When considering buying web hosting service for a domain name, one of the most important features to consider apart from the obvious such as hosting platform stability, server availability, pre-installed script etc is the control panel software that powers your hosting account.

There are quite a few hosting control panels out there, ranging from the primitive hosting interface developed inhouse by some hosting company to not so bad hosting control panel such as Plesk to the Rolls Royce of hosting control panels; cPanel.   Most webmaster vote for cPanel as the best hosting control panel in most polls.

Bearing the request of their customers and small businesses in mind. iHostingUK, the specialist small business hosting company rolls out all its hosting packages with cPanel web hosting control panel, this make iHostingUK web hosting very popular with small business. Cpanel make the time it takes for an average users to learn and master the complexity of setting up email, reading traffic statistics and other daily housekeeping task website owners perform regularly on their web hosting account easy.

Apart from providing cPanel control panel with all its hosting, iHostingUK hosting packages are reasonably priced to ensure it is affordable to most budget. All their servers are hosting in UK data centre, this makes hosting packages from iHosting UK more search engine friendly than UK targeted websites hosted outside UK.  A sample of iHosting UK budget hosting package follows to show how keenly priced their packages are:

* 500MB Disk Space
* 5GB Bandwidth
* 10 e-mail accounts
* Pre-installed scripts
* PHP, CGI, Perl, SSI & MySQL
The above package like all the other hosting packages at iHostingUK come with 30 days no quibble money back guarantee and they are all backed by fantastic phone and email support.

Choosing a web host is not easy, especially when you’re shopping around for a new one after a bitter experience with your old one. Some hosts may seem like good options when you check out the services they provide and others may come highly recommended by friends or people you know. But you need to make sure that you’re rushing from the frying pan into the fire by taking things slowly, weighing the pros and cons of said host, and making sure that all your needs are met before signing on the dotted line. Here are a few tips that come in handy when you’re checking out a prospective web host.

• Talk to other clients of the provider if you know them personally. Web hosts that come with a high degree of personal recommendation are usually reliable service providers.
• Call or email the hosting company and check out the services they offer. Talk to them in detail to see if they meet all your needs. Ask about emergency services and those that can be provided even when no advance notice is given.
• Check the web for customer feedback. Blogs, forums and personal websites are a valuable source of information when you’re looking to ferret out the negative aspects of any product or service provider. While some rants may arise out of sheer spite, others are legitimate and bear looking into.
• You can judge a hosting company by looking at the amount of time the staff make you wait when you call or the response time when you email them. Customer service is an important aspect to consider when you’re placing the responsibility for your server in the hands of a web hosting provider.
• Enlist the help of a utility tool that allows you to check information related to web hosts, like uptime, the kind of software they run, and other information about colocation centers and carrier hotels.
• If you’re going to responsible for the maintenance, upkeep and general troubleshooting aspects of your server, make sure you choose a data center that’s geographically near you. You don’t want to be spending all your time travelling long distances just to make sure your server is up and running.
• If you know of other sites that your prospective web host is responsible for hosting, check out the speed and access times to get an idea of what your visitors are liable to experience.
• Talk to the staff at the center about being to upgrade or downgrade your service features as and when you desire and about remote troubleshooting options and help.
• And last but certainly not the least, read the fine print thoroughly before you sign on the dotted line. There’s no use arguing till you’re blue in the face over anything once you’ve moved over all operations to your new web host. It’s too late to change hosts again (remember, if you change hosts frequently, search engine bots tend to ignore your site) so you’re going to feel bound to accept what you get rather than demand what you need if you don’t go over the documentation with a fine tooth comb.

This post was written by Sarah Scrafford. She writes on similar topics for  web design school.  You may contact her at sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com

Overselling is not uncommon in the web hosting industry. MD of a young web hosting company cast a professional eyes on overselling within the web hosting industry, explored the implications from a providers viewpoint and from a customer’s viewpoint.

Excerpt from the article follows:
Overselling, put simply, is a term used in the hosting industry where a company advertises plans that are unsustainable if every one of their clients was to use the full resources of the package.
For example, a host may have a server with 300GB of storage space and offer plans with 50GB of space each at £5 per month. As soon as 6 clients sign up for an account, all space on that server has been allocated, however the company can see that those clients are only using around 10GB in total.
Here’s where the overselling comes in.
It is pretty much a certainty that not every client will use the full resources allocated to their account. With only 6 clients using 10GB of storage space, the hosting company can carry on selling accounts until the server starts to show signs of becoming full.

You can read the full article on overselling at UK WW web hosting section

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Success in any expanding business is all about transition. Part of that transition is a function of each company’s particular business model; essentially, it’s a matter of how big one is willing to allow his or her “small business” to become. That’s a series of decisions up to the owner to either follow or revise as circumstances warrant, but other motivating factors tend to get in the way. In a service-based industry, there’s simply no way to remain fixed while the individuals and businesses requiring said services have dynamic needs.

For instance, suppose you are running a small hosting business that focuses on basic website hosting. Maybe you’ve got a couple dozen clients paying you monthly hosting fees and hourly rates for website development, adding new content and so forth. Everyone is happy and there’s no pressing need to expand. That is, until a couple clients decide they want to move their internal email server off-site; they see no need to pay two different hosting companies when they could have both company email and web services on the same server for less money. Then a few more clients expand and hire their own part-time webmasters and want dedicated servers but will no longer need you to administer their sites. It is in this fashion that a high-tech business can become obsolete in the span of six months for very low-tech reasons.

The fact is that no business can safely remain static in a dynamic, world-wide market. In the hosting industry, competitors spanning the globe are constantly finding ways to offer more than anyone else, for less than anyone else, faster than anyone else. Whether your business is looking to maintain current clients or attract new ones, there’s simply no way to remain viable without always being prepared to expand when the need arises by answering the question, “What’s the next step?”

Moving beyond the entry level

Hosting has quickly become an easy entry level business. Without terribly much business experience or technical skill, reseller programs have allowed many a small upstart to gain footing in the global marketplace. At this level, simply having a relationship with a few small companies interested in moving to the web can establish a good base of clients and begin building cash flow.

The problem here is two-fold. One, those clients are inevitably going to need services that aren’t possible from a reseller. And two, this isn’t the 90s; most business are already utilizing the web and don’t have the time to “grow up” with their host. Clients certainly can’t afford for their hosting provider to be a bottleneck in their business operations.

Progressing beyond mere reselling, most hosting businesses move to using dedicated servers. This is neither a final step nor an easy transition, but it does give the host some needed breathing room for a time. It is at this point that answering the “next step” question gets more complex.

Location, location, location

The next step beyond dedicated servers is reminiscent of an old business proverb: it’s all about location. The twist on that old saying is that it’s no longer the location of the storefront that matters but a question of where servers will reside.

It doesn’t take much number crunching to realize that over a long stretch, it’s vastly cheaper to maintain and upgrade one’s own servers than to lease someone else’s for hundreds of pounds per month per unit. The problem is that servers aren’t the most pressing issue at this level of hosting. Redundant electrical resources, backup generators, air condition, proper ventilation, and a 24-hour staff to maintain them all are matters that will impact expansion at this point.

This is where the hosting business makes the vital decision whether to co-locate or host its own datacentre. Having a datacentre means managing everything from within the business, which is no small feat. In fact, in some cases it isn’t even possible depending on the costs and availability of utilities in certain regions, levels of broadband penetration, and so on. And again, staffing requirements are huge.

For these reasons, most hosts settle on co-locating with a professional datacentre. Professional datacentres specialize in all of those incidental issues that most hosting companies would rather not have to worry about. Dealing with such issues in large volume, they are able to provide server hosting at better rates that all but the largest of corporations can by managing their own datacentres.

Relationship is key

One of the difficulties of co-location is proximity to the datacentre. Cost savings aside, how difficult is it going to be to get on-site to make necessary server repairs and upgrades? This is why having a good working relationship with the datacentre is key; and, incidentally, why it’s a good idea to start co-locating even before it’s absolutely necessary.

There’s a good chance that such a datacentre will be outside easy driving distance, so having someone at the datacenter to act as ones “remote hands” is important. Not all datacentres offer this but at the same time some can’t imagine not offering it. By building and maintaining a good working relationship with ones datacentre managers and staff, things like replacing a failing processor or memory can become very minor issues even from many kilometers away.

Conclusion

Ultimately, co-location with a professional datacentre tends to be the best fit for hosting companies ranging from those with modest needs to all but the uppermost echelons of the industry. Unlike reseller and dedicate server scenarios, co-locating servers leaves hosts with plenty of room for growth both on theirs and their clients’ ends. For hosts that got into the business for their love of the technology, co-locating allows them to focus on the technology while leaving many of the irritations for someone else to handle.

Web hosting is a field that finds itself at a special point right now. It’s been around long enough that its importance has been established in the realm of business services and at the same time is young enough that just about anyone can still get into it. Best of all, it’s a field that can be entered with various levels of commitment, each of which can be profitable.

Who can get into web hosting?

Web hosting is a nice industry for all sorts of people and businesses to expand into. The most obvious entrant is probably the sole proprietor, often a consultant looking to expand or just an individual looking to tap into that entrepreneurial vein.

It’s not just an industry for individuals to begin their own new business, though. Existing business can use web hosting as a way to expand or supplement their current services. For example, businesses specializing in consulting, development, or even computer repairs are all naturals for moving into hosting. They will likely field questions about it all the time, so it’s something they can move into without much in terms of advertising expenditures. Even on a small scale, offering shared hosting on dedicated servers such businesses are already leasing can at least help to defer their own hosting costs.

Beyond that, even seemingly unrelated businesses can benefit from web hosting as one of those rare examples of in-sourcing. Just as retail stores and petro stations found a way to in-source the cellular phone industry by selling airtime minutes, virtually any business could expand into the hosting sector. Publishers could market discount hosting to authors or delivery companies could promote hosting as a value-added service to frequent customers, for instance. Businesses with prominent web presences frequently offer free blog or message board hosting that is supported with advertising.

Basic classes of hosting

As mentioned, web hosting can be entered at different levels of commitment. In other words, there are different classes of web hosting.

For the absolute beginner, the most basic way to start in hosting is with a referral program. While not really hosting per se, it’s certainly a way to get involved in the industry. This is a great entry point for online content developers who can use referral links in ads or even within the context of articles and blog postings to direct visitors to a link for some hosting company. Some referral programs pay per click or per sale while others pay a percentage of revenue earned from referrals each month as long as the referred customer remains a client. In some cases, there are even second- and third-tier referral programs that generate money by referring other referral program members. However, a drawback is that there is little company branding possible and no building of clientele as most referrals are anonymous.

The first true entry point for hosting today is reselling. This is usually offered by larger hosts allowing beginners to sell hosting accounts on their behalf, often allowing the reseller to brand the hosting and ‑­

sometimes to interact with the clients as the primary support contact. One of the most significant—and oft, overlooked—benefits of reselling is that in addition to utilizing the primary host’s equipment, the reseller is also making use of their paperwork, policies, support personnel, lawyers, licensing, and all manner of business headaches that beginners will want to avoid. The main drawbacks of reselling are limited access to root-level server tools and that clients are contracted to the primary host and probably won’t be able to go along with the reseller if he or she leaves.

Virtual hosting is the next class of hosting and is similar to reselling in most cases. The main difference is that the reseller is offering space on his or her own virtually dedicated server, which allows the reseller root-level server functionality without the risk of impacting the primary host’s equipment or other servers. As server costs have dropped in recent years, this has become a less-utilized class of hosting but nonetheless remains a viable option. Now that virtualization software is becoming more pervasive than ever before—being built into nearly all modern operating systems—there’s a good chance this class of hosting could come back in a huge way.

Advanced classes of hosting

From this point on, we’re looking at where the major players in hosting are found. These classes aren’t for beginners, however each level builds on the level below it in a very natural series of transitions.

Dedicated hosting involves leasing a physical server from a host which can be used to generate revenue in any number of ways. From there, it’s all up to the business leasing the server: paperwork, contracts, etc. Dedicated hosting comes in two flavors, managed and unmanaged. Managed hosting is more expensive but means the most server issues are handled by the datacentre hosting it. Unmanaged hosting is perfect for more experienced server administrators and is considerably cheaper.

In order to cut costs even more—and in turn, increase profitability—most hosting companies next move to co-location. This is very much like unmanaged dedicated hosting except that the datacenter is hosting a server that is owned, not leased. At this level, hosts are essentially paying the datacentre for rack space and a network connection.

Beyond co-location is the highest class of hosting: self-hosting or datacenter hosting. While it’s not unheard of for individual businesses to host their own web servers in-house, hosting sites for other businesses is a wholly different matter. Maintaining high qualities of services, physical security, network stability, and redundant power are more than most hosting companies will ever be able to tackle. That said, once a hosting company is doing business in extremely high-volume this is the only place left to go.

Conclusion

Web hosting is an industry that practically any business or individual can get into. Unlike other business ventures, the entry levels of hosting can be accessed with little or no upfront expenses. Additionally, hosting is a multi-tiered industry that can be entered by entrepreneurs willing to devote any amount of time or commitment to it and still manage to turn a profit.