Changing a web host is nuisance, but there is no reason to tolerate less then optimum service from your current web host if you’re not happy with them. If you plan ahead, changing a web host may not be too bad and can be done without downtime or email disruptions. The most important thing to note is not to cancel your existing account until you’re done. Even if you hate your current hosting provider, it’s essential that you keep your account active until the transfer is complete. Cancelling the account ahead of time will make the transition difficult.

1. Download your files from your existing web host

Using your publishing software, download all of your files that are stoed in your current host. You may have used FTP, Frontpage, Dreamweaver, or whatever publishing software you may have used to initially upload your files to the server, you can use the same software to download your files back to your local machine. The publishing software will retain directory structure used on the web server, and same structure will be uploaded to a new web host later.

If you have a website with dynamic contents and database interactions, you’ll also have to export the database(s) into one or more files. Most web hosting providers provide a way to dump your database into a SQL file, or comma separated file.

2. Find a new web host, and setup a hosting account.

Choose a new web host, create a new account, and sign up for a desired hosting package. Finding a right web host for your specific need is a challenging task. Please refer to our web host selection guide for helpful hints.

3. Upload your files to your new host.

Using the account that you have created on step 2, upload all of your files onto your new hosting account. If you have database(s), you’ll also need to create them and import the data into the newly created database. If you also have installed third party (or open source) applications, you might have to change installed path of the application. It makes easier to globally search for text pattern, if the new provider offers secure shell accounts (SSH).

4. Create Email Accounts on the new host

Email is a vital part of any business, and for individuals. To avoid email disruptions, you’ll have to create the identical email accounts for everyone in your organization in the new hosting account. It may be helpful to create a “catchall” account just in case you may have missed someone. If you don’t have password of every account, assign them temporary passwords and let the users change their own password.

5. Test your site

Test your new site without changing the DNS. Most web hosts provides an alternate URL, which you can use to test your website before rolling over the site to the new one. Edula offers an alternate URL for every hosting accounts, and it starts with http://servername/~username. Make sure you test entire site before changing the name servers for your domain name. One important thing to note when switching from Windows to Linux Hosting — case sensitivity. With Linux, the directory and filenames are case sensitive, so characters should match their cases. If you can’t see an image or a link that used to work doesn’t work any more, it’s most likely a alphabet case problem.

6. Change the name servers for your domain name

If everything show up correctly on the new host, the next step is to change the name servers assigned to your domain name. The name servers are changed via the registrar’s web interface. If you have registered a domain name through your web host, your web host should provide a web interface for changing the name servers. Most registrars provide this capability, including Edula. If you don’t know who your registrar is, you may be able to find it by doing a whois search. Edula offers whois search that you can use to find your registrar. Your new web host should provide your with name servers for your domain name. Edula name servers are NS1.EDULA.COM and NS2.EDULA.COM

7. Wait for DNS to propagate

Once you make a DNS change for your domain name, it may take up to 24-48 hours propagate the changes located throughout the world. With VeriSign implementing quick updates on DNS registry, the propagation time has reduced significantly.

During DNS propagation period, some people will see the new site while others will see your site located at your old web host. For most web surfing, this isn’t much of a problem but if you have an ecommerce or dynamic website with a database it can get tricky since some orders may be placed on the old site and some are on the new site. To prevent a potential problem, you may be able to program the old site to use the database located on the new web host. This can be done if you know the IP address of the new host database. Also, the emails may be landing on two different hosts: the old and the new. You’ll have to cope with this by retrieving emails from both old site and the new site using the IP address rather than the domain name.

8. Cancel your old account

If you see your site come up correctly on the new host, you may cancel your old account. Please go through the testing once more, and make sure you wait at least 48 hours so that you can ensure the everyone in the world can view your sites. Even if you can see the website from your location, other parts of the world may not yet know about the change.

This article is written by Scott Seong, President and CEO of Edula, Inc. If you have questions or comments about this article, please forward them to feedback@edula.com.

To setup a website, you’ll need to find a web host to place the files and publish your website. Choosing a good web host is tricky as there are hundreds of web hosts making all sorts of promises, but there are only a few that delivers what they promise. Your website requires 24×7 uptime, good performance, and with uninterrupted email services. A good web host delivers what you’re looking for, while bad host will cause a lot of pain. This article provides the information you’ll need to pick a good web host.

1. Quality of Service

One of the most important features you’ll need from your web host is the reliability and performance. Your website must be online 24×7 with good performance. Look for at least a 99% uptime guarantee, and find out what that guarantee means. Try learning from others experiences by reading articles on web hosting forums such as Web Hosting Talk, HTTP Talk, or Talk Web Hosts.

The host computer is connected to the Internet by high-speed network, and the network bandwidth may vary depending on the type of interface being used. The traditional data lines in the United States were provided on T1 (1.54 Mbps) and T3 (45 Mbps) trunks, while many web hosts employ higher optical facilities such as OC-3 (155 Mbps), OC-12 (622 Mbps) and OC-48 (2.4 Gbps). It is also important to have multiple backbone connectivity, providing redundancy and eliminating single point of failure. A web host with the Internet connectivity of at least T3 should be chosen as your web host.

The performance of a website depends not only on the bandwidth of a web host but also on the number of virtual domains hosted on a given server. The more domains hosted by a server results in less time allocated for servicing your website as single server resource is shared by many domains. A web host may service as many as 500 domains on a physical server, depending on the type of server being used. It is hard to tell how many domains are shared, but if your website suffers from performance it’s likely that the server resources are shared by too many virtual hosts.

2. Support

Many web hosts claims to offer 24×7 technical support, but the statement is subject to interpretation. Does 24×7 support mean a live person available to answer the 800 number, or does it mean responding to an online trouble ticket within 24 hours? Depending on the type of plan you purchase and the cost of services provided, your expectation may vary. Generally, the response time should be less than 1 to 4 hours.

3. Features and Prices

It is easy to get blown by endless features offered by a web hosting company, and makes the assumption that the cost may be justified. With cost of bandwidth and price of hardware coming down on a monthly basis, it is not too hard to find a web host offering same or better features at a cheaper price. The catch is that the price should not be used as a sole factor for deciding a web host. There are companies offering cheap web hosting or budget web hosting services, but not all web hosts are providing same quality of service. You’ll need to find a web host who offers the features and quality of service you need, and at the same time meets your budget constraints.

One of the important feature that you’ll need from a web host is the ability to manage your domain name, only if the host is also used as a domain registrar. There are too many web hosts using domain names as the hostage, and makes it very difficult for customers transfer web hosting service out of their company.

This article is written by Scott Seong, President and CEO of Edula, Inc. If you
have questions or comments about this article, please forward them to feedback@topwebhosts.org.

By Scott Seong

Chapter 2.
Decisions, Decisions & Decisions

In the previous chapter, we discussed whether a web hosting business is right for you. If you decided to read further, I’m assuming that you understand the challenges of becoming a web host and also decided to make a full commitment in building a solid web hosting company. In this chapter, I’ll describe high level decisions you’ll have to make before establishing a web hosting company.

1. Decide on your service offerings and the operating platform

What will be your service offerings? Will you be offering shared hosting only, or will you be offering more advanced services like VPS, dedicated server, cloud hosting and also resell SSL certificates, and marketing packages with your web hosting service? Will you be offering web hosting services on Linux or Windows operating platform? You’ll need to define your products before making more advanced decisions.

2. Decide on Billing and Control Panel Software

There are so many billing and control panel software to choose from, FREE (“open source”) and PAID (“commercial”), and you’ll have to make a prudent decision to stay hassle-free when you go live with your web hosting company. You’ll need ONE billing software for your business, but will require ONE control panel software for each server you deploy unless it is provided by your “seller” hosting company.

You may opt to choose an open source billing software, but if you’re serious about your web hosting business you’ll be better off starting out with a commercial billing software and save your trouble. When considering a billing software, you’ll have to understand that it MUST BE compatible with domain registrar account that you’re reselling, control panel and payment gateway service you’re using.

Control panel software allows your customers to configure their web hosting accounts from A to Z, so it’s important to find a control panel that is reliable and easy to use. If your customer is experiencing a problem setting up their website in the middle of the night, you’ll get a call to from them and you’ll have to support.

3. Decide on Domain Name Reseller Account

As a web hosting company, you’ll have to resell domain names. Significant percentage of customers requiring web hosting service also require domain names, so if don’t offer domain names your customers will find someone who does and buy not only domain name from them but also web hosting plan as well. Finding a reputable domain name wholesaler is a must for success of your web hosting business.

4. Choose from Hosting Reseller Account, Dedicated Server or Colocation

Are you technically savvy? Will you have the time and up-front investment to procure server hardware and configure them yourself, and find a data center to rack them up? Even if you are technically capable, you’ll have to revisit your business requirements and risks associated with hosting yourself before committing to do it yourself. Perhaps, you may be better of reselling hosting plans from a reputable hosting company, and save your energy for leaping your business later.

5. Choose Help Desk, Trouble Ticketing & Knowledgebase Software

A differentiator between a mom-and-pop web host, and a top-notch hosting company is the ability to provide excellent customer support. Setting up help desk, trouble ticketing and knowledgebase software will not only make your website professional but also save you a lot of time and money in supporting your customers. Be prepare to integrate 3rd-party help desk software with your billing and control panel software if it’s not already part of your billing software.

6. Select a Credit Card Processor and Merchant Account

Choosing a merchant account and credit card processor is not an easy task, as you’ll have hard time comparing apples and oranges from multiple providers and find the one that is right for your company. A few critical things to consider are discount rates (fees for qualified, semi-qualified, and non-qualified transactions), credit limit, chargeback policy, and whether the provider will allow you to charge 1-year, 2-year or even 3-year in advance for service(s) to be rendered in the future.

7. Develop 24×7 Support Plan

As discussed in the previous chapter, 24x7x365 is a must for a web hosting company. If you are starting out small, it’s practically impossible for you (and your staff) to provide 24×7 support and make profit. You may opt to resell web hosting services from a reputable hosting company, or outsource your 24×7 support plan. We’ll discuss pros and cons of doing it yourself vs. hiring 3rd-party company to achieve the 24×7 support.

8. Develop Sales and Marketing Plans

Regardless of size and type of business you’re running, the success of the business is dependent on sales and profit of the company. You’ll have to develop a business plan, sales plan, and a great marketing plan to advance your business into a profitable status in shortest possible time. We’ll discuss search engine marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, and tactics you can use to promote your business without forking out tons of advertisement money.

Conclusion

Setting up a successful web hosting company is not an easy task. You’ll have to make a lot of decisions before going live with your ecommerce business. Deciding on service offerings, domain name & web hosting wholesalers, billing & control panel software, merchant account, and writing marketing plans are a few decisions you’ll have to make to launch a web hosting business. As with any business, trying to run your web hosting business on the side will not make you rich. You’ll have to fully commit your time and energy in order to build a successful web hosting company.

<< Previous ChapterNext Chapter >>

By Scott Seong

Chapter 1.
Is web hosting right business for you?

If you are reading this article, chances are you already know what web hosting means and what may be involved in starting a web hosting business. Web hosting is the business of providing storage space for web sites, and allowing public to access web pages on the Internet. The company that offers web hosting services is referred to as a web host, and the web host is responsible for providing storage space, database, Internet connectivity, and other value-added services for publishing a web site and offering email services.

With proliferation of Internet and convenience of accessing information on the world-wide-web, more and more brick-and-mortar businesses venture onto the web and conduct business online. Individuals also create personal web sites to share information with friends, family and others. The demand for web hosting service increases every year, and same is true with quality of web hosting services demanded by customers.

With ever growing demand of web hosting services, many people think about starting a web hosting business. Although it may seem easy to start with very little capital, it is not an easy business to run. It takes patience, dedication, and technical knowledge among other necessary business skills to run a successful web hosting company. With the innovation of control panels and billing software, some may argue this statement but in reality it isn’t that simple. As an owner of a web hosting company myself, I would like to share my experience starting a web hosting business, and offer helpful tips and knowledgebase I have learned on effeciently operating a web hosting company.

The biggest hurdle any web host must overcome is the 24×7 support. If you can’t provide 24×7 technical and customer support to your customers, you do not qualify to become a web host. The 24×7 support does not necessarily have to come from you directly, but as a company you must be able to offer this service either through your hosting provider (if you’re a reseller) or a third-party support company. Prompt and knowledgable support is the key differentiator in operating a successful web hosting company.

The second most important aspect of running a web hosting company is sales and marketing of your services. The web hosting industry is oversaturated with small to medium-sized web hosts, and the competition is very fierce in that it cost very expensive marketing dollars to attract a reasonable number of customers to arrive at break even point or make a tiny profit. The cost of pay-per-click (PPC) marketing your hosting company on Google, Yahoo and MSN will cost as much as 5 to 10 times more than marketing services from other industries. Similarly, placing banner or text advertisement on reputable content provider websites will cost a lot more than you would want to spare. The best way to build traffic to your website is by adding your site to relevant directories and promoting it on content provider sites as well as making search engines work for you. However, optimizing your web pages and writing search engine friendly contents often takes months or even years to see noticeable result. To overcome this hurdle, you’ll need money or time.

The last challenge any entrepreneur has to overcome is putting in your time, dedication, effort and getting full support from your family. Web hosting business is no different than any other business, and as a business owner you must prepare a solid business plan and strategies to grow your business. You must have expertise in the field you will be engage in, and web hosting business is no exception.

Conclusion

A lot of people attempt to start a web hosting company thinking that it can be started part-time, and by reselling web hosting service provided by a larger hosting company. With advent of control panels and billing software, it seems awfully easy to setup a website that sells web hosting services online. A template-based billing application and a web hosting control panel loaded on a pre-built web server indeed make a very complicated server administration job much simpler. However, when a problem occurs (and they do often occur) it is your responsibility as a web host to resolve those issues, and it requires great deal of technical knowledge to solve the problem and communicate effectively with your customers. If you are in it for leisure, part-time, and get rich quick scheme; web hosting business is not right for you. If, however, you are able to overcome major hurdles described above and be able to make long-term commitments for much bigger rewards, web hosting can be an excellent business with a lot of potentials and room to grow.

Continue to …
Chapter 2. Decisions, Decisions & Decisions

It is very common to use bandwidth and data transfer synonymously, but the two words have distinctive meanings. The bandwidth refers to data tranfer rate, while the data transfer denotes amount of data transferred. Although they are different, the two words are interchangeably used in the web hosting industry.

What is bandwidth?

Bandwidth is defined as amount of data transmitted over unit time. In other words, bandwidth is how fast data flows on a given transmission path or medium. The bandwidth of T1 transmission media is 1.54 Mbps (Mega bits per second), and OC-3 is approximately 155 Mbps. If a given facility has higher bandwidth, the website will load faster because it can transfer more data per second.

What is data transfer?

Data transfer refers to amount of traffic generated and transported from one location to another. From web hosting perspective, the data transfer refers to amount of data that is transferred to and from your website either by you uploading files, your visitors viewing and downloading files, and emails transported from the server to your computer. Data transfer is measured in bytes (B), kilo bytes (1 thousand bytes or KB), mega bytes (1 million bytes or MB) giga bytes (1 billion bytes or GB) or tera bytes (1 trillion bytes or TB). If you upload 1MB file, and your visitors download the file 999 times, you’ve just transferred 1,000 MB or 1GB of data.

How much data transfer do you need?

Depending on what type and size of information you provide to your visitors and how many visitors you expect your website, your data transfer requirement will greatly change. If you provide mostly static text, your data transfer requirement will be relatively small. On the other hand, if you offer multimedia files such as MP3, WAV, AVI and MPG files, your data transfer requirement will be a lot higher. Multiply the data you’ll be providing to your yours by number of visitors you expect on a given month, and you’ll have a rough idea of required data transfer amount.

To give you numeric examples, think of a site offering static text. If a website delivers 10,000 pages per day with average page size of 20 KB, the data transfer per month will be 6GB (30 days x 10K pages x 20 KBytes). Average website receives about 50 visitors per day, and uses less than 300 MB of data tranfer.

Truth about unlimited data transfer (or bandwidth)?

Even though the cost of bandwidth has been reduced significantly over the last several years, providing higher bandwidth will cost more money to web hosts. To provide more bandwidth to the users, it will generally require more server resources to provide such services. Any host offering unlimited data transfer at any price will not likely be in business if their users do use them. The limiting factor is the server resources which prevents a user from using unlimited bandwidth. The bottomline is there is no such thing as unlimited data transfer.

This article is written by Scott Seong, President and CEO of Edula, Inc. If you have questions or comments about this article, please forward them to feedback@edula.com.