Finding Good Domain Names

Latest statistics show approximately 83 million .com domains are currently registered. That’s a lot of different domain names! Out of that number, many are very Read more

Will Domain Registration Changes Cause Problems With Google?

Here is a question that comes up sometime, from people who are working to get their website ranked well in Google.

When you move your site and change domain name registrars (say from GoDaddy to Buy Domains), or make changes in your registrant information (such as changing your address or phone number), Read more

Will Free Web Hosting Work For You?

Is free web hosting a good option for you? Just about everyone wants to go online and put something up on the Internet these days. Many people just want to express themselves with a blog or diary where they can tell the world about something they are passionate about. The easiest and least expensive way to do this is through free social sites like My Space or Facebook. However, sometime there is good reason to register your own domain and host your own website.

Anything you put on a free social network site really isn’t yours. You are subject to rules and regulations regarding what you can post. There is nothing wrong with having standards, and this usually isn’t a problem for most people, anyway. The biggest reason to have your own site is ownership. If you spend a lot of time building content on a free social site, it can all be wiped out if that site changes the rules or decides there is something about your site they don’t like. It happens.

If you choose to register a domain and create your own site, you have a choice between traditional paid web hosting and free web hosting. Paid hosting is a bargain these days, with many hosts charging $10 for less a month for just about everything you need. Most hosting plans in this price range include enough disk space to host several different websites, or one big site, depending on how much content you create over time.

Just a quick note about “unlimited” bandwidth or “unlimited” domain offers. There really is a limit, but for 99% of users it won’t be an issue. Web hosting companies know that the average user will only put up maybe one site or two, and the amount of resources they use will be tiny. I guarantee you if you buy a $5 a month web hosting package that advertises unlimited domains and bandwidth, and go into business selling web space to other people, you’ll soon find there is a limit. Again, for most this isn’t an issue, I just wanted to touch on it briefly in case you were wondering how web hosts could offer unlimited services at such low prices.

Despite the low cost of standard paid hosting, some people still want free web hosting. If you are just putting up a site as a hobby, or a personal blog or diary for fun, free web hosting might be a great option for you. If you are planning to sell anything from your site, or promote some sort of business, don’t even consider free web hosting.

The positive side of free web hosting is the “free”. However, there are drawbacks.

• in most cases, the hosting provider reserves the right to run ads on your site, usually on the top or side margins. This won’t disturb your content, but can make viewing it annoying to others, and make your pretty design and setup look pretty lousy.

• other forms of advertising are often used, including popups and other types of advertising that greet your visitors upon entering and leaving your site. These are perhaps more annoying than anything.

• you will have pretty serious limits on how much bandwidth you can use, so don’t plan on putting up a lot of videos or other heavy multimedia content.

• your website address will the hosting companies name plus something you create, for example “petejohnson.freewebhostingcompany.com” – not exactly the ideal in personalized expression.

Bear in mind that companies can offer free hosting based on getting revenue in return from advertising. Unfortunately, many people set up free web hosting services on the fly hoping to rake in some decent money from ads and promotions to you and your visitors. If this doesn’t go well, they are likely to shut down without warning and leave you stranded.

My advice is to avoid all free web hosting services, unless you simply don’t have the money or don’t want to commit to a few dollars a month for a regular host. The bottom line is, never put anything up on a free host that you really don’t want to lose. It is definitely a risk.

Is Shared Web Hosting Your Best Option?

If you’re out there looking for the best way to get your web site online, you’ve probably run into some confusion over web hosting. There are many choices, and for most people the options can be overwhelming. Read more

Choosing the Right Web Host

Are you looking for more information about various web hosting options? These are the most popular choices.

Free Web Hosting

Not always a bad choice. If you are just publishing a personal journal, for example, and you have a very low budget, then perhaps this is a choice that may work for you. Unfortunately, there are some annoying things you’ll have to put up with if you elect to use free web hosting. You will usually have to tolerate other peoples’ advertising on your site. You will be sharing space with loads of other people and fighting for limited resources. On free web hosting platforms, down time isn’t unusual.

If you have any problems or need help, good luck – technical support is very limited. Your domain name won’t really be yours – for example, if your free web host is acme.com, your address might be yoursite.acme.com or something like that. This might work fine if your sites are strictly for fun. A free hosting account is a poor choice for business or professional sites.

Shared Web Hosting

Most hosting accounts are shared hosting. You have your own personal domain name, and you pay for the service so there are no ads.

Bottom line, shared hosting is shared with other users. You will not have your own dedicated server, and you will be sharing a server with other domains. In the long run, unless you are running a site that gets a huge amount of traffic, this is your best option. It doesn’t cost a whole lot, and you have the opportunity to sign up for a variety of hosting plans including everything from single domain hosting to reseller hosting (if you want to make money selling web space). Pick the right host and you will have trouble free, well supported hosting at your fingertips.

Dedicated Web Hosting

You will pay the most for this option. You will not need this unless you have a ton of traffic that requires a lot of bandwidth and resources. This simply means you have your own server and aren’t sharing it with other users. Great option if you truly need it, but overkill for most people.

Host Gator Enters the World of Tattoo Advertising

Host Gator has paid a boxer based in Anchorage Alaska to have its name and logo tattooed permanently on the back of his neck. In the world of advertising, this ad gives a new twist to the notion of “lifetime value”.

Houston, TX (PRWEB) June 13, 2009 — Scientists say most of us have a sixth sense that lets us know when somebody – or something – is staring at the back of our head or neck. Thanks to Host Gator, Billy Gibby’s sixth sense must be working overtime.

You see, a short time ago, Host Gator paid him $3,000 to tattoo their name and logo on the back of his neck – permanently.

“When you spend as much as we do on advertising, you start to run out of places to advertise online,” says Host Gator president Brent Oxley. “This has left us no other choice but to become more creative and crazier with our advertising venues and locations. I present to you Billy the Billboard.”

Oxley says the tattoo ad may be one of the best advertising investments they’ve ever made: “It’s on his neck for the rest of his life. If we get one sale a year, we break even – not to mention the media attention.”

Gibby, who dubs himself “Billy the Billboard,” says his goal is to set a Guinness World Record as the man with the most advertising tattoos on his body.

Gibby, who is also an undefeated professional boxer based in Anchorage, Alaska, says it all started when he needed money to fly to California to donate one of his kidneys to a friend. He’d seen a fellow boxer in the ring once with a temporary tattoo and thought he might be able to get even more money for a real tattoo. He put his offer up on eBay and GoldenPalace.com, an online casino, won the auction: “And I got the money I needed to fly to California to donate my kidney.”

Oxley says after choosing Gibby as his first human billboards, he immediately wanted to do more.

“I believe in the potential of tattoo advertising so much I had this plan to pay the first 200 people willing to get a Host Gator tattoo more than $300,000 combined. Within 24 hours of the word getting around our office, I had over a dozen employees offering to sell their skin.

“Everything was going great until we pitched the idea to our lawyers. They basically said that tattooing ordinary people would open us up for lawsuits. But because Billy is an entertainer, we can tattoo him without legal concerns.”

Oxley says Host Gator is now in the market for other zany, eye-grabbing advertising ideas.

For more HostGator hosting information contact:
Brent Oxley
or visit www.hostgator.com
1-866-96-GATOR (1-866-964-2867)

HostGator.com
11251 Northwest Freeway, Suite 400
Houston, TX 77092
United States of America

About HostGator

Host Gator is a provider of shared, dedicated and reseller Web hosting services focused on the consumer and small business markets. Founded in 2002, Host Gator has become a leader in reseller hosting, helping over 20,000 businesses become Web hosting companies. HostGator is now a green hosting company, offsetting 130% of the power it uses by investing in renewable energy certificates.

HostGator Web Hosting Ranks 239th on Inc 5000

Houston web site hosting provider has grown 896%, and named the 239th fastest growing private company in the USA on the Inc. 5000 list.

Houston, TX (PRWEB) August 25, 2009 — Inc. has ranked HostGator.com as the 239th fastest-growing privately owned company in the country on its prestigious Inc. 5000 list for 2009. HostGator.com is a leading provider of web hosting services including shared hosting, reseller hosting, and dedicated servers.

The 2009 Inc. 5000 list measures revenue growth from 2005 through 2008. To qualify, companies must be U.S.-based and privately held, for profit, independent (not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies), and have had at least $200,000 in revenue from 2005, and at least $2 million in 2008.

HostGator’s revenue grew by over 896% during the measured period. In 2005, the Houston-based company saw revenues of $3.4 million–while in 2008, HostGator generated $34.2 million in annual revenue.

In addition to being ranked #239 overall, HostGator was ranked #6 out of all businesses in the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown area of Texas, and #20 in HostGator’s category of Business Products & Services across the country.

In 2008, HostGator was ranked #21 overall, on Inc. 5000’s list with 2007’s revenue of $18.7 million. “Although we were ranked at 239 overall versus last year’s rank of 21, we’ve nearly doubled our revenue from 2007 to 2008 to $34.2 million,” said Jay Weissman, Affiliate Director for HostGator.com. “And we have seen substantial growth in every service we offer.”

While unemployment in the U.S. rose to 9.4% in July of 2009 from 5.7% in July of 2008 (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics), HostGator has been able to add over 100 new positions for highly skilled technicians and systems’ administrators from its growth.

“A big portion of our growth has definitely come from small to medium-sized businesses understanding the value in having their own web site to be competitive in today’s marketplace,” said Chad Bean, CMO of HostGator.com. “Individuals are also able to utilize our services to generate extra income from online advertising and promotion.”

About HostGator.com
HostGator is a leading provider of web hosting including shared hosting, reseller hosting, and dedicated servers. The company provides hosting for over 2.2 million websites and supports more than 50,000 resellers worldwide with 24/7 technical support and state-of-the-art web hosting tools including free billing software for resellers and access to over 4,500 high quality free web templates.

About Inc.com
Inc.com, the daily resource for entrepreneurs, delivers how-to guides, advice, tools, breaking news, and rich multi-media to help business owners and CEOs start, run, and grow their businesses. Inc.com offers dynamic marketing solutions to help advertisers effectively reach Inc.com’s audience of business leaders.

Go Daddy and Danica Patrick Sexy Shower Commercial

This is the sexy Go Daddy shower commercial featuring Danica Patrick….enjoy!

Go Daddy and Danica’s New Indy 500 AD

GO DADDY DRIVES HUGE TRAFFIC SPIKE WITH DANICA’S NEW INDY 500 AD Go Daddy Girl Also Drives into Record Books with Historic Indy Finish!

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (May 24, 2009) – Go Daddy Girl Danica Patrick made history today at the Indianapolis 500 with her third place finish, the best ever by a woman at the legendary Brickyard. Danica also drove tremendous Web traffic to GoDaddy.com – doubling last year’s campaign results. In her new cliffhanger commercial specially created for the GoDaddy.com sponsored broadcast, Danica told viewers to, “See what happens next at GoDaddy.com” and viewers responded almost as fast as an open-wheeled race car crossing the finish line. In fact, traffic to Go Daddy’s Web site exploded following a mere ‘tease’ to Danica’s “Speeding” commercial early in the pre-race broadcast. Web traffic spiked 163 percent during today’s broadcast, as compared to last year’s. Even more people logged on to GoDaddy.com immediately after the race this year, with an overwhelming 570 percent lift in Web site visits. “First and foremost, congratulations to Danica on her historic performance,” said Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. “She made us all proud today on and off the track. It was amazing to watch the response to our new commercial…visitors jumping online so quickly to see our Internet-Only version.” In the broadcast commercial, Danica is pulled over on a deserted highway for speeding. The storyline takes a big twist as the officer realizes who she’s stopped. The female cop then launches into an unsolicited Go Daddy Girl audition. At the end, Danica encourages viewers to log on to GoDaddy.com to see the racy conclusion. The Web hosting and domain name company surveyed people who watched the online commercial and found an overwhelming majority of both men and women thought it was funny. Overall, 92 percent of all those surveyed said they thought the Internet-Only version was “hilarious, funny, clever.” “A lot of people tease me about the Go Daddy ads because they push the envelope,” said Danica. “But GoDaddy-esque ads are fun to make, fun to watch… you just never know what’s going to happen!” Danica certainly has what it takes to prompt viewer response, which was Parsons’ idea from the start. The outspoken CEO has much to celebrate tonight considering his Go Daddy Girl made history on the track and helped attract new customers in droves. “Getting visitors to the site is what it’s all about – when people see what Go Daddy can do for them online, they become customers,” said Parsons. “Once they experience our 24/7 personalized customer service, they tell family and friends – who then become customers, as well.” Go Daddy is the world’s No. 1 registrar of new domains as well as a world leader in Web hosting and new SSL certificates. Go Daddy offers 50-plus products to make getting online easy and affordable -while providing industry-best 24/7 personalized customer service. To learn more about how you can create or enhance your online presence, visit www.GoDaddy.com.