Web Hosting

What is a "Web hosting Program" and where can I get one?

A web host is a company with a server that maintains the files of websites. There are a variety of free and subscription based web hosting services available, including those offered by many Internet Service Providers.

Web hosting services often go beyond website maintenance to include domain name registration, website design, and search engine registration. For some online exporters, it may be most feasible to use a web host in their target market to take advantage of all of these localized services.

The location or nationality of the web host does not impact accessibility of the web site; however, when choosing a web host, companies should ensure that the web host servers reside within a stable infrastructure and are maintained to ensure optimal reliability.

As with domestically located web hosting services, agreements should be clear and enforceable about ownership of intellectual property, performance specifications and warranties, security, the right to transfer the web site to a different web host, and contract termination.

The U.S. Commercial Service officers in your target market can help you identify professional local web hosts. See also, research on the "Top Internet Markets FAQ " at left.

Web hosting companies fighting the war against spam and viruses

As the battle rages on against spam and viruses, the expectations of web site owners in relation to web hosting are changing.

Previously, the responsibility was squarely on the shoulders of the web site owner to wade through the volumes of mail they received each day - and each day the amount of illegitimate email and viruses has been steadily increasing. Webmasters' expectations have changed and many of them are now demanding that web hosting companies play a more pro-active role. Some web hosting companies are rising to the challenge by providing server based solutions.

Vladislav Davidzon, CEO of ThinkHost, recently incorporated spam filtering and anti-virus solutions as a standard free feature of all ThinkHost.com's web hosting packages. Vladislav states: "When we started ThinkHost in 1999, spam and viruses were a minor annoyance. Today they threaten the stability of just about every web hosting company and the sites they web host. After watching the digital and financial carnage wreaked globally by the recent SoBig virus, we decided that it was time to intervene on our clients behalf and introduce some server side solutions".

The SoBig virus created over 29 billion dollars in damages during August 2003 world-wide, double the damages bill caused by the Klez virus during the entire year of 2002. Thousands of web sites, from small businesses to multi national corporations were brought to a standstill by the effects of SoBig and some of its companions. Given that this scenario was bound to happen again through new and "improved" viruses being released; the team at ThinkHost set about finding a solution to protect their systems and clients. After some rigorous testing, a solution was identified and implemented.

"We've been very impressed by the accuracy with which email is processed" says Vladislav, "there's very few false positives (incorrect tagging) and even then, the mail isn't deleted. Email detected as spam is still passed on to the client, but it's tagged as suspected spam. Because of the subject line tag, it's simple for our clients to configure their email software to deal with these messages. In the case of a suspected virus, the client still receives the email, but the attachment/script is deleted; greatly decreasing bandwidth usage and time spent in downloading mail."

The solutions put in place by ThinkHost also help their clients to cut their web hosting costs. During the SoBig attack, many web site owners experienced "mail box blowout" through the thousands of virus emails they received which greatly increased their disk space and bandwidth usage. In many instances, web hosting companies and ISP's charged their clients for this excess. "While we didn't charge clients for excess storage during the SoBig situation and absorbed the associated costs ourselves, we definitely wanted to take steps to ensure that a similar scenario didn't occur again" says Vladislav.

"With our new free anti-spam and virus filtering features; our hardware isn't under as much load, our operating costs are down and our clients are happy - everyone's a winner."

For information: http://www.thinkhost.com

CHOOSING THE RIGHT WEB HOST

The web hosting industry has become increasingly competitive. A recent search on a popular engine with relevant criteria returned millions of results from thousands of organizations offering web site storage solutions.

There are thousands of companies out there battling for your business - but some won't definitely have you or your business interests in mind. Cheap web site hosting definitely doesn't mean the best web hosting and neither does signing up with the most expensive companies guarantee you the best service - it's a confusing world of solutions, smoke and mirrors.

Watch out for the web host sharks!

Competition's a great thing, but the frenzied levels of promotion have also forced a number of hosts to use questionable marketing tactics and a heavy load of activity-restricting fine print in their contracts. Many web-hosting companies don't make profits by establishing a solid customer base, but rather by having a high turnover. The more customers they can have signing up and then dropping off, the more dollars they make.

Of course, not all Internet web hosting services take this attitude and there are some trustworthy companies out there who respect and encourage their clients. These are the companies with a long-range plan, offering their clients wider and more specialized services as they grow.