Web Hosting
Amarillo, Texas and Global

      Free Web Hosting
      Cheap Web Hosting
      Best Web Hosting
      Full Service Web Hosting

Web Hosting - A Quick Guide to Website Hosting Plans

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Click on the following links to jump to the different sections on this page:

      Domain Names
      Free Web Hosting
      Cheap Web Hosting
      Best Web Hosting
      Full Web Hosting

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Domain Names

      The first thing that we recommend to all of our customers is to take full control of their own domain name. If you later change web hosts, it can be difficult to have your existing domain forwarded to the new host, or worse, your website may be offline several days while waiting for the domain name to be redirected to the new host. We have seen websites that were previously number one on search engines be completely removed from search engines due to the sites being offline too long. Never take chances with your domain name!

      We recommend that the customer sets up an account at Enom or at NameCheap. Enom has lower prices but requires a minimum initial account balance of $100.00 before you can purchase domain names for $7.95 per year plus an additional cost of $7.95 per year for ID protection. NameCheap offers a free account, with domain names costing $9.69 per year plus an additional cost of $2.88 for ID protection. Enom is more economical in the long run, especially for customers who have several domain names, but NameCheap is the better deal when using ID protection.

      Whether you choose Enom, NameCheap, or some other domain service, just be sure that you have complete control over your domain name's DNS server settings (the host's URL address that the domain name points to), and that you can renew the domain name each year by yourself.


Free Web Hosting Services

      Angelfire dependability is good, there are plenty of free add-ons, and there is a site-builder for beginners who do not want to learn HTML. The two main drawbacks of Angelfire are that all of your web pages must display ads and pop-ups, and there are no statistics for you to see which pages are being viewed or if another website is linking to your website. The cost of ad-free hosting with statistics through Angelfire is $4.95 per month, which is more expensive than many full service web hosts.

      Tripod is part of Lycos, which includes Angelfire, and so the advantages and disadvantages of Tripod are the same as Angelfire. The one advantage of Tripod over Angelfire is that your URL will be http://yoursitename.tripod.com, whereas on Angelfire the URL is http://www.angelfire.com/home/yoursitename. I personally have a few small websites on Tripod and Angelfire, and for free web hosting services, I have been pleased with Lycos.

      50webs is a relatively new free web host that I discovered a little over a year ago. The main advantage of 50webs is that there are no ads or pop-ups. 50webs gives 60mb of disk space to build your free website, which is more than enough for most personal and business websites. Similar to all other known free hosting services, 50webs hopes that you will later purchase full hosting and pay for your domain name through 50webs. At $15.00 for a domain name through 50webs, plus the free ad-free hosting, it is actually a pretty good deal. The only real drawbacks with the free 50webs hosting are that there are no available statistics showing which of your pages are the most popular or if another website is linking to yours, and too, the server speed is often slow compared to paid hosting.

      Three of the most important things necessary for a website to gain popularity are (1) a domain name, (2) statistics to learn where the hits on your website are coming from (so that you can adjust your topics to fit popular searches), and (3) no ads; especially no pop-ups. While it is possible for a web page on a free web hosting service to achieve high rankings on search engines, it is very rare. If a person only wants a website to learn on and to share with family and friends, then free web hosting is fine, but if you want to create a popular website, then free hosting is not a good choice.


Cheap Web Hosting Services

      247-Host Basic has a web hosting plan for as little as $1.99 per month with a 2 year purchase. The plan does not include a site-builder, nor does the plan permit add-on domains, but the host does provide Awstats statistics and a maximum of 10 subdomains. The 247-Host plan is plenty good for individuals who know HTML or use their own site-builder and simply want to host their site as cheaply as possible. I know of no full web hosting service at a lower cost. The $1.99 per month cost is actually cheaper than paying for the electricity to run a private server.

      IX Web Expert is $3.95 per month, has Awstats statistics, unlimited add-on domains, and a domain name is included in the price. The basic IX plan has everything a person would likely ever want from a web host.

      WHB Budget is $5.95 per month for a 2 year purchase. WHB permits one add-on domain, unlimited subdirectories, and includes the Awstats as well as a domain name. In my personal experience with WHB, up-time was good, as was the download speed. Perhaps the only problem I experienced with WHB was that my email provider (sbcglobal.net) did not accept emails from WHB, which was no fault of WHB. If your ISP is sbcglobal.net, it might be best to use a live.com or other online email address to register with WHB.

      There are hundreds of different web hosting services available, and it is not easy to choose the one that is best for you. If your website will require a lot of speed and bandwidth, such as for videos and music, you may want a hosting service that includes a dedicated IP address. For most of us, a shared IP address is plenty good enough for normal websites. Some webmasters collect domain names and then place the domains on a single host that permits add-on domains, which saves a lot of money by not having to pay hosting service fees for each domain name. The final decision of which host to choose can be difficult, but only you know what will work best for your own needs.


Best Hosting Service

      There may never be such a thing as a 'best' hosting service, but dollar for dollar and feature for feature, the 247-Host Basic plan is close to being the best, and if a person wants a few additional features that the Basic plan does not have, 247-Host has other plans that can likely satisfy any need.


Full Hosting Service

      For our customers who do not have the time or patience to build and maintain their own websites, we can host the website, upload the website's pages, configure any needed subdomains, configure email accounts, handle the domain name, and renew the annual subscriptions for the customer. Below are just a few of the problems that many website owners do not know about until after a web hosting plan has been purchased.

      (1) The free domain names that are included with some hosting plans are difficult to keep and relatively expensive if you change hosts. A very popular domain registrar has low prices on its domain names, but unless the domain owner uses the registrar's hosting plans, the owner may not be able to direct the domain to another hosting service. A domain name is useless if you cannot direct it where you want it to go. We primarily purchase domain names through Enom where we can direct your domain to any website hosting service you want, and we can do it quickly, easily, and inexpensively. If you later decide you want to manage your own domain name, we can transfer it from Enom very quickly and without any additional cost (except, of course, the additional one year registration cost that your registrar will charge you to transfer the domain name into your account).

      (2) Are you familiar with how hosting services work? Do you know about the index page? Do you know how and where to upload pages and graphics? Does the host require that you use FTP? Do you know what FTP is? Do you need a subdomain? Do you know what subdomains are best used for? If you are new to hosting, you may find it very time consuming to learn, and for many individuals it is much less expensive to pay us to do all the hosting work than for the customer to lose time that could have been used more profitably in their own business.

      (3) If your website needs a good ranking on search engines, do you know how to link your web pages to gain the best results? Search engines have become relatively sophisticated, with each search engine having specific likes and dislikes of how your website is structured. Every little thing counts with search engines, including your web page URLs.

      The full service hosting costs $10.00 per month for a 1 year plan that includes a domain name and plenty enough disk space and bandwidth for most all customers. For the few customers that need additional storage and bandwidth, the additional cost is only a dollar or two more per month. Please email us for additional information about the full service hosting plans.