What makes a web host a great place to host a blog? Well these days just about any hosting account is ready, will and able for a good ol’ WordPress install or two.

Easy One-Click Installs?

Look at what scripts and software they have ready to install on day one. Do you have one click install access to WordPress, b2evolution, Nucleus or others. These are some of the more familiar names you might see tossed in with Fantastico, and addon for cPanel that gives you easy one click access right from your hosting control panel.

Disk Space and Bandwidth for Blogging?

Next thing you will want to check out is the disk space and bandwidth limitations. If your just starting your blog out - do you have enough room to grow? If your blog is already established then do they have enough disk space and bandwidth to support you for a long period of time.

Server Resources for Peaks in Traffic

Server resources also come into play when it comes to blog hosting. Just in case your article gets dugg on digg.com or hyped up on any of the other big social news and link sharing sites, can your web site take the punch in traffic? This is something you should discuss one on one with your web host - but it most cases (unless the host isn’t that established) you should be OK in this department too. If using WordPress there are also addons that will make sudden growths in popularity more bearable, such as the WP-Cache addon.

Truth be told, you might have to suffer through a few web hosting lemons before you find the web host that is best able to deliver you the best blogging experience. It never hurts though to have a check list like the one above before you start shopping so you know what it is you should be getting.

Now if you listen to the podcast here, you are more than likely more knowledgeable than the average Joe on the street about web hosting. One question I see come up a lot for hosting insiders or web designers that have friends and clients who need a place to host is which way should they go to get it done?

To give you a summary of things, there are usually two routes you can take. You can purchase a reseller account from any web host out there that you choose or you could decide to go the affiliate route and resell a web host’s shared hosting plans. So when should you do one over the other?

Reseller Web Hosting

If you want to act as your on “mini” web hosting company, then I often suggest going with the reseller hosting plan option. For much cheaper than it would cost to rent out a data center and worry about all the legalities of starting a business you can act as the web host for your friend or clients. You charge them some to help pay for the reseller hosting account and they go to you with their support questions. This is also a great way to beta test becoming a real web host too.

Affiliate Hosting Deals

On the other side of the scale, as an example lets say you don’t have a lot of free time but your friends are always looking for a suggestion as to where they should do their web hosting. Now if you have no real need to support them 24/7 and you would rather get them the web site hosting they need and be done with it an affiliate plan might be the thing you need. Many web hosts have them (just have to look around) and they will pay you a “finder’s fee” for bringing in new hosting customers to them.

Now I know somebody out there might suggest VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting or a dedicated server but those both might be out of the budget of your “guy on the street”. In conclusion, if you want to be a web host yourself for your clients and friends - get a reseller hosting plan. If you want to hook them up with hosting and then be done with it, a good affiliate deal with a web host you can trust might be the better way to go.

Mention “top ten web hosts” lists in any hosting insider circle and you are bound to get a few girly giggles. You know why? 95% of the lists you find out there claiming to be a top ten list of the greatest web hosting providers known to man are crap. There are nothing more than a 2-bit scam to build up the webmaster in question’s affiliate account. So how can you tell the difference between the real top ten lists and the ones that are bought and paid for?

Look for Affiliate Codes

The first thing to look for is affiliate codes in the links. When you hover over the link for the web host on the top of the list, you should just see their domain name right? Say I am hovering over a link for Host Monster, I should see in my browser’s status bar that is is going to http://www.hostmonster.com. You know there is an affiliate code there when you see something trailing that address such as http://www.hostmonster.com/coupons/tophosts.php or something to that effect.

Sneaky Links!

Some top ten lists are getting sneaky though. They will link you to a page that looks like it belongs to them, but really they are hiding the affiliate code when redirecting you to the web host you are interested in. Very tricky indeed.

Ugly Web Site Design and Layout

Another sign that you are looking at top ten web host list gone wrong is the web site design and layout is ugly as sin. Need an example for that one? Check out web-hosting-top.com. Visually the layout here is bad enough to make any CSS guru die a little ‘bit on the inside. There is no color scheme, everything is too close together, you have random caps all over the place and different colored text. This page was not designed to be useful, it was designed to be at the top of Google. You want to know the sad truth? type in “top 10 hosts” into Google and you will find this guy is the third result down.

Prices for List Position

You can also keep an eye out for the obvious mention on their contact us or about us pages of how to get yourself on this list. Some places out there will go as far as putting up prices for position on the list they provide.

As you can see these people can get rather tricky when it comes to trying to make a buck out of your need for web hosting.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 124!

So your stuck with a web host your not happy with and your considering the big move. You want to take your web site elsewhere and you want to do it quick. Should you pack your bags and make the move in minutes? No. It is always best not to rush into a situation as big as moving your web site from web host to web host.

Find a new web host before you move. Some people just get so unhappy with their current hosting provider they want to move right here right now. That is not he best way to go. Give your current web host a few more chances to impress you before you jump into another relationship. Think of it as that old ex-girlfriend that promised she would never cheat on you again. If they do better, you might eliminate you need to move all together.

Find several web hosts that are worth your time and money, contact them and see what they say about moving from your current web host to them. The good ones will give you a step by step process in which you can do it with the least amount of pain and suffering. Read more »

This is a question I get asked a lot, should folks collocate their hosting servers or have them all in one spot. Now both have their advantages and disadvantages, so I’m not going to tackle every single argument you might here for one side or the other right here, right now.

First, for those of you who might not know what collocation is, let us put a definition with the word. Collocation is the placement of hosting servers in more than one location. Another good way to explain it would be to call it a service whereby a company that owns a server houses it in another company’s data center due to the greater security, stronger backbone or other technological reasons.

I am a big fan of collocation, so here is my most defining argument on why you should be a fan of it as well.

The advantage of having your servers more spread out is that if a natural disaster hits, or something else really bad it will not kill your entire network. Say you have data centers located in the north, south, east and west of the United States. If you southern data center goes out - that is only one forth of your business that is effected.

Disagree with me? I would love to hear more reasons for this and against it. Drop me an E-mail at mitch@mitchkeeler.com and let me know which side of the fence you are on.

+ Check Out the Podcast This Was From! Listen to the Web Hosting Show, Episode 95!

Sure we would all like something for nothing, but everything has a price.

Getting on with a free Web host out there might sound like a cheap way to get a Web site going, but you are going to be paying some prices down the road. Sure, places like Freewebs.com offer nice looking free packages.

What are the advantages of this type of free hosting solution? What are the disadvantages of this type of hosting setup?

The Advantages of Free Web Hosting

• Hey, You Don’t Pay Anything At All
• Most Free Hosts are Built With Beginners in Mind
• Templates and Design Helpers Available

The Disadvantages of Free Web Hosting

• You Have to Put Up With Advertisements
• Usually Have to Use a Crappy Sub Domain
• Low Disk Space and Bandwidth Limits

If you have anymore suggestions for either side of the argument, please leave a comment and join into the conversation.

As you can see, every yin has its yang and every good point has a bad point. I would say if you want to really develop a brand or something that you see yourself contributing to a few years down the road, go with a paid for Web hosting account.

If you are new to hosting and you just want a place to show off to your friends - free might be the way to go.

+ Check Out the Podcast This Was From! Listen to the Web Hosting Show, Episode 94!

So is your Web host hot? Would you like to rate your Web hosting company? Sure - there is nothing really new about the idea of rating your Web hosting company on services, speed, quality and more, but the folks at HostGator.com have developed a new and interesting way of doing things.

Here is a little more information from the alligator people.

Host Gator, a leading provider of shared, dedicated and reseller web hosting, announced today the availability of a new widget that enables web site and blog owners to have visitors rate how fast their site is loading. The widget is available free of charge. All site owners have to do is cut and paste a short snippet of HTML code into their web sites.

Sounds pretty neat hu? The Rate My Web Hosting tool has a very simple and easy to understand interface. All you need to do is sign up, copy the code and paste it on your Web site.

Then as people visit your Web site they can vote on how quickly your Web site came up for them - in turn determining how fast your Web host is. Users are given a map with pin pointed locations to see where the votes are coming from as well.

Now when it comes into a Web host’s speed, how fast it loads a Web site might not be the best way of going about things. How you code the Web site has a lot to do with how speedy it is as well. With that aside though, this is still a very neat tool that I am sure a lot of you will get use out of.

Check out the demo and let me know what you think!

+ Check Out the Podcast This Was From! Listen to the Web Hosting Show, Episode 92!