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Title: Ecommerce Web Hosting: All you need to know
By: Author: Rodel Garcia
Gone are the days when the Internet was only for the geek labs
and university libraries. With the emergence of accessible
connectivity and affordable technology, ecommerce and online
business are not futuristic concepts. Websites like Amazon and
Ebay are the prime examples of successful online business
ventures.
If you are planning to start your online business or an
ecommerce website, you need to be careful about where you host
your website. There are two things that are very important to
run an ecommerce website: a well-designed, content-rich website
and a host that supports seamless hosting. Remember that your
ecommerce host is the backbone of your business. Imagine what
would happen if there are hundreds of customers eager to pay you
and your website is down or certain sections are inaccessible.
Or for that matter, some mischievous hackers steals your
important customer and sales database and wrecks havoc with your
business. Choosing an ecommerce or an online business web host
is not as simple as choosing a web host for a normal website.
As it happens with any brick and mortar business, you need to
take many things into account before choosing your ecommerce web
host. How many other online business websites are they already
hosting? What has been their track record till now? What do the
other ecommerce entrepreneurs think of them? What all tools do
they provide when you purchase their ecommerce web hosting
package? Along with these, let us discuss in points what makes a
host good for your ecommerce or online business website.
THE HOSTING PLATFORM FOR YOUR ECOMMERCE WEBSITE
If you yourself are not developing/coding your website then your
developer should be able to advise you what business hosting
platform you require for your website. You may need Windows
environment or Unix/Linux combination according to your
website's development environment and tools implementation. For
example, if your developer is an experienced ASP (active server
pages) programmer, he/she would prefer a Windows web hosting
environment, but if he/she prefers PHP, then you'll have to go
for Linux/Unix business web hosting. Although different people
have different issues with both the web hosting types, it all
depends on personal preferences.
THE UPTIME OF YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS WEBSITE
This is the bane of countless webmasters. Millions in revenues
are lost because when customers arrive at the websites, the
ecommerce websites are down or some of the critical pages are
not available. The customers arrive with the intention of making
a purchase but there is no facility available...this is the
worst nightmare for an ecommerce entrepreneur or a business
person.
Make sure your ecommerce web host manages parallel servers so
that if one server goes down, the others can take over. Your
business web host should give you the guaranteed security of
your critical data.
THE BANDWIDTH OF YOUR ECOMMERCE WEB HOST
An ecommerce website requires lots of traffic in order to
generate business because, as it happens with every business in
this world, not every visitor is a buyer or a customer. 10 or 20
people do business if 1000s of visitors come to your website.
You have to make provision for lots of traffic, and that too,
targeted traffic.
THE STORAGE SPACE OF YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS WEB HOSTING PACKAGE
Ecommerce websites take up more space compared to normal,
non-commercial or semi-commercial websites. First of all, you
need an online database to maintain comprehensive inventory
details. Then, you may have tens of flash files or hundreds of
image files if your buyers would like to view the images or if
they want to go through some sort of an online catalog. Keep
your future server space requirements in mind while negotiating
for an ecommerce hosting package.
THE NUMBER OF EMAIL ACCOUNTS YOUR ECOMMERCE WEB HOST OFFERS
Some business web hosts offer a limited number of POP3 email
accounts that you can manage through software like Outlook and
Firefox and some offer an unlimited number. Some don't provide a
POP3 email account at all and you need to manage all your emails
through a web-based interface. Make sure what your email
requirements are going to be and go for an ecommerce web hosting
package accordingly.
OTHER TOOLS WITH YOUR ECOMMERCE WEB HOSTING PACKAGE
* Some other tools you may want to check out are:
Auto