GoDaddy Web Host Review

GoDaddy.com is the world's largest domain name registrar and is the flagship company of The Go Daddy Group, Inc.

As an ICANN-accredited domain registrar, Go Daddy has more names under management than any other registrar, offers products at prices up to 70% less than the competition and supports them all with world-class 24/7 live customer service.

We are the sole developer and proprietor of our technology, do not license any products from others, and do not outsource or offshore any of our operations. This enables us to provide better support and ensure the most advanced and competitively-priced products and services available today.

Founded by Bob Parsons in 1997, The Go Daddy Group has grown to include more than 35 million domains under management. We offer a complete product line, including comprehensive hosting solutions, Web site creation tools, Secure SSL certificates, personalized email with spam and anti-phishing filtering, e-commerce tools and more.

come jam packed with a variety of features and services that are all user friendly and extremely useful. GoDaddy is extremely proud of their reputation for having a world class data center and extremely reliable physical services. GoDaddy actually owns all of their own hosting facilities, which feature state of the art security and advanced backup technology that provides relaible network servers.This is a sure sign of a quality web host provider and why they come so highly recomended. Additionally their price is quite comparible to other web hosting companies and they are one of the top companies when it comes to domain name registrations.

Each of GoDaddy's hosting plans comes complete with web site statistic tools to help you keep an eye on how each of your hosted website pages are performing. Setup is free and includes access to the GoDaddy.com Hosting Connection, which is a great place where you can interact with other GoDaddy users and find free applications for you to use on your web site at no additional cost to you. This is an incredible and invaluable resource that many web hosting companies do not offer. This alone makes GoDaddy a great choice for anyone looking for a quality webhost.

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Additional Tools
GoDaddy helps beginners easily set up their website even for those with little to know website experience. Additionally, GoDaddy includes tools for advanced developers to work with. GoDaddy also offers a variety of professional site building services and designs that you can recieve for an additional fee. All GoDaddy web hosting solutions support several programming languages. The deluxe plan we signed up for supports CGI (Python and Ruby), PHP, Perl, ASP, MySQL, ColdFusion, and FrontPage extensions.

Customer Service
GoDaddy.com has a large selection of help and support options that are available for their customers and they are accessible 24/7. The online support forum and FAQs section that they offer are very well organized and contain a huge collection of information for both beginners and advanced users.

Account Information
In addition, we do not have access to customer accounts. Therefore, we are unable to respond to billing inquiries or other questions about your customer account, so please do not include any of your account information in your comments. If you require immediate technical or sales assistance, contact us using one of the methods listed on our Support Forum page.

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Hostgator Web Hosting

HostGator has the latest versions of PHP, MySQL, and we exceed all the minimum requirements for WordPress. There are thousands of installations of self-hosted WordPress running reliably on our stable network with 99.9% uptime.

Literally, WordPress installs can be done in just a couple clicks using the Fantastico auto-installer with HostGator. However, if you have any questions or need any assistance, help is available 24/7/365 through phones, live chat, or e-mail based ticket support.

Edit.com Website Assistance

Let the team of experts at edit.com design your next project. Whether you're looking for a logo, banner, or even a complete layout to be made, Edit.com will deliver nothing less then your 100% complete satisfaction.

Merchant Services

Taking payments online can be very confusing, we recommend you read our merchant comparison page for both prices and information on the different ways to obtain a merchant account.

Domain Registration

We sell all the major domain extensions including
.com .net .org .biz .info .tv .ws .cc .us and .bz
Prices starting at $15 a year. - Register Your Domain Online Here.

If you want to purchase a domain using Paypal, please send $15 to sales@hostgator.com and then send a separate e-mail to sales@hostgator.com and include the paypal transaction number and the domain you wish to register.

SSL Certificates

SSL encrypts confidential data such as credit card numbers and passwords. Either a shared SSL or a private SSL is required when taking credit cards off your site. You are welcome to provide us with the SSL and we will install it for $10, or you can purchase a 128bit/256bit Comodo certificate directly from us for $75.00 Please visit hostgator.com/ssl.shtml for more information and ordering.

Examples of unacceptable material on all Shared and Reseller servers include:

• Topsites
• IRC Scripts/Bots
• Proxy Scripts/Anonymizers
• Pirated Software/Warez
• Image Hosting Scripts (similar to Photobucket or Tinypic)
• AutoSurf/PTC/PTS/PPC sites
• IP Scanners
• Bruteforce Programs/Scripts/Applications
• Mail Bombers/Spam Scripts
• Banner-Ad services (commercial banner ad rotation)
• File Dump/Mirror Scripts (similar to rapidshare)
• Commercial Audio Streaming (more than one or two streams)
• Escrow/Bank Debentures
• High-Yield Interest Programs (HYIP) or Related Sites
• Investment Sites (FOREX, E-Gold Exchange, Second Life/Linden Exchange, Ponzi, MLM/Pyramid Scheme)
• Sale of any controlled substance without prior proof of appropriate permit(s)
• Prime Banks Programs
• Lottery Sites
• MUDs/RPGs/PBBGs
• Hateful/Racist/Harassment oriented sites
• Hacker focused sites/archives/programs
• Sites promoting illegal activities
• Forums and/or websites that distribute or link to warez/pirated/illegal content
• Bank Debentures/Bank Debenture Trading Programs
• Fraudulent Sites (Including, but not limited to sites listed at aa419.org & escrow-fraud.com)
• Mailer Pro

10 Questions To Get Answered Before Choosing A Web Host

It is particularly important for individuals and SMBs (Small and Medium-sized Businesses) that build their own websites, or spend very precious capital to do so, to find a good web hosting plan. If you are just now getting up to speed in this area, it is important that you know how quickly things change in this industry. In addition, you need to know what the basic components of a good hosting plan are, and learn to compare apples with apples, as they say.

It used to be crucially important to pick the right web host, as there were fly-by-night firms actually ripping people off and running away to Belize or somewhere. Things have settled down quite a bit, and there are scores of hosting firms to choose from, all of which are reputable and honest. It may still be true that some hosts have better uptime statistics or offer better deals, but as long as you stay with an established host you should not have any problems with rip-offs.

After making a list of potential companies, you should get these 10 questions answered before choosing a web host:

1. Will you get unlimited disk space?

You certainly can't afford to run out of disk storage space when people are relying on your site to provide important information or services. Most of today's plans, even low-cost ones, feature unlimited disk space, a testament to how much the price of hard drives has come down.

2. Is there unlimited bandwidth?

This term refers to the amount of traffic that can be sent back and forth, to and from your site. When a lot of people want to connect to your site at the same time, limited bandwidth is a real problem and a business-killer, too. Again, even low-cost plans now offer unlimited (or extremely high amounts of) bandwidth.

3. Is there a 99.9% uptime guarantee?

No web host can honestly guarantee 100% uptime, but many hosting services get very close. A standard in the industry is now 99.5%, but leading hosts will advertise a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

4. Do you get free setup?

Setup fees were appropriate at one time when the tools were less powerful and the process less automated. There is currently no reason in the world to pay setup fees, and companies that advertise that they "waive" these fees are essentially imputing a value to something they wouldn't charge for anyway.

5. Do you get subdomains allowing for unlimited sites?

You may begin your Internet strategy with a single site, but when you want to launch others you will need a way to do that, and without setting up a new domain at new cost. This option is quite important, as subdomains (with the format, subdomainname.maindomainname.com) allow you to spread out and create other separate online entities that may not be strictly related to the main domain's purpose.

6. Is 24/7 support available, and how much of it is from real people?

Some hosting services don't let customer call by phone, which should throw up a red flag. Support is absolutely critical, so make sure it's available, and the best companies will provide it in several ways-via e-mail, online web forms, chat and phone calls to real human beings.

7. Do you get installed software for databases, scripting, email, etc.?

Even if you don't understand or make use of Perl, CGI, MySQL, PHP or other acronyms you've been told are important, you do need them. You can make use of them through graphical-interface applications that ease the process, or your IT consultant or employee can handle all of it. You do need these.

8. Is the cPanel hosting tool used?

This is by far the most useful control panel for managing sites, and is made available by many of the leading hosts. If not cPanel, what tools are offered? If you can't find much information in a web search about the toolkit being used by a potential host, considering choosing only a host company that has this one available. The cPanel took is the best example of its kind.

9. Is the plan affordable?

Many hosting plans start at under $10 per month. That's very affordable, but you can do even better by paying for a year's hosting service in advance. When you start requiring e-commerce components and huge database access, your hosting cost will increase, of course.

10. Are there contracts, excessive fine print and/or hidden fees?

Everything in the plan should be made crystal clear from the beginning. Read every word of the user terms and conditions, and don't sign up for anything if you don't understand them. If you start hearing about extra fees, scratch the company off your list of potential hosts.

Domain Geolocator

How do search engines assign a geographical location to a domain name? There are two methods:

• 
  
  • Look at the top-level domain (TLD) of the domain name; for example, site.co.uk, the TLD is 'uk' (United Kingdom), while for site.es, the TLD is 'es' (Spain).
  • If you have a generic TLD (such as .com), then the location of the hosting is important. So a .com site hosted in the UK will show up in the UK-specific searches better.
  
  
• Look at the incoming backlinks to a domain name, and profile their geographical location. For example, if a lot of sites related to Canada link to your site, your site will rank well for Canadian-specific searches.

The first method is what Google uses (see their Tips for non-US sites) and there is evidence that MSN and Yahoo use the second method (see this great post at SEOmoz).

How does the Domain Geolocator Work?

This tool profiles the geographical location of a domain name using the two techniques described above. You simply feed it a domain name, and it uses a combination of whois searches, IP resolution searches, and the Yahoo! API to profile the domain name.

The first thing it does is check the TLD of the domain name and check where the domain is hosted. For that, it uses a geo-to-IP database that is 97% accurate. If you spot an inaccuracy, please let me know.

The second thing the Domain Geolocator is profile the incoming backlinks for the domain name using the Yahoo! API. To do that, it retrieves the first unique 1000 backlinks it finds, and then groups them by TLD (.com, .net, .uk, etc as they are found). This gives you a quick glance about which countries might be most relevant to the domain name.

Further, you can get a detailed view for each TLD group. The detailed view tells you what the incoming links are, which domain they belong to, what is the TLD of the domain (country-specific or generic), and where the linking domain is hosted. You can export the detailed views into Excel files.

A note on speed: The Domain Geolocator can be slow as it retrieves the 1000 backlinks. The Domain Geolocator 'plays nice' and is speed throttled to avoid stressing the Yahoo! service (and avoid a ban!). Also, if the data is not retrieved for whatever reason, the Domain Geolocator automatically waits a few seconds and tries again. During peak times, the retrieval can be slow, so please be patient!

Domain Hosting and Bandwidth

Why bandwidth is so important when you sign up for a web hosting plan? By definition, bandwidth is the amount of data that passes through a certain connection over a period of time. Its unit of measurement is bits-per-second or bps, while it can also be measured in megabits per second, or mbps. This term is interchangeable with data transfer allowance.

Web hosting provider put a high regard to bandwidth because as the web hosting client, you need to see to it that the amount of data transferred is acceptable, because this will help determine how much data is allowed for your website. The transfer allowance is basically the amount of allowable data transferred between your website and the people accessing your website. Now the million dollar question is: how do you determine the amount of transfer allowance that your website needs? If you want to know, you should take a good look at the actual data transfer created by your website.

To cite an example, if your website has 5 pages, then each page is approximately 50 kb. This means that if a user will take a look at one page of your site then that amounts to 50 kb. If he views 5 pages then that's 50 kb multiplied by 5 (pages) which makes it 250 kb. If you have around a hundred visitors in a day and they view all your web pages, then that is about 25,000 kb or 24.41 megabytes. If you multiply this amount with 30 (number of days in a one month period), then that is the transfer allowance or the bandwidth you will need per month. Take note that there should still be extra room for other things which require data allowance, such as emailing, utilizing FTP, and uploading. So you see, getting a good understanding of the bandwidth your site needs will surely help smoothen the flow of traffic to your website.