Ecommerce web hosting for small and medium-site business is viable if they use web hosting sites. Hosting their own site is not practical considering the setup costs for server hardware, bandwidth capacity and software development. And if the server is up, maintenance is another thing to be considered. Also it requires a lot of technical skills, time and effort to put up.
Fortunately, you have an option for ecommerce web hosting. Instead of putting up your own, you can engage the services of an ecommerce web hosting company. There are number of eccomerce web hosting service over the internet. For businesses, choosing the right ecommerce web hosting can be a challenge. Not only because if the sheer number o web hosting sites but also because e-businesses have special needs different from that of a personal web site. It is important to choose wisely for your online site especially if it generates money transactions.
In selecting an ecommerce web hosting service you should consider the following:
An ecommerce wbhosting should have enough bandwidth. This is necessary requirement for web hosting service so that your site can be easily downloaded by your business clients. Also, you need to capture information site visitors send such as registrations, orders, credit card data and many others. An ecommerce web hosting service should have more than enough bandwidth for all these requirements. An ecommerce web hosting provider with a minimum of one T-3 (45 mbps) line connection is recommended.
An ecommerce web hosting service should have few hops from the internet backbone. “Hop” refers to each server or router location internet traffic must travel before reaching its destination. An ecommerce web hosting service that has few hops offers a more efficient data handling service. The further “downstream” the provider is the more chances for things to go wrong. Even some small ecommerce web hosting companies co-locate their computers at a site that feeds directly to the internet’s backbone. An ecommerce web hosting service that has top of the line hardware with multi-processor server machines will most probably serve your business site better. Another important consideration is the redundancy and reliability factors. An ecommerce web hosting service should have more than one backbone provider to ensure reliability. Disk space provided by the ecommerce web hosting service should also be a factor. Some ecommerce web hosting services also provide software for building online catalogs such as softcart by Mercantec, shopsite by ICentral and Commerce Publisher by iCat. Ecoomerce web hosting should also provide security for online transactions. Currently, the standard is Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. Payment processing is another important feature that an ecommerce web hosting service should provide. The most popular payment processors are: Cybercash, Segue Systems and ICVerify.
Site owners often look for an ecommerce web hosting service that can transfer data from the site directly to their accounting, inventory and database systems. This is called back-end integration. And lastly, an ecommerce web hosting should be able to excellent service for a reasonable cost. An ecommerce web hosting could fetch anywhere between $100- $150 per month. Some sites need to pay more due to the more features they require.
Unlimited web hosting
Unlimited web hosting is a service offered by web hosting companies that sets no limits on some features. Unlimited web hosting features include unlimited email addresses, email forwarding, auto-responders, mailing lists, MySQL databases.
Unlimited web hosting often features unlimited email address refers to the email account where you can send and receive messages. If you are the only one person maintaining the site, then 1 email address could be enough. But if there are two or more, you need separate email account for each person. An email alias will allow you create a number of email addresses for a domain. For instance, support@yourdomain.com, you@your domain.com, and others. Email aliases are often sent to a specified POP mail account.
Unlimited web hosting has unlimited email forwarding too. Email forwarders allow you to forward emails from one email address to another. Unlimited web hosting could also offer unlimited auto-responders. This is also called autoreplies. Email auto-responders can be very useful. You can create an autoresponder so that when you receive a message in your account you can reply automatically to the sender. Some atuo-responders include : out-of-office autoreply, an auto-reply informing the sender that you receive his/her message or a sales quote for a particular product.
Unlimited mailing lists are another feature for unlimited web hosting. Mailing lists serve as an important tool of communication with your visitors. These are often used for distribution of site newsletters or email discussion forums to your visitors. Most providers offer Majordomo as their mailing list program. This program is very hard to learn. You can find other mailing lists from many independent websites that are cheap and free.
Unlimited web hosting services that offer ‘unlimited bandwidth’ are making false claims. You must ask the web hosting service how they define the term ‘unlimited bandwidth’. If they use ‘unlimited bandwidth’ to refer to ‘unlimited hits’ then they do not have the right definition for the term ‘bandwidth’. Hits refer to the actual request for the content from your site. Bandwidth refers to the actual content. You can use as much bandwidth as you need but there is a set amount of bandwidth allotted to your site. And if you need additional bandwidth you have to pay additional also.
Unlimited web hosting service can be confusing to the user. So if your hosting service mentioned the word ‘unlimited’ be sure to let them define it. Read the Terms of Service or Terms of Use so you have a fair ide
Unlimited web hosting often features unlimited email address refers to the email account where you can send and receive messages. If you are the only one person maintaining the site, then 1 email address could be enough. But if there are two or more, you need separate email account for each person. An email alias will allow you create a number of email addresses for a domain. For instance, support@yourdomain.com, you@your domain.com, and others. Email aliases are often sent to a specified POP mail account.
Unlimited web hosting has unlimited email forwarding too. Email forwarders allow you to forward emails from one email address to another. Unlimited web hosting could also offer unlimited auto-responders. This is also called autoreplies. Email auto-responders can be very useful. You can create an autoresponder so that when you receive a message in your account you can reply automatically to the sender. Some atuo-responders include : out-of-office autoreply, an auto-reply informing the sender that you receive his/her message or a sales quote for a particular product.
Unlimited mailing lists are another feature for unlimited web hosting. Mailing lists serve as an important tool of communication with your visitors. These are often used for distribution of site newsletters or email discussion forums to your visitors. Most providers offer Majordomo as their mailing list program. This program is very hard to learn. You can find other mailing lists from many independent websites that are cheap and free.
Unlimited web hosting services that offer ‘unlimited bandwidth’ are making false claims. You must ask the web hosting service how they define the term ‘unlimited bandwidth’. If they use ‘unlimited bandwidth’ to refer to ‘unlimited hits’ then they do not have the right definition for the term ‘bandwidth’. Hits refer to the actual request for the content from your site. Bandwidth refers to the actual content. You can use as much bandwidth as you need but there is a set amount of bandwidth allotted to your site. And if you need additional bandwidth you have to pay additional also.
Unlimited web hosting service can be confusing to the user. So if your hosting service mentioned the word ‘unlimited’ be sure to let them define it. Read the Terms of Service or Terms of Use so you have a fair ide
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