handling critical applications. These include; e-commerce, email systems and website connectivity.

Opening a new data center and relocating the headquarters is a major move for CoreLink. They will benefit from the numerous technology companies in the Chicago area while creating jobs and providing a boost to the local economy. In the end, all parties will benefit from this move.

Cloud VPS hosting is reshaping the way corporate and massive web sites operate on a daily basis, by allocating a seemingly infinite amount of server resources to a single website at any given point in time. This concept has revolutionized the way web sites interact with web severs, and how web site visitors experience the internet as a whole. Some of the biggest sites on the internet, including Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and eBay, utilize the cloud hosting concept to host their web sites.

What is Cloud Hosting?

Cloud hosting is different from any other type of hosting because it combines the power of dozens, or even hundreds of web servers within a datacenter, to power thousands of web sites simultaneously without compromising performance. Today, the cloud hosting concept is being expanded into the consumer market with cheap cloud VPS plans that start at about $20 per month. By offering unlimited access to multiple servers, cloud VPS hosting plans provide instant scalability. This concept works because cloud VPS hosting plans are billed on a per-usage basis. Which means you only have to pay for what you use on a daily basis. With cloud VPS hosting you’ll never have to worry about upgrading because you’ll already have instant access to all of the server resources you need.

How Can Cloud Hosting Help an eCommerce Store?

The cloud hosting environment is perfect for the eCommerce setting because sales and search engine traffic can both be very unpredictable. Since the amount of web site traffic cannot be accurately predicted it is helpful to have access to as much bandwidth needed. If you own a busy eCommerce site then you know just how inconsistent it can be. On some days there may be 1000 visitors, while others there may only be a hundred, and then there are days where the traffic spikes to more than 10,000. This is especially true if your site is currently growing and you are building a client base. Cloud Hosting is also perfect for eCommerce stores because you only pay for what you use, which means you can increase your profits by deceasing unnecessary web hosting costs.

Can I Build Stores with Cloud Hosting?

Most cloud hosting plans have a very flexible software configuration that allows you to install site builders and other applications that will enhance your web server and the functionality and design of your web site. Although with eCommerce hosting all of the site building and store management tools needed are included automatically, it is still possible to install these tools within the control panel of a cloud hosting plan. From a cost perspective, cloud hosting is actually more beneficial than eCommerce hosting because there is no risk of overestimating your server needs and paying an excessive amount for your monthly web hosting needs.

Conclusion

While eCommerce hosting makes it easier to setup an online store and provides all of the necessary tools to do so, cloud hosting provides an instantly scalable hosting environment that only charges on a per use basis. If both of these concepts united it would be the perfect hosting plan for online stores, but as it stands, consumers have to choose one or the other.

The new .CO domains are being bought and sold furiously as a formidable market is currently being built around the hottest realty on the internet right now. With the dawn of a new and exciting public domain web site owners and domain speculators everywhere were purchasing 2,3 and 4 letter domain names by the thousands within weeks of their release. Nearly every short .co domain name has been bought by companies that undoubtedly used software to calculate every single short term calculation possible and purchase it automatically. However, this doesn’t mean that all hope is lost for short .com domains, as is explained in the following paragraphs.

The Purpose of .CO Domains

The .CO domains do not have any particular purpose, however they are now being used for all sorts of commercial purposes including but not limited to eCommerce, personal blogging, picture sites, music sites, and video sites, social sites, news sites, sports sites and any other kind of web site imaginable. Twitter is using a .co domain as a link service, however many are under the impression that this site will be used to shorten .co domains, even though it is actually intended to do much more as an overall link service for Twitter that indexes all links and collects information about them for Twitter. They are also supposed to be using the domain as a link shortener as well for Twitter development purposes. Many people wonder how Twitter got a one letter .CO domain when a normal person can only purchase a three letter domain and others are considered invalid in domain registrar databases. According to the news, Twitter paid more than a quarter million dollars for T.CO, its new .CO link service.

Shorter .CO URLs

Twitter in the aforementioned example is just one of many large web sites that are purchasing and utilizing a .co domain to shorten their domain name. Overstock.com also purchases O.CO, which is perhaps one of the most memorable web sites ever bought. Overstock’s search engine optimization specialist stated that he believes the new domain will bring in twice the amount of traffic tot he Overstock web site within the coming decade. It should be noted however that the average site owner will not be able to afford one of these one or two letter domain names, as Overstock paid more than $300,000 for O.CO.

New Brands and .CO Domains

Even though you can’t find a two or three letter .co domain, it is still very possible to purchase .co domains that have very basic keywords in them. For example, it may still be possible to purchase a 6 or 7 letter .co domain that is an actual word or existing product of some sort. Since .CO domains have just been released to the public for sale, there are many .CO domains are available that have .com counterparts. For example, there may be a web site entitled example.com. A couple of months ago you may have been able to purchase example.co, even though you are not the owner of example.com. This would give you the opportunity to capitalize on the popularity of an existing web site.

Cheap web hosting is often frowned upon by more experience webmasters, however it is a beacon of hope for aspiring web site owners on a very limited budget. Cheap web hosting gives the average person a gateway into the web hosting community by giving them the ability to host their web site for only a few dollars a month. However, it is debatable as to which kind of cheap web hosting is the best.

VPS web hosting is very different from shared hosting because it comes in a wide range of plans, all of which are priced very differently, with the cheapest plans starting at about $10 per month and the most expensive costing about $200 or more per month. The cheapest shared hosting plan on the other hand only costs about $3 per month, with the most expensive type costing about $50 per month. The following information will attempt to draw an accurate comparison of the two hosting types in their cheapest forms.

Fees and Startup Costs

Since budgeting is of obvious importance when shopping for cheap web hosting plans, it is best to compare the fees and startup costs associated with each type of hosting plan first. The fees associated with VPS hosting plans will differ greatly depending upon the hosting company, however most hosting providers do charge a setup fee when the plan is first purchased. Even so, most cheap VPS plans do not require you to pay more than  one month upfront, which greatly diminishes the total setup costs. Cheap shared hosting plans usually do not have nay setup fees, however many of them require you to pay at least a year upfront, which makes the startup costs equal to or greater than that of a cheap VPS hosting plan.

Features and Limitations

Even though novice webmasters do not need a very comprehensive hosting plan, it is still beneficial to have access to the best possible hosting plan for your money. Shared web hosting plans are known for having strict limitations that cannot be bypassed without upgrading your plan to a more expensive solution. However, VPS hosting is slightly more expandable because it is possible to instantly draw resources from another part of the server and allocate them to your site during unexpected traffic surges. If you are expecting traffic surges then you may want to consider a VPS hosting plan, as they are better at accommodating sudden server loads, and they are easier to upgrade.

Support and Reliability

As in every other industry, you will undoubtedly get what you pay for. As such, cheap web shooting plans of all types are notorious for being unreliable and inconsistent. However, the reliability and support of a hosting plan will usually depend primarily on the hosting provider. Nonetheless, VPS hosting is consistently more reliable than shared hosting based on the server environment and how it is configured. Ideally, a new webmaster on a budget should look for a cheap VPS hosting plan from a reliable hosting provider with no startup fees and a flexible billing schedule.