Considerations for Your E-commerce Site

The internet offers a plethora of opportunities for anyone looking to benefit from E-commerce with their own online business.  E-commerce simply refers to using the internet as a means to sell goods and services.  In order to get on board, you will need a web hosting company to set you up with server space and provide the tools needed to succeed.

Know What You Need

Many of the web hosting companies today offer the latest in technology suited for a range of

E-commerce needs.  With so many companies on the market, you can easily find one the offers scalability and great performance.  When signing up with the right host, it serves benefits to the seller and the buyer who appreciates the professional, secure service.  Tools like dynamic programming scripts, powerful database systems, integrated email systems and adequate server space all give you the ability to run a website that looks just as, if not more professional than your competitors.

Aside from designing your website in a professional, appealing manner, you also need to create it in a way that brings in profits to stay alive online.  This is critical as the internet has become fast-paced and heavy with competition.  Small businesses and large companies alike have an array of products and services for sell, most of them moving their entire operation to the net.  These companies require a great amount of flexibility, reliability and security in order to run their operation, critical factors you should take into account when looking for somewhere to host your E-commerce site.

Accepting Payments

With a web hosting plan, you can essentially create your own storefront, decorating it with pre-designed templates that appeal to your visitors.  Just as customers need to checkout from the retail store, your clients will need a way to checkout and make their purchases.  This is made easy with a web host that provides you with shopping cart software.  While you were once required to have a conventional merchant account to accept credit card payments, this can now be done for next to nothing with a PayPal account.  Web hosting allows you to present your products and services in a number of ways with optimized graphics, catalogs, auctions and much more.

Choosing the Right Plan

Great demand and the competitive business aspect of the industry has made web hosting plans more affordable than ever.  There are also many types of packages to choose from. You can choose to run your E-commerce site on a Windows or Linux server; a virtual private server or a shared server.  If you anticipate a heavy load of traffic right off the bat, you can invest in a dedicated server and have an entire machine devoted to your business.  This could lead to other opportunities as some webmasters use their dedicated servers to open reseller hosting businesses. Each type of web hosting can help you succeed on different levels while giving your business room to grow.

E-commerce keeps the internet thriving with business.  When mapping out your plan for success, be sure to set aside a little time to research some web hosting services.  With the backing of a reliable company, there is no limit to what you can achieve.

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Dec 16, 2008 : Ecommerce No responses yet

The Benefits of Linux Hosting

Websites are developed using various programming languages and platforms.  One of the most widely used platforms is the Linux operating system.  People have their own reasons for choosing one platform or another, yet in this article we will discuss why so many have chosen to build their site on the Linux operating system.

The Linux Platform

Linux web hosting offers many benefits to the webmaster.  One of the major advantage is its extreme compatibility with open-source programming languages such as PHP, Perl and Python.  Cost in another factor that has led developers to this platform.  Because Linux and all of its LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl Python) components are of an open-source nature, providers are able to access these essentials for next to nothing, enabling them to offer a more affordable hosting solution.  The operating system also supports a wide range of permissions and special tools including Mod Rewrite and the .htacess file.  Linux hosting is designed in a way that allows users to implement a variety of scripts and programs according to their needs

Another major advantage to Linux hosting is the higher level of security it provides as the system itself is very secure away from the network server environment.  Often compared to Windows, Linux is known to be far more secure with fewer occurrences of viruses, worms, successful intrusions and other exploits.  Closely tied with security is stability, another benefit of this hosting solution that ensures a near flawless performance.  These factors help to ensure that your website will experience minimal downtime and remain available for visitors to access.

Extreme Usability

The Linux platform has evolved significantly over the years.  Upon first being introduced, the operating system was extremely complex and a huge turn offer for new users.  Because of this, Linux was mainly used in the server environment by IT professionals.  Thanks to the demand of more powerful and reliable solutions in the web hosting industry, the Linux platform has become more user-friendly and can even be administered by those with little to no experience.  Despite being more comprehensive, the system is still preferred by IT professionals who appreciate the control and stability it provides.  Once primarily used in the network environment, Linux is becoming more accepted as an ideal desktop solution for home users as well.

In a League of its Own

While Linux is indeed based off the Unix platform and has spawned many variations of its own, the system remains unique with capabilities that can’t be duplicated.  It has the ability to run multiple processes at one time without enduring performance issues and also allows the user to the get the most out of the server its installed on.   The power and functionality of the Linux operating system makes it a viable option for a range of hosting needs.

Conclusion

There are several factors that need to be considered when choosing a web host, but any provider using the Linux platform already has a major plus going for them.  Aside from being more affordable, this type of hosting is also likely to be more secure and give you a much better performance.

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Dec 15, 2008 : Linux Web Hosting No responses yet

A Trademark For Your Domain

After working hard to create a website and introduce your products, you then set out to bring in a steady flow of visitors.  As you’re your traffic increases, the more your website grows, increasing the value of your domain.  After establishing a worthy online presence, you may want to consider trademarking your domain.  This is a great way to protect your brand from an array of unscrupulous competitors with thoughts of implementing your domain into meta tags, enabling them to boost their search engine rankings at your expense.  With your domain trademarked, you can take action against these characters and possibly have the search engines remove their deceptive listings.

The Relationship Between Trademarks and Domains

In simple terms, a trademark is a distinctive form of branding used to identify a product, service, logo, device or package, specifying that it belongs to a particular entity.  These items can be protected by obtaining a mark from the patent and trademark office, prohibiting others from taking financial advantage of your creation.

When it comes to domain names, the trademark and patent office has a totally different outlook.  From their perspective, the “http://www”is an element of the file transfer process rather than your domain name.  An extension such as “.com” or .”net” is viewed as a TLD (top-level domain) identifier and ignored in regard to the domain trademark.  For example, lets say your domain is http://www.mytrademark.com When submitting it for registration, you would provide “mytrademark”, which is the only portion that would get considered for the trademark.

No Locators

A domain is a locator that finds web pages.  When typing a URL into the browser, a server locates and displays the files on that page.  A domain name used strictly for this purpose cannot be trademarked.  Instead, the name must be incorporated into the website.  An example would be the electronics outlet Circuit City that has their own website.  You will notice that every page name contains “Circuit City” in it.  In this scenario, circuitcity.com is more than a locator, meaning “circuit city” is worthy of a trademark.

Generic and Descriptive Variations

A domain name that is generic or descriptive in nature can’t be registered for a trademark.  This is because it fails to specify a particular product or service.  For instance, “michiganbikeshop” is made up of generic terms, giving incite on who and where the domain owner is, but not exactly specifying it.  A domain comprised in this nature cannot be trademark. So how about coke.com, the website for the soft drink manufacturer Coca-Cola?  How would these rules apply to a name that is essentially a generic term for cola?  This website is trademarked because “Coke” is a term that describes a specific soft drink product.  It’s just a coincidence that several people refer to other brands of soda as coke, the results of a brilliant marketing scheme.

Conclusion

You started from nothing and built your website into a successful business - why not protect it?  By trademarking your domain name, you can keep the competition from leaching off your efforts while adding more credibility to your name. These benefits are well worth the investment.

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Dec 12, 2008 : Domain Names No responses yet

The Difference Between Shared and Dedicated Server Hosting

For those of you new to the subject, a web hosting service allows you to store your web pages on a server so they can be accessed for private or public viewing.  While web hosting comes in many forms, there are essentially two types that dominate the market: shared and dedicated server hosting.

The classifications of web hosting are based on the servers being utilized and ultimately determines the level of control a user will have over the website.  In this article we will provide you with an overview of both services.

Shared Hosting

Just as the name implies, shared hosting is a service where individuals upload content and run their website on a server that is shared by other users.  This represents the most popular type of hosting as it is the first option for most newcomers, small businesses and even decent sized organizations.  Despite the fact that they have limited resources, many companies will house hundreds to thousands of sites on a single server.

Shared hosting occurs in a managed environment, meaning software installations, security and server maintenance are handled by the provider.  They do however, give some level of control to the user.  Customers are provided with control panel software like cPanel, Plesk and vDeck to manage their hosting account.  The servers are typically administered by more advanced control panels such as Helm and DirectAdmin.  While some shared hosts use Windows or FreeBSD, most of them install the Linux operating system as it is more compatible with the current control panels on the market.

The best part about shared hosting is availability and a cheaper price.  Some shared hosts are able to provide service with numerous features including multiple databases, management tools, additional programming scripts, free software and more.  However, the shared server is more prone to issues of instability and security due to the abundance of users.

Dedicated Server Hosting

When hosting on a dedicated server, that server is dedicated solely to your usage.  In this scenario, you are not to forced to share server space with other users, meaning you have all the resources to yourself.  Dedicated server hosting is more suited for someone who anticipates a high amount of web traffic.  This environment provides you with a greater amount of storage space and bandwidth to support that traffic.  Aside from enjoying resources, you also have your choice of software installations including operating systems and dynamic web-based programs.  You have the option to maintain one site, or extend your web presence by hosting multiple domains.  Many people use these computers to sell server space of their own, a move that basically describes shared hosting.

A dedicated server enables 100% control over your site.  With that freedom comes more  responsibility.  You must ensure that the operation is stable and secure, tasks that require a level of administrative skill.  Your server must receive constant security and monitoring to immediately rectify any problems that may arise.  For those who lack the technical skills to perform these tasks, some dedicated server hosts provide additional services to help users administer their account.

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Dec 11, 2008 : Dedicated Servers No responses yet

cPanel Tutorial: Setting up Spam Assassin

Spam has become as common as the internet itself.  This annoying epidemic has resulted in the development of various tools to combat the issue from both the client and server side.  In this tutorial we will discuss the powerful Spam Assassin spam filter and how it can be set up in cPanel.

Description

Spam Assassin is one of the most efficient spam-fighting tools on the market, available with almost any hosting plan offering cPanel.  By default, this utility is disabled in your control panel but enabling it is fairly simple.

Enabling and Configuration

After logging into your control panel, you will notice “Spam Assassin” on the interface underneath the “Mail” tab.  When clicking the tab you will be taken to the main configuration page and presented with an array of options.  To start protecting your inbox right way, simply click “Enable Spam Assassin”.  This will activate the utility and filter spam on the default settings.

Spam Assassin’s default filter is set to level 5, a decent setting for the average end-user.  By setting the number higher, fewer messages will be tagged as spam, thus resulting in less false positives.  This number can always be adjusted in accordance to your level of false positives.  You can also make configurations to delete spam mail as soon it arrives.  This is useful in regard to easy management but you also stand the chance of losing legitimate emails.  Because of this, learning to properly adjust the level of your filter is critical.

Your Spam Box

After first enabling Spam Assassin, all suspected spam emails in your Spam Box will be tagged with “SPAM” in front of the subject field.  Of course, an exception would be if you have enabled the auto-spam delete function.  This setting gives you the ability to configure your mail client to filter out messages based on certain tags.  The Spam Box acts as your quarantine folder, performing on the server and preventing the messages from reaching the inbox on your desktop.  The Spam Box automatically creates an isolation folder as soon as a spam message is detected.

The major benefits of activating the Spam Box is avoiding all the unsolicited emails in the form of advertisements, viruses, scams and other potential threats.  It also allows you to access your webmail account on the server to find out if any legitimate messages were mistakenly tagged.  The disadvantage of this filtering method relates to inconvenience as you will have to login to your cPanel account on a regular basis to manage the Spam Box.  If not, the messages stored on the server will consume precious storage space.

Advanced Settings

Spam Assassin includes extra features that allow you to filter messages based on various criteria.  Configurations can be made to block out or allow mail based on a specific email address or an entire domain.  For instance, if you are constantly missing emails from a friend or company, you could add that name to a “Whitelist”, instructing Spam Assassin to allow the message to pass.  This method works the same way with a Blacklist which allows you to automatically block messages from a website that has been harassing you with spam.

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Dec 10, 2008 : cPanel Tutorials No responses yet