Domain Owl

First time purchasers of discount web hosting ask the question: Can budget hosting perform as well as cheap web hosting? What is the better deal, Godaddy $1.99 hosting or the Hostgator offer of $3.99 a month for web hosting? Fatcow is offering hosting for $4.67. One bright part of a downturn in the economy is that server farms and wire hotels can’t support indefinite co-location, and even the biggest webhost has to lower prices in search of new business.

Hosting usually can be discounted using a prepaid model. But many experienced webmasters can investigator such discount offers and find key attributes to their web site architecture plan missing. Then adding this extra feature in can bring the cost to a premium web hosting package cost. So where is the savings? Justhost, InMotion, and others have tracked the pricing of major competitors and offer similar packages. Hub, Ipage, Greengeeks and Powweb offer price-competitive web hosting platforms with variable feature profiles.

Powweb even offers extended attribute web hosting packages for $3.88 Canadian. This is a great break for the Canadian and North American webmaster looking to shave costs if a reputable web host is attainable. Load balanced servers make sure static server installation never give viewers blank white screens again. Statistics interface programs and social media credits make budget web hosting not only a cost reduction option, but an improvement to current resources.

The savings in a budget web hosting plan eliminates the additional costs of the amortized license payments, administrative costs, and server upkeep that makes a hosting happen. The costs might be backup generators, additional staff, or updated programs and upgraded scripts that keep third party applications fresh and allow new web hosting account users optimum flexibility and choice when designing their newest site. Such budget web hosting accounts have full price features, such as online stores, search engine credits, and Cpanel, as well as multiple site builder options.

What does the webmaster sacrifice choosing low cost web hosting? Nothing, if they are a smart shopper. Increasing security concerns on the part of webmasters should restrict low cost server choice and budget web hosting accounts to well know web hosting companies with sterling customer service histories. Better yet, researching the probability that the new web hosting company won’t be shutting its doors is a safeguard against having to migrate the project files all over again.

Today, web hosting companies are competitive in their search for the low cost high volume web hosting customer. They understand that an individual client or a bulk buying domainer wants the least expensive cost possible for mounting their new domain name projects. The domain customer looks at every aspect o the web hosting offering, such as MySQL and Plesk features. And a budget web host offering can allow for variations in the website development model. The new hosting buy can allow testing of scripts and sites through cross-platform hosting access.

Such Linux or Windows choices can allow demonstration of tools and open source applications from customers with hosting that does not cross the Windows/Linux barrier. This can yield benefits by looking to a wider range of choices in the
internet design and coding model. Cheap web hosting with Linux and Windows can admit webmasters into a staging area for the operational environment of their choosing.

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I have come to use a new system of measurement with my domainer peers and colleagues, one that reflects their concrete commitment to developing their domains versus the merely stated intent or practice of doing so. So many domain buyers pose as active promoters it is easy to see how some domain name buyers can get lost trying to figure the players without a scorecard.

I never judge another domainer based on whether they use the same tools as I do or whether they favor the same site estimators.  No two domainers are going to use the same system, even if they have the same vendor accounts and use the same site analytics. Based on how these tools have served each domainer in the past, they will come to their own conclusion about the relative worth of each.

It’s a habit for domain name buyers and sellers to hype their latest online app or website find to each other. It’s part of the game. But sometimes I don’t really have time to expend double digit hours per month (or week) evaluating new interfaces or plugging into new websites that claim heightened value for website marketing. You can take the opinion of a domaining peer, or you ca try it out for yourself.

It’s completely possible that a “power domainer” within your acquaintance may favor you with emails concerning the latest fad website or the newest website or domain evaluator which generates the most pleasing estimation responses. it’s wise to be wary of following any one domainers and their practices and viewpoints too closely. It is entirely possible they may be affiliated with the new site or service, or derive a signup credit or kickback.

By the same measure, qualified recommendations by senior experts in the domain world can save you time and put you on a footing with the best in the business.  Checking out their communications keeps you in the loop regarding where the domain herd is moving and how fast it is going. And signing up for a new service can keep you abreast with first hand opinion regarding the efficiency of a website and how prurient their abilities are.

I had one such recent experience lately. One of my clients wanted me to make some blog posts (blurbs) on a service called BuildMyRank.com. Before this gig I had never heard of BuildMyRank.com. This program had some kind of promotional public relations slash distribution channel for brief informational posts about the clients’ relative keywords. The individual client would input the blurb and link them with interconnected anchor links at the target site.

One of the requirements of this site is that your site be “developed”. It’s not clear from the BuildMyRank prose if this means a minisite will qualify, if a parking page disqualifies the url, or of forwarding does the trick. I know I was irritated with how long the BuildMyRank.com signup process took, and the installation of the original url had unrelated interface problems that reflected a beta launch software edition.But nobody wants to walk away from a free (or paid but worthwhile) SEO advancement instrument.

I had used proformatted links inside BuildMyRank.com with my client and so duly posted a website and put up content. (At this time I had no intention of publishing a review) When I resubmitted the information for the newly developed site, many of the key links did not align and the interface keep issuing error messages not in concordance with the posted content. The keywords fit into the linking convention but the “save” operation would plug the links into the software. So I emailed customer support about the problem.

Well, you learn a lot about a website (and their “SEO” services) by the customer service response. My frustration was met with bitchy and argumentative responses again and again. The operator from BuildMyRank.com never addressed the specific bugs. They assured me that “thousands of users worked just fine” and immediately decided to close my account rather than deal with the issue.

Not only had my first attempt to use this Buildmyrank.com service broken down, but my account had significant bugs. Email to BuildMyRank.com did not yield working fruit. The difference between my client and me getting anywhere was that his BuildMyRank.com items were from a paid account service, and I was still in “free trial” mode.Would the eventual SEO value diminish or disappear under similar circumstances? If it indeed ever appeared?

The emails from BuildMyRank.com are snotty and stupid. This told me a lot about how they approached getting things done. Knowing this so far in advance was a relief. I hadn’t recommended this site to anyone yet. They would never know how many referral clients they lost, domainers with huge portfolios looking for SEO results and only the assurance of a trained site operator to work with.

I don’t know the net benefit of is service to my client, but I do not recommend BuildMyRank.com. The argumentative and offensive stack of response emails form their “administrators” reveals a bunch of coffee drinking teenagers pretending to run a business. Risking your url’s white SEO hat on this company is a risk. If you get difference experience at BuildMyRank.com you have my heartfelt congratulations.

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While navigating three hosting accounts in one morning I remembered more than I wish I had forgotten about the in’s and out’s of relative advantages of different hosting companies. Administrating Wordpress websites is about as easy as being a webmaster can get short of editing mere HTML pages strung together. But it can still be a headache. And performing tasks in MySQL on no coffee is torture.

I went between Godaddy.com and 1 & 1 Hosting, between 1 & 1 hosting and Hostgator, and back again from Hostgator.com to Godaddy again. This is the chore when different hosting accounts get different parts of the hosting account offering formula right and different parts of it wrong. Experiencing multiple hosting account interfaces before breakfast can take a lot of elbow grease and keyboard forgiveness.

A lot depends on the browser. At one point in the project I realized I had both Firefox and Internet Explorer open because one hosting account stayed open better in Explorer while another transited better between navigation screens in Explorer. But Explorer seemed more secure in certain parts of the hosting account interface where security was tighter, and Firefox sort of stalled in the Backup/Restore pathway of commands.

GoDaddy.com does have a cornered market on the Godaddy Hosting Connection installation utility. It’s a nice arrangement that unfortunately you have to learn to be comfortable with. Control panel and ControlPanel Deluxe have that absolute party favorite of all hosting account surfers, Fantastico. Except to get version information you have to sift carefully and compare versions and perform upgrades per application before executing database restore and upload tasks.

The jury is never really out when debating which hosting account vendor online is the best. Certainly Enom.com is a stable bedrock names registrar. but just try and get a name hosted there or working with any application without Indian medicinal juju working for you. Frustration with one hosting account leads to the germination of another at a new company. This cycle can only continue so far.

Godaddy.com has the most fluid domain manager but the bells and whistles flavor of the nonstop “Buy This” circus inside a hosting login can’t exhaust even a patient webmaster fast. This administration environment seems very commercial next to the minimal functionality of the Hostgator Control panel. The Fantastico “hosting connection” delivers good install functionality for third party applications, if the versions are consistent with the “exit” versions on other outgoing site hosting accounts.

What this means is that a WordPress install at Godaddy might be at Wordpress 3.01.01 yet the Fantastico release at HostGator might have the WordPress installation release only at 2.98.2. This means the security and support is not guaranteed for custom tweaks and plugins that are the main feature of the updated Wordpress. Backwards blog migration is never a pretty site.

Thus the hosting account selection equation might be reduced to the smoothest and most updated installation suite. Yet so many functions inside the Control Panel (except Fantastico) can remain untouched for the life of the account. Or worse, they can be experimentally tried with brilliant reactions of equal parts of glee, panic and chaos. Having the tech support number close at hand is a must.

The hosting at 1&1 hosting is a curiosity to me. The custom tweaked interface for administration of the hosting account seems to mask more than it reveals of available and necessary domaining chores. The ease of use never seems to be 100% there. For a domainer intent on SEO and marketing and domain name promotion, supposedly only programmers venture this far.

I have a 1 & 1 hosting account that it took a considerable amount of time to cancel, simply because the process was so labyrinthine I barely got the confirmation of the account cancellation in time. I got quickly into the habit of not using the account because I didn’t like the interface as was constantly stalled by the “lookup and see” factor involved in very simple tasks.

To be sure, Godaddy captures a big part of its hosting and domain business from ease of use and familiarity. But not often do I get the opportunity to see triple hosting company side by side performance. I remember how much I resisted the Godaddy interface on my journey from ControlPanel. I like the direct file management approach but miss the protections and hidden file attributes of the Godaddy File manager.

For the 1 & 1 Hosting file access was almost impossible, rendering many templates and theme graphics closed to customization. I used to cling tearfully to my Control panel until an installation version got so vulnerable to failure almost every operation was liable to disappear from day to day. This is the sort of thing that causes hosting account migration.

My love affair with Fantastico was long and meaningful. But many other administration options when navigating through reseller accounts and multiple hosting trees became necessary. Godaddy is a hosting account utility most webmasters will shoulder sooner or later simply by nature of the amount of domains hosted there. Until there is a definitive result for the best hosting company for SEO, the choice for domainers remains personal.

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After all the industry-speak and techno-blather about mobile apps died down, I was hoping these terms could die the death of so many over-hyped computer and Internet lexicon casualties. But it took an experience with a mobile device and a website that failed the mobile test to help me understand just what a mobile domain could deliver. Domains need to furnish mobile shortcuts to cellphone users beached on an overcooked website.

I was at a Starbucks trying to log into the Starbucks mobile website on my cellphone. I was trying to log into my Starbucks account and reload my card. Usually a website will make it very easy for you to spend money there. But not Starbucks. I navigated the website for 25 minutes and was not able to log in or reload my card. The Starbucks site simply wouldn’t allow it.  So much for the “rewards” program.

The problem is that Starbucks has not designed a website with mobile users in mind. It has designed a website that includes every coffee type to order, every philanthropic program, every possible non-coffee option jammed on the front page. Mobile users will burn minutes navigating this nightmare using the mobile internet access afforded by cellphones. Logging in is a challenge or a chore.

The Starbucks mobile experience was a joke. The Starbucks staff couldn’t help me do it. Every coffee type, promotional gift gimmick and rebranding idea was stuffed up front on the mobile menu. Starbucks thinks people in a hurry want to read about growing traditions in Costa Rica while thumbing the ‘reload” button. Too bad the site couldn’t handle it.

When a website stands in the way of the loyal customer repurchasing goods, there is a problem. This got me started thinking about a shortcut to set up online to access my favorite mobile apps. This would be a domain or site to use when trying to get online at my preferred sites. But could my web links enable logins where the mobile site destination architecture failed?

If you are a website designer or webmaster, you may have noticed lately that even the most titanic brand and websites have gotten simplified. The mobile version of many websites should not be necessary. Only four or five main navigation pathways should be functionally necessary on any website. Categories of links should sort them in navigable order. Vending goods or services should have priority and a clear path to mobile access.

Using the alphanumeric keypad for my cellphone’s internet navigation portal is troublesome and not particularly intuitive. And when Googling results I often have to take the luck of the draw just to speed navigation to a particular site. But what if a domain name or site set up a one stop shopping spot where I could navigate favorites without storing them on my cellphone? And what if somebody put up a panoply of websites with links to the immediate business send of the these websites, so I wouldn’t get lost in navigation limbo?

Food for domain thought. When reviewing the drop lists and thinking up new mobile names, think about the types of sites people want to access most. Think about how many of these portals are loaded with too many bells and whistles, overdesigned web sites and landing pages crammed with every conceivable public affairs message and brief. There are too many.

Closing the distance between the point mobile users want to get to and where they start can reap big rewards for clever webmaster domainers. Domain buyers should keep an eye out for quick typeable short names that deliver custom link pages or sorted quick links to popular and difficult to find necessary links. There could be traffic in it.

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