Over the last two and a half years I have covered a lot of topics that relate back to getting started with a web hosting account so that you can get your own web site off the ground. Here are some of the best of the best to help and newbie become a web hosting guru.

Not all Web Hosting Plans Are The Same…

• Flavors of Web Hosting
• What is VPS Hosting?
• What is Dedicated Web Hosting?
• What Are Server Resources?

When Shopping for Web Hosting You Need to Check…

• The Truth Behind Top 10 Web Host Lists
• Test Your Web Host’s Speed
• Are There Too Many Web Hosts?
• Secret Taboo Topics in Web Hosting

Once You Get That Site, Remember This…

• Quick Tips for Hosting Bliss
• Search Engine Submit and Help
• Classic HTML vs CSS - Who Wins?

Other Tools You Should Keep Handy Are…

• Setting up Google Webmaster Tools
• What is Reverse IP Lookup
• Setting up Google Analytics Guide
• 5 Great Web Dev Tools

Here Are Some Popular Marketing Tips…

• What is a Landing Page?
• 7 Ad Design Tips and Tricks
• Marketing Talk with Amy Armitage of Lunarpages
• Inform, Then Pitch Your Goods
• Marketing Your Site with StumbleUpon
• Write a Better Press Release

There is no doubt that starting out with a new hosting account or web site can be a scary thing. Hopefully with these resources by your side, you’ll be ready for anything that comes your way.

I’ve been up to a little updating this weekend.

Updated Subscription Page - There are now a few more options listed there for you to use to subscribe to the Web Hosting Show web site and podcast. I also added a syndication section for those who want to display the Web Hosting Show’s posts on their own web site, blog, MySpace, ect.

Popular Posts - The most popular posts and podcasts are back on the WebHostingShow.com sidebar.

Link Back Feature Added - Added a new “link back” section to each post, so you have an easy cut and paste way of grabbing links for posts so that you can share the love and include them elsewhere without any extra work. See something you want to share? Now it is a little easier to grab that link.

Link to Hosting Links - Put a quick access link to Hosting Hoopla to the top of the web site’s layout so you don’t have to do much work to check out some of the best and newest resources, news-bites, and links from around the web hosting world.

Have any other suggestions? Send them my way!

Continuing the “expanding the social aspect” of the Web Hosting Show we seem to be doing this week, I have yet another goody for you to enjoy.

Are you on Facebook? If so you can feel more than free to come join your fellow Web Hosting Show fans on or special Facebook group for this very podcast.

Join the Web Hosting Show’s Facebook Group!

More than a few of the hosting world’s movers and shakers have joined up - and everybody is free to come in and enjoy it. Post there, leave comments - it is yours to do what you wish with it.

As you have probably figured out by now, I took this week off from doing the podcast due to a few reasons, with the biggest one being time. I thought now would be a good time though to toss out the offer to all of you to come talk with me.

You have heard me interview folks like George Roberts (from Hostingcon), Amy Armitage (from Lunarpages) and Troy Augustine (from Web Hosting Talk) - now it is your turn to share your thoughts about you, your product or about the hosting world in general.

Companies that have services based around the web hosting or web development worlds are more than welcome to participate too. If I have tickled your fancy, feel free to drop me an e-mail at mitch@mitchkeeler.com (put “Interview Request” in the subject line) and I will be more than happy to discuss things further with you.

Remember Hosting Hoopla? If you do - you must have been one of the 15 people that were still going to it. For the rest of you though, I have shot it in the arm with a new idea and I really hope you give it another shot.

From this point on Hosting Hoopla will be much more than just a list of resources. I will now be kind of link blogging some of the best web hosting and web development news, links, resources, help and more. Just think of it as an always growing list of things in the web hosting world you should be paying attention to.

Why do all that hard work of hunting things down when you can let me do it for you? Of course you can subscribe via the RSS feed or even get daily e-mail updates. Don’t forget the mobile device friendly version of the Hosting Hoopla link list as well.

Feel free to let me know what you like, what you don’t like, what you need and what you want. I am totally open to suggestions, just send them my way. I’d be happy to take them and work them in.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 118!

Every time I get an e-mail with a hosting question in it, I do my best to get it answered for the folks that ask me stuff. I don’t get paid for it - but hey, I’m a guy who likes to help out where I can. Here are some of the best random questions on and about web hosting that I’ve been asked about this week.

Question - You’ve talked about a lot of file backup web hosting solutions here lately. I have been doing all of my off site backup storage with Carbonite. Do you like them as a choice?

Answer - Yes, the folks at Carbonite do a really good job and the whole online backup solution. Now the reason you might want to go with a solution like this instead of just backing it up to DVD or external hard drive is simple. What if you house explodes, or an army of un-dead midget warriors attack? Your computer would more than likely bite the dust. With your files backup somewhere else though - at least your files will make it out alive.

Question - I want to get into the web site business. Is it better to host a web site with a lot of topics on one domain name or setup different domain names for each topic?

Answer - I would say try to find a niche domain name for each type of web site you wish to host. The “all in one” web sites are really hard to manage and make popular. People want to learn about or deal with places that are based around one topic of discussion.

Question - Why does my server web statistics not match up with my online web statistics when tracking my visitors?

Answer - When using something like Webalizer compared with Google Analytics, the server side solution is going to be looking at everything, robot crawls, people and more as all one thing - traffic. With a off-site web stats solution like Google Analytics, it can’t see (or gain access to) that information, so it’s tracking numbers are based more off of real people.

Do you have a question? Feel free to send it my way and I’ll do my best to help you out too! Who knows, your question might even make it to the podcast too.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 118!

There are a lot of blogs out there, many more than you could count on your hands.. even if you have that freaky four extra fingers on that left hand of yours.

With that many blogs out there, there is a lot of backing up that needs to be done. BlogBackupOnline.com will do it for you.

You’ll hear no argument from me that backing up a blog can be very complicated and tedious. Having an external hosting account to do this on can be a lifesaver. At this time they support these blogging platforms:

• Blogger
• WordPress
• TypePad
• Friendster
• LiveJournal
• Serendipity
• Windows Live Space
• Movable Type
• Terapad
• Vox

They also provide a restore solution as well. With many of these online backup solutions they have an easy way to upload, but not such an easy job downloading what you’ve backed up. I’m happy to see they have this under control as well.

Backing up your blog is free while they are still in Beta. The bottom line is the storage space though. You get 50 MB of storage space is allocated to your account.