The CaymanHost Web Hosting Directory

With so many people relying on shared hosting for their websites, this video addresses one of the possible problems you may encounter with email delivery if one of your neighbors on the shared server has been caught sending spam or UCE.

This is something that you have no control over – if one person on a shared server is a spammer, the effects on everyone else are the same. If the IP address gets blacklisted because of one person’s activities, everyone on the box will begin to encounter email delivery problems.

Some hosting companies will offer you the option of a dedicated IP address, normally at additional cost, and this is one solution that you could opt for.

Another option might be the process outlined in the following video – changing your MX records to those of google. The sound on the video is not that great, but the methods are outlined nicely as the author walks you through the process. Once you complete the process you will be able to use google to manage all your mail and hopefully, your outgoing mail will once again start reaching its intended recipients.

This video tutorial will explain how you can change your own domain MX records to point to google mail. This will not only allow you to manage your e-mail through google apps it will also make sure that your domain name emails will not be spam filtered or black listed. Start using the google email servers with your domain for FREE! www.agc-it.com for more information.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Installing Moodle Onto A Subdomain via Fantastico and Cpanel
• Install WordPress | BlueHost
• How To Install Joomla Using cPanel and Fantastico
• What Is Website Web Hosting
• How to Make a Website For Free With Free Web Hosting & Domain

You Can Subscribe To Our Feed Via Email Too

• How to enlist Gmail to sell your Craigslist items for you A friend from our previous church sent me an e-mail tonight. Because we've been buried in 1.2 miles of snow for the past few days,...
• Google releases Google Buzz [/caption] by Michael Muchmore Google lobbed a salvo at Facebook on Tuesday, adding Google Buzz, a new social networking capability to its popular Gmail Web...
• Virtual Small Business Phone System Installing a virtual small business phone system in your workplace is ideal for improving your business. These phone systems, functioning through a hosted server are...
• Lauren Luke aka panacea81: youtube phenomenon Lauren Luke aka panacea81 on youtube is an Internet phenomenon. Who is she? Somehow I came across her videos months ago. She has gone from...

I normally write about comment spam over on my marketing blog but in recent times I seem to be getting more and more that emanates from web hosting companies on this site so I thought I would make a quick educational post for these SEO lost causes and free ad seekers.

1) This site may well still be listed as a “dofollow” blog, but, alas, the spammers caused that to change some months ago now and our decision was posted here at Goodbye To DoFollow

Now, my reason for restating this is that it is blatantly obvious that some of the comments are being posted by services who advertise their comment spam as SEO  and link building services on the sites they link back to. These are smart people without a doubt.

Most of these comments are flagged by Akismet as spam already, so, they are charging people for something they cannot hope to deliver, having secured themselves a warm seat in the spammer hall of  shame. The point is, if you see someone advertising a service to post links for you, for a fee, on dofollow blogs, don’t be a sucker. You are wasting your money. This is not SEO or legitimate link building and in my experience, the comments are usually so poorly written &/or completely generic or irrelevant that even if the perpetrators haven’t yet been flagged it sure won’t be long until they are.

2) Hosting providers – I think it is fairly obvious what kind of website this is. It is also fairly obvious that an area entitled “Customer Reviews” exists for customers to post their feedback. Somehow, more and more hosting sites seem to interpret this forum as “place your free ads here” or similar.

I’m not going to name any names, but invariably these companies are operating out of the Indian sub-continent or the far east. So, let’s help clear things up for you – the area of the site you are looking for is titled “Advertisers” and can be found easily in the top menu bar of every page. Yes, this site owner has bills to pay too and the rates are extremely fair as some of my existing customers will tell you.

Again, a great deal of these kinds of free ad seeking comments are finding their way into Akismet’s sin bin too and if they haven’t, you can be sure I’ll be one more webmaster/blogger doing my bit to help Akismet’s filters for the future.

To make things even easier and more convenient, if all you really want is a link, once again, it’s right there at the top of the page. I realize that reciprocal linking has lost a lot of juice in recent times but if you have a related site, I have made exchanging links as painless as possible.

3) On the subject of advertising and spam – unsolicited emails are not the way to do business online, however, I recognize that sometimes, an email to a webmaster with some kind of proposal is not always a bad thing.

Having said that, I would like to make it very clear that you cannot buy a listing at this site, nor can you buy a favorable review or similar shenanigans. I am well aware that this is common practice in the industry and is also why hosting review sites often have little credibility – see the article and video on Honest Hosting Reviews for more.

Again, I am not going to name names, but there have been several occasions where an unsolicited mail has arrived, offering me what I consider pretty substantial consideration in return for a “top listing and review”. To my mind, if you have to buy good feedback for your service, whatever industry you are in, you have some serious problems, both business and ethical.

Whilst it hurts to turn down such offers (at least in the pocket) there is little hope for any kind of  impartial hosting information should every site owner be lured by the promise of easy (dirty) money.

If you want to pay for advertising on these pages there are convenient an easy channels for doing so, but bent reviews are not part of the service provided and, I’ll say it yet again,  there is no such thing as a “Top Ten” or “Top Twenty” list of hosting providers unless the criteria are very strictly defined, and, even then, it’s hardly objective.

4) Affiliate programs – the majority of web hosts here on TCH run affiliate programs (it’s all in the disclaimer) and therefore I am paid a commission should I send customers their way. I hope that if my visitors find the reviews and articles helpful, they consider this fair exchange for the site’s features and any assistance it provides for them.

Such affiliation does not guarantee either party any favors or special treatment. Well, aside from a couple of cases where affiliate status has been withdrawn because of a refusal to remove/edit negative but fair feedback. (yes, sadly it has happened). Reasonable criticism and complaint is part and parcel of a place on our real estate.

5) To those who would genuinely like to be featured on TCH, please feel free to use my contact form and submit your proposals or requests. Whilst I can’t and don’t guarantee anything, I will always consider them. Lack of an affiliate program does not exclude you either.  As I’ve always stated on these pages, I try to offer a site where visitors can give and get some honest information and also to feature hosts who have a proven track record for reliability and fair practices. That’s not to say I never get it wrong, but if  serious problems with a company are becoming the norm,  I try to keep people informed and do remove companies who perform really badly, regardless of my personal affiliate status.

I hope this clears things up for everyone. To those who have been guilty of comment spam I urge you to rethink your tactics because it really does you nothing but harm. To those who have ever considered paying for any kind of “blog commenting” service, please save your money and put it towards some legitimate marketing and advertising. Comments are about interaction and sharing, not a shortcut to high SERPS rankings.

TCH

Possibly Related Posts:

• SEO Elite Reviews – Demo Videos Of SEO Elite Features
• Free Marketing Blog & Article Directory
• MK Hosting & Marketing Services Reviewed
• DDOS Attack Update
• Free Advertising For Reviewers

• "I am not a MonaVie distributor, but..." This is a common claim in comments and MonaVie message boards. This claim is pointless, here's why: No one can verify it - How is...
• Is Managed Hosting For You? Many people move from a shared server to a dedicated server because they manage a high traffic website, and they think that the dedicated server...
• Virtual Phone Service For Small Office Virtual phone service is one of the most affordable communication services for small business offices. With toll free number, multiple mailboxes, voicemail, unlimited incoming calls...
• How to Monetize Your Blog If you want to monetize your blog, you have to ask yourself a series of questions, starting with what kind of blog is it, and...

Long established UK based web hosts Heart Internet offer a range of hosting plans from the cheapest shared option all the way up to dedicated server solutions. 24/7 dedicated UK support and ranked as one of the fastest growing UK web hosting companies.

Domain name registration for .co.uk names also available at very low prices.

Possibly Related Posts:

• D9 Hosting Customer Reviews
• MK Hosting USA Customer Reviews
• Knownhost VPS Hosting Customer Reviews
• 3Essentials Hosting Customer Reviews
• JustHost Hosting Customer Reviews

• Dedicated IP Web Hosting   Dedicated IP web hosting, or static web hosting is a type of hosting in which you purchase your own, permanent and unchanging Internet Protocol...
• You Don't Need To Be A Professional To Create Powerful Video Products The explosion of Internet video proves one thing-you don't have to be a professional producer of video content to reach a huge audience on the...
• Internet Technology Helps Small Business Compete Efficiently What used to be a trend is now a recognized business necessity as more and more companies take advantage of the Internet because they see...
• Compare Insurance Rates Online If you are like me, you prefer finding and comparing insurance rates online rather than having to call a broker. Whether you are looking to...

For a long time the sole platform option in hosting was between low- price shared servers or higher- cost dedicated servers. Now there is a sensible third choice – mid- priced Virtual Private Servers or VPS.

Virtual is the key description here. A VPS offers most of the advantages of a dedicated server whilst actually running on shared hardware. It is achieved with the aid of modern clever virtualization software that creates and manages a number of ‘virtual servers’ on a single box.

Each ‘virtual server’ appears to the customer’s applications, databases and so forth as if it really is a dedicated server, which includes a predetermined memory size, disk size and network data transfer. It even allows the customer to fully configure the environment for their specific application and security needs.

The computer software then protects that ‘virtual server’ from the activities of all other ‘virtual servers’ which are operating on the same physical hardware. So, should another customer’s application go rogue because of a coding error or get swamped with internet transactions or be in any way compromized, other ‘virtual servers’ would carry on as normal. Even a significant crash within one virtual server won’t affect the the rest. Each partition is autonomous and to both inside and outside visitors the server partition appears to be is a stand alone server to all intents and purposes.

The software that makes VPS viable is becoming very advanced indeed and recent times have seen the entry of  companies like Microsoft into the marketplace with what they dub their Hyper-V product. That is strong evidence that the concept of VPS is swiftly becoming mainstream, not merely for hosting companies but also for large IT users trying to optimize the effectiveness of their hardware utilization.

There are multiple advantages of VPS compared to shared servers, some clearer than others. The greatest disadvantage to using a shared environment for your websites or applications is the possible impact on your system’s efficiency and stability of those that you share space with.

All you need is one of the other user’s applications to crash badly and the whole of the shared server is likely to quit and need re- booting or even repair. In addition another user’s website becoming very popular might slow the system down for your programs as they would use up a disproportionate amount of the shared system resources.

If you have a breach in security it can often affect a lot of or all of the sites on a shared server, meaning that every client has to hope that the hosting company are quick to respond and have enough expertise to resolve such problems quickly and effectively.

You will have less responsibility for your server’s security on a shared hosting account(virtually none in actual fact) in comparison with a customer on a VPS account but if those who own and/or manage the box you are on are not on top of their game, the consequences might be very frustrating.

Under the VPS approach these shared hosting issues just go away. It’s as simple as that.

The software protects each ‘virtual server’ from the others and isolates the key resources which have been configured. So if one VPS has been configured with 512Mb of RAM, then it always has that level of memory available to it irrespective of what other ‘virtual servers’ are asking for(despite the fact that the total pool of RAM is shared amongst all ‘virtual servers’). It is this protection and isolation that justifies the use of the word “private” in the VPS label.

What are the benefits of  VPS over dedicated servers? Consider that before the latest VPS software became available the only alternative to the performance ‘lucky dip’ of shared servers was a dedicated box, a server that you owned/leased exclusively for your own use.

This required the hosting provider to purchase and configure new hardware for each buyer. This in turn meant a significant capital investment upfront from the hosting company and the swift usage of their data center space, power, network connections and so on. Thus the fee for dedicated servers is usually pretty high.

The VPS process adjusts the web host’s costs significantly. Now, they can provide a near- dedicated server quality of service and features using shared hardware, which reduces the consumption of their data center racking, power and network connections. This cost reduction may then be passed onto their clients by way of reduced fees.

One other cost- associated matter that using VPS technology changes noticeably only comes into play after several years of use … hardware renewal. In the traditional dedicated server setup, when the server hardware attained a certain age, typically around three years, it made sense to lessen the risk of failure whilst also allowing the customer to obtain developments on processors speeds and so on, to renew or “refresh” the hardware.

The idea of renewing the hardware after a cycle of continuous use still holds true for a VPS, but the big distinction is in who pays for the new equipment. For a dedicated server, the full cost of the replacement hardware was borne by the client through the fee levels, sometimes including a new set- up fee too. With the VPS model, the price is distributed across a number of customers and as a consequence the fees can stay low throughout multi- year plans even when hardware refresh is involved.

Virtualization is being quickly embraced by both hosting companies and large IT using organizations because it makes strong financial and technical sense. There will, obviously, still be complex computing needs for which true dedicated servers are a requirement but for many commercial computing demands, virtualization offers considerable resilience and performance improvements over using shared servers with no technical disadvantages. VPS has certainly come of age.

As a VPS hosting customer you will effectively be allocated a partition within a server that’s exclusive to you. That partition is a self contained server where you can run all your applications as well as your own operating system, all customized to your requirements and wishes. It offers you the efficiency of a dedicated server at a more affordable price but the VPS option usually includes more tecnical and financial responsibility than a shared hosting plan.

One of the key advantages of leasing a VPS is the ability to have more resources allotted to your web pages. With shared hosting you’re restricted with resources and must share it with many other websites. All of these websites compete with each other for the resources of the server. When you lease a VPS, you’ve got the peace of mind that a set volume of memory, and hard drive space is allocated to you. This will be significant if you are running websites which are resource- intensive or that have particularly high visitor traffic. Not only do you have those set resources, but you can customize the VPS to match your demands.

The customization feature of VPS is perhaps the best selling point. The ability to run your own operating system and software as you wish, setup your own version of PHP, and MYSQL, and having full root access to your partition gives you an invaluable edge on shared hosting and a degree of autonomy and control that rivals those on a truly dedicated box.

Another great benefit of VPS hosting is the ability to handle growth. Most websites begin small, and then grow with time. By using a virtual private server, you’ll have the resources available to handle your growth. This is due to the fact that you are not on a shared web hosting environment. With shared hosting when you reach a certain point, the web host may request you upgrade to another plan since your site is using too much of the server’s resources. Always keep in mind that with shared web hosting you are literally sharing resources. With your VPS, you can grow as needed.

Prices for VPS hosting at the time of writing start at under$20 per month, or around $40 for a fully managed plan, which is a very inexpensive solution. It’s a lot more affordable than using a dedicated server, but also offers similar functions. You can now see why VPS hosting is very attractive for anyone seeking affordability backed with power and excellent customization choices.  As to whether or not you need it is going to be a very personal decision depending as it does upon your need for the features it offers – however, with prices now at almost shared hosting levels from many providers it is definitely more attractive to a much larger percentage of webmasters.

As with any hosting plan, remember that some are going to be better than others in terms of service, support etc. so we would advocate doing your homework just as you should for an hosting plan. Remember too that a VPS is likely to be a little more hands on in terms of server maintenance and configuration so it’s important to know what the hosting company offers in terms of support and management of your shiny new VPS and what the associated costs there will be for the level of server management you require.

We welcome your comments and questions along with any experiences you may wish to share.

TCH

Possibly Related Posts:

• What Is Website Web Hosting
• MK Hosting & Marketing Services Reviewed
• GVO Hosting – After The Goldrush
• How To Host A Web Server From Your Home PC Apache HD
• All Shared Hosting Is Not Created Equal

• Web Design and Blogs: How Important Is a Fresh Look? One of the biggest challenges facing blog owners is keeping their site looking fresh without losing their appeal. Currently, there are thousands of free themes...
• Is Managed Hosting For You? Many people move from a shared server to a dedicated server because they manage a high traffic website, and they think that the dedicated server...
• Small Business PBX - Improve Image, Control Costs The communication requirements of small businesses and home offices are efficiently met by hosted PBX systems. Through easy call management functions, small business PBX can...
• Making your own free website You might think that there are few options if you are not a website designer to make your own free website. There are however several...

I have been a customer of GVO for around four years, long before the recent face lift, when my hosting provider was a Canadian based company called Kiosk.ws headed up by an amiable and hands on guy called Joel Therien.

A lot has happened in those four years and you can read my recent post about the resulting changes since the re-branding of the company to GVO, or Global Virtual Opportunities, for a little more on the background.

In this post I wanted to comment on a few more things that I either forgot or didn’t have time or space to mention in my last post. The gradual process of morphing from Kiosk into GVO has been a fairly lengthy one and, to be honest, the way it dragged on got on my nerves a little. There is only so much you can take when it comes to all the rah rah rah of such a relaunch, prelaunch and never ending cheerleading.

I think it is safe to say that most of that is now behind us and I for one am glad. GVO definitely brought in a fair number of some so called “heavy hitters” who have probably cleaned up by getting involved and whilst I do not doubt the experience and marketing power of some of these folks it does not mean you have to like them or their methods even if their involvement has ensured a substantial influx of new customers for GVO. One unfortunate side effect of the sudden growth is the plethora of ads, articles, blog posts and landing pages all selling GVO that are plainly written by people who know very little about web hosting, which is after all the core business of the company. I’m sure if you have studied most of the search results in google you have found very little hard information about the pros and cons of their hosting plans aside from a few brief “it’s great value” or “I’m pretty happy” type sales efforts.

So let’s move on to the GVO services and look at what has changed from the perspective of a Kiosk customer.

GVO still offer three shared hosting plans, although you almost certainly wouldn’t realize that from any recent advertising. The old Silver and Platinum plans still exist, priced at $18.95 and $24.95 respectively. But, and this is a big but, there really are no good reasons to buy either one of them any longer as all incentives to do so have been removed, basically making the Titanium plan at $44.95 the only real shared hosting option on offer. Neither the Platinum or Silver plans include any of the additional services, so they are effectively dead in the water.

GVO’s Titanium bundled marketing and hosting package is really good value, just as many of the “reviewers” are saying but unfortunately at such a price point, many experienced webmasters are going to see a managed VPS as a much more attractive option if they have no need for the autoresponder service, video hosting and conference rooms. This is one of the major stumbling blocks because ultimately, shared hosting is shared hosting and it’s simply not good enough for those with a lot of domains and a lot of traffic. Conversely, for newbies who see only monthly $ signs and who are starting from scratch, a sub $10 shared hosting package with someone like Hostgator or Bluehost for example, is rightly or wrongly, a lot more tempting.

Don’t get me wrong, GVO offer a very competitively priced package, but convincing people of the fact is not always an easy task in view of the aforementioned considerations. I would guess that there might be a fairly substantial attrition rate in the early stages after the relaunch amongst those who joined in the belief that there were easy fortunes to be made through the affiliate program and the promises of spillover. Some will have done well already by signing up under the top recruiters, but many will not see the “money for nothing” they no doubt believed they would get and they will soon tire of paying each month unless they are willing and able to put the excellent tools to good use.

Existing customers, even those on the old Silver and Platinum plans of Kiosk.ws still get to enjoy the marketing tools due to grandfather rights, but for new customers, if you want the whole shebang it’s Titanium or nothing.

Many of the big marketing names associated with GVO and who recently marketed it so aggressively to their lists are obviously not using shared hosting but are on dedicated servers. This distinction is important because whilst Kiosk offered webmasters a pretty flexible set of dedicated server options, including one off custom builds for example, most of those now seem to be gone at GVO. Looking at the site, the only dedicated options at the time of writing are a fully managed Dell box at $299 per month with a one time $99 set up fee or a slightly cheaper box at $199 per month. Not bad, but only for those with deep pockets already.

One more thing worth mentioning on this topic is that if you outgrow a shared reseller hosting account, even one as good as GVO’s, the way things stand at the moment, you would have to either cough up for a costly dedicated server, or change hosting companies as there is currently no VPS plan available. This could be a real headache if you have built your lists and all your web real estate with GVO. Some people would no doubt argue that keeping all your services under one roof is never a good idea but again that will depend entirely on your outlook and your own forecasts of business expectations. As things stand, GVO can definitely save many webmasters a good deal of money with their packaged services.

Moving on to other changes, one of the major ones as been the outsourcing of many areas of support to India. For me, this as been one of the more disappointing aspects of the GVO re-branding. Whilst I appreciate that for the growth of the company to be sustainable there had to be investment in staff, premises and hardware, the end user experience is definitely not what it once was. When the old Kiosk.ws team in Canada were at the helm of tech support you were pretty much guaranteed fast responses, great service and experienced systems administrators. In recent times, whilst support as been available, the quality of that support as deteriorated. That is not to say it is really bad, just that the very high standards of old have slipped. Maybe it will not be permanent and things will settle down but like so many other industries rapid growth invariably results in  the customer experience suffering to a certain degree. This is something GVO must work on if they want to retain webmasters.

There have been several hiccups along the way but in view of the rapid expansion some of those have to be expected and I still feel very comfortable in recommending GVO if what you want is good solid shared hosting and some invaluable business and marketing tools. The new eResponderPro autoresponders are very good although they still lack one or two features offered by the established big names. The service is a massive step up from the previous Kiosk autoresponders and there are no graduated price points dependent upon the size of your list either – you get as many autoresponders as you want or need as a Titanium customer. With other third party services, the more subscribers, the higher the monthly fee.

Promoting GVO itself can be lucrative, but it is going to take work if you want to earn money as an affiliate. The compensation plan is very good but that does not mean you will get rich just by joining. I just think that should be made clear to anyone who is considering signing up with this as their primary motivation. You can learn a great deal about the compensation plan through the GVO Academy presentations and I would recommend these to anyone looking for a great overview of GVO as a whole.

Ultimately, when it comes to your webhosting and online business needs, GVO is either a good fit or it isn’t, just as with most web hosting, it’s not about which company or offer is best, it’s about what is best for you.

I hope that this honest summation will help my visitors in making that decision. What I will say is that Joel Therien has always been, and remains, an honest and trustworthy guy and consequently you can certainly feel comfortable dealing with his company. You will never need to worry about sharp practices as you sometimes do in the world of web hosting.

Overall, I would still recommend them to anyone except maybe those who are reaching the point where a VPS is close on the horizon because your hosting needs might not be best served by GVO at this moment in time. As an affiliate marketer, I would say that the affiliate program for GVO remains one of the best in the industry and will reward those who actively promote it. Resellers will also find GVO a good company to partner up with and a Titanium account with GVO still represents a solid investment for a lot of webmasters and online businesses.

(If you don’t want or need a reseller hosting account and can live without a conference room and video hosting a solid alternative at half the price is MK Hosting USA – we moved to them from GVO and have been very impressed to date, and would say that the email marketing tools are superior and support faster and more knowledgable).

You can try the GVO services for 14 days risk free with your $1 trial membership – no contracts, no catches.  I think you will be impressed with what you find on the inside.

As always I would love to hear what you have to say so please leave your comments below.

Possibly Related Posts:

• What Is Website Web Hosting
• MK Hosting & Marketing Services Reviewed
• Guide To VPS Hosting – Virtual Private Servers Explained
• How To Host A Web Server From Your Home PC Apache HD
• An Honest GVO Review – By Someone With Perspective

• Music Distribution Companies For the Independent Music Artist Online music distribution has come a long way since the early days of the web. In this article I briefly introduce you to music distribution...
• Virtual PBX vs Self-Hosted PBX Systems PBX Systems allow you to set up extensions, customer management systems, auto-attendants, call redirects and more to route calls within your organization. These operations are...
• VoIP Phone Service - Changing Communication for the Better Internet has become a part and parcel of the contemporary world. Moreover, new and innovative means of using the Internet are being devised each day....
• VoIP Termination Services - The Best There Could Be Globally many changes have taken place in the business scenario which had a direct impact on the way communication is perceived by the people. It...

In recent months most marketing and advertising sites have been inundated with the name GVO, the headlines being written becoming more and more fantastic by the day as flocks of hopefuls flooded into the GVO fold hoping to strike it lucky or rich or both.

There is no doubt that Joel Therien’s launch (or, more correctly rebranding and relaunch – more of that later) was a well executed and well supported piece of internet marketing and has without doubt been hugely satisfying for him and his team.

So what’s it all about, why are the network marketing crowd champing at the bit, MLM’ers drooling over the pay plan and newbies foaming at the mouth and authoring copy that they can’t possibly have the knowledge or experience to back up? It is my hope that people reading this post will appreciate that despite some of the crap and awful advertising that has been foisted upon the internet community by the “get rich quickers” and program hoppers out there, that a little bit of honest perspective is exactly what you are looking for.

One thing I personally find a great turn off is things such as comparisons with GDI which are blatantly nonsense – GDI is nothing more than an MLM program selling domains, originally the Western Samoan dot WS! Many people fell for the hype and some did make a lot of money but most probably did not and will not and to suggest that GVO is in any way similar is a fallacy and very misleading – how many decent websites have you seen from GDI users…not many I’ll hazard because they are not a marketing and hosting service provider and they do not enable their customers other than to sell on the domain MLM and throw in a few pathetic static templates to add a “website” to your shiny new domain. OK, got that one off my chest at least

Let’s step back from all the marketing for a moment and remind ourselves that GVO is a rebranding exercise, albeit one that is accompanied by some very real physical changes and improvements to the company previously known as Kiosk.ws

Kiosk.ws has long been touted as the hosting company run by internet marketers, for internet marketers and although its shared hosting plans did not come cheap, they were endowed with a bundle of extra services that made the overall package very good value for money. Not least of these extras were the unlimited autoresponder accounts and the provision in more recent times of live conference room services for members. Add to that the multi-tier affiliate program, ten levels deep and paying recurring monthly commissions and you had a very good package which was married to a very reliable hosting service with excellent support.

However, after many years of operation, it was obviously felt that things had become stagnant and there began a long process of updating and revitalizing the company from the ground up. Customers in 2009 have far higher expectations than those of a decade ago, particularly in relation to technology and Joel began the long and no doubt costly process of overhauling what had, to be honest, become a very dated looking web presence, even if the services underneath remained pretty sound.

For long time customers like myself, watching the whole process unfold has been fascinating and sometimes frustrating. The first real major change was the relocation of the company’s data center from Canada to Texas. Fortunately, this transition was pretty smooth from the customer’s side although it was obviously not a walk in the park for all the folks at Kiosk. Around this time, the first intimations of GVO started to appear – the first time I saw the now well known logo was on a tee shirt worn by Joel on one of his very early video blogs although no mention was made of the name for some time.

The plan slowly unfolded and it became apparent that the thrust of the marketing was going to be on the network marketing aspect of the relaunch – basically there had been some minor tweaks made to the compensation plan for affiliates, but it was nothing really drastic. It just goes to prove how dressing something up in new clothes and giving it a new image is often a very effective tactic – most of the new GVO hordes had never heard of Kiosk.ws and probably would never have considered becoming customers. The relaunch was of course given great impetus by bringing on board many big name marketers with large opt-in lists od get rich quick hopefuls!

Whilst I can see that this was a great way to generate huge amounts of “buzz” I believe it also has a not inconsiderable downside – that being that outside of these network marketing zealots, the image of the company can also be tarnished in the eyes of regular webmasters and bloggers and even affiliate marketers who just want a competent and reliable place to host their sites or to be part of a reputable affiliate program. Rightly or wrongly, there will be some suspicion of promotion with a focus so heavily weighted towards network marketing and that is a shame because GVO has a long and excellent history in providing value and service in its primary business.

Putting all that aside for a moment though, is GVO better than the old Kiosk.ws? In many ways I would have to say yes, but I will also mention a few reservations. It as taken a very long time for everything promised to new customers to materialize. As an old hand, this does not really surprise me, it is the way the company has always been and is really an indication of their thoroughness and desire to get things right for their customers. Unfortunately I suspect that some new customers have been put off by this.

However, the new GVO services are definitely a step up from Kiosk as it was – the autoresponder service has been completely revamped and the new EresponderPro can really now be considered a rival to the big services like GetResponse and Aweber with far more features and user friendliness than the trusty old Supersponders we had at Kiosk. The whole look of the company is far more in tune with the 21st century and for both visitors and customers the website experience is far more pleasant and less frustrating to use.

I have no doubt that many of the eager beavers who signed up, tempted by the siren song of money for nothing will reduce in numbers as the months go by – there will always be this kind of fallout after a big MLM focused launch. Those that came primarily for a good hosting plan with a great suite of marketing tools will appreciate the value and savings and stick around if the service does not fall short.

So, how has the service been amidst all the marketing hoopla of recent months? Well, unfortunately there have been some problems and some of them quite severe, others just annoying. The blame for some of them can be laid firmly at the door of the company but others cannot. A few examples of recent issues experienced by this webmaster are:

1) A DDOS attack on this domain – by no means the fault of the hosting company. However, the new support staff in India were very disappointing and it took three weeks to even get to a tech support person who would acknowledge the problem and do something about it – that was effectively three weeks of downtime simply because nobody would listen to what I was telling them, preferring to insist it was all being caused by my Wordpress installation. This was the first big fail I had ever experienced with the company. It took several more weeks to get things sorted out.

2) A failure of the new cloud technology provided to GVO by Dell led to another spell of downtime for many Kiosk.ws customers but to be fair to GVO, it was totally beyond their control and they worked like madmen to get everything up and running as quickly as they could. Their only real failing during this crisis was a lack of communication with customers – several of us ended up manning the support room ourselves over the weekend!

3) Server security became a burning issue over a period of a few weeks recently with constant hacking of the shared server on which we reside – finally an I-Frame attack exploiting outdated Worpdress blog installations resulted in all sites being moved yet again to a new server. Since then things have been OK.

On this occasion however I was very disappointed once again with the company who moved my domain without any notification beforehand and in doing so lost a fair chunk of data. To make things worse, the cavalier response from support was that it was my responsibility to keep offsite backups (agreed, it is) but worse, their refusal to admit that they had made an error and to apologize for their mistake. I think in all the years I have been with the company, this was a first and I know it would not have been allowed to happen back in the days of the Canadian data center. I was not a happy customer at that point.

However, when all is said and done, and with all my years of experience of hosting companies, you could do a lot lot worse than GVO. Joel is a genuine and honest guy with a team who, for the most part, always have their customers’ interests at heart. They have never refused to enable a server setting for me or to refuse to host a particular script. For the money you pay you get a very comprehensive set of webmaster and marketing tools which would cost you considerably more were you to buy them all separately.

I shall be sticking with GVO for the foreseeable future and if you are looking for a great package in terms of hosting and building a business online, I think they are definitely worthy of serious consideration.

To find out more about the GVO Hosting & Marketing Packages available visit GVO Hosting & Marketing and if you want to learn more about the affiliate compensation plan we recommend attending one of the excellent GVO Academy presentations online.

Possibly Related Posts:

• MK Hosting & Marketing Services Reviewed
• GVO Hosting – After The Goldrush
• Globat Hosting Affiliate Program Scam
• Web Hosting Survey Results
• D9 Hosting Make Major Improvements

• IS CRM THE BEST TOOL EVER CAME INTO EXISTENCE -- NOT REALLY CRM--It is Not a Easy TaskCRM integrates people, process and technology to maximize relationship with all Customers. CRM is comprehensive approach that provides seamless coordination...
• 5 Essential Tools For Online Business Success If you are starting your business online, a significant amount of your income would be coming from lead generation and overall traffic. There are a...
• CFS Studios - Full Internet Marketing Services Choosing the right Full Internet Marketing Services company can be a difficult decision because of the numerous companies offering individual services as well as speciality...
• Ask the Readers: What's Your Take on Paid Book Reviews? I got a request a couple of weeks ago from a company to see if I wanted to review a business book. I get a...

Most webmasters and bloggers will start their online hosting careers with a shared hosting package. It is usually the best path for new sites unless a huge amount of traffic is expected because it is affordable and perfectly sufficient for those building their first site or blog.

Shared hosting is a good thing and has enabled far more people to get their fledgling sites up and running with minimum outlay but the market is swamped with shared hosting providers, making that first purchase decision a very difficult one. Information overload is also a very real problem when it comes to researching shared web hosting, particularly for those just starting out.

You will for instance find huge amounts of conflicting opinion about almost every hosting company out there. Just when you find a few positive comments about a particular company you will be confronted with others saying that they are to be avoided at all costs and citing a truckload of bad experiences. The tough thing for customers is knowing who and what to believe.

So, what can you do to maximize your chances of finding a good shared hosting plan that meets your needs?

The hosting companies themselves will woo you with all kinds of wonderful sounding facts, figures and statistics but finding impartial advice about web hosting is what you really need and it is not easy for the reasons mentioned above. Many of the hosting review sites are little more than paid advertising boards and the forums can be an intimidating and confusing place for first time buyers.

You need to consider several different things when shopping for shared hosting so we are going to give you a few useful pointers.

There is no such thing as the best hosting package – what you ideally want to find is the best shared hosting plan for YOU and this can be affected by many different things. For example, if you are planning a Wordpress blog, some people will advise you to choose a host that is reputedly a specialist such as Bluehost, but that if you are setting up an ecommerce site, they may not be the best choice. Then again, others will tell you to avoid them because of their own experiences. You see how confusing it can get? Most people who provide good or bad feedback on a host are speaking entirely from their own perspective and your needs may be completely different making that bad host for one person a perfectly good one for another.

Photo Credit : Jaxmac on Flickr

So, it is important to know what you are intending to build. Once you have established that, there is no harm in visiting some of the hosting forums and asking for some recommendations from others. Having said that, just use this for making a shortlist and remember that some of those giving the advice may not be as impartial as they might appear.

Do your own research. This is a pain, but you will probably be glad you spent a little time on it in the long run.

Let’s say you have narrowed down your choice to three or four hosting companies based on the monthly cost and the features they provide which seem to fit what you need quite nicely and seem to be reasonably well thought of by the majority of customers. One of the companies is Hostgator and you’ve visited the site and like what you see. You might want to try contacting the company to ask them some probing questions that you have prepared in advance. This will give you some idea of a) How quickly they respond and b) how knowledgeable they seem to be. Of course, new business departments may be a whole different ballgame compared to services provided for existing customers because, after all, they want to sell you their services. However it does no harm to test the waters in this way and to repeat the exercise for each of your shortlisted companies.

Having run this little exercise you may or may not feel you have narrowed your choices down even further. As you are going to be sharing a server with others, wouldn’t it be nice to have some idea of how many other customers will be on the same “box”? Of course, you could make this one of your questions to ask them, but you can get a good idea of just how many other tenants there might be by using the neighborhood IP lookup service. All you need is to find a site hosted by one of your chosen companies and enter the URL. You will then be presented with a list of all the sites hosted on that server. (You can find out who hosts a website using a service such as WhoIsHostingThis)

Whilst this is not 100% accurate or cast iron proof of anything it will give you a good idea of how many other sites are likely to be on the same server as yours. The lower the number the better because although not all servers are the same in terms of capacity, memory etc. the law of averages says that less neighbors means less likelihood of your site being affected by problems arising from those other sites. Simplistic but true. You might be surprised by the results too.

If you run this site through that test you will see that we share server space with around seventy sites but it is not uncommon to see 200 or more on some shared plans. We host with Kiosk/GVO who have always provided excellent reliability and uptime. They cost a little more, but when you look at their services and know that they do not overcrowd their servers, it becomes a little less expensive looking. Even firms like LiquidWeb who have a good reputation will often have a lot more sites on one box. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because the hardware involved can be very different but  it’s just interesting to know. If you see a host offering “unlimited everything” on their sales page boasts however and find that they are cramming 500 customers onto one box, you might well be seeing evidence of “overselling” and want to be a little circumspect. (Note – if you use the IP Lookup service and it shows only one site or a handful of sites, you are probably looking at a dedicated server, i.e a server that belong exclusively to one webmaster, which is not what you need for comparison purposes)

So, deciding on a host because of price is often not a reliable way of doing things. You often get what you pay for and a plan costing $1.99 is not going to be as good as one costing $12.99 as a general rule of thumb. Do your research and know exactly what you are getting for the price.

If you follow these simple steps you will be more likely to find a good deal that fits your needs and your budget from the outset. Anyone who has a bad experience will tell you that moving hosts after you find out you’ve made a bad choice can be a real hassle, even though it really shouldn’t be. It’s much nicer to find a good company from the get go and to be able to grow with them.

If you are an existing web hosting customer please consider taking a few minutes to complete our web hosting survey, the data from which will be used to give guidance to others when choosing their web hosting. Respondents will also earn a link back to their own sites.

I hope that you find this article useful in your search for shared web hosting and as always your comments are welcomed.

TCH

Possibly Related Posts:

• What Is Website Web Hosting
• MK Hosting & Marketing Services Reviewed
• Guide To VPS Hosting – Virtual Private Servers Explained
• GVO Hosting – After The Goldrush
• How To Host A Web Server From Your Home PC Apache HD

• Search 9,000 Libraries At Once For Free. Sometimes, the local library just isn't that great. If you live in a smaller town or a more rural area, your library might not have...
• Hosted Telephony Services To get our heads around the state of play in the realm of hosted telephony services, we talked to industry expert Paul Desbois. Q. Hi...
• Reasons to Start Blogging In the 1990's people started to set up websites know as web logs, a term which has been colloquially evolved into the term blog. A...
• To Blog Or Not To Blog - A Layman's View We have now entered the world of blogs! Sounds kind of Harry Potterish, doesn't it?If you're over 20 years old, you probably think this is...

Honest hosting reviews: is there any such thing? There are plenty of people who will have you believe that there is not and some will go as far as discrediting virtually any hosting review website. As a site that obviously falls under that banner I thought I should address the issue here on these pages.

Before I go any further, check out this video. For some this will be an eye opener whilst for others it is probably old news. However, before refuting any claims or arguing the case for web hosting review sites I think it highlights some very important facts.

Interesting huh? But hang on you’re saying to yourself, why would a web hosting directory site want to highlight such alleged rottenness in the hosting review game? Well, I think it is important for people to understand the pitfalls, misdirection and even dishonesty that is sometimes associated with review sites of all kinds. Review is often synonymous with “selling” on the internet and the way some sites go about this, unfortunately reflects badly on some of the decent operators out there.

The video illustrates quite clearly that some sites sell rankings to hosting companies, at at quite a considerable premium. The examples given are quite staggering to a small website owner like myself. $2000 per month for a top spot is a pretty lucrative slice of real estate and proves just how much money and competition exists in the hosting sector. Make no mistake, it is very big business. Is it wrong for the review sites to operate in this way? Some would say emphatically “YES”, others would agree that it is certainly misleading and some would perhaps shrug and say, “that’s business”.

Personally I think that if you profess to be a review site, you should endeavor to provide impartial comments and critiques from people who have had first hand experience as a customer.

The other aspect the video focuses on is affiliate links, and this is where I often find myself taking issue with the anti advertising brigade. If you read my disclosure policy, it is made perfectly clear where I stand on this point. My website is commercial in nature and I see no reason to be ashamed of trying to earn a living. This site is designed to earn affiliate commissions, and it is done openly and honestly but it is also designed to give people a forum for discussing and rating the companies we feature. Comments, both negative and positive are given an airing on this site and it is my hope that these will help others when they are trying to make a purchase decision. Hopefully the service provided will encourage them to buy through one of my links, but that is entirely their choice.

Interestingly, reviews are very thin on the ground to date. We are not one of the big boys with huge budgets to spend on advertising and design, but I do hope that the site provides a platform for people to have their say. I have only ever declined one comment regarding a hosting company as it had obviously been written by a very angry customer and publishing it could have been damaging to all concerned. It is only on occasions such as that when I consider editing or removing feedback.

The producer of the video alleges cases where any positive reviews of competing companies (i.e. those competing with their paying advertisers) were being deleted. This sort of practice is really a thorn in the side of sites that try to offer genuine customer feedback and is sad that it goes on, but I have no doubt that it does, just as I have no doubt that some reviews are posted by representatives of hosting companies as a form of shady marketing.

I suppose I have made this post in defence of my own humble site. I do not have the clout to pull in huge advertising checks from anyone and am like many small time affiliates attempting to make money by providing a useful service and platform for webmasters, bloggers and hosting customers. To this end, there is no table of top hosting companies. I do not believe any hosting company can be in “the top ten” or twenty or whatever, because every person buying hosting has uniquely individual needs.

There are no fake reviews or comments posted here and I am often surprised by the large number of reviews some sites manage to pull in. I’m sure that in some cases the ability to leave a review on a high ranking site is abused by those with an interest in tooting their own horn but then again maybe I’m just a tad too cynical! I myself have only written one review from first hand experience of my own hosting company who, I am pleased to say, have always performed admirably and never given me cause to shop elsewhere.

My recommendation for anyone shopping for hosting is to do your homework. We have links to many of the top forums as well, so you can ask your questions about particular companies and other people’s experiences. Be warned though -- like all forums they can be populated by trolls, snake oil salesmen and cheerleaders and you shouldn’t assume that all advice received in forums is either impartial or sometimes even very accurate.

If you have found this post useful, please leave us your own thoughts and comments, and if you have something to say about any of the companies promoted on our pages, we’d love to hear from you.

Possibly Related Posts:

• What Is Website Web Hosting
• MK Hosting & Marketing Services Reviewed
• Guide To VPS Hosting -- Virtual Private Servers Explained
• GVO Hosting -- After The Goldrush
• How To Host A Web Server From Your Home PC Apache HD

• Buy Nothing Day Tomorrow is the annual Buy Nothing Day (In North America, at least. Elsewhere Buy Nothing Day is Saturday November 24th.) What is Buy Nothing Day?...
• ten tips for new bloggers As a grizzly old veteran of the blogging business (3 months on this blog but 3+ years on a previous one) I have a few...
• Find New Customers Through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) You've got a website... Fantastic! Are customers finding you? Without a blog or advertising program, probably not. Having a telephone number is not very helpful...
• Internet Telephony Software People all over the world are discovering a new way of communicating with each other with the help of Internet telephony. It is a kind...

Submit reviews and ratings of your web host. The CaymanHost Hosting Directory was originally established to help people make an informed decision about web hosting and to find the best deal for their needs.

In recent weeks we have made a lot of changes as it was not really easy to submit a review of a hosting company and consequently reviews were always rather thin on the ground.

Now all that has changed and we need your hosting reviews. You can now rate your host’s performance on several key points as well as leave your written reviews of your experiences.

Help others and help yourself by taking a few moments to review any hosting company of which you have experience as a consumer.

Just click on Customer Reviews in the top menu bar and you will find an alphabetical list of hosting companies for which you can read or submit reviews. We will be adding companies as time goes by, providing an excellent point of reference for anyone looking to buy hosting, change hosting companies and register domain names. If there is a company you would particularly like to review please contact us via our helpdesk to request its inclusion and we will do our best to accommodate you as soon as possible.

We probably all wish we knew more about the hosting company we chose before we finally chose them so why not save other people the pain of making the wrong choice or help them find a company that will serve them well?  We will post reviews both good and bad, positive and negative in tone although all reviews are subject to moderation before publication.

So, drop by and tell us all about your hosting company and you web hosting experiences and let’s build a useful reference resource for everyone.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Hosting Companies and Spam
• Free Marketing Blog & Article Directory
• MK Hosting & Marketing Services Reviewed
• GVO Hosting – After The Goldrush
• An Honest GVO Review – By Someone With Perspective

• What to Look for in Your Blogging Software There are so many choices for blogging software on the market, that it can be very difficult to choose the right one. Every software choice...
• Search Engine Optimization And The Modern Business Protocol When it comes to the matter what does work in the Search Engine, there should be lots of fuss about these. It has been the...
• My policy on endorsements, reviews, and affiliates As you may be aware (or not!) the FTC has revised its guide concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising to include social...
• Freelance journalism Christian Toto is a Denver-based freelance reporter specializing in arts reporting. He can be heard on three US radio stations, as well as occasionally on...

Lunar Pages basic hosting starts from only $4.95 per month with their latest offer but like our other featured hosting companies they offer a range of services including business hosting, reseller hosting, VPS, dedicated servers and more. All annual plans include a free domain.

cpanel, Fantastico, Ruby on Rails and SSH access all come as standard with all shared plans and if you need more powerful features than the basic plans provide, or than shared hosting can cope with, dedicated servers from Lunar Pages start at $99 per month. For all plans in detail, please visit the company’s website.

Possibly Related Posts:

• What Is Website Web Hosting
• D9 Hosting Customer Reviews
• Heart Internet UK Customer Hosting Reviews
• MK Hosting USA Customer Reviews
• Knownhost VPS Hosting Customer Reviews

• Learn How to Get Traffic to Blog When it comes to writing in a blog, simply writing and assuming that traffic will come is not exactly the right way to go about...
• The Fab Five - Leap of Faith Edition Photo courtesy of Lisa Andres Inspired by Lynnae's idea over at BeingFrugal.net, I'm going to scale back on the number of articles in my roundups,...
• Article Marketing Plan: Steps To Success Article Video Robot: Turn your articles into video for just 0.97 cents! Article Marketing Key Steps: Article Marketing is a excellent way to get free...
• Web Site Development Tool | XSitePro | Frontpage | Dreamweaver I like tools that do the mundane work but still allow my creativity to shine through. XSitePro 2 is such a tool. If you are...