Reviews of Web Hosting Providers:

Are you thinking about starting a new domain name and need web hosting? Perhaps you already have a domain up and running but want to compare web hosts to see which ones are best for price, bandwidth, up-time, and other features. I've had domains online since 1995 and gone through several different webhosts since then because of various reasons. Some are not reliable and have too much down time while others charge way too much for disk space or bandwidth usage. I have stuck with a few over the years since they have evolved with technology and always offered reasonable pricing and usage when compared to the competition. There are many sites that rank web hosts but you will find that many of those sites are just affiliates hiding behind a webpage. We don't work on a referral basis with any webhost listed on this page and only recommend them as quality web hosts since they have always been professional and responsive to us.

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We have found that Media3.net to be one of the best web hosting companies online and they recently celebrated their 10th year anniversary. They consistently rank high on the Hostindex.com and Tophosts.com websites because of great customer service and web hosting plans that fit any online business. They have shared business web hosting, managed dedicated solutions, e-commerce hosting, enterprise hosting, and domain reservation services. Media3 also offers specialized services like Macromedia Flashcom Hosting, Advanced List Hosting, Microsoft SQL Server, and AuthentiX WebQuota. Their webhosting plans are done on Windows or Unix Servers and include development tools like Frontpage, Perl CGI, PHP, Coldfusion, ASP, MySQL, Generator and many others. For beginners they offer design templates so you can design your own webpage without too much effort and get started in no time at all. Disk space and monthly traffic are set at very reasonable levels to insure that your site can store plenty of data and handle lots of daily visitors. We have used all levels of their web hosting tiers and been happy with each and every one. Although their pricing can be a touch higher than some of the other leading web hosting companies, we feel that their excellent customer service and up-time are worth it. See the list of other top web hosting providers below.

Top Webhosts:

There are sites that supposedly list the top 10 webhosting companies, but many of those sites only list the web hosts because they get a kickback on the sale if you signup. We say avoid those sites since their opinions may not have your interest ahead of theirs. One site we can say does an excellent job of reviewing webhosts is Webhostingtalk.com. It's a web hosting forum designed to let people with websites give their 2 cents worth on their webhosts. The comments and messages posted in the forum are both negative and positive and should give you a good idea of which hosts seem to rate the highest in terms of customer service and adequate features. It's hard to say that one host fits all sizes of websites and business models, but many of the top ranked web hosting providers will allow your webhost needs to grow as your traffic and online business grow. You can always start with the basic web hosting plans and upgrade to larger packages when needed. We say shop around at Media3.net, Webhosting.Yahoo.com, Hostway.com, and Valueweb.com. Make sure you get at least 1 GB of storage, plenty of monthly data transfer allotment, and around the clock technical support if you need it.

Free Web Hosting:

This is a category that has changed the most over the last few years but it has evolved into something that almost anyone can use. Sites like MySpace and Facebook allow you to have a website up for personal reasons which is what many of us have always wanted. They give you easy to use site layout options with background music, pictures, etc. Web hosting has become so cheap that if you are a legitimate business looking for some online presence, go with a reputable web host that charges a cheap web hosting fee each month and stay away from the free web hosting companies. Geocities used to be the big name in free web hosting but after their purchase by Yahoo they subsequently lost almost all of their users and became obsolete. Today MySpace.com dominates the online community websites with over 70 million userse and it continues to grow. Often your Internet provider will give you some "free disk space" and make your own website.

Managing your Website:

There are a few things you will need to know when starting a new website including how to FTP files over to the server assigned to you. Once you get the hang of it, it's actually quite easy. We recommend Filezilla or WS-FTP as 2 of the better FTP programs on the market that work well with all operating systems. Essentially you need to create a homepage that is your default webpage and then you can create subpages from that main page. With all the pre-set templates these companies offer, it should be rather easy to start and maintain a website with very little knowledge of HTML or PHP programming needed. The hard part of any website management is how to get web traffic coming to your site via search engines. Google is the one you want to cater your website to since they are the ones responsbile for 65% of all web searches done on the Internet and that # continues to grow each quarter as they take marketshare from Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, and others. You will want a site with lots of keywords listed on your pages for your topic and make sure the site is easy to navigate with easy to read menus and site maps. If you want to sell products on your site, consider a web host that offers a good e-commerce package where they can setup an online store for you in minutes.

Do you have a quality site or product that belongs in this guide? We are always happy to evaluate or review new products and websites. Feel free to contact us at the email address below and let us know about you. If you have a demo product you'd like us to look at, please contact us before sending anything. Thank you.

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