Web servers have severe threats from a number of of factors including Unauthorized access, Improper usage of information, Denial of Service and Physical Threats etc. Web hosting experts however suggest a number of measures to fight the menace of web server data threats. The article is all set to illustrate some security measures for the web servers.

Intrusion Detection Systems:

In the terms of web hosting professionals, IDS or Intrusion Detection System is an effective security mechanism that allows seamless protection for network perimeter, extranets and other internal network in real-time framework. A premiere IDS system observes the network data stream to combat any malicious attacks on the system or network. If IDS is put in the place as an appliance and as software, software security should be analyzed first.

Host Security:

Operating System configurations are usually set up by the vendors to push the features and functions, however they leave the security issues easily. Here web hosting experts keep the emphasis on securing the operating system since it will lead to more secured server components automatically. While choosing a operating system, ask for various security checklists like security certification levels, chosen platform Compatibility and remote administration as well as logging utilities.

Secure Coding Habits:

A single flaw in the program code may allow a chance to attackers to compromise a Web server. This is the primary factor that leads to the stringent security measures to combat any security threat to the scripts. In addition, a very stringent Encryption mechanism should be placed during the coding to encrypt the passwords against any potential security breach.

Another major security threat comes in the form of Information Leakage where vital and sensitive data is leaked from the servers in the form of developer comments, error messages or source code. It can compromise the server security and later serious threat to system. Creating and implementing some stringent security firewalls helps web hosting company professionals and other network administrators to fight the bugs. Thus information security should be placed in order to ensure data access to those users only who are authorized to access and use the data.

Summary:

Organizations employ a number of vital security measures to ensure a real time combat against the web server security threats. They deal with the menace like Improper usage of information, Denial of Service and Physical Threats in very proper manner.

InterWorx is a control panel with a wide array of features for user and domain management as well as management of many other aspects of your virtual environment. If you are looking for a better way to manage your virtual environment, then InterWorx is one of the best control panel programs on the market, especially for high availability. Additionally, InterWorx provides a vast amount of other features and resource management options, such as configurable bandwidth usage and concurrent connections to vital services such as MySQL, IMAP, and other shared resources.

InterWorx may not be as well recognized as other programs on the market, but the feature set on this program is comprehensive and allows full management capabilities for web masters, administrators, or hosting providers. No matter what your management needs are in terms of high availability servers, an InterWorx license will provide you with all of the necessary tools that you need to completely automate and manage your control panel.

A high availability cluster is really only possible with an InterWorx license because there are very few control panel programs on the market that are equipped to handle high availability. An InterWorx license will give you access to all of the features that you need to effectively manage your virtual environment. Since the needs of each administrator, hosting provider, or webmaster will be different, InterWorx has anticipated this and designed a program that is scalable and adaptable, and the fact that it works well on high availability servers makes it an excellent control panel.

Using Plesk hosting control panel, users can make amendments to their DNS settings of every added domain . Plesk administrator allows the user to make changes to the DNS settings, but it is crucial to have enough knowledge about DNS before proceeding with any changes.
WARNING : An inappropriate DNS setting can result in a malfunction of web, emails and the FTP services.
What are the Types of DNS Records ?
Five types of DNS records exist, namely :
A Address (Records) – This setting is responsible for translating the host name with the IP address.
CNAME (Canonical Name) – CNAME is required for creating additional host names or aliases or canonical names for hosts.
NS (Name Server) – It defines the relation between a domain name and the name servers that holds the information about the domain.
MX (Mail Exchange) – It holds the information about the delivery destination of emails originating from a particular domain name.
PTR (Pointer) – The PTR is responsible for defining the IP address and host name of individual hosts in the domain. Translates the IP addresses into host names.
Excerpt
The Plesk control panel is capable of retrieving the default DNS settings from DNS Server configuration. Users can make amendments to these values according to their needs and requirements. The following steps should be followed :
Step 1 : Log into the Plesk control panel that is installed on the domain for which you wish to amendments to the DNS.
Step 2 : Look for the DNS icon for accessing the DNS settings
Step 3 : You should be able to see the DNS Zone Status ie. either ON or OFF. By default the Status
is Switched ON.
Step 3a : You can make changes to the status by hitting the Enable/Disable icon.
Step 3b : Upon switching the DNS zone off, the page would get refreshed, after which the list of nameservers would be shown.
Step 3c : In-case you have remote DNS, and wish to switch the DNS OFF for a particular domain, it is necessary to create relevant NS entries for that domain and remove the irrelevant name server entries.
Step 3d : Users can make a quick test run on these NS by choosing any of them. Choosing any name server would perform an NSLookup and checks the DNS records of a particular domain on particular name server. NSLookup is used for verifying the A record for the domain, the CNAME record for www, and the MX record for ensuring if the records are resolved appropriately on the remote name server. Whatever the results may be, they are shown in the GUI.
Step 4 : To proceed with adding a DNS record, you must choose the type of record you wish to create and click Add Record. There are different setup procedures for different record types. To create DNS entries for a particular DNS zone, you need to include the name of the for every entry. For avoiding errors, there are certain fields that cannot be changed within this zone.
Step 4a : You must enter the domain name for which you wish to change/create the A record. In-case you want to define the A record for primary domain, you must let the field remain blank. While, in case you wish to defining an A record for a name server, you must enter the relevant details about the name server (ie. ns1). Further, you must enter the relevant IP address for which you wish to link up the domain. Select OK to save the entered details.
Step 4b : Enter the domain name for which you need to create the NS record. Do not populate the field if it is for the primary domain. Populate the fields with relevant name server details. You must copy and paste the details that have been provided. Hit the OK tab for saving the entries.
Step 4c : For changing the MX records, you must enter the domain name which you intend to create these records. Again, if it is for the primary domain, you are not required to add anything. Enter the mail server details ie. mail.domainname.com. Choose the priority of mail exchanger. Hit the OK tab for saving the entered details. For convenience, you can remember the rule of thumb “Lesser the value, higher the Priority”.
Step 4d : Regarding the CNAME record, populate the fields with the alias domain name for the one you want to create the CNAME record. Then, define the domain name within which you want the alias to reside. Hit OK for saving the entries.
Step 5 : For removing the DNS record, you are required to check the box against the appropriate entry and hit the Remove tab. Then, you are required to confirm the removal.

Change DNS in Plesk

For the purpose of restoring the DNS zone by the DNS template, the IP address can be chosen from the drop-down list for setting in the template, then enter the “www” prefix if necessary, then hit the Default tab for restoration.
You can contact our Support Department via. Live Chat or send an email to support@version-next.com for any assistance regarding DNS issues.

So let’s start with the space. Web space (disk space) is the amount of data you can store on the hard disk of the web server. Each web hosting accound comes with a certain amount of space, usually over 50 MB and less than 1000 MB.

Obviously, the amount of needed space depends on the size of the website. Most websites are composed of html (text) pages with a few images (gifs or jpegs) or even a little bit of Flash animation. Text is very economical; it occupies very little space. Images and flash are more expensive; they require a lot of space. If you’re new to the web you might think it’s great to have a lot of colorful images to make your website really beautiful. Don’t make this common mistake!

Your aim should be to say as much as you can on a page while maintaining it’s size under 50-60 KB including images. The reason? There are still lots of people using slow dial-up connections of under 56 Kbps. For them a 150 KB will take more that 21 seconds to load. A 60 KB page will take more than 8 seconds to load. That’s still a lot of time! A good page size is under 30 KB. A maximum page size is 50-60 KB.

Considering an average page size of 30 KB, you can put approximately 33 pages on 1Mb of space. If you have 10 MB of space available, you could host 330 pages. I only wish I had so many pages to put online. Don’t worry, I’m working on it!

The idea is this: unless you run a busy forum your needs for space are likely to be rather modest. Just keep in mind to achieve an average of 30KB/page and you should be more than fine even with 10 MB of web space.

Bandwidth is the amount of data that you’re allowed to transfer per month. It includes all uploads and downloads regardless of the protocol used (HTTP, FTP, POP etc.). Bandwidth depends very much on the average page size, but it also depends on the number of visitors your website will have and the average number of pages they visit. For an average page size of 30 KB, 20,000 visitors per month and 3 pages per visitor your website will need about 1800 MB (1.8 GB) of bandwidth per month. Most low cost hosting packages include that amount of bandwidth. Not to mention that 20,000 visitors per month is only a dream for most websites. Most don’t even have 2,000 visitors per month.

I took you through all those numbers just to give you an idea how to estimate your needs. If you’re just launching your website you will not need neither a huge amount of space, neither a huge amount of bandwidth. For 99% of people a hosting account with 10MB of space and 1Gb is more than enough.

Conclusion: Unless you have reasons to believe that your website will definitely have lots of visitors and unless you’ll offer movies or music for download (legally of course ), I see little reason for you to worry about space and bandwidth.

Just make your own calculations and also try to make sure that the host you choose allows account upgrades. That is to make sure you will be able to get more space and/or bandwidth if/when you need it without going through all the trouble of changing hosts.

To help you get started in the world of reseller web hosting, here are a few tips you may look into or follow:

1. Act as a referral partner for the parent company.  This is a safe and easy option for reseller hosting, since it doesn’t involve you having to run customer accounts.  Instead, you earn commission for every customer you refer to the parent company who then signs up.  The downside to this option is that you need to have an online marketing presence, through a review website or ad campaign

2. Start small.  One of the great advantages of reseller hosting is that you only need a computer and an internet connection to get started – you don’t need to invest lots of money or get to grips with complicated technical applications.  For that reason, you should start by concentrating on reselling web space.  This is simple and straightforward, and a good way to earn whilst building a client base and gaining experience.

3. For the same reason, it’s also a good idea to start with shared hosting, since this is the simplest form of web hosting that you can resell.   As your business expands, you can look at offering more advanced reseller services, such as dedicated and co-located hosting, domain name registration and merchant accounts.

4. Work towards getting your own server.  This will give you a greater share of the profits over time.  However, it also involves greater responsibility for maintenance, back-up and repair, so you should only consider this option when you are confident that you can handle these technical requirements.

5. Don’t neglect your marketing and sales strategy.  Your reseller business won’t make money if nobody can find you.  So be very clear on who your target customers are, and how you can reach them.  This means constructing a well-optimized home site for your reseller hosting business, and running a well-targeted ad campaign.

6. Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help, guidance and customer feedback.  There is plenty of free advice available on the web to help you decide on the approach that will best suit your purposes.  Remember, you may need to try several approaches before you find the reseller hosting strategy that works for you.

All web host are formed equal in our view, with the intention of or that used to be providing good hosting, until we got shut down without warning. It was very hard for anyone to understand how I might start a new website from scratch and eat up 40 Gigs of bandwidth in that short span of time (3 months, and I was shut down).

You should do a web host review, before you make a choice. The problem online today is, how can you make a sound web host review with all the thousands out there.

It is impossible to review the thousands of web host out there, but it is in your best interest if you base your web host review on high in demand providers. Many of the top marketers have their own server, and you can’t afford to pay $200 or more monthly for your own server.

For you to prevent web host shut down, you will have to learn how to use the forums to find recommendation for choosing your web hosting provider. We didn’t do our own research and that is why our web host shut us down without notice.

After being shut down, We went to forums, blogs etc. read a couple of post regarding on hosting companies, and realize that no one had any great experiences with that companies. They gave poor web host review grades for that host, well life is a learning process, and I know what not to do when choosing a web hosting provider.

Here are four tips you should follow to get a web host review:

1) Don’t ever go for unlimited domain names.

One other point worth mentioning, don’t ever go for unlimited domain names, whenever you create a new account they automatically divide up your hosting bandwidth. That means that if you have just 40 Gigs of bandwidth and you divide it up by four domain names, you have used up all your bandwidth.

So, any other new domain name you add will make you go over your bandwidth, please understand I am just showing you the rip offs that takes place with some low cost web hosting providers. They say that they will warn you when your exceeding your bandwidth, but they just never do. They make you pay extra for unlimited domain names, but you being new to the Internet, you won’t ever need more than three to six domain names to get you started.

2) Don’t go with any web hosting provider that requires the full amount in advance.

They offer low cost web hosting if you pay the yearly price in advance. Well, once you have paid for the year, you are tied to this company, should their service be not worthy, you will loose your primary yearly payment. Go with a company that has a 3 month or monthly payment plan, with a money back guarantee.

3) Test by sending a simple email to your web host first.

Just send off a simple email telling your web host that your interested in their hosting, this is a must for you to review web host that are unknown. The response time to your email will let you know what type of service they offer.

4) Ask for a charge back.

As you know, the client is supposed to be king, keep all your receipts in place, and should you ever be shut down by your web host after paying a yearly plan, just go to your credit card provider and file a complaint for a refund. Don’t let anyone scam you out of your money.

The final conclusion, your the one to blame if you get scammed, so make sure you follow these web host review tips before handing out your credit card.

http://www.version-next.com

1)   Protection from virus, spam and phishing: Nothing spoils the functionality of your mailbox as a virus or a spam does. In addition, phishing endangers your business mails by stealing your identity, thereby causing huge loss. Setup an anti-virus – Although this may sound like a very simplistic one that you are likely to see on any security checklist, an anti-virus is incredibly important, especially if you are using a desktop email client such as Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird (online email providers such as Gmail and Hotmail tend to have built-in virus protection software).

2)   Improved business position: Look out for a email hosting provider who holds vast expertise in picking and implementing the right messaging systems aligning with your business. Also, ensure the features like high availability and high scalability of email solutions offered. They must be customized to cater to your specific email needs.

3)   Best in class communications: Check that your email hosting provider has cutting-edge infrastructure to be able to lessen all your email hosting worries.

4)   Reliable, Customizable Offerings: Find out if your email hosting services include exclusive features like email back-up, data recovery, disaster recovery, 24×7 technical and customer support to ensure that you make the most out of your emails.

5)   Cost efficiency: The key reason for outsourcing the email hosting services to an external vendor is to reduce the unexpected expenditures and get the maximum output without increasing costs. A good email hosting provider will not only meet these needs, but also suggest you the ways to increase the efficiency of your messaging applications in every required way.

6)   Improved availability: Check out if your email hosting provider employs professionals to host and manage your messaging applications, ensuring high-availability of your applications as well as optimal performance.

7)   Be careful when clicking: Once you’ve received an email it can be tempting to click straight through to a website if you see an interesting deal or image – but that’s exactly what you have to be careful of doing. Hover over or copy the link to your clipboard if possible, allowing you the opportunity to examine the destination URL before you proceed.

Avoid entering details:   Some potentially harmful emails will encourage you to enter your personal details (credit card/address) directly into a form embedded into an email – and this should be avoided at all costs. Forms that are embedded into emails are done so for a reason, and that is because the destination in which the information is sent is often hidden.

9) If it’s true good to be true, it usually is: If you receive any emails containing promises of fantastic deals that you believe seem too good to be true, then be very wary. Use your favourite search engine to run a quick search to see if anybody else has mentioned the promotion anywhere, and the chances are you will be given an answer one way or another.

10) Be wary of forgotten password emails: Unless you know you have specifically requested your password to be reset on a website, you should delete any emails you receive that claim to be resetting your ‘forgotten password’. These types of emails are often looking for you to enter personal details in unsecure locations.

11)  Ignore unsolicited emails: If you receive an email out of the blue from somebody you have absolutely no connection with, be immediately wary. There is the chance your email address could have been picked up online by a potentially harmful sender, meaning you may receive unsolicited emails relating to various topics. Do not reply, and do not open any containing attachments.

12)  Avoid providing any private details: A final but yet hugely important tip is to avoid providing any personal details via email at all costs. Don’t send credit card or PayPal login details to anybody via email no matter what the circumstance, and if you have to provide somebody with a password or piece of secure information, provide this in person or over the phone where possible.

With the above tips in mind, you should be relatively free of would-be phishing attacks via email marketing campaigns online. One thing to remember is always is wary – always. There are unfortunately a lot of people who make their money online by scamming others, so it’s important to stay on your toes and report and doubtful activity.

Recently even industries in highly commercialized countries have held meetings regarding the impact of Global Warming. The harmful gases produced from industries in clouds of dark black gases and ashes have caused a lot of ecological disasters. Therefore, industries have been asked to take measures in order to reduce the destruction caused by heavy industrialization worldwide. Similarly some web hosting companies have decided to play their part in preserving the ecosystem. When they join this cause – they are called “Green Web Hosts”. Firstly, let get a better idea about green web hosting. This type of hosting is a kind that uses nature-friendly power source for their daily activities. As we all know, servers are like appliances that requires electricity.

Not all companies have the resources to generate their own renewable energy. Therefore, those companies can turn to supplied energy by choosing to buy Renewable Energy Certificates. By doing this, they can get energy generated by wind, solar or even biogas. Companies that generate their own energy also use energy generated by either solar power, wind turbines or other methods. This gives them ability to power their machines with this renewable energy.
So, what does this entire means? It means that web hosting companies are saving the planet by reducing carbon emission. It also allows companies to purchase offsets enabling them to mitigate their own greenhouse emissions. So, this can ease the hosting company from starting their own wind farm or solar power generator.

Another added value that the green web hosting has is their special offers on packages to non-profit organizations. It is their act to not only encourages organizations to use web hosting but also encouraging the use of renewable energy and paperless working environment. Some web host with green hosting also provides web host services to companies that have telecommuting being used by their staff and workers.

However, does green hosting cost more? Well, this is a question that we all need to think deep about. Green we hosting companies may run at a higher daily operation cost compared to other web host provider companies but the idea of having a paperless company using renewable energy is something that is encouraging. With a single company operating in this way, it can reduce a whole lot of waste and reduce a lot on energy consumption which will directly help in preserving the nature. So, saving the earth does come with a price and it is not a big one to pay if you’re supporting a green web hosting company. Not only do you play your part in saving nature, you also get you web hosting needs.

There are several misconceptions on green hosting among the consumers. One of the mistaken beliefs that are prevalent among people today is that green hosting does not offer stable solutions. This however is far from the truth. You can confidently choose these services without having to worry about the stability or about the reliability of the services. Today the hosting services offered by green hosting companies are in par with companies that use conventional energy.

So go green put your hands together to preserve plant earth.

The services offered by a reseller web hosting service do not really differ from a real host. As a matter of fact, reseller web hosting offers more features to the customers. Due to the added value services, reseller web hosting can offer web design and programming services to each customer that are often times not possible from real hosts. Real hosts tend to focus on bulk accounts and corporate clients. Reseller web hosting offers value added services to customers in order to maintain a competitive edge against bigger web hosting services.

Reseller web hosting is also better able to establish friendly relationship with their customers that go beyond the contract terms. This is the secret for those successful reseller web-hosting services. They fill the need that bigger hosting servers cannot provide.

Benefits of reseller web hosting

The reseller web hosting concept is useful in its own way.  The usual hand out of resources for a reseller hosting option is possible through a partition of storage and bandwidth.  Of course some of the modern options make it possible to have “unlimited” resources but this can be limited in some ways and may cost much more to implement and have available.  The reseller hosting makes it possible to have several websites with separate IP addresses on a single hosting plan.

The other benefit that is available with reseller web hosting is the possibility of reselling the resources in the plan. A client using the reseller hosting that will not be using the entirety of the hosting can actually partition it and sell the hosting to a client underneath them. This makes it possible to have access to a possibility of making money as a small hosting company.  This makes the hosting economical in a way that it can be paid for by reselling the hosting to other clients.

In case the needs of the individual’s website(s) are the main concern whenever they are choosing reseller web hosting options. For sites that do not need to have as much dedicated resources available for them the use of reseller web hosting may be the best choice. Others which will require more performance and stability will want to be hosted through a dedicated option.  Budget may be a concern and a deciding factor for the client as well so choosing the option which is most affordable may be the course of action to take.

During the process of domain registration, it is very important to register a name that logically matches the theme or purpose of the website. For example, if a site is all about web hosting, one should register besthosting.com. One can even use the name of the enterprise as a domain name. For instance, if the name of the company is XYZ, one should register as xyz.com.

Lean to use ‘.com’

Always prefer to use .com extension to your website name because people most commonly search a website with ending on .COM, although if you prefer any specific country’s traffic then use respective country’s extension i.e. .uk for UK or .us for USA.

Do not use Slang language

Avoid using shortcut words in your domain name i.e. “u” instead of “you”.  Because it can confuse the website users. So try to use proper language which can be easy to remember too.

Always give short name to your domain

The long domain names can be forgotten by people easily. They don’t prefer to tell other people as well and may be they do not try to visit the website again. Short domain names are easy to remember and overcome the chances of typing errors when you enter the URL as well.

Do not use the numbers

If you use the numbers in your website name, it will not get popularized and known by the people and marketers. Versionnext.com is the best example in which numbers or digits are not being used instead of “versionnext7463.com”.

Try to Use Plural forms

The plural domain is mush recognized instead of singular form words. E.g.”debtloans.com” has more reliability on “debtloan.com”.

Try to use more keywords

Try to use more and meaningful keywords by using the Google Keywords or Word tracker to have success. Keep your domain name in long lasting Strategy of Search Engine Optimization.

Sometimes one may not be enough

You must make sure not to loose your site’s identity so get registered with other domain names as well. Such as “Google” has also registered www.gogle.com, so that people get linked with the Google if by mistake, they type gogle.

Besides, it is essential to know the different aspects of domain registration to acquire a new domain name. A good knowledge about the domain name registrar is important, which is an organization that acts as middleman between the registry and the client website. Your domain name registration service provider helps you by offering the right options for selecting a suitable web address or host name.

Being accurate with domain name is crucial, especially if the domain name registrar has a minimum qualified period for refund. One should always spell check before the domain name registration process. However, registrars refund within 5 days of registration if there is something wrong.

These are the few tips which you can apply to your domain name and promote your website which will lead to a successful business track.