Best Cheap Web Hosting

Email is one of the most powerful tools out there for promoting your business. There are numerous email marketing tools from which to choose, so you will want to spend some time comparing features and prices (and reading our reviews) before you commit. Luckily, some (such as Campaigner, which begins at $19.95 per month) offer free trials. You can sign up for 30 days at no cost, though you'll still need to enter a credit card, which is a bit annoying. GetResponse does not require a credit card. However, Campaigner's 30-day trial offers full access to its features for up to 1,000 contacts, so that's what was used to test the service for this review. Campaigner is PCMag's Editors' Choice for advanced email marketing services. If you have more basic needs, then check out MailChimp, our Editors' Choice for basic email marketing tools.

Editors' Note: J2 Global, the company that owns Campaigner, also owns Ziff Davis and PCMag.com.

I calculated how much it would cost a small business with 2,500 contacts in its marketing database to get started with Campaigner. The price tag would be $29.95 per month, which is a little higher than GetResponse's $25 per month offering. Like iContact, Campaigner lets you send an unlimited number of messages per month.

Campaigner also boasts a handful of cool features including customer relationship management (CRM) and Salesforce.com contact uploads, auto-responders, email workflows, 24/7 live chat with support, and reporting capabilities (which include which email platform your contacts are using). You can also create email auto-responders that will send emails to your contacts based on their behavior (such as clicking a link in a newsletter) or for special promotions and events.

Take that a step further with email workflows, which let you communicate with your subscribers based on specified triggers. These can include a form submission or profile change, or can be employed to target highly engaged customers, draw inactive users, or reach out to those who have recently made or are ready to make a purchase. Other features include the ability to embed real-time display ads in newsletters, target your subscribers based on their locality, or find out where your subscribers live based on geolocation.

Pricing and Features

Campaigner offers plans designed to appeal to subscriber bases of all sizes. As mentioned, the cheapest plan is $19.95 per month, and that lets you contact up to 1,000 subscribers. Campaigner's own marketing materials highlight the company's options you can cancel at any time; there are no discounted annual plans but you're also not locked into a contract, which is handy.

Registration is straightforward. Once you verify your email address, you set a password and then provide the usual personal information and a credit card number. You can also invite additional users to your account if multiple people will be creating campaigns. The dashboard is attractive with bright action buttons, and I found it more appealing and easier to use than GetResponse's user interface (UI).

Creating a Subscriber List

There are a few ways to add contacts to Campaigner. You can copy and paste information into the service's UI, upload a file (CSV, VCF, XLS, XLSX), or import Gmail or Yahoo contacts. After your contacts have been loaded into the system, you receive a message in your Campaigner inbox. Unlike GetResponse, Campaigner accepted all of my disposable Mailinator addresses, which was helpful for my test but not so great for subscribers who wouldn't email such addresses. I also imported some contacts from my Gmail account which, of course, required giving

Campaigner automatically creates user segments based on when they were added to your account or when their profile was last updated. You can create additional segments based on email actions, form submissions, and any custom fields you have created.

You can also create auto-responders, which lets you send emails based on similar events. There are templates available (including the "win-back" template) that are designed to draw in inactive contacts that haven't opened an email or clicked in a while—in order to win them back.

Setting Up a Campaign

You have two tools at your disposal when it comes time to create a Campaigner newsletter: Smart Email Builder, which offers lots of templates and layouts to get you started, and Full Email Editor, which accepts HTML code. I went with the

Newsletters default to showing your full contact information in the footer, but you can change that. You can also create auto-reply messages and conduct A/B tests, changing not just the design of the newsletter but also the From address and subject line.

Once you're satisfied with your newsletter, you can send it right away or schedule it for later. I tried the scheduling option and it worked just fine. You can also choose to send it on a recurring schedule: daily, weekly, monthly, or annually. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an option to send campaigns at a specific local time based on a recipient's location, like you can do with GetResponse.

Tracking Campaigns

Once you have sent a newsletter, you can track its success by using the Reports tab. For each campaign, you can see the open and click rate as well as the number of replies and unsubscribes. A pie chart shows the ratio of desktop users to mobile users. You can also integrate Campaigner with Google Analytics for enhanced tracking.

The report has a handy Refresh button so you can see real-time results. When I opened emails and clicked the links, they were registered in my Campaigner report almost immediately. You can also export these reports; once the export is complete, you can find the file in your message center.

Customer Support

Campaigner is very easy to use but, if you do need help, it's available in many forms. If you're working on a specific task and click the Help button, you're automatically directed to the relevant Help section. Campaigner also has a Status page that alerts you to outages and other issues. So, if you're ever having trouble sending a campaign, that's the place to go. Phone and email support are available 24/7, which is optimal.

In addition, Campaigner sends out emails when you sign up with links to webinars that help you get started. I even received a phone call offering help. Most questions you might have can be found in Campaigner's thorough documentation, which includes an in-depth overview of CAN-SPAM regulation.

A Fine Email Marketing Tool

Campaigner offers a lot of helpful features, and its UI makes it easy to access basic and advanced features. Phone support is available 24/7, unlike GetResponse, which only offers it from 9AM to 5PM on weekdays. The free trial includes a full range of features, but it requires a credit card to sign up; GetResponse does not require one for its trial.

However, I would absolutely recommend giving Campaigner as it will likely meet most people's needs. Campaigner's rich features help stands out in a crowded market, making it PCMag's Editors' Choice for advanced email marketing tools.

Source: Campaigner Web Hosting

A bill whose critics say could put people's private browser histories up for sale and hand Internet providers a lucrative victory awaits President Trump's signature after swift passage through the House and Senate.

The controversial resolution, which would overturn a host of Internet privacy protections enacted near the end of the Obama administration, would mean broadband providers can collect data on user's online activities. But backers say the regulatory rollback of rules that had not yet taken effect merely puts Internet providers on the same level as search engines like Google.

"Congressional action to repeal the [Federal Communications Commission's] misguided rules marks an important step toward restoring consumer privacy protections that apply consistently to all Internet companies," the Internet and Television Association, a telecommunications trade group, said in a statement.

Republican lawmakers argue that the rules -- which were created under Obama's appointee to the FCC, Tom Wheeler, and slated to go in effect later this year – unfairly targeted broadband providers and put them at a disadvantage when competing with internet companies like Google, Amazon and Netflix. Those web giants are not regulated by the FCC, but in recent years have begun competing with telecom companies' consumers looking into online streaming services.

Pai wants to give jurisdiction over regulating consumer privacy to the FTC, not the FCC. The first "not" in the sentence should be deleted.

 "Last year, the Federal Communications Commission pushed through, on a party-line vote, privacy regulations designed to benefit one group of favored companies over another group of disfavored companies," Pai said in a press release. "Appropriately, Congress has passed a resolution to reject this approach of picking winners and losers before it takes effect."

The resolution, which was introduced by Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., aims to overturn a 2015 classification of broadband providers as a utility-like service that makes them subject to major regulatory oversight. The new measure also overturns the net neutrality rules prohibiting broadband providers from blocking, slowing down or charging extra for downloads of websites and apps.

Supporters of the resolution argue that the Obama-era regulations limit customer choices in their providers and jeopardize data security. They also point out that the rollback of the regulations, which have yet to be implemented, will not change any privacy protections for web users.

"The FCC's midnight regulation has the potential to limit consumer choice, stifle innovation, and jeopardize data security by destabilizing the internet ecosystem," Flake said in a statement. "Passing my resolution is the first step toward restoring a consumer-friendly approach to internet privacy regulation that empowers consumers to make informed choices on if and how their data can be shared. It will not change or lessen existing consumer privacy protections."

Net-neutrality supporters, along with many Democrats, lambasted Flake's assertions, arguing that government oversight of the companies was needed as consumers had few options for high-speed internet service and that broadband companies already have a wide-reaching view of their customers' browsing habits.

Without the protections put down under the Obama administration, supporters of the regulations say that broadband companies will have access to sensitive information about their users.

Your broadband provider knows deeply personal information about you and your family – where you are, what you want to know, every site you visit, and more.

- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

"Apparently [House Republicans] see no problem with cable and phone companies snooping on your private medical and financial information, your religious activities or your sex life," Craig Aaron, president and CEO of net-neutrality group Free Press Action Fund, said in a press release. "They voted to take away the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of Americans just so a few giant companies could pad their already considerable profits."

Democrats also say that the rollback of regulations gives service providers free rein to sell data to advertisers.

"Your broadband provider knows deeply personal information about you and your family – where you are, what you want to know, every site you visit, and more," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said before Tuesday's vote. "They can even track you when you're surfing in a private browsing mode. You deserve to be able to insist that those intimate details be kept private and secure."

Despite the resistance of Democrats – and 15 House Republicans – to the resolution, President Trump appears poised to sign the legislation into law.

While Press Secretary Sean Spicer was coy during Wednesday's daily briefing on Trump's intention, the White House issued a statement earlier this week saying it "strongly supports" the House's passage of the resolution and that Trump's "advisers would recommend that he sign the bill into law."

The reversal of the Obama-era privacy protections appears to be a trend that is likely to continue.

A report from 2014 by the Pew Research Center found that the majority of net-neutrality experts agreed that the current expectations of digital privacy may be completely gone by 2025.

"As privacy is becoming increasingly monetized, the incentive to truly protect it is withering away, and with so much of policy run by lobbyists, privacy will be a very expensive commodity come 2025," said Alf Rehn, the chair of management and organization at Finland's Abo Akademi University. "Privacy will be a luxury, not a right — something that the well-to-do can afford, but which most have learnt to live without."

Source: Trump expected to sign bill undoing Obama-era Internet privacy rules

When you first decide to create a blog, you're driven by your passion to start something new. You're anxious to get your ideas out there for the world to see. In order for you to get started, however, you'll need to locate the best web hosting service. Many new bloggers make the mistake of rushing to make a choice, and only later end up finding out the hard way.

Choosing the right web hosting service for your blog is just as important as choosing your niche or your content. If your readers aren't able to find your site, or use it effectively, they aren't going to visit your blog, and you won't be successful. Therefore, you want to try and avoid all the armature mistakes that other bloggers have made listed below:

Choosing a Web Host Because They're Free

They say the best things in life are free, but if you're going to be a successful blogger, opting for a free web host is the worst thing you can do. While free packages provide you with the platform to create your blog and get it published, it limits your ability to create a unique blog and it also makes it harder for your readers to find you.

Most free web hosting packages come with a domain name that has a long extension www.yourbusinessname.thewebhostcompanyname.com. Longer extensions as you know make it harder for your readers to remember your site. It's also not as professional looking as a domain name without the long extension.

Other common occurrences with free web host accounts include:

Unsolicited 3rd party ads posted on your site

Slow loading speeds

Inability to scale your site

Lowered SEO rankings

Choosing a Web Host Without Reading Reviews

Just because it was the first result on your search engine does not mean that it is the best company to purchase a web hosting package from. Many customers make the mistake of assuming if Google put it at the top of search engine page results, then it must be the most reliable service provider. In turn, they end up choosing a web host that is less than stellar and their blog is hurt as a result. Reviews provide you with insight on how the web host has worked for other businesses.

Another good reference is an expert roundup post featured on Blogging.org where 80+ different site owners shared their recommended hosting platform.

Choosing a Web Host Without Reading Restrictions

Advertisements for web hosting is meant to draw your attention. Therefore, you will see companies advertise that they can do this, or that for a low rate, but there is always some fine print. For example, a company may advertise that you will receive unlimited bandwidth upon signing up, but if you read further, there are limitations to your "unlimited package". Maybe you reach a certain bandwidth and the company starts slowing down your speed over time. Whatever the case is, you need to know this upfront.

In addition to looking at web host and reading through their restrictions, you will also want to make sure you aren't locked into a long term contract or will have to pay a big fee if you decide to cancel early. These are just a few of the things you should be looking for when reading through the terms and conditions on a potential web host. For even more points of interest, be sure to read through my web hosting 101 tutorial.

Not Testing Customer Service

While you may be skilled at creating your own blog, there could come a time when you need to reach out to your web host's customer service department. Quality customer service is vital to the success of your blog. Therefore, you don't want to select a web hosting company that does not provide high-quality customer service. Imagine, having an issue with your blog and needing assistance but having to wait for hours on hold. Or what happens if you contact customer service and they have no clue how to resolve your issue? You've paid money for your blog to run at all times, but now you're losing money because customer service is not available or not skilled enough to fix the problem.

Sure, you're excited about the possibility of putting your ideas online for everyone to see. Starting a blog can be a ton of fun and very rewarding when done right. Just remember, we live in a digital world where the average attention span of a reader is a few seconds at best. If you want to grab their attention and keep them coming back, you must start by having the best web host. Avoid the above mistakes at all costs and setup a blog that your readers will have no issues visiting over and over again. 

GET INSTANT ACCESS TO My Exact Blogging Strategy!

Want to know how I continually make six-figures a year blogging from the comfort of my home? Then you need this free course!

Disclosure: In full disclosure, it is safe to assume that the site owner is benefiting financially or otherwise from everything you click on, read, or look at while on my website. This is not to say that is the case with all content, as all publications on the site are original and written to provide value and references to our audience.
Source: Avoid These Amateur Mistakes When Choosing a Web Host

re: purchasing WordPress.COM upgrades

WordPress.com provides free blogs and hosts them free of charge. There are no bandwidth charges. All WordPress.com blogs come with 3000 megabytes (~3 GBs) of space for storing uploaded files and images. Free features are listed here https://en.wordpress.com/features/

We have 4 different plans: free, personal, premium and business. All hosting is free regardless of which plan you choose. You can view all wordpress.com plan features here https://wordpress.com/pricing/ Add a plan for each of your sites here: http://store.wordpress.com/plans/.

There are 3 ways to add a custom domain to your blog. Please note that an active WordPress.com plan is required to add a custom domain to your site. https://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/#getting-startedDetails:There are no trial upgrades, no monthly payment plans, no bulk deal upgrades, and no multiple year upgrades.We are billed annually and we must pay for all upgrades in full at the time of purchase after selecting a plan.Also note that purchase orders are not accepted.Each upgrade bundle applies to a single blog only and is for a single year only when it is due to be renewed. (The only exceptions are one time upgrades for premium themes and guided transfers.)

WordPress.com does not accept domain transfers but mapping an existing domain is possible. http://support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/map-existing-domain/ The domain or mapping of any existing domain URL is included in the pricing for a personal upgrade, a premium and a business upgrade. The WordPress.COM upgrade for mapping a domain must be renewed annually.

WordPress.com does not provide an email service for blogs on their sub domains or on custom domains. Please see these support docshttps://en.support.wordpress.com/add-email/https://en.support.wordpress.com/email-forwarding/

How domain mapping worksRegistering an underlying .wordpress.com URL first is required for domain mapping. What domain mapping does is providing a seamless redirect to the very same content under the new domain URL when a person clicks the old URL .wordpress.com to the original content. It can take up to 72 hours for domain propagation to take place throughout the internet but it doesn't usually take that long. https://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/

The Business upgrade which is the only plan that includes Google analytics also includes access to all premium themes. The Business plan also has other inclusions you can read about at:Footer Credit Options https://en.support.wordpress.com/footer-credits/SEO Tools https://en.support.wordpress.com/seo-tools/However, note that there is no e-commerce capability under any plan here https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/small-business-website-1?replies=2#post-2804631.When you upgrade from Personal to Premium or from Premium to Business you pay the difference between the two plans https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/domain-mapping-almost-impossible-to-understand-how-it-works?replies=4#post-2874012

Before you upgradeMake sure you read the comparison very closely do you know exactly what the restrictions and limitations on WordPress.COM blogging are: http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

Also read Important Notes Before Upgrading http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/#important-notes-before-upgrading

How to upgradeYou must be logged in as Admin http://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#administrator under the exact same username account that registered the blog to access the blog's dashboard, select a plan and purchase upgrades at > Dashboard> Store > My Upgradeshttps://en.support.wordpress.com/my-upgrades/

Your billing history will be at Dashboard > Store > Billing Historyhttps://en.support.wordpress.com/billing-history/

Your only options for payment are found here Payment Methods http://en.support.wordpress.com/payment/

refunds and cancelling upgradesWordPress.com provides a 30-day refund on all upgrades except Domain Registrations, Domain Renewals, and Guided Transfers. The refund period for Domain Registrations and Renewals is 48 hours.

Note: It takes from 1 - 2 weeks for the refund to be received.

You have to be logged in as Admin http://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#administrator under the exact same username account that registered the blog to access the blog's dashboard, cancel any upgrades, claim a refund for any qualified upgrades, and disable auto-renew. Dashboard > Store > My Upgrades. You can also disable auto-renew there. http://en.support.wordpress.com/my-upgrades/#canceling-upgrades

If you have any unanswered questions type modlook into the sidebar tags on this thread for a Staff follow-up. How do I get a Moderator/Staff reply for my question? https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-help-in-the-forums/#how-do-i-get-a-moderatorstaff-reply-for-my-question Also subscribe to this thread so you are notified when they respond and be patient while waiting. To subscribe look in the sidebar of this thread, find the subscribe to topics link and click it.

Source: Domain hosting

How the minimum cost is required and What do you need to make a website with WordPress?. WordPress is free for anyone to download and use. It is an open source software which gives you the freedom to install it on any kind of website.

So if WordPress is free, then where is the cost coming from?

The cost of a WordPress site can be broken down into the following classes:

WordPress Hosting

Domain Name

Design & Development

Plugins and Extensions

To create a self-hosted WordPress site, you need to buy web hosting to store your files on the internet.

Every website on the internet needs WordPress hosting. This is your website's home on the internet. Next, you will need to purchase a domain name.

This will be your website's address on the internet, and this is what your users will type in the browser to reach your WordPress site (example, creativedreamtech.com or google.com).

With WordPress, there are tons of free website templates available that you can use. However, if you want something more advanced / custom, then you can purchase a premium template or have one custom made which will raise the price.

There are 60,000+ free plugins for WordPress in the market. We use plugins to enjoy some extra features.

These are apps and extensions for your sites. Think features like contact form, gallery, etc.

So while you can build a website with just the hosting and domain cost, based on your state of affairs, you may end up paying for additional tools and services.

That's why it's often confusing for people to detect out the real cost of a WordPress website.

Let us walk you through the real cost of Make A Website With WordPress.

Depending on your demands, your cost to start a WordPress website can range from $100 to $500 to $3000, to even as high as $30,000 or more.  It's important to know what type of site you are building, and what you'll need for it because that will directly affect your cost.

But don't worry, we'll prove you how to avoid a financial disaster and make the best decisions.  For the sake of this clause, let's break down WordPress websites into different budget categories:

Make A Website With WordPress (with more features).

Make A Website With WordPress (low budget).

Make A custom Website With WordPress.

Make An eCommerce Website With WordPress.

Now let's consider how much each of these projects cost and how you can avoid spending any more than necessary.

What's the Cost of a Simple WordPress Website (Low Budget)

You can make a fully functional WordPress website for yourself and keep your costs under $100. Here is the cost breakdown of a WordPress website on a low budget. The First thing, you will require a domain name and web hosting.

A domain name typically costs $11.99 / year, and web hosting normally costs $3.99 / month.

Thankfully, Bluehost, an official WordPress recommended hosting provider, has agreed to provide our users a free domain name and over 60% off on web hosting.

=== Bluehost Web Hosting Offers ===

The Next step, you will need to install WordPress on your hosting invoice.

See our step by step guide on how to start a WordPress website/blog for complete instructions. Once you have successfully installed WordPress, you can choose a design for your website using a free template or be using a premium theme.

At that place are thousands of free and professional designed templates available for WordPress that you can install.

See our expert selection of 43 beautiful free WordPress blog themes for some examples.

Once you have chosen a WordPress template, follow the instructions in our step by step guidebook on how to install a WordPress theme.

Next, you may want to add certain features to your website like adding a contact form, a picture gallery, a slider, etc.

Don't worry, there are more than 40,000 WordPress plugins available that will help you manage that.

Plugins are like apps or extensions for your WordPress website.  See our step by step guide on how to set up a WordPress plugin.

Below is our selection of the essentials WordPress plugins that you should install on your site. All of them are available for free download.

Recommended Features:

1- Gravity Forms: Add contact forms to your WordPress website.

Download Free version here: Gravity Forms Directory

2- Nextgen Gallery: Add beautiful image galleries to your website posts & pages.

Download Free version here: NextGEN Gallery – WordPress Gallery Plugin

3- Slider by Soliloquy: Add beautiful image sliders on your WordPress site.

Download free version: Slider by Soliloquy – Responsive Image Slider for WordPress

For Website Optimization:

For better optimization, I recommend you to add some plugins like:

1- Yoast SEO: Improve your WordPress SEO and get more organic traffic from Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Free version: Yoast SEO plugin.

2- WP Super Cache: Improves your website's page speed by adding cache.

3- WP Total Cache: Improves your website's page speed and page insight by adding cache.

4- All in One SEO Pack: Improve your WordPress SEO and get more organic traffic.

5- Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights: Helps you to track your visitor stats using Google Analytics.

There are much more free WordPress plugins to add different features and extend your WordPress website. See our best WordPress plugins category where we have surveyed hundreds of WordPress plugins.

What's the Actual Cost of a WordPress Website (More Features)?

We always recommend our users to start low and then add more features as their website grow.

This way you will not be paying for anything that you don't actually need.

As you add more features to your website, your website cost will begin to increase.

You can extend to use Bluehost for WordPress hosting to keep the cost low and get a free domain name.

However, since you will be adding more features to your website, it may make sense to take a more powerful hosting configuration like SiteGround's Go Geeks plan.

This will cost you a little more, but it comes with premium features like staging, faster performance, and can manage up to 100,000 visitors per month.

You can also work for a premium WordPress template for your site.

Unlike free WordPress templates, these templates come with additional features and priority support.

See our expert selection of 40 best responsive WordPress themes for some great premium templates that you can utilize.

For more website features you need to use a combination of free + paid plugin add-ons.

Here are some essential recommended premium WordPress plugins and extensions that you'll need as your site develops:

Extra Features:

1- Gravity Forms (PRO): Adds a drag drop form builder to your WordPress website.

2- NEXTGEN Gallery PRO: WordPress image gallery plugin for photography websites.

3- Divi Page Builder: Adds a drag and drop WordPress page builder.

Marketing:

1- OptinMonster – Best Lead Generation Software for Marketers: Converts abandoning website visitors into subscribers.

Security & BackUps: 

1- All in One WP Migration Unlimited Extension: For automatic WordPress backups.

2- WordPress Backup Plugin | BackupBuddy: For WordPress backups.

There are many more premium WordPress plugins and services that you can add and enjoy.  Each paid service or add-on that you add will increase the cost of your WordPress website.

The total cost of the website:

Depending on the premium WordPress plugins and services that you add on your site, it can be anywhere between $500 and $800 per year.

What's the Actual Cost of a Custom WordPress Website?

A custom WordPress site is when you hire a WordPress developer to create a unique pattern and build specific features for it.

Usually, well established, large to medium-sized businesses choose this itinerary.

To support a custom WordPress site, you may also want to go for a managed WordPress hosting provider.

This is a WordPress centric hosting environment, with managed updates, premium support, exacting security, and developer -friendly tools.

In addition to your hosting and domain name, you will also be paying the developer that's building your website.

The cost of a custom website depends on your requirements, budget, and the rates of the developer or agency you engage.

A standard, custom WordPress theme alone can cost you up to $5000. More robust WordPress sites with specific custom features can cost up to $15000 or even more eminent.

We always recommend our users to start humble and then scale their WordPress site as it grows.

In many instances, you don't need all the premium features that you see on many well-established websites in your industry.

Keep in mind that those websites had a head start, and it likely took them time to figure out how to manage costs and turn their business.

You can get going with a budget website using free plugins and template.

Once you start getting visitors, you can consider adding premium features like a premium template, e-mail marketing, paid backup plugin, website firewall and so on.

Same goes for your eCommerce site.

Start with the bare minimum and then as you start selling, you will find out exactly the tools that will assist you and your customers.

Look for best WordPress deals and coupons to take additional discounts whenever you can.

Even for robust WordPress sites, you don't always need to engage a developer.

We hope this article is a perfect fit to answered your questions about how much does it cost to make a WordPress website.

Related Articles:

Source: What Do You Need to Make A Website With WordPress?

Angry customers are counting the financial cost of an outage at web services provider Webcity that has lasted more than 24 hours, with no estimate of resumption time of services being offered by the company.

Online store operator Mike Watson of Classic Boat Supplies has been unable to use his website and email service during the outage, costing him in the thousands, he told Fairfax.

Online shop owner Mike Watson has lost thousands of dollars due to the outage. 

"The main issue is that there was no communication for a large number of hours. We have no idea whether the fix is two hours or two days away."

"We're definitely moving [service providers]. We just can't afford this for an online business."

Hundreds of other frustrated clients aired their anger via Twitter.

Websites hosted by Webcity remain unavailable. 

The first acknowledgement of the outage came from Webcity at 10.49am on Thursday.

"Sorry for the disruption. We're working to resolve ASAP," said the company on Twitter in reply to a customer experiencing disruption to their web services.

Despite the outage, Webcity's own website remained online, suggesting it is hosted via an alternate or mirroring service.

A former employee spoke to Fairfax about the many redundancies of technical staff over the past two years contributing to a situation where Webcity has "little or to no expertise on hand to deal with the issues they are facing".

An IT specialist likened the outage to an event in 2011 when Australian domain registrar and web host Distribute.IT was compromised, affecting tens of thousands of businesses.

"Distribute.IT had the same symptoms for a week, until everything came out that is was hacked," said David Dunn, infrastructure manager at Network Dynamics.

"They're claiming it is hardware failure but professionals could solve such a problem within hours.

"Potentially, businesses' entire data could be lost. Websites might have to be rebuilt. But it's a bit of a question mark.

"Providers such as us are already getting calls from [Webcity] customers, asking how they can move services."

Webcity services over 160,000 customers in the region, according to its website.

Webcity was approached for comment.

Source: Webcity services 'meltdown' leaves customers reeling, out of pocket

By: MMAjunkie Staff | March 25, 2017 1:30 pm Follow @MMAjunkie

UFC Hall of Famer and MMA legend Bas Rutten has never seemed to have a problem being in front of the cameras, where he's shined as a fighter, commentator, host and actor.

At 52, Rutten has certainly picked up a thing or two by acting alongside the likes of Kevin James and Henry Winkler. But as he takes his larger-than-life persona to a new sketch-style web series, "The Bas Rutten Experiment," the ex-champ believes his role on AXS TV's now-defunct "Inside MMA" show was also of great help when it came to developing the ability to deliver natural on-camera performances.

"TV helps, especially if you're live," Rutten recently told MMAjunkie Radio. "And also, with 'Inside MMA,' if you do a live show, you can mess up. Once you get used to that, you get used to how to save yourself if something does go wrong. There's all these little tricks that you can do, and hopefully you can dig yourself out of the hole that you just buried (yourself in).

"You start getting more comfortable. And once you start getting more comfortable, you can start thinking about the little things. They always say, 'More is less in acting.' If you go too much, well, it's not going to work. But if you can just do it a little bit, and, as long as you can focus on that, that's going to go better and better. Hopefully the more calm you get, the more relaxed, the more prepared you can be, the better the outcome is going to be."

The first episode of "The Bas Rutten Experiment" is available now here at MMAjunkie. The creation process behind it, Rutten explains, was pretty simple: They just brainstorm "crazy stuff" for him to do and see if it works.

"We had a lot of fun doing it," Rutten said. "If fun meets work, I think you have a good combination."

While they've only shot two more episodes, which will be released at Champions.co in the coming weeks, and also will be available at MMAjunkie, Rutten says that further production will depend on fan response.

"It's six-minute videos, so they're not too long for the short attention span people out there like me," Rutten said. "So this Tuesday, and next Tuesday, then the Tuesday after. And if people enjoy it, we'll keep on shooting."

To hear more from Rutten on "The Bas Rutten Experiment," check out the video above.

MMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino's Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by "Gorgeous" George Garcia and producer Brian "Goze" Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.

Bas Rutten, Featured Videos, News, Radio Highlight, Videos

Source: Bas Rutten talks new web series: 'If fun meets work, I think you have a good combination'

March 24, 2017 -- !-- AddToAny BEGIN -->

NEW YORK, NY - 24 Mar, 2017 - Today ThemeLooks is ready to take your hosting business to a new level with the brand new WHMCS templates and themes. �Many companies have been waiting for this release since they know how much effort ThemeLooks usually puts into its products. The team of experienced developers dont waste time creating simple templates. They put their soul into the end product. Thats why about a dozen businesses had them pre-ordered.

All this hype is well and good, but what do these WHMCS themes and templates have to offer to an average user without too much technical experience?

? Intuitive Interface. ThemeLooks takes care of all types of clients. Thats why each theme is carefully designed to make the integration easy for people without any special skills.

? Fast Loading. There is no tedious waiting for the template to load. ThemeLooks works with the fastest hostings to make all the manipulations virtually instantaneous.

? Excellent responsiveness. The new Premium Wordpress Themes and Whmcs templates seem to respond faster than you click your mouse.

? Time-saving. You wont spend days trying to set up the website for your web hosting business. You can get everything done in just a few hours.

? User-friendly. While the new WHMCS templates are attractive to the developers, they are just as easy to work with for the users.

? Blog options. These new themes are not only perfect for the web hosting business website development; they can help you create outstanding technology or software review blogs.

? Mobile friendly. All the new WHMCS themes and templates offered by ThemeLooks are mobile friendly. This is an imperative requirement for all the modern websites.

? Technologically advance. When creating the new themes, the ThemeLooks team used the newest development technologies to produce state-of-the-art products.

What makes the new themes, Premium�Wordpress Themes,��phpBB forum style�and templates different from the others on the market? Building your own web hosting service provider using the new templates is not just easy, its fun and enjoyable. The smooth template operation allows you to forget about the website building hassle. This is a huge advantage for small business owners, who are always pressed for time. Meanwhile, large businesses can be sure that they are getting the highest quality products for a fairly moderate price.

On the day of the new theme release, CEO of ThemeLooks Mohammad Al Omayer explained: ?We took all the knowledge of the best developers, mixed it with the users feedback, added some inspiration and created something absolutely unique. Im proud to say that this time we outdid ourselves and we cant wait to hear the feedback. The WHMCS themes and template market is oversaturated with various products but our team managed to create something extraordinary. We look forward to the reviews so we can proceed with the new developments.

About ThemeLooks:�

ThemeLooks is a young company, which managed to develop a stellar reputation of a website theme and template supplier. A team of eleven experienced developers is working around the clock to provide the most polished products to the users all over the globe. ThemeLooks is currently based in New York.

You're still searching for reliable hosting / Cheap Dedicated Server, cordially suggest UniHost2u.com, or even you are not pleased with your current host.

Contact Information:

Project Manager:�Mohammad Al OmayerAddress:�28-19 N Conduit Avenue,South Ozone Park New York, NY, 11420.Website:�http://www.themelooks.comEmail:�press@themelooks.com

Media ContactCompany Name: ThemeLooks.comContact Person: Mohammad Al OmayerEmail: press@themelooks.comPhone: (224) 366-0011Country: United StatesWebsite: http://www.themelooks.com/

Related Keywords:Computers & Software, Telecom, U.K, U.S, Website & Blog,

Source:Copyright (c) AB Digital, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Source: ThemeLooks - The long-awaited WordPress, WHMCS themes and templates for hosting businesses are finally here

For all those of you who have been waiting with baited breath to see your favourite star Ranbir Kapoor on Nach Baliye 8, there is a bad news. According to reports, Ranbir is NOT making any small screen debut! Yes, you read that right.. RK who was rumoured to be hosting the pilot episode of Nach Baliye 8, is busy working extensively on his next film – the Sanjay Dutt biopic and at the moment, that's all he is focusing on. A spokesperson of the actor called these reports completely baseless and shunned all such rumours of Ranbir hosting the dance reality show. In a statement to a web portal, the spokesperson said, "Ranbir is not doing any TV show, he's not even in talks for any show. These rumours are completely baseless. Ranbir has been busy with the shooting of Dutt biopic."

Now that's pretty disappointing.. no? How happy were we when we got to know that the one and only Ranbir Kapoor would be hosting Nach Baliye 8. But nevertheless, let's hope the Kapoor lad makes his TV debut real soon!

Just a couple of days ago the rumours surfaced online and soon, the organisers o the show confirmed the news stating, "Ranbir Kapoor will be perfect for the grand opening episode of Nach Baliye 8. We are very excited and have our fingers crossed to see Ranbir Kapoor set the stage on fire with his dance and stage presence as host! Ranbir is a natural dancer and he will surely set a benchmark for the 10 jodis and prep them up for the entire season. If things go as planned, we might be shooting later this week," read a statement from the makers. The shoot is expected to take place on Saturday, March 25." (ALSO READ: Whoa! Ranbir Kapoor to host Nach Baliye 8?)

Talking about Nach Baliye 8, initially, Karan Singh Grover and popular comedienne Upasana Singh were going to host the dance reality show. Bipasha Basu was said to accompany husband Karan for the inaugural episode. Karan and Upasana had even begun rehearsing. Upasana had infact declared the news in several interviews. But later a news came out that things weren't working out between KSG and the makers and they both left the show. The latest we get to hear is that Karan Tacker has been finalised as the host of the show while his co-host is yet to be finalised. Stay tuned for more updates on Nach Baliye 8 right here on BollywoodLife!

Source: No! Ranbir Kapoor is NOT hosting Nach Baliye 8

Hello warrior forum members,

I know that there is older info on this, but as we all know, things in this industry change quickly, and I want to be sure to choose the best hosting for a new website I'm planning on building.

As the title of this thread states, I'm looking for an opinion on what hosting company would be best (or at least a very solid choice) for hosting here in 2017. Please reply if you currently have hosting with stated company, and have had a good experience with them. I figure as most of you will have at least a website or two in this forum, and that there would likely be some opinions on the subject.

I might get a re-seller plan, or I might just go "cheap" and go shared hosting in the beginning just to save money, as I am not expecting much traffic for this website for now. I'm not planning on building a ton of websites quite yet, maybe just 1 to 3 sites is about it at most for now. My main goals are a host with close to 100% up-time, and fast loading speeds for my website (and inexpensive). I'll be using WordPress to build my website.

Thanks in advance for your replies, and take care.

Josh

Source: Best hosting in 2017?

Posted 2 hours ago by  Jake Posey

Topic: Business Law   Internet Law  

Privacy, security, and freedom of speech and expression are reasons many businesses give for choosing offshore website hosting. The physical location of the actual servers that the web hosting company uses to run a website determines the laws under which the website operates. So a website that is hosted by a company with servers in Iceland must comply with the laws of Iceland. There are both excellent and questionable offshore website hosting companies in countries around the world.

But a website is only one part of a business, and legal regulatory structure can also come from the country where the business is registered, the country of residence of the business owner, and the point of presence–the places the actual physical work of a business is conducted, including manufacturing and shipping, or in the event of a service, the place of service. 

If a business has significant points of presence in a country or state where the service or product is illegal, the business and the business owner can be held criminally liable, regardless of the place of website hosting.

While freedom, privacy, and security are important, many businesses seek offshore web hosting for an online business to find a legal environment where taxes, residency, regulations, and censorship laws are more tolerant of business activities that are considered illicit or criminal in the US and EU. 

In the offshore web hosting world, bloggers, journalists, and publishers can use the more liberal freedom of speech and expression laws of the hosting countries, and perhaps avoid the DMCA Takedown and other intellectual property protections commonly used in the US and EU. But according to Texas lobbyist and attorney Jake Posey, offshore web hosting companies do have to follow the legal guidelines and intellectual protections of their country of origin.

‹ Blogs Home

Source: Offshore Web Hosting for an Online Business

Web Hosting is an activity or service that makes your website available to be viewed by others on the Internet. In other words we can say that if you want to broadcast your website or webpage on Internet and want that your website or webpage......

ABIDJAN, Côte d'Ivoire - March 19, 2017 - PRLog -- Web Hosting is an activity or service that makes your website available to be viewed by others on the Internet. In other words we can say that if you want to broadcast your website or webpage on Internet and want that your website or webpage viewed by many visitors on Internet then you need web hosting services. http://bestwebhostingworld.com/

Most Web hosting service providers provide two types of web hosting:

Linux Web Hosting

Windows Web Hosting

Linux Web Hosting: Linux web hosting refers to shared hosting, the most popular hosting service in the industry. Shared Hosting is a type of hosting in which you and other website owners shared one server. This includes sharing of physical server and the software applications within the server. In fact most of the websites or web pages are now hosted using Linux web hosting due to its affordable flexibility and price.

Linux Hosting is compatible with MySQL and P HP which support scripts such as Zen Cart, WordPress and PHPBB. Linux Web Hosting allows for running script written in Perl, PHP, Python and other Unix- originated language. It usually supports PostgreSQL databases.

Windows Web Hosting: Windows web hosting includes the easy to use and flexible parallels plesk control panel as well as FTP accounts, unlimited subdomains and email addresses. Additional unlimited features include Microsoft SQL, MySQL and Access Databases. All Windows web hosting plans also include over 4000 free website templates, free website building tools, one click installs of many popular scripts, and many additional features.

Windows web hosting uses Windows as the servers operating system and provide Windows specific technologies such as .NET, Microsoft SQL server (MSSQL), ASP and Microsoft Access. Windows web hosting allows for running ASP scripts and using .NET and other Microsoft technologies. It supports Access Database and Microsoft SQL server.

Comparison:

These two types of web hosting provide the same level of proficiency. So the type of hosting service you select greatly depends on what kind of technologies your website needs. For Example: If you like to start a blog with WordPress, or set up an online forum using phpBB, then Linux Hosting will be excellent choice for you. On the other hand if you website needs specific Microsoft technologies such as MSSQL, you are required to use Windows hosting.

If your website does not require any scripting support, you should select Linux web hosting because they are more economical. On the other hand if your website requires database support and scripting you should select the platform that supports the technologies you use.

Both Linux web hosting and Windows web hosting differ in ease of use, stability, cost and versatility. Windows web hosting costs more than Linux web hosting. Because Linux web hosting is a free open source system so web hosting providers do not pay licensing fees for using Linux web hosting. visit my blog more http://bestwebhostingworld.com/ top-web-hosting- providers.

End

Source: Linux Hosting vs Windows Hosting

ThemeLooks

Whmcs Themes

Hosting Business Like NEver Before With Premium Website Themes & Templates

SOUTH OZONE PARK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES, March 18, 2017 /EINPresswire.com/ -- ThemeLooks has announced the release of WHMCS themes and templates for businesses on WordPress. The company is known for providing out of the box solutions for website development and the new WHMCS templates and themes are ideal for businesses, particularly small businesses and startups. The new multipurpose business WordPress templates offer by the company will add to the wide range of its existing services in web development and designing."At ThemeLooks, we are pushing the limits of creativity with our designers and experts and I am proud to say that we have always satisfied our clients beyond their expectations." Said Mohammad Al Omayer, the Project Manager at Theme Looks. "Alongside our basic services that cover pretty much everything a business needs, we offer tailored solutions to our clients that enhance their business productivity and online presence." He added. Mohammad along with the res t of the team at ThemeLooks have completed a large number of projects for all types of businesses and they carry a rich experience in the industry.Alongside all of the multipurpose WordPress business themes and templates, the company also specializes in providing exclusive as well as responsive HTML5 Web Hosting and WHMCS Templates. Moreover, rich HTML5 templates, scripts and plugins alongside PHPBB forums are also covered. PSD Templates, Envato Products and exclusive PHP services are also offered in the platforms covered by the team. Furthermore, the experts at ThemeLooks are also known for their UX/UI Design for Web and Mobile along with WordPress integration or customization.

About ThemeLooksThemeLooks is New York based Premium WordPress Themes and Website Template provider. The developers at ThemeLooks are known for creating tailored solutions for small and large businesses including startups and are the best choice for responsive web development. The support team of Theme Loo ks is always available online to answer the queries of each client and the website also has an informative blog for the visitors. More details about the services offered are available on the website of ThemeLooks.

Finally, if you're starting a new site from scratch, and you're still looking for reliable hosting / Cheap Dedicated Server, heartily recommend UniHost2u.com . Or maybe you're not happy with your current host.

jobair islamEnter Group Inc.7813660011email us here

WHMCS Themes

Source: ThemeLooks Launches Premium Wordpress Themes With Whmcs Templates For Hosting Company

By Grant Stern, OccupyDemocrats

Former Wikileaks & cyber activist Laurelai Bailey just used open source information to accurately prove that Wikileaks is being transmitted physically from within Russia. This story contains independent confirmation of her claim. She wrote:

It makes no sense for people who claim to be for transparency to take up virtual residence in an autocratic nation that might try to kill them. So why would they do it? Well, it's pretty simple; they would only be there with the consent of the Russian government, i.e. Vladimir Putin. He wants them to be there and allows them to be there.

So that strongly suggests Russia is getting some kind of favorable or special treatment. Its also likely that the CIA was already aware of this and that this is part of the information they base their claims of Russian interference on. When you see this alone its enough to strongly suggests collusion with the Russian government either directly or indirectly.

Internet records prove that Wikileaks changed their physical DNS server location and IP address to a Russian web host just days before the Podesta leaks began, moving on September 30th, 2016. This means that a Russian company knows the true physical IP addresses and presumably locations of the Wikileaks servers. This is a list of the IP addresses currently used to host Wikipedia.org. It includes 141.105.69.239:

The Domain Name System translates website names into numbers, which it then uses to connect the internet's many requests to view websites.

A WHOIS search of the IP address 141.105.69.239 reveals that the web hosting company and technical contact are all in Moscow (arrows) and that the changes were in fact made on September 30th, 2016 (blue highlight).

Wikileaks.org is hosted by the Russian company HostKey.

Here are the raw results of the query from which the image above was generated.

Laurelai Bailey's information was independently confirmed above in this report by using a freely available tool called the Domain Internet Grabber (DIG)  to obtain Domain Name System records directly from Wikileaks.org and cross-referencing the resulting list of internet IP addresses with the WHOIS Internet Protocol search which queries factual data from five global Regional Internet Registries.

These web versions of DIG and WHOIS are available for less technical users to view the same results from independent websites, and these links run the same queries used to confirm this report.

Laurelai Bailey and former British MP Louise Mensch – and now News Corp. executive in New York – both investigated and drew very strong conclusions about the web host that is serving Wikileaks.org from Moscow to the world. Bailey alleges the host is implicated in criminal activities.

Notably, Bailey was raided by the FBI in 2011 for her cyberjournalism activities for Crowdleaks and questioned for her associations with Lulz and Anonymous hackers, but not a criminal suspect. She was not inside of Wikileaks, but was a part of the sympathetic transparency movement in America's independent journalism community. and as far as this story is concerned, her information is all factual.

What is key to this story, is that the open source data points to Wikileaks serving its stolen emails and pilfered CIA secrets directly from Russian soil, via a Moscow-based web host – and they made the switch mid-election.

Bailey speculates that the Russian web hosting change is the digital clue which led Americas Intelligence Community to conclude that Wikileaks is colluding with Vladimir Putin in his scheme to assist Donald Trump to win last year's elections.

American experts have strongly believed Wikileaks to be a Russian front since 2015, this casts further suspicion that Putin is allowing Assange's website to operate openly from Russian soil, with a Moscow-based business.

By Grant Stern, OccupyDemocrats

GRANT STERN IS A MORTGAGE BROKER, WRITER, COMMUNITY ACTIVIST AND RADIO PERSONALITY IN MIAMI, FLORIDA.

Source: Wikileaks Switched To Russian Web Hosting During Election

WordPress is the leading content management system (CMS) platform running on over 15 million websites. It's affordability and ease-of-use make it the go-to website building program by newbies and experts alike. There are two options for using WordPress:

WordPress.com: this option is free, but has many limitations.

WordPress.org (self-hosted): the script in this option is free, but requires you to have a domain name and web hosting. It offers complete control and customization.

In this article, you'll learn how easy it is to set up a WordPress self-hosted website for your home business.

There are many benefits to using WordPress including:

The WordPress script is free.

It's easy to learn.

You can manage your website from any computer. No FTP required.

No need to know HTML, although some basic coding knowledge is always helpful.

You can customize WordPress to represent your brand.

WordPress functionality can be expanded through the use of plugins.

Search engines like WordPress, especially when it's used as a blog.

WordPress can be used as a blog or a static website.

Here's How to Build Your WordPress Website Today!

1. Choose and buy your home business domain name. Ideally, this should be a .com that includes your business name. While your web host (#2) might provide a domain for free, most experts suggest keeping your domain name and hosting services separate to ensure you have ownership and control over your domain.

2. Sign up for web hosting. Although there are free options, your best bet is to go with a paid host, again to ensure quality and control. There are many affordable web hosts to choose from. Since you want to install WordPress, just check that the host offers the WordPress script in its library (most include it).

3. Connect your domain and web host services so they work together. After you sign up for hosting, you'll receive information about how to login to your account and the address of your host's nameservers (two series of numbers). Copy the nameserver information, and then head to your domain registrar and add the nameserver info to your domain name. This tells the domain registrar where (what host) the domain should point to.

4. Install WordPress. Gone are the days when you had to download the script from the WordPress site and then upload to your host. Most hosts offer a quick install option through their script library. Log into your host account (i.e. cPanel) and find the WordPress script (if you're unsure where this is in your cPanel, ask your host). Click on "Install" and indicate where you want the script to install.

If you want your whole site on WordPress, use your domain name, leaving the directory option blank (i.e. www.yourdomain.com/). If you already have a website and want to install a blog in a different folder, write in the folder name after your domain. For example, if you want WordPress for your blog, you can install it in www.yourdomain.com/blog/ The install will create the "blog" folder and install WordPress there.

 During the install you'll also provide your admin name, blog name and email, which will be included in WordPress, although you can change the blog name and email later. When complete, you'll be given a link to the newly made WordPress site and a password. You'll want to change the password.

5. Browse the WordPress dashboard. The nice thing about WordPress is that even when it's updated, the basic functions stay the same. Once you learn where everything is and how it works, you're good to go. Log into your WordPress site using your admin name and password. Once logged in, you'll be taken to your dashboard.

On the left is a menu of all the standard options:  

Dashboard: Home page of your dashboard.

Posts: Blog articles.

Media: Pictures, videos etc are stored. You can add media directly to this folder or on the fly when writing a post or page. If you add media to a page, it will get stored in your Media folder.

Pages: Static content such as your "About Me" page. If your home business offers a service, you'd put your service information on a page.

Comments: Manage and moderate comments left on your site.

Appearance: Manage and customize your site theme, organize your sidebar widgets, create menus (as allowed by your theme), and access the theme's editor.

Plugins: Add, delete, and update plugins. Some plugins add menu features directly to Dashboard menu, while others get added as a submenu item under Tools or Settings.

Users: Manage people who register as guests, as well as manage permissions of those you give access too. For example, if you have a virtual assistant, you may want to allow her to update and make changes to the site.

Tools: Import and export WordPress data. Some plugin settings are accessed through the Tools menu.

Settings: Set up how your blog is read, how comments are posted, create your permalink structure (how your blog content URLs look), and more. Many plugin settings are accessed through the settings.

6. Choose a WordPress theme. WordPress offers default themes, or you can browse and install themes from the WP theme library. Click on "Appearance" then "Theme." If you like the default theme, you can leave it, but choose the "Customize" option (under the Appearance option) to change aspects such as color and the header.  You can change the theme by clicking on a different theme, and then clicking on "Activate." If you don't like the default options, you can add a new theme. One way is to click on "Add Theme" where you can access a theme library. Simply click the "Install" and then "Activate" to choose the theme. Another option is to find themes from other sources. To use these themes, you need to download them from the source, then in your WordPress Dashboard, click "Add Themes" then "Upload Theme." Use the browse button to find the theme you downloaded, click on the file (it's usually a zip file), and then upload. Then click on "Install " and "Activate." Note some themes add menu items to your left navigation. Also, some have customization options such as adding your social media links.

7. Set up your sidebar widgets. Under "Appearance" and then "Widgets" you'll see a list of widget options such as "Recent Posts," and "Archives." Usually, the default widgets in your sidebar are "Recent Posts," "Recent Comments," and "Meta." The great thing about WordPress is that adding or removing widgets simply involves dragging and dropping where you want them. While many widgets serve a specific function (i.e. listing your most recent posts), there is a Text widget that allows you add whatever you want, including code. This is a good place for adding your email list sign-up script or affiliate product codes. The standard sidebar is on the right-hand side of your blog/site, b sometimes your theme may allow you to choose where the sidebar is located. Other times the theme might have more than one sidebar, for example, two on the left, and three at the bottom.

8. Set up your plugins. WordPress comes ready-made with two plugins. Askimet is the anti-spam plugin you'll want to activate by getting a free activation code. Just click on the link in the Askimet plugin to get one. There are millions of plugins that add cool features and functions to your website. For example, there are plugins that will create a storefront on your WordPress site. But many plugins run behind the scenes to keep the site safe and running smoothly.  Basic plugins you should add include security (to keep the hackers out), cache (to help improve speed and performance), backup, and SEO. Plugins can be added under the "Plugin" option of the menu. Like themes, you can search for plugins within the WP library, or get them from other sources and upload them to your WP site.

9. Add content to your site. Start by adding your static pages such as "About Me," "Contact," and whatever other information you want visitors to have (i.e. media kit).  If you're  running your WordPress site like a standard website and want a specific home page (i.e. About Me) to appear when visitors arrive, go to "Settings" then "Reading" and toggle "Static Page," and then select what page or post you want on your home page. If you're running a blog, you can leave the default setting, "Your latest posts."

Once you have your pages, add posts related to your blog or home business topic.  Both pages and posts work the same. Click on "New Page" or "New Post" under the Page or Post in the dashboard menu. Add your title in the title box and your content below. WordPress gives you two options to add your content, "Visual" which is what-you-see-is-what-you-get and "Text." If you have code you want to include in your page/post (i.e. affiliate link), click the "Text" tab to add it. On the right-hand side of the page, you'll see options to publish or schedule your post, categorize it (including adding new categories), tag it (including adding new tags), and add a featured image.

10. Promote your WordPress site. Just because you're site is up and running, doesn't mean people will find it. Create a marketing plan to reach your target market. There are many low-cost and free ways to market your home business website.

Source: Easy Step-By-Step to Building a WordPress Website

Added: (Wed Mar 15 2017)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Having a reliable web host is essential whether you have a blog or an online business. A dedicated server hosting hosting service protects your information and gives you tools to ensure that your site succeeds. Utilize the tips below to help you select a quality, safe, and design-oriented web host.

Contact your favorite web host to see what website services they currently offer. Many free hosting services offer only static pages, leaving you with limited options for adding your own scripts. If you find yourself in need of a dynamic scripting page, you may need to find an affordable pay host instead.

Many web hosting companies offer add-ons to their services, but the number and type of features varies from one company to another. When viewing various hosts, compare their level of service to the particular feature you need. There's no use paying for service that will be of no use to you.

Sign up for monthly billing for web hosting rather than paying in advance for longer service terms. You can't predict the future of your company or of the hosting service. Furthermore, there are practical reasons why a host may no longer suit your needs. Suppose your business outpaces the offerings of your current host. Do not lose the sum of your lump payment; opt instead for monthly payments.

Ask web hosting providers about the level of security they have in place. These days, countless Internet-based threats exist, and websites are a constant target for them. Make sure the web host you choose has procedures to deal with common threats like DDoS attacks. Ask what sort of safeguards are in place against attacks such as DDoS events and how they will be dealt with if they occur.

Searching for a service for web hosting is much like shopping for the other things you are looking to purchase. Know what to look for and what you could afford, then find the service that matches. After reading this article and its advice, you will be able to accomplish that with more ease.

Submitted by: Disclaimer: Pressbox disclaims any inaccuracies in the content contained in these releases. If you would like a release removed please send an email to remove@pressbox.co.uk together with the url of the release.
Source: Things You Should Know About Web Hosting

Los Angeles, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/14/2017 -- WebHostingCat.com has announced its annual list of Best Web Hosting Award Winners for 2017. This year, twelve categories of winners have been awarded including: Best Shared Hosting, Best VPS Hosting, Best Dedicated Hosting, Best Managed WordPress Hosting, Best Business Hosting, Best Budget Hosting, Best Blogger Hosting, Best Podcast Hosting, and Best Green Web Hosting.

The list of award winners for 2017 includes InMotion Hosting, WP Engine, SiteGround, A2 Hosting, GreenGeeks, InterServer, GoDaddy, and Blubrry. Additionally, awards have been announced for the Best Website Builder and Best WordPress Website Builder. The winners named were GoCentral and BoldGrid, respectively.

New for 2017, WebHostingCat.com has also published an extended article on the Best VPS Web Hosting. A virtual private server (VPS) provides dedicated resources and increased insulation from other web hosting customers. The Best VPS Hosting report compares hosting features, provision times, account setup, speed and performance, customer support, and cost/value. For the top performing VPS Hosting providers, see https://webhostingcat.com/best-vps-hosting

About WebHostingCat.com

WebHostingCat.com is an independent guide and review site created for those looking to get their business or personal website online. In addition to reviewing the top web hosting companies, the site has an extensive article section consisting of helpful tips on creating and maintaining your website, as well as suggestions on where to find the best deals on web hosting plans. For more information as well as the complete list of Best Web Hosting Award Winners for 2017, please visit https://webhostingcat.com/best-web-hosting-awards-2017

Contact

To learn more about WebHostingCat.com, please contact

Michael James, Media Relations

2275 Huntington Dr., Ste. 332

San Marino, CA 91108

(626) 388-1533

mike@webhostingcat. com

Source: Best Web Hosting Award Winners Announced for 2017

Whether you're using web hosting for a blog, website or another type of project, it's important to understand the ins and outs of the business. You can have great headlines, excellent images, perfect infographics and wonderful content, but yet still be lacking.

Often, when bloggers and website owners first get started, they overlook what's really important with web hosting. They take a Wikipedia type of approach and just provide the basics. There's more to it than just choosing the cheapest company you can find.

Have you ever tried to read an article and clicked on the link from Facebook, Twitter or a Google search only to wait for what seems like forever? Maybe the site with the article doesn't even load or the images show up broken. Guess what, this could be your site and there's a good chance it's your hosting company.

Yes, you can do some things to help your website load faster, but your hosting will make a bigger difference than you might think. Even big-box hosting companies will try to tell you to do certain things, but are they really telling you the truth?

What is Web Hosting?

While the definition Wikipedia provides of web hosting is rather good, it's also pretty basic. They define web hosting as:

"A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server owned or leased for use by clients, as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center."

This is very basic and to the point. As the core services all hosting companies provide, this definition does work, but it doesn't tell you the ins and outs. It doesn't tell you why one company is different from another or why you can't just choose any old hosting company.

Qualities of a Good Web Host

A good web hosting company will provide certain qualities, which will help to separate it from the competition. There are many very good choices and some not so good choices.

Not so good hosting companies don't give you the same speed. They tend to provide slow server access, which will cause the data transfer to move slowing. For the end user, it's the, "I clicked on an article and never read it because it's still trying to load," scenario.

Here are some of the qualities to look for in a good web hosting company.

A Website Speed Guarantee

Not all web hosting companies will provide a site speed guarantee. Some will put it in writing and will tell you their servers will load up to 20x faster with a certain package or something of that nature. Don't expect to get this guarantee in the cheapest shared hosting packages, however. Usually, you will need an upgraded shared hosting package or VPS hosting to get site speed guarantees.

Excellent Reliability

There is no sense in choosing a hosting company if they will not provide you with a site that will work almost always, if not always. You need incredible server uptime and 99.9% may be the industry normal, but getting 99.99% makes a world of difference.

That extra 0.09% could be the difference between 100 people seeing your site this month and 100 people seeing a blank page or error page. Of course, this number could be higher if you get a ton of traffic. In fact, just 0.05% downtime in a year equals two entire days.

User-Friendly Interface

It may not be the most important item on the list, but all good web hosting companies provide an easy-to-use interface for users. It should allow you to add new domains easily, check your resource usage, schedule backups and set up things, such as WordPress quickly.

Support

Technical support is a huge way hosting companies compete today. Good web hosting companies provides 24/7 support with multiple options, such as email, live chat, phone and even social media. They should also provide a knowledgebase or FAQ page for common issues you may be able to fix yourself.

Should you Worry about the Price?

If you're new to web hosting, you may think choosing the cheapest of the hosting companies offering unlimited everything is the best way to go. After all, if they all offer the same thing, why not go with the lowest price?

While more expensive doesn't always equate to better in the hosting industry, cheaper can be a problem, too. Often, inexpensive hosting will cut costs by not providing full 24/7 support or they only offer online chat for support with no option to call someone. They may also update their servers less often, which can cause issues.

However, you don't have to spend a fortune to get great hosting. You can get excellent shared hosting for $3 per month or less, but make sure you check out the company first.

Some of the things to look for with budget hosting companies, which should be red flags include:

Overloaded Servers

Limits on MySQL Database Access

Hidden Costs

Unnecessary Software Recommendations

Blacklisted IPs

Making the Right Hosting Choice

It may seem impossible to choose the right hosting company. Bloggers and small businesses should always start with a good shared hosting package, unless they predict large amounts of traffic early on. You can test the support by contacting them and seeing how fast they respond. This can often tell you quite a bit about a hosting company.

Make sure you do your due diligence and be aware of negative and fake reviews. If you want to use reviews to help make your hosting decision, look for longer reviews with pros, cons and actual customer experiences. Keep in mind, just about every good hosting company will have some negative reviews, as you cannot please everybody.

Take all of this into consideration and make sure you choose a hosting company willing to help you move your blog or website to the next level. You can even take advantage of a free trial to test them out before making a long-term commitment.

Source: A Few Things You Can't Learn About Web Hosting from Wikipedia

To learn more about how AWS can help host your web and mobile apps in the cloud, visit our websites and website hosting details page here – http://amzn.to/2gz73xl.

After migrating to AWS, Trainline is 800X more agile, supporting up to 150 releases per week, and is saving $1.5 million annually. Trainline is Europe's largest rail ticket retailer, enabling 100,000 journeys every day. After completing the migration from its on-premisis data center, Trainline is all in on AWS. Since migrating, the company has experienced a 60% reduction in downtime, and Oracle Exadata runs 10% faster. Chris Turvil, ‎Head of Cloud and Platform Agility, spoke onstage at re:Invent 2016.

via Amazon Web Services

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Source: Chris Turvil Describes How Trainline Got 800X More Agile by Moving to AWS

An anonymous hacker has taken down about one fifth of the dark web which was hosting a huge amount of child porn.

The hacktivists breached Freedom Hosting II, the largest host of the Dark Web which is accessible only through an anonymous network called Tor, which prevents anyone tracing your location or browsing habits.

Over 10,000 hidden services were defaced and shut down before being directed to a message from Anonymous.

The individual who claimed to have done this on the 'first hack', spoke to Vice saying his original plan was not to take down the host, but observe it. Then when he saw the large child pornography sites, he decided to take it down.

Due to the encryption of the Dark Web, law enforcement can really struggle to unmask the criminals committing deplorable crimes online.

The message that hosted sites now redirect to reads:

Most users of the Internet only know the first level of the web which is the tip of the iceberg which are sites that are indexed by search engines.

It is difficult to estimate the magnitude of the Deep Web, but it is estimated that the weight of the content is more than 7,000 terabytes of information.

Hacktivism at its best.

Source: Anonymous Have Taken Down 10,000 Child Pornography Sites

Submit the press release

Simple Cloud Hosting. Activate. Innovate.

San Francisco, California – March 10th, 2017 – FastComet, a San Francisco-based company that provides premium web and cloud hosting solutions hosting for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and developers, has today announced a dramatic overhaul of its shared hosting platform. The company stated a significant change to its plan structure by upgrading its shared hosting plans to offer clearer limits and plenty of room for growth.

The new hosting plans affect new shared hosting customers. Current cloud customers of FastComet will still enjoy their current shared hosting plans, as all existing plans and hosting subscriptions are automatically grandfathered to their current pricing, features, and infrastructure.

„FastComet's offerings are now suited to all phases of a business's web hosting cycle. Our new services fulfill the needs of those businesses just beginning to build a web presence as well as the needs of growing businesses demanding more out of their hosting plans. As our customers web hosting needs grow, we grow with them." The new plans are designed so that even new website owners will have a stress free and easy experience. FastComet's entry-level shared hosting plan, the StartSmart, allows customers to host one domain name with their account, while the mid-level plan, now called the ScaleRight plan, allows customers to host unlimited domain names within the same account. The newly launched SpeedUp plan offers enhanced platform, increased reliability, and extra speed. SpeedUp will exceed what was offered before in the other plans, providing, even more, server resources and fewer limitations for the clients. Faster than its two fellow plans, the new SpeedUp shared hosting solution boasts Solid State Drive (SSD) for storage and databases and set up in a redundant RAID 10 configuration for optimal speed and data security. With this setup, you will never have to worry about failed hard drives and data loss.

It also leverages 5-layers custom caching configuration including Varnish, APC, OPCode and Memcached, CDN (Content Delivery Network), a global CDN powered by an industry leader in website security, 3 x more CPU and RAM, 3 times less populated servers, that increases website speed up to 300%. „In addition, it runs on the blazingly fast LiteSpeed LSAPI PHP for optimal TTFB that Google will fall in love with."

What is impressive is the list of amazing features and included extras that come at no additional cost: SpamExperts Mail Protection, Patchman, Free GlobalSign Private SSL for life and much more.

"We've always wanted to be the final hosting decision someone had to make," said Daniel Lee, Director of Product at FastComet. "We understand the trouble it takes to research, plan for and study a web hosting provider. Our goal was always that once you choose us, there's never a need to go through that process again. Our new cloud hosting plans help us get closer to that goal."

Coming from a different host? Help is available at no cost – FastComet will make the transition from another host hassle-free with free website transfer service offered on all shared hosting plans.

About FastComet

FastComet Inc. is a full-service web hosting provider located in San Francisco, California focusing on server stability, excellent customer service and ease in web hosting. They continue to impress current and potential clients with speedy replies and exceptional support. FastComet Team has been in the web hosting business for more than 7 years. While providing professional services in the field of System Administration to private and business clients, the team grasped the opportunity to launch our public cloud hosting service in late 2013. By doing so FastComet preserved their core values and built on our previous experience to deliver a finely crafted PaaS (Platform as a Service). Learn more at www.fastcomet.com

FastComet Team has been in the web hosting business for more than 7 years. While providing professional services in the field of System Administration to private and business clients, we grasped the opportunity to launch our public cloud hosting service in late 2013. By doing so we preserved our core values and built on our previous experience to deliver a finely crafted PaaS (Platform as a Service). This step gave us the opportunity to change our company business model from service-oriented to a product-oriented without giving up our high standards for customer satisfaction and technical excellence. As a result our SSD Cloud Hosting solution is one of the most accessible and affordable on the Web Hosting Marked powered by a rocket-fast 24/7 support team.

Contact: Find us anytime at www.fastcomet.com, on Twitter @FastCometCloud or on Facebook.

Company Address:

FastComet Inc San Francisco 1714 Stockton Street, Suite 300 – #436 San Francisco, California 94133 Phone: 1.855.818.9717

Press Contact Name: Elena Tileva

This release was published on openPR.

Source: FastComet Announces Launch of New Cloud Hosting Packages

Tickets are now on sale for the 25th edition of Petals & Paintings, Krannert Art Museum's annual Mom's Weekend fundraiser, which features a two-day-long exhibition, as well as two different auctions.

For more information on how to get tickets, check out KAM's website here, and read what they have to say below:

Petals & Paintings

Petals & Paintings is Krannert Art Museum Council's annual fundraising event in support of Krannert Art Museum held during University of Illinois Moms' Weekend. The event includes a sealed-bid art auction of a donated work by an established artist, an evening gala with silent auction, and a two-day floral design exhibition. This year marks the 25th anniversary of this beloved event.

Exhibition CuratorChampaign florist and University of Illinois alumnus, Rick Orr, AIFD

Request Gala Tickets  |  Sealed Bid Art Auction  |  Silent Auction  |  Sponsors

Source: Krannert Art Museum hosting Petals & Paintings fundraiser over Mom's Weekend