Webhosting & Hosting Reviews

When looking for a hosting solution for your web site you’ll discover you have the choice of shared or dedicated hosting. This article will breifly explain the difference between them.

Shared hosting is what it says it is. Your web site shares a server with other web sites. You don’t have access to the other web sites files, they don’t have access to yours and you don’t share a domain name. What you do share is the machine and the scripts that are pre-installed on it. Why would you do this?

Because it’s cheaper.

As you can understand, the cost of setting up a server machine is not inexpensive. Even relatively large web sites are only a few hundred megabytes, so today’s computers with multiple hard drives are easily able to handle the space. There can be as many as one or two hundred web sites on a shared server.

You’ll find there are different platforms available in shared hosting too. You will find you can have Unix/Linux or Windows NT/2000 as your platform. You don’t have to choose the platform your PC is running. This has nothing to do with what the server needs to operate on. Unix platforms are very stable and are perfect if you have a site using mostly HTML pages, PHP or CGI. If you are using scripting such as Active Server Pages, have designed your web site using FrontPage, or need access to a Microsoft Access or SQL Server database, you need a Windows platform.

Shared hosting usually comes with a heap of extras and most are included in the price. You can get email, autoresponders, pre-installed scripts including counters and mail scripts, password protected directories, your own cgi- bin, browser based control panels, secure directories and more. Check the options to see that you are getting what you need.

However, if you need complete control of your server, you need a dedicated server. Obviously if you’re not going to share the server with anyone, it is going to be more expensive.

Dedicated servers are usually only required by experienced developers. If you’re not sure if you need a dedicated server, then you probably only need shared hosting. If you’re in doubt, contact the company you are considering hosting with and ask them about their products in detail.

This article has written by … (www.brealweb.com)

One of the most important decisions that you need to make when you first set up your online business is who you will get to host it. You will also encounter this decision again as your business grows. It may seem a simple decision but there are literally thousands of hosting companies to choose from. Hopefully you will find this article will help make your decision a little easier.

The first step is to work out exactly what you need. The main issues are obviously the amount of disk space, the data transfer allowances, the number of e-mail addresses and price. Let me go through these one by one.

Disk Space

This is a bit of an unknown variable. The basics of it are that you need enough space to cover all of your web pages, graphics and scripts. Generally, each page will be about 15K in size so if you plan on having 1000 pages you would need 15MB of space. Add to this your graphics and scripts and you should have an idea.

The issue gets clouded somewhat if you are going to use databases such as MySQL because these will take up more space - often a lot more space. In addition, your sites log files are included in your disk space allowance. Your log files contain all of the information about each visitor to your site - things like ip address, browser, referrer, which pages they visited and so on. Log files is an area that catches a lot of people out because they can grow quite quickly if you start getting a lot of traffic to your site. Most hosting companies will trim your log files for you but it is something to keep in mind. My advice is to get as much disk space as you can afford.

Data Transfer

Data is transferred from your site when people visit it. This is not a huge issue until a site becomes very popular because most hosting companies offer a 5GB data transfer figure each month which will be more than enough small to medium sized sites. If you are setting up a content based site (maybe to earn advertising revenue) then this becomes more of a concern as you site will hopefully get lots of visitors. It is quite easy to find a low priced host that offers over 20GB per month so this would be a good option.

E-Mail Accounts

There are a couple of things to keep in mind with this. Generally, hosting companies are referring to full POP3 accounts when they talk about E-mail accounts. This means that these are individual accounts that you and your employees can log into to collect e-mail. For a small business, you really don’t need to many because most hosting companies will give you unlimited re-directs. This means that you can set up one account and then have lots of other e-mail addresses that just re-direct to your main account. You will also be able to have a catch all account which will collect any e-mail sent to your domain and put it in your account. You can therefore run a business with one POP3 account and use as many other addresses as you like - they’ll all come to you. Keep in mind also that e-mail forwarding accounts can be set up to send e-mail to another address - maybe the e-mail address you have through your dial-up ISP. Overall, the number of e-mail accounts is not a huge issue - there are always ways around it.

Price

Ever heard the expression “you get what you pay for”? Whilst not always true with web hosting companies, this can be used as a basic guide. Another thing that I believe to be very important is that if you are planning to make a living online, paying $50 per month should not be an issue. You don’t need to pay this much but you need to look at your motivation for setting up your site - this will tell you how much you want to spend. To start off, you should be able to get a good host for $20 per month or less - an excellent host may cost a few dollars more.

There are lots of other things that can come into play when it comes to making this decision. Do you want a Unix or Windows server? If you don’t know, go with Unix - it’s cheaper due to Windows 2000 being commercial software. Do you need MySQL, do you need e-mail autoresponders (most hosts offer these). Keep in mind that it is usually quite a simple process to upgrade your hosting package so you may be fine with just the basics. Also keep in mind that it is a lot harder to switch hosting companies later on so make sure the company you choose gives you the option to expand.

Now that you (hopefully) have an idea of what you require, you now need to find someone to host your site. This is the hard bit!

The web hosting industry is extremely competitive and is also very mindful of marketing. Therefore, almost all hosting companies run an affiliate program. This seriously clouds peoples judgement when it comes to recommending a host - they are doing it for the money. One of the biggest hosts in the world is recommended on thousands of sites across the web because of their affiliate program - most people seem to ignore the fact that they have become a bit of a joke in terms of customer service. In fact many sites run by people I respect still recommend this host - a host I have recently left due to almost non-existent customer service and their fondness for charging what appear to be made up amounts to my credit card (which they are still doing despite my requests to cancel the account). I can’t name this host here but if you are worried that you might sign up with them, send me an e-mail at mailto:seanb@webmastersreference.com with a host name and I’ll tell you if it’s them or not.

So, you can’t take recommendations from sites on the web. Additionally, many hosting directories are notorious for the amount of influence that paying advertisers have on their recommendations (I have also been burnt by this in the past).

Here is what I believe you should do.

Contact owners of sites that you visit often and see if they will tell you who the host with - beware of a reply with an affiliate link. You can also do a Whois (http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois) search for their domain name - the results will show the domain name servers for their site - see if these servers correspond to who they told you about. Please note, this is not a perfect system as some hosting companies use different names on their name servers but it’s a start.

Send an e-mail to the support staff at the hosting company you are thinking about. Ask a couple of questions about their service or about something to do with a requirement of your site. See how long it takes them to get back to you - in other words, test their support.

If you want to know how much traffic is coming to your site, which pages are bringing the most traffic, where are your visitors coming from, and when is traffic coming in, you just have to analyze your website’s statistics.

Nowadays, most web hosts utilize Webalizer, a powerful program that processes your raw traffic logs (long, text based files with information about your traffic), and generates meaninful reports presented in the form of easy to understand graphs and tables. Other hosts may use different traffic anaylis tools, but they all work and present the information in a similar fashion.

We’ll show you, step by step, how your web site statistics can answer almost any question you may have about your traffic:

How much traffic is coming to my site? The two most important parameters are:

a) Number of Visitors
b) Number of Page Views

The Number of Visitors shows you how many users come to your site and request a page. The visitor can move around your site visiting several pages, however he will still be counted as only one visitor. An exception to this rule occurs in the rare occasion when a visitor takes more than half an hour (or the amount of time set by your host) to click from one page to another, in which case the program will register two visitors.

The Page Views parameter indicates how many pages have been requested. It is a very important number because it is indicative of the “stickiness” of your site. Stickiness is a good thing: if, for example, your statistics show 10 visitors, but 50 page views, it means that, on average, each visitor has viewed 5 pages. A large “page views per visitor” ratio usually means that your site is so interesting and valuable that users are inclined to “stick around” and explore.

Other somehow important parameter, especially if you have bandwidth restrictions, is the Kilobytes Transmitted. Sites with a lot of pictures, or sites that allow downloads (reports, ebooks, audio files or video) will incur in significant bandwidth usage. If you operate a plain HTML site but still show an abnormally high bandwidth usage, you may need to optimize your images to make them less heavy.

Finally, a less important measure (although it was heavily hyped in the early days of the web) is the number of Hits. Hits represent the number of files sent to a user after a page request. If a page has 30 pictures, one sigle visit will trigger 31 hits: thirty for the pictures and one for the page itself.

Through where on my site is traffic coming in? You may be interested in knowing which pages of your site are bringing in the most traffic, since not every visitor will come through your home page.

Your traffic statistics will show you a list of the most popular entry pages to your site, ranked by number of requests. Sometimes, internal pages can bring in more traffic than the homepage itself. This may happen when a particular internal page is very well optimized and regularly shows up at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs), or when it offers such good content that other sites link directly to it.

You will also find a list of the most common exit pages (the last page your users visited prior to leaving your site).

How is traffic coming in? Your traffic statistics will show you a list of referrers. Referrers are those URLs that lead a user to your site. Referrers are ranked by the number of hits they produce. That is why the vast majority of referrers will be URLs from your own site (since HTML pages usually contain embedded links to other objects such as graphics files, they generate a large number of hits). However, if you filter out your own pages, you will see what external URLs are bringing in visitors to your pages.

External referrers generally fall into two categories:

pages that have posted a link to your site, and

search engine referred traffic.
You will also find an entry in your referrer list named “Direct Request”; it shows you the number of times somebody accessed your pages by either directly typing your URL in the address bar, by using a bookmark or by following a link on an email message.

Analyzing your traffic statistics will also tell you what keywords are your visitors using to find your pages through search engines. This is extremely important since it will tell you if your selected keywords are working or not. It may also bring to your attention keywords that you may have not thought about. You may then use those keywords to further optimize your pages and bring in even more traffic.

When is traffic coming in? You can also find out when are visitors coming to your site. You will find statistics by month, by day and even by hour. This can be useful in a variety of circumstances. For example, if you publish new content, you may want to release it during the moments of more traffic. Your statistics will help you by identifying the days or hours when more people are likely to visit your site.

Finally, you will also have access to other interesting data, like the IP addresses of your visitors, the browsers they are using, and even the countries they are coming from.

Altogether, the information you gather from your website’s traffic statistics will provide you with a wealth of valuable insights, so that you can continuously fine tune your internet marketing strategy to bring more traffic to your site.

This article has written by … (www.brealweb.com)

Introduction and scope Almost Everyone who knows about the internet knows what a domain name is. It is what identifies a unique website or email server. When you send an email to someone@domain.com, the domain.com forms the domain name.

When you type in http://domain.com in the address bar of your browser, the domain.com is the domain name of the website you are going to see. But how does the computer know which page to show when there are almost infinite number of domain names possible ? How does it know where to fetch the webpage from ?

This article answers these question and explains what you need to do to register and setup your domain and tell all the computers in the world that yourdomain.com should show your web page. How to choose a domain name ? There are many top level domains (TLDs) the most popular are the .com, .net and .org - Countries have their own like .us, .in, .ca, .au etc and then there is the new breed of domains like .tv, .info, .ws and so on but the most powerful king of all is the .com Why ?

Because it came first ? In the domain market, single word domains sell for thousands of dollars and .com costs around 10 times more than the others and is as difficult to get a new name. There is a myth that domains with hypnens (dashes) are better for search engine rankings, I think there may be some truth in that myth, but domains without dashes always seem to cost more than the ones with dashes.

The best way to register a domain is to determine the keywords you are going to target by using the free trial of keyword popularity and competition analysis from wordtracker.com and get a domain with those keywords in it. Another school of thought abandons this approach and advocates brand name domains like yahoo.com instead of everything-portal.com google.com instead of the-only-search-engine.com and ebay.com instead of online-junk-acutions.com - you get the picture.

Name Servers Explained Every computer connected to the internet has an ip address that looks like 123.234.123.234 An ip address consists of 4 numbers separated by dots, each number ranging from 1 to 255. What this numbers mean is not important for us, all we need to understand is that each computer on the internet has a unique ip address and if the GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2 on the internet, it has to know the IP address of R2D2 (name borrowed from the movie Star Wars).

But Wait a minute, does that mean that there are only 256*256*256*256 number of computers that can connect to the internet, technically yes. But that number is large enough for now until they start connecting ever microwave and freezer to the internet (imagine your freezer automatically placing an order for 2 liters of milk to the grocery store when it detects that your milk stock is diminishing!) OK, now you must be thinking all the ip address stuff is fine, but how does it relate to domain names ? Remember that I said “if the GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2, it has to know the IP address of R2D2 ” - but all you give to your computer is the Domain Name of the website you want to visit, so how can it get the ip address ?

Enter the NameServer. The job of a nameserver is to resolve a domain name to an ip address. Simple. A nameserver is similar to a telephone directory except that instead of mapping person names to phone numbers, it maps domain names to ip addresses. Imagine having just one telephone directory for all the people in the world ! In the same way, if they had just one nameserver for all domains, it would be unmanageably huge and all the computers would have to contact that one nameserver to get the domains resolved to ip addresses !

Even a super-duper-mega-monster-computer would not be able to handle such a load ! So we have many nameservers. When you register a domain, you specify which name server to use. Now lets take our example GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2 It will have to follow these steps 1> Look at the registrar entry for R2D2 to determine which nameserver to use 2> Connect to that nameserver and ask it for the ip address of R2D2 3> Connect to R2D2 using this IP address In reality it is a bit more complicated due nameserver cacheing, and chained recursive lookups leading to authoritative and non authoritative responses but our example illustrates the basic concept and is sufficient knowledge to setup your domain.

One misconception that I would like to clarify, some people think that each domain name maps to a unique ip address, not true. Just as many people in a house can share a single telephone number, many domain names can share a single ip address. The NameServer will return the same ip address for all of these domains and when the browser connects to that ip address, it says I am trying to reach suchandsuch.com domain, the webserver then returns the correct page for the domain requested.

Obtaining a unique ip address (known as dedicated ip) for your website is usually more expensive than sharing the ip address.

How to setup your domain name Form the discussion we just had, you would be able to appreciate that in order for you to get your domain to point to your webpage, you need to do the following in theory 1> Obtain the ip address for the web host where your WebPages reside - this is the webserver ip 2> Make an entry (Called as DNS Entry) in a Nameserver to resolve your domain name to this ip address. 3> Configure your domain to use this nameserver Most of the time, step 2 will be transparent to you as most webservers provide nameservers in which they make the DNS entry for you when you purchase webspace from them.

Also, many good domain registrars provide their own nameservers that you can use. While registering a domain or after registering a domain, you will need to set it up to use two or more nameservers. It is common to use multiple nameservers so that if one of them is down the others may be used.

You have three options to set the nameservers . 1> nameserver provided by your web host Your webhost will usually have their own nameservers. In their documentation they may say you need to use something like ns1.yourwebhost.com and ns2.yourwebhost.com -

If you use these, you need not bother about the webserver ip address or any other settings, just configure your domain to use these and you are all set. . 2> nameserver provided by the registrar that you register your domain with If you use this option, you will need to know the ip address of your webserver (provided by your webhost).

As you will be using the nameserver provided by your registrar, you will need to set it up to point to the correct ip address for your website by creating a DNS entry. The ip address for your webserver is called as the A record and the ip address for your mail server is called as the MX record, CNAME records are used if one domain needs to be similar to another domain, but you do not need to understand these options for a basic setup.

Many top notch domain registrars in the industry provide advanced DNS management like forwarding your domain to another site, subdomains, email id management, wildcard dns etc . 3> third party nameservers This is an option that very advanced domain managers prefer when they wish to have more features and greater control over their DNS records which may not be provided by the registrar or the webhost. Now a days, the line between the web hosts and the domain registrars is fading as most domain registrars are providing web hosting and most web hosts are providing domain registration.

If you purchase your domain registration and web hosting from the same company, chances are that you may never need to do any setup at all.

What to look for in a registrar It is always a good idea to register your domain with a domain registration site rather than with your webhost so you can be able to shift your webhost in case you need to without loosing your domain. A good domain registrar should provide you the following features . No Cost Domain Forwarding - To Point your domain to anywhere you choose, you can even use a long free web host url and forward your domain to it. . No Cost for Change of Registrant - Makes sure you can change registrars (transfer out to another registrar) for your domain without paying a heavy fee. .

No Cost Domain Parking - You get one page saying your site is under construction or something like that. . Domain Name Locking - makes sure that no one can initiate a transfer request until you unlock your domain . DNS Server Changes - You should be able to login to your own control panel and make any changes yourself I use http://value-name.com for all my domain needs, they provide 1 year registration for $8.75 and $7.75 for a domain transfer including one year extension. They also have special pricing for bulk registrations.

Trouble Shooting Domain Name Problems What can you do if you have trouble setting up your domain? First of all, remember that it may take up to 48 hours for your domain changes to propagate across the internet. If you wish to verify the settings on any domain, you can use our recommended whois tool at http://biz-whiz.com/PostWrap-page-nstool.html

The whois report on any domain will tell you about the current nameservers attached to that domain in addition to the contact addresses, the registration date, expiry date and the date when the last modifications were made to that domain record. If the nameservers are not correct then you know you have to change them by logging into your domain name control panel or by contacting your registrar support. If the name servers that are shown are correct, then you can use the nslookup tool (Advanced DNS Lookup) from the same page to determine the ip address being returned for your domain by any nameserver. Here you should enter one of the nameserver that you find in the whois output and see what ip address it returns for your domain name.

If it does not return an ip address then the nameserver has to be configured to point your domain to the correct ip address, or you may be using the wrong nameserver. If it returns an ip address, You can try typing the ip address directly into the address bar of your web browser, if it gives a 404 page not found error, then either the ip address is wrong or the webserver is down.

If it returns some generic page but not your webpage, that is all right, this is to be expected unless you are using a dedicated ip address. Make sure that the IP address returned is the correct one that your web host is providing to you. If you are sure that the ip address is correct and still your website does not show when you type in your domain name in the address bar of your browser, then it may be that other people are able to access your site and only you are not able to access it because your local nameserver does not resolve your domain or resolves it wrongly.

In that case, if you can find out the nameserver your local machine is using, you can enter that nameserver in the nslookup tool at http://biz-whiz.com/article219.html and see what ip address it is returning. If your local nameserver is returning the wrong ip address all you need to do is wait till the dns changes propagate to your local nameserver, If your local nameserver is returning the right ip address, then you must contact your web host to inform them that their webserver is not configured to support your domain.

Conclusion We have covered a lot of ground here, from registering a domain to setting and trouble shooting it. Even if you never need to configure a domain, reading this article gives you an understanding of what goes on behind the scenes when you type a domain name in your browser. For the advanced domain manager, we reviewed domain configuration options and tips on troubleshooting.

This article has written by … (www.brealweb.com)

After many frustrating months of learning how to protect my web site I decided to help some other webmasters out as well. There’s really only one reason we need to worry about this stuff: People like to steal. Every increase in my site’s security has been brought on by someone hacking into it and let me tell you, there have been many increases.

I have separated this page into several sections:

1) Stopping hackers
2) Stopping site snagging (offline viewing)
3) Stopping Hotlinking
4) Multiple Domain Names: Shared Members Areas

Section 1) Stopping hackers

The most common way of protecting your members only area is with, as I’m sure you know, a filed named .htaccess sitting in your server’s member’s folder. This file is used by your server to pop up a little box and force people to enter a username and password. It then checks that against a password file located on your server to see it the info is valid. If it is, access is given.

There are, however, many lines that you can add to your .htaccess file that most webmasters don’t really know about. I’ll go through them one by one as well as show you completed .htaccess files that you can start using immediately.

NOTE: You only need to copy the text below that is in black. It is also important that you use a very basic text editor to save the file. Use Notepad or NoteTab to do it. DO NOT use MS Word! The file will not save correctly! You should also realize that an .htaccess file is just plain text file with a funny name. The complete file name really is .htaccess, period in front and all.

Here is the basic .htaccess file that most people use:

AuthUserFile /server/path/to/your/password/file/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName “Members Area”
AuthType Basic

This file, when placed in your members only folder will protect all of the subfolders under it. There are however some holes here. Once inside the members area, they can still poke around for things you may not want them to see by being creative and typing in URL’s. Most of the time this is no big deal. However, they really don’t need to be poking around in there.

Another problem is that some password security programs have to be accessed directly or in a very specific way to work. An older version of the security program I used required a file called index.cgi to be placed in the member’s only folder. When you linked to http://princessmandy.com/members/ it would do two things. First, the .htaccess file would check the username and password to see if they were valid. Second, if approved, it would run my security program to see how many people have used that username and password. If that checked out, they would be sent to the opening page of my member’s area which was actually http://princessmandy.com/members/welcome.htm.

That worked fine as long as no one tried to go directly to the welcome.htm page. Guess what, hackers are smart. By posting a simple link on a password trading site, they could bypass the security program and gain access in one easy step. The link would look like this:

http://username:password@princessmandy.com/members/welcome.htm

Look familiar? If you’ve ever been password traded (and you will) it should look familiar. After that I learned of some code that will stop this and force everyone to use one page to gain access to the member’s area.

AuthUserFile /server/path/to/your/password/file/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName “Members Area”
AuthType Basic

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*yourdomain.com/ [NC]
RewriteRule /* http://www.yourdomain.com/login.htm [L,R]

The new section activated the RewriteEngine feature of your .htaccess file. This will now only allow access to the member’s area of your site through a link on your page. If they don’t use an actual link on your site they cannot get in. Any URL that you manually type into the address bar of your browser will show up in your log file as having no referrer and will not pass. The only way to satisfy the RewriteCond of this updated .htaccess file is to use a link on your site.

Using this example, you will need a new little web page named login.htm in your free area. On that page you will need a link to your member’s area. Whatever link will allow your security program to work right.

The main thing I like about using this is that it keeps people from messing around inside the members area. Since I update with new pics every week, I can upload several sets at a time to the server and have them waiting. I don’t have to worry about anyone finding them before I link to them.

Now remember, if you don’t have any software in place to monitor how many times your usernames and passwords are being used, this won’t help you at all. This method won’t stop shared usernames and passwords from being used. It is only here to channel people into your password sharing software. I personally recommend using Password Sentry. It’s a one time charge and they give you lifetime upgrades and support. It’s also not very expensive. I haven’t found any program out there that I liked any better, at any price. You can find them at http://www.monster-submit.com/sentry/

I actually use their newest version which can stop people from hammering your site with username and password combinations until they get one that works. I was getting at least one person a day running one of those programs on my site trying to get in. I still use an .htaccess file in my members area, but it no longer checks for a username and password. It looks for a temporary cookie that is placed on their system is they are approved by my security program. It’s just as secure but blocks those password hammering programs completely.

2) Stopping Site Snagging

This one pisses me off. There are many programs out there designed for “offline viewing” of web sites. These programs allow a person to download everything on your site to their computer. It works wonderfully in the free area, however, if they have a username and password to your site, they can also download your entire member’s area.

If you don’t have any software protecting you from password traders, this one could be devastating. Not only could everyone in the world get into your members area for free, they could download everything in there in a hurry. If you have 200 MB of stuff in your site and 1000 people get in for free and decide to use one of these programs, your looking at 200 Gigabyte of transfer in as short as one day. Can you afford that? Those numbers are kind too. Many of you have much more than 200 MB of stuff. I’ve also been traded in the past and was receiving 4500 people per hour into the members area for free. That could put you out of business in a hurry.

If you don’t think that these programs are a problem check your stats. Many stats programs will tell you the different web browsers that are visiting your site. I have programs like Teleport Pro and Offline Explorer in my top 10 web browsers every single day.

Since we have to pay for bandwidth, which can get expensive as your site grows, this can turn into a major problem. I was surprised at how much bandwidth I saved after adding these lines to an .htaccess file.

Here’s the best part. You can place this .htaccess file in your root public directory. Put it in the same folder as your site’s opening index file and it will protect your entire site.

You’ll notice one major difference about this file. It doesn’t require usernames and passwords to get in. Those lines have simply been removed from the file. It will also not have any effect on the .htaccess file in your member’s folder. That one will check passwords, this one will stop people from snagging your site.

There are actually 3 sections to the file below.

The first section allows you to block specific users’ ip addresses. I have two blocked here. There were users that tried hammering my site with around 20,000 username and password combos. This part is optional since most people have a new ip each time they log on. However, if they are using a cable modem they will keep the same ip all of the time like the two in my example. If I were you I would definitely leave that guy in there.

The second section related to error 404’s. This works well with the way many search engines work. I don’t know how many of them are still linking to pages on my site that no longer exist. If someone clicks on a link from that search engine that is no longer any good, they just get that blank error page. The errordocument line below forwards those people to another page. I forward them to my opening page. That way, if they come to my site using a link that no longer is valid, they end up at my opening page never realizing that the link was bad.

The third section stops the programs that will try and download your site. Since I’m finding more all the time the list keeps growing. If you discover more, just add them it. If the program is actually two words, Teleport Pro for example, you only need to include one word to block them. Notice below that I have a line including Teleport, but not Teleport Pro. I’ve downloaded the program and tested it. This method works perfectly.

The very last line, the RewriteRule, is where violators will be sent to. I have personally chosen a site at geocities that features sewing patterns for gay men’s swimwear.

errordocument 404 http://www.princessmandy.com/index.htm

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*WebZIP.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Stripper.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Offline.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Copier.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Crawler.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Snagger.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Teleport.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Reaper.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Wget.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Grabber.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Sucker.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Downloader.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Siphon.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Collector.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Mag-Net.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Widow.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Snake.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*BackWeb.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*gotit.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Vacuum.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Pump.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*HMView.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*HTTrack.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*JOC.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*likse.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Memo.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*pcBrowser.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*SuperBot.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*leech.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Mirror.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Recorder.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*GrabNet.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Likse.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Navroad.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*attach.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Magnet.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Surfbot.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Bandit.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Ants.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Buddy.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Whacker.*$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*FileHound.*$
RewriteRule /* http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Heights/3204/1home.html [L,R]

If you decide to redirect them somewhere else be sure to leave the “[L,R]” at the end of the line. It’s rather important.

Remember to always check your site immediately after uploading a new .htaccess file to your server. If there are any errors in you file, your site will most likely not load at all. In that case, quickly delete the file off of the server until you figure out what went wrong!

3) Stopping Hotlinking

I think I see some of you smiling already. Yes, you can use an .htaccess file to stop people from hotlinking images off of your site. I recently discovered several of my pictures being posted on a messageboard. They had a little message and then my picture would pop up in the message. It was loading directly off of my server with absolutely nothing pointing back to me. I was pissed.

The .htaccess file to prevent this is very similar to some of the ones above. It’s just much shorter since it only performs one function, to stop hotlinking. It does this by checking the referrer. In other words, where the hit is coming from.

I have actually moved all of my images, graphics, games, you name it into a subfolder in the free area. I then just place this .htaccess file into that folder.

I DON”T recommend adding these lines into the .htaccess file above that protects your entire site. Why? Well, when you sign up on someone else’s friends page you have to enter in a URL of your ID picture. If you block everything than all of your ID pictures on all of those friends pages you signed up for will not load. Your ID picture will be a very sexy little red x.

You can stop people from hotlinking your id pictures if you want, just think it through first. I have my banner farm protected to stop new sign ups from hotlinking. However, I still have a few I pictures in unprotected areas too. That way I can sign up for new friends and links pages. You also don’t want to block everything if you purposely post pictures at picpost pages. If you block your entire site, none of those picposts will load.

Similar to some of the above files, this one will allow the picture to load if the referring site starts with princessmandy.com/ only. Do not include the www. in here. That’s what all of the crap in front of princessmandy.com/ is for. The referrer can end with anything it likes, as long as it has princessmandy.com/ in it.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*princessmandy.com/ [NC]
RewriteRule /* http://www.princessmandy.com [L,R]

Multiple Domain Names: Shared Members Areas

Here’s a fun one. Many of you may have several web sites but only one credit card account and one password file. How do you get everyone to have access to all of your site’s members areas but only use one account? Easy. Use .htaccess files. This can get a little bit tricky so pay attention.

Let’s say you have three sites: monkeyone.com, monkeytwo.com, and monkeythree.com

Let’s also say that you want anyone joining one site to have access to all three.

Pick one site to house the main entry page. Just like in the above examples, create a page called http://www.monkeyone.com/login.htm in the free area of that site. You can call it whatever you want. Use that page as the entry page for all of your web sites. Just put a link on there saying “click here to enter the member’s area” or something.

Now everywhere on monkeytwo.com and monkeythree.com that says “member’s entrance” should point to http://www.monkeyone.com/login.htm. Understand? Only one entrance page and only one password file. Everyone must enter from the same place.

Now, you’ll need to add the following lines to your .htaccess file in the member’s only folder of monkeyone.com.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*monkeyone.com/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*monkeytwo.com/members/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*monkeythree.com/members/ [NC]
RewriteRule /* http://www.monkeyone.com/login.htm [L,R]

This will allow entry only from either your main page’s entry page, or from the member’s area of your other sites. Is part is tricky to think about but very important.

Your new monkeyone.com member’s only folder .htaccess file will most likely look like this:
AuthUserFile /server/path/to/your/password/file/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName “Members Area”
AuthType Basic

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*monkeyone.com/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*monkeytwo.com/members/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*monkeythree.com/members/ [NC]
RewriteRule /* http://www.monkeyone.com/login.htm [L,R]

Now here’s the fun part. The members areas of monkeytwo.com and monkeythree.com will no longer check for a valid username and password. They will only check out where the person is coming from. If they aren’t coming from one of three places they will be routed to the login.htm page on monkeyone.com.

This .htaccess file is very small and should be placed in the members only folder at monkeytwo.com and monkeythree.com.

You must include lines for all of your sites in every .htaccess file.

The .htaccess files at monkeytwo.com/members and monkeythree.com/members should look like this:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*monkeyone.com/members/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*monkeytwo.com/members/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*monkeythree.com/members/ [NC]
RewriteRule /* http://www.monkeyone.com/login.htm [L,R]

That’s it. They’re very short files but they will do the job. These new .htaccess files at monkeytwo and monkeythree will only allow people access if they’re coming from the members only area of one of the other sites. They don’t need to check usernames and passwords too.

I made a new page in my members area that links to all three of my sites. Once they are validated at princessmandy.com they end up on this one page. It’s sort of a “Welcome inside. What site do you want to visit?” type of thing. It works very, very well and allows me to use one password file for as many sites as I want.

This method can also be used to allow two very different sites to share a members. Each site can be owned and operated by two different people using two different login pages, generating their own revenue, but sharing a members area.

Just allow access from either your own site, or the members only folder of the other site.

Well, I hope this helped. It’s rather confusing at times but can make things at your site run much safer and much more smoothly.

If you’ve found any of this helpful let me know.

This article has written by Mandy (reviewedbymandy.com)

Before you rush out and choose your domain name or name your website, you might want to consider the following points:
1. Your Domain Name Should Be Your Website Name

Naming your site after your domain may seem obvious to some of you, but you’ll be surprised to learn that not every website is named after the domain name even when the webmaster owns that domain name.

Naming a site after its domain name is important, for the simple reason that when people think of your website, they’ll think of it by name. If your name is also your URL, they’ll automatically know where to go. For example, when people think of thefreecountry.com, they don’t have to wonder what URL to type into their browser to get there. The name of the site is also the URL.

Imagine if your business (or website) is called “Acme”, but somebody else holds that domain name. Instead, you have some obscure domain name called, say, “mybusiness.com”. What happens when your customers, recalling that Acme has a product they want, type “www.acme.com”? They’ll wind up at your competitor’s website. One lost sale.

In the modern world of the Internet, where people automatically turn to the Web for information, it pays to have a domain name that reflects your site or business. There are just lesser things for your customers or visitors to remember. Moreover, you don’t seriously think that they’ll try to memorise an unrelated URL just because you want them to, do you? The only people who’ll memorise it are you and your competitors who want to compare your prices.

What if you cannot get the domain name of your choice?

It really depends on how committed you are to that particular name. If you have an existing brand name that you’re known for, you’ll probably not want to ditch that name just because you couldn’t get the domain name. After all, it took you a lot of time and money to establish that name. If so, you might simply want to try to buy over the domain name from the current owner. Check up the “whois” information for the domain, and contact that person listed to see if they’re willing to sell it. You probably should be aware that they are likely to want to charge a higher fee than you’d normally get when buying new domains (assuming they want to sell it in the first place).

On the other hand, if you’re just starting out, you might prefer the cheaper alternative of trying to obtain a domain name first, and then naming your website (or business) after the domain that you’ve acquired. So if you’ve acquired, say, the domain name “acme.com”, then your website and business might be named “Acme” or “acme.com”. I know this seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse, but that’s the reality if you don’t want to lose out on the Internet.
2. Generic Names Or Brand Name Domains?

I know that a number of people seem to think that your domain name really must be some generic name like “cars.com” if you are selling cars. Witness, for example, how much money those generic names are being sold for. But seriously, if you were looking for a car, you’ll probably already have some brands in mind, and you’re more like to try out things like generalmotors.com or toyota.com rather than just cars.com.

For that reason, I personally feel that a domain name that matches your brand name is very important. The very name that you use to advertise your product is the name that you will want for your domain, because that is the first thing that people will try in their browser. It is also the easiest thing for them to remember, and whatever that is easily remembered, will be more likely to be tried out than the obscure domain name.
3. Long or Short Domain Names?

Domain names can be of any length up to 67 characters. You don’t have to settle for an obscure domain name like avab.com when what you mean is AcmeVideosAndBooks.com.

Having said that, there appears to be some disagreement about whether a long or short domain name is better.

Some argue that shorter domain names are easier to remember, easier to type and far less susceptible to mistakes: for example, “getit.com” is easier to remember and less prone to typos than “connecttomywebsiteandobtainit.com”.

Others argue that a longer domain name is usually easier on the human memory - for example, “gaepw.com” is a sequence of unrelated letters that is difficult to remember and type correctly, whereas if we expand it to its long form, “GetAnEconomicallyPricedWebsite.com”, we are more likely to remember the domain name.

Some of these arguments are actually academic. It’s increasingly difficult to get short meaningful domain names. I have not checked, but I’m fairly certain that names like “getit.com” and “good.com” have long been sold. If you manage to get a short domain name though, the key is to make sure it’s a meaningful combination of characters and not the obscure “gaepw.com” in our contrived example above.

Long domain names that have your site keywords in them also have an advantage in that they fare better in a number of search engines. The latter give preference to keywords that are also found in your domain names. So, for example, if you have a site on free C++ compilers with a domain name like freecpluspluscompilers.com, it might fare better in a search for “free C++ compilers” than my other site, thefreecountry.com.

Which would I go for? I’d go for the shorter name if I can get a meaningful one, but I’m not averse to longer names. However, I would probably avoid extremely long names verging on 67 characters. Aside from the obvious problem that people might not be able to remember such a long name, it would also be a chore typing it and trying to fit it as a title on your web page.
4. Hyphenated Names?

Should you get a hyphenated name? There are a few things to consider here:

a. Disadvantage: It’s easy to forget the hyphens when typing a name. Many users are used to typing things like freecpluspluscompilers.com but not free-c-plus-plus-compilers.com. They’ll probably leave out the hyphens and wind up at your competitor’s site.

b. Disadvantage: When people recommend your site to their friends verbally, having hyphens in your domain name leads to more potential errors than when the name does not contain hyphens. For example, how do you think your visitors will refer to your site if it is named “acme-books-and-videos.com”? They might say, “I visited Acme Book and Videos dot com yesterday. It was fabulous.” Their friends, remembering that comment later, might type into their browsers “acmebooksandvideos.com”. Oops.

c. Disadvantage: It’s a pain in the neck to type. Enough said.

d. Advantage: Search engines can distinguish your keywords better and thus return your site more prominently in search results for those keywords occurring in your domain name.

e. Advantage: The non-hyphenated form may no longer be available. At least this way, you still get the domain name you want.

Personally, I prefer to avoid hyphenated names if I can, but I guess it really depends on your domain name and your situation.
5. Plurals, “The”, and “My” Forms of the Domain Name

Very often, if you can’t get the domain name you want, the domain name registrar will suggest alternate forms of the name you typed. For example, if you wanted website.com, and it was taken (of course it is), it might suggest forms like:

thewebsite.com
mywebsite.com
websites.com

and the like, if they were not already taken as well. The question is, should you take them?

My personal opinion is that if you take the “the…” and “my…” forms of the domain name, you must always remember to promote your site with the full form of the name. Otherwise, people are likely to forget to affix the necessary “the” or “my”. For that reason, I always advertise my sites as “thesitewizard.com” and “thefreecountry.com” in their full domain name forms, rather than just “Free Country” or “Site Wizard” (without the article).

On the other hand, I would not take the plural form of the domain name (eg, websites.com) if I cannot also get “website.com”, since the chance of the visitor failing to type the “s” in the name is very great. Think about the famous name tussle between etoys.com and etoy.com. Many people wanting to go to etoys.com were apparently going to etoy.com instead. If it happened to them, it can happen to you too.
6. COM, ORG, NET, etc?

One common question I encounter is from people who can’t get the “.com” domain of their choice, but find the “.net”, “.org” or other country-specific top level domains (TLDs) available (like .de, .nu, .sg, etc). Should they try for these?

The answer is not as straightforward as you might think. If your website or business caters to the local community, such as a pizza delivery business or recruitment agency or the like, then it makes sense to get a country-specific domain. You actually benefit from having such a local domain because the people in your country know that they’re dealing with a local entity, which is what they want. After all, if they stay in (say) the United Kingdom, they’re not likely to want to try to order pizza from pizzaparlour.com, which suggests a US or an international site. You’d have better luck calling it pizzaparlour.co.uk, ie, with a UK domain.

What if yours is a site or business that can benefit from an international audience? There are actually many schools of thought on this. I’ll just mention a few common ones.

The first school of thought goes on the premise that it is better to have a domain name of your choice “myperfectdomain” even if it has a TLD of “.net”, “.org” or some other country specific extension, than to wind up choosing an obscure domain name for the simple reason you can’t get your first choice. Thus they would settle for domain names like “myperfectdomain.de” or “myperfectdomain.net” or whatever. Against this is the argument that if you get a country specific domain, people might think that your business only caters to that country.

Another school of thought finds that “.net” and “.org” extensions are actually quite acceptable domain names. For some, the “.org” extension actually describes the non-profit nature of their organisation. So, for example, the famous Apache web server can be found at “apache.org”.

Others would settle for the “.com” extension and no less. As grounds for their arguments, they cite the browser algorithms used to locate a website when a user simply types a name like “acme” into the browser. Apparently, the browser searches for a domain name “acme.com” before attempting “acme.net”, etc. As such, people who do that will be delivered to your competitor’s site if you do not also own the “.com” extension. Indeed, even if people do not rely on their browser to complete their typing, many simply assume a “.com” extension when they type a domain name, so if your business is “Acme”, they’ll just assume your domain name is “acme.com” rather than “acme.net” or some other such name.

As you can see, there are actually good grounds for accepting any of the above views. My personal footnote to the above arguments is that if you get a domain name with an extension other than “.com”, make sure that you promote your business or website with the full domain name. For example, if your domain name is “dogandcatfood.net”, make sure that when you advertise your site or business, call it “dogandcatfood.net” not “dogandcatfood”. Otherwise people will assume a “.com” extension and travel to the wrong place.
7. In Conclusion…

In case the forest got lost in the trees (or the reverse) in my arguments here, let me reiterate the main point of this article: GET THAT DOMAIN NAME before you start your site or business.

It’s the role of any reliable hosting firm to take full responsibility for its hardware, software and operating environment so that webmasters can focus solely upon running their business.

If a hosting company is truly committed to this objective, their technical support must be stellar. Customer care therefore is always a major consideration before you chose a Web host.

Since it is a major loss leader, many hosting firms don’t invest in the labor and equipment required to maintain their operation. It is thus the task of wise webmasters to size up the expertise of a hosting company’s support staff before making the fateful decision concerning where to host their Web sites.

Determining whether technical support is dependable is important, because if anything goes wrong with your site, who are you going to call? In an ideal world, it would be your knowledgeable customer care representative. However, in the real world, we know that knowledgeable customer care is hard to find.
Our top 5 webhosting on Webhosting Review Biz, one of the main factor to review a webhosting is the technical support that the company has check our top 5 webhosting:
Top 5 Web Hosting

Hosting companies claim that they have technicians working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year in their operation centers maintaining mission-critical systems. While this in fact may be true, the most unqualified people in the hosting industry sometimes work in support call centers. Due to the unprecedented demand for IT professionals, many Web hosts can’t find employees that are formally trained in Operating System and network technology. Other firms allot so much money to advertising and marketing that technical support becomes a secondary priority. In both instances, customers suffer because they cannot access immediate or useful assistance. So before you select a host, make sure that you put their support to the test.

First, call up technical support and ask them to walk you through the basic routines needed to maintain your site. Ask the technical support technician whether he or she is available at the office at regular intervals. Ask the technician whether he or she went through a corporate or professional training program in order to qualify for the job. If the technician is assisting you with a Windows NT-based request, make sure to ask whether he or she has a MCSC, or Microsoft certification. Ask the support technician how long he or she has been working with the company.

Determine whether technicians are knowledgeable by listening and assessing their tone of voice. Do technicians at a certain company put you on hold often? Then they may only be employed to answer telephones or e-mail and relay support requests to someone more qualified. Also ask support technicians basic questions about where the company is located, where they are located and the company’s address. This might give you an indication if a hosting company’s support services are outsourced, or whether support representatives are working out of the firm’s server farm or head office. Ask the support representative outright whether he or she is employed on a contractual basis. Also determine how sophisticated customer tracking and billing is by asking the technician to pull information about your account.

This will give you an indication whether the company has automated systems to track technical inquiries. Further, ask the technician whether the firm provides an online “knowledge base” or “technical support center.” If the company does, make sure to inspect its support documentation to determine whether it is specific to the service.

Many hosting companies now offer technical support documentation in hard copy format. You should attempt to determine whether the hosting firm will allow you to download a PDF file with all of its documentation enclosed.

A prospective Web hosting customer should also determine whether a hosting company offers true 24-hour support by e-mailing or calling the hosting provider after hours.

These tests will give you a strong indication whether the technical support is reliable or questionable. Remember that you’ll have to trust any host you select to deliver timely and useful support on issues that can affect your income.