Domain tasting is the practice of registering a domain with the intention of taking full advantage of ICANN’s “Create Grace Period” (CGP), holding those domains for up to five days, analyzing traffic and revenue statistics over the course of that 5 day period and discarding them for a full refund if they have a lack luster performance. Domains which have the potential to earn the minimum of the registration fee are kept and parked or littered with a smorgasbord of ppc ads.

Now, this term has been around for some time, but there has never really been any solid evidence of this practice that I am aware of.

The following is an excerpt from Bob Parsons (CEO and founder, Godaddy.com) Online Blog.

“DirectNIC registered more than 8.4 million domain names in April 2006, but only permanently registered — or paid for — 51.4 thousand of those. The trend was the same in March, when DirectNIC registered 7.6 million names and only permanently registered — or paid for — 52.5 thousand. Whatever could DirectNIC be doing?”

This is sadly as close to actual proof that we can get, not definitive by any means but very interesting none the less.

We as webmasters must take the right precautions to avoid such a detrimental set back to a new project. The loss of an amazing keyword domain or perhaps worse the best possible brandable domain could mean your project is “chewed”.

The following are a couple of tips to help you avoid domain tasting and register the domain you want without any hassle.

1. Do not search for your new domain without having the funds to purchase it readily available, you want to avoid tipping anyone off to an unregistered name that you have your eye on so make sure you have your credit card handy if you do choose to search, if you find a domain you want or even 10 domains, register them then and there, this way you are not giving anyone the opportunity to taste them, and use the CGP to your advantage, cancel the 9 that don’t seem to fit and keep the gem.

2. If you do choose to search without taking the necessary payment precautions and your domain does get registered while your off looking through the washing machine to see what pair of khakis you left your wallet in, don’t blame us, but do take the correct steps to get it back.

If you think it was a taster because the odds of it being registered by anyone else are almost incalculable, leave it alone, thats right leave it. If you think about it, tasting domains is to see the traffic the domain receives, if you view it over and over again you’ll never get it back because the taster will think they have a keeper. So abandon all searches for 1 week, after 1 week go to a different registrar, search for it, if its there congratulations, register it and move on, if not sorry about your luck you did everything you could. So to everyone reading this, remember, if you think you have found “the” domain, make 100% sure you have the funds to register it and do so without thinking, it may be your last opportunity.

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It’s hard to separate fact from fiction in advertising, and certainly no less so when dealing with web hosting providers. Bold, broad-sweeping claims are endlessly repeated in a shameless effort to keep you from reading the fine print. In an age where it seems there are almost as many web hosting providers as there are websites to be hosted, competition is fierce, and competing web hosting providers will say almost anything to get you to sign up with them.

That’s why you need to know what to look for, how to read between the lines, so that you don’t fall victim to any of the most common scams that plague the internet in the guise of once-in-a-lifetime offers you absolutely can’t refuse.

Free Web Space: Yes, some web hosting providers will give you 5 or 10 MB of web space for no charge, however (and we know you’ve heard this phrase before…) certain restrictions apply. Make sure you know what they are.

Unlimited Bandwidth: There’s no such thing, plain and simple. The web hosting providers themselves have limitations imposed on their bandwidth; how can they offer you any more than that? They can’t.

When web hosting providers offer “unlimited” bandwidth it means they’ve estimated how much usage their average customer could ever possibly need, thereby giving the illusion of unlimited bandwidth.

Free Domain Names: Sure, they’re free, but so’s dirt. You want some free dirt? We didn’t think so. Free domain names are about as valuable. First of all, they look something like this:
www. webhostingprovidersname.com/user/usersname.html (or some equally excruciating variation thereof).

Now, consider this:

First, most internet surfers are wise to these types of URLs; people know that companies with domain names like these are not usually the most well-established or reputable businesses online.

Second, the more slashes your URL contains, the lower your page rank.

And third, no one will remember the name of your website!

These are just a few of the reasons why free domain names aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Domain Registration: Now, this by itself is no scam; to the contrary, it’s a useful and convenient feature many web hosting providers offer. Some, however, will actually register your domain in their name. This way, they locked you into service with them as switching web hosting providers now means losing your domain name.

Web Templates: Don’t mistake us, web templates are great. How else can the average computer user whip out a website that looks halfway decent without spending a fortune? But what web hosting providers don’t tell you about these templates could end up costing you later.

Any images or page designs or web forms or any other objects that originated from your web hosting providers database belongs to them. They own the copyright. If you ever switch web hosting providers, you can’t take any of it with you.

Not to mention, if you ever decide to hire a professional webmaster, many will refuse to work with template-driven websites, as they’re (ironically) harder to manage.

No Contact Information: If you can’t find on their website at least one way – email address, query ticket, phone number, mailing address – to get in touch with the web hosting providers you’re considering, stop considering them.

Discounts for Long Term Contracts: Before falling prey to this alluring gimmick, ask yourself, even if your website lasts as long as your contract, are you sure your web host will? Web hosting providers (like websites) are born and die every day, and they know it. That’s why most of them include somewhere in their Terms of Service that they won’t be held liable if they can’t fulfill their end of the contract.

So, if they go under, so does your website. And if you go under first, say goodbye to the money you paid for the long term contract. Either way, it’s no bargain. Stick with a year or two at most.

No Guarantees: Whether for web hosting providers or wetsuit manufacturers or weight loss programs, they’ve got to have a money-back guarantee. These days, it’s essential. And there’s zero reason you should ever pay for a product or service that doesn’t offer some form of money back guarantee or another. Really, now.

Hosting-Review.com is the premier resource on web hosting. Visit http://www.hosting-review.com for comprehensive reviews and rankings of over 50 web hosting providers, as well as informative articles about everything to do with hosting and the top-rated picks for different types of hosting packages.
By Sage Kalmus

Compared to shared web hosting, it is more expensive to host your web site on a dedicated server. You may wonder why you would even think about using a dedicated web hosting solution. Well, there are many advantages to having your own dedicated server. There are several web hosting providers with different web hosting plans that can provide you with the right kind of dedicated web hosting solution and many can be found here in our directory.

The first and perhaps the biggest advantage of dedicated web hosting is stability and reliability. Your server has a higher uptime if there are no other users on the same server. With others sharing the same server, you have a risk overloading the server. It is also possible that some of the webmasters of the other sites on the same server can be beginners who write code that will crash the server.

The second and perhaps as important benefit is customization. With a dedicated server you get to choose the server operating system and all the features of the server. If you need special server software or extensions there is no one telling you it can’t be done. You can even choose which control panel you will use to manage the server.

The third advantage of dedicated web hosting is security. You are the only person who has an access to the dedicated server. You can be certain that nobody is installing any malicious code or ever viruses on the server that hosts your important website. You can even have you own external firewall to make sure that you are the only person allowed to access the server.

The fourth advantage is that you have more options with hard drives. With a dedicated server you can opt to have two hard drives where the other hard drive will always be a mirror image of the other one. It is almost impossible for both of the mirrored hard drives to go bad at the same time. You will never lose any data because of a hard drive failure.

A unique IP address is the fifth important advantage. With a dedicated server you are guaranteed to have a unique IP address. A shared server has one IP address and special header-reading software determines which website traffic is directed to which actual site. This can slow down a server. Upgradeability is the sixth advantage. You are free to upgrade your dedicated server any way you like.

Volodymmyr Zablotskyy
Owns
Web Hosting Review Blog where you can find reviews on over 20 web hosting providers including top web hosts.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Volodymyr_Zablotskyy

http://EzineArticles.com/?Dedicated-Web-Hosting-Has-Many-Advantages&id=865933

SEO isn’t nearly as hard as it’s made out to be. A good majority of the so-called “SEO Experts” are out to get your money. They run services, so they want you to believe SEO is some kind of a science.

In the past several years, I’ve been creating and marketing Websites. For the longest time I believed all the hype of mumbo-jumbo that’s constantly floating around out there about how you need to study search engines and stay on top of them 24/7 if you want to see good rankings.

During that time I continued to do all of the basic things we know we should be doing in order to rank well:

- Work on a lot of quality incoming links.

- Research your keywords and target relevant keywords

- Compose a good META title and description

I worked on those few things as well as a few other basic SEO techniques and over time I found myself competing for the first page of Google for some very competitive keywords!

I’m not talking about baby keywords either. I’m talking about those like “make money online,” “article directory” etc.

The fact is; there are loads of myths involved in the education of SEO online. Many of these myths come from those who are looking for customers for their SEO consulting firms and services.

It wasn’t until I stopped worrying about the latest search engine changes etc. that I started to see some extremely impressive results.

If you’ve been running a Website for a few months and you think SEO is hard, think again! Just learn the basics because that’s really all it takes.

Do your basic on-page optimization and build a lot of quality links! The rest will fall into place naturally and you won’t be paying ungodly rates to “SEO consultants” who nine times out of ten don’t know what they’re doing anyway!

To see the exact SEO Strategy that I use to conquer loads of extremely competitive search terms, visit http://www.theeasyseoreport.com/ where I offer the best SEO Report on the market FREE of Charge!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joshua_Spaulding
http://EzineArticles.com/?SEO-Experts-Are-Full-of-It—SEO-is-Easy&id=1007888

Whenever you purchase a web-hosting plan, you may be allowed to have certain number of Sub-Domains, Parked Domains and Add-On Domains in your account. This number differs from one hosting provider to another, but generally speaking most of the providers offer you certain number of each and some even allow you to have unlimited number of domains and sub domains.

So what is the difference?

The difference lies in the way you access your websites.

Sub-domains.

When you create a sub-domain for your website you will be asked to point that sub-domain to a particular directory on your website. Let say that your website’s URL is http://www.mysite.com and you installed a Bulletin Board application in a directory “forum”, then the full URL to that directory will be www.mysite.com/forum. Now you can create a sub domain named “forum” which will point to the URL http://www.mysite.com/forum. Internet users will be able to access your website by using either http://forum.mysite.com or http://www.mysite.com/forum.

Parked Domains.

Parked domains allow you to point two or more different domains to the same web page. Let us presume that you have following domains http://www.mysite.com, http://www.my-site.biz, http://www.my-other-site.com. If these domains are parked domains and pointing to the same web page, no matter what address an Internet user will type in their browser, he will arrive to the same web page.

Add-On Domains.

With add on domains you have an option of operating several different domains independent of each other. I showed in the above example domains http://www.mysite.com, http://www.my-site.biz, http://www.my-other-site.com. Will point Internet user to three different websites if these domains are designated as Add-On Domains.

Volodymmyr Zablotskyy

Writer for Web Hosting Review Blog

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Volodymyr_Zablotskyy

http://EzineArticles.com/?Difference-between-Sub-domains,-Parked-Domains-and-Add-On-Domains&id=328614

If you are using Twitter already, you will appreciate the integration of your Wordpress Blog which will enable you to automatically send a Tweet each time you make a new post without the need to do it manually.

I’ve just installed the plugin which is a simple task and should take less than a couple of minutes for most users.

To get your copy of the plugin, just click on the cover image below.

Remember - You can FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER Here

For full details of the revised plans visit Kiosk.ws Hosting

Kiosk.ws has long been the choice of marketers as a reliable and feature packed hosting company.

Kiosk offer three levels of shared hosting and tailor made dedicated server plans for those needing something special as opposed to the cheapest deal they can find.

As a Kiosk customer I have never had cause for complaint and their service has been faultless and their hosting reliable with very impressive uptime. They have been criticized for their prices in recent times and this has doubtless put off many people seeking “cheap” hosting, but for those wanting real value for money, Kiosk remain a strong contender for anyone doing business online. The excellent affiliate program is an added bonus for Kiosk customers, paying recurring monthly commissions.

With the latest announcements regarding the Titanium Hosting package, Kiosk have ramped up the value for money of their services by a considerable margin. For a very limited time, new customers are also being offered a special “super reseller” package if they are prepared to commit to Titanium hosting for a full 12 months - this includes the design and set up of your own professional Wordpress blog by the Kiosk design team. You will need to be quick to secure a place for this special offer however as it has proved hugely popular.

If you want to see an ingenious use of viral marketing - one reviewer called it “The greatest viral marketing idea of all time” - take a look at The Ultimate SuperTip - a free book packed with valuable and unique marketing tips.

UK2.Net have just launched a new ecommerce hosting plan.

The UK2 E-commerce product is brilliant for anyone looking for a shopping cart that has everything built in.

You can buy the UK2 E-commerce product at a monthly price of £14.99 or a yearly price of £149.99 that’s just £12.50 a month, giving you a massive saving of 17% or £29.89.

The main benefits of the UK2 E-commerce product are:

- Superb support 24/7 from our UK based support team
- 30 day Money back Guarantee
- Free Domain registration
- Free Dedicated IP address and SSL certificate (worth £30)
- Shop templates or customised design your own using CSS

It also comes with:

- 100GB Webspace
- Dedicated IP per account
- Free SSLs
- Fantastic Access
- 1000GB Monthly Traffic
- 1000 POP / IMAP email accounts
- cPanel 11
- £30 Google AdWords Voucher
- SSH
- CGI, PHP and Ruby on Rails
- Frontpage Extensions

What’s more, you can get 6 months FREE hosting if you haven’t made a sale in the first 6 months after opening your online SHOP! So, if you’ve been thinking of opening an online store of any kind, now would be a good time to take advantage of this great hosting package aimed fairly and squarely at online entrepreneurs involved in ecommerce of any kind. Click the link below for more details.

Specialist E-Commerce Hosting From UK2.Net

Whether you run a blog, a personal website or a business site, we want you to share your hosting experiences.

In as far as I can, I ensure that no false claims or promises are made about any of the web hosting companies who appear on this site, but as an affiliate for some of them, it is easy to dismiss anything I might say about them as pure commission hunting. This is the problem with so many hosting "review" sites and one that I know affects my site too.

What I would like to see is a lot more genuine feedback from customers - the folks in the trenches who have paid their hard earned money for someone to host their websites and blogs. At the moment the site isn’t ideally structured for reviews but this is the way I hope it will work.

If you would like to send a review of any hosting company and any kind of plan - shared/VPS/Dedicated - I’m asking readers to submit them via my helpdesk - see the link at top left for Contact/Support.

Whether you have something positive or negative to say about your web hosting experience, I want to hear from you. My intention is to make a post of each review here on the directory and I will of course give credit by way of a link back to the reviewer’s site of choice (within reason) for your help. I do reserve the right to make editorial changes, because I want to ensure that feedback is fair, genuine and within legal boundaries

So, if you would like your views to be heard, to give praise where praise is due, or share disappointing stories of your hosting experiences, please get writing. I will endeavour to publish submitted reviews as promptly as time allows.

If you are unable or unwilling to write a quick review, please feel free to leave a comment here, or under any appropriate post - this is a "DoFollow" site, so all commenters are rewarded with a little link love for their contributions.

I’ve always relied on the Wordpress Automatic Updates plugin in the past and it served me well again this time around. After the update and being greeted with the admin interface changes it took me an hour or so to get familiar with the new layout, but Wordpress have definitely introduced some very helpful new ideas.

The first thing I noticed was the notifications in the plug ins menu advising of new versions, along with an extremely useful auto update feature. This wouldn’t work for me, but the problem had already been encountered by many others so finding the solution was quick and easy (another benefit of not upgrading to soon). Disabling the automatic updates plugin allowed me to quickly update all the items with a few mouse clicks - I like that!

The next problem was that none of my pages were accessible aside from the main index! I was getting nothing but redirect errors. Luckily for me a quick search in the Wordpress forums led me to an easy to implement solution. It’s all to do with those canonical URL’s and the fix was a case of installing the “Disable Canonical URL Redirection ” plugin which took a couple of minutes. I’m not sure if I should leave that as a permanent fix or not, but it works and solves the immediate problem.

Aside from those issues, the upgrade went very well and I breathed a sigh of relief. I lost one plugin that was not compatible with the new WP version and is not going to be developed further.

In all, I like the new admin interface, I love the auto update feature for plugins and think that overall, the new WP has introduced some great improvements.

I have also added a new feature for commenters in the form of SezWho so that now in conjunction with dofollow, comments are given even further benefit to those who contribute.