Tutorials

If you’re not happy with your host, why haven’t you done anything about it yet? It’s all too easy to make excuses. But the consequences of staying could be worse than the consequences of leaving. Here are five common excuses we all use. 1. The Hosting Contract Some hosts offer big discounts for long-term signups. […]

Server-side includes (SSI) used to be a major plus point in hosting. Back when HTML was king, SSI added a dynamic element to website development. But SSI has now largely been left behind. Is it worth revisiting? The Basics of SSI SSI is designed to support large, complex websites. It helped to prevent unnecessary duplication of […]

Web hosting has come on in leaps and bounds over the last five years. Some of the features we enjoy today were highly unusual in the last decade. Let’s take a nostalgic look at some of the key improvements to hosting packages in recent years. 1. IMAP Email Until recently, hosts favoured POP3 email. It […]

Many analytics tools and third party services ask for verification. Setting this up can be time-consuming. Our guide will take the pain out of Google Analytics verification. Verification is crucial. It guards against security risks, both for the companies behind the tool and the website owners who use them. Google has found a way to […]

When you’re reading about hosting on forums and blogs, you’ll come across the term overselling. In this article, we’ll look at what it is and why it props up a large chunk of the low-cost hosting market. What is Overselling? Overselling is the practice of selling more hosting resources than you have available. The idea […]

If you run websites for long enough you will likely find that at some point, a host that started out as good begins to degrade, eventually becoming a host that is bad enough for you to want to move away. It isn’t a change that happens overnight. After all, a single incident of downtime could […]

‘Cloud’ is an industry buzz word. It has evolved to mean a variety of different things to different people. In this article, we’ll look specifically at cloud hosting: what it is, and what it can offer. We’ll also see why you’ll eventually end up using a cloud host. What is Cloud Hosting? Cloud hosting is […]

Many hosts will tolerate mistakes; some will eventually run out of patience. Break any of these rules and you’ll most likely be looking for new hosting in no time at all. 1. Illegal Content Illegal pornography, illegal gambling, stolen content: no host will tolerate them. Not only will your host give you the boot, you’ll […]

Wondering if your site could handle a traffic spike? You can easily conduct a load test to find out. Load Impact offers a small, basic load tester that you can use for free. Though it’s limited in what it can do, its analysis is quite realistic. Here’s how it works. Grace Under Fire It’s easy […]

Google Apps makes it easy to integrate key Google functionality with your site’s domain. It’s easy to set up on any server and adds many benefits – not least the power of Gmail. But if you’ve bought VPS hosting or a dedicated server, you might have missed some lesser known benefits of Google Apps.   Implemented […]

We’ve already talked about warning signs when buying a hosting account. Now, let’s look at the pitfalls of buying a domain. Domains are usually significantly cheaper than hosting accounts, but we tend to buy many more domains. It doesn’t take long for domain name ownership to become expensive. So how do you avoid getting burned on […]

Hosting companies often boast about their datacenter facilities. In the blurb on the website, you’ll sometimes see the facility’s tier mentioned. You might notice terms like top tier, or tier 3, usually presented without clear explanation. So what does this tier system mean – and what’s so great about a tier 4 facility? Understanding Datacenter Tiers Every […]

If you’ve researched web hosting and read host reviews, you probably have a good idea what your chosen host offers. But have you ever explored the additional perks of your package? Here are five features you might not know you’ve got. 1. Migration Assistance If you need to transfer from one host to another, migration […]

Many hosts now offer their own WordPress theme galleries, packed full of professional quality layouts for your site or blog. Is it worth signing up to a host just to bag a free premium theme?

Every byte data on the web also exists in a physical location. The cloud is a method of duplicating those bytes in multiple physical locations. But they still exist somewhere. So does location really matter in web hosting? Does Closer Mean Better? The location of the data – in other words, the server – matters, […]