Okay, this is response to all those "The best webhost", "The best freewebhost", "How do I promote my site", .etc .etc yada yada threads.
Below I will list all of my personal recomenations, as well as a directory site. All sites listed I am either a client of our have done work with (unless otherwise noted)
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= Web Hosts =
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One of the singal most important things about running a website. Since this scene changes so frequently and so often, I recommend you visit the directory site listed at the end.
For Shared Hosting, I would like to mention three:
*Note, I have removed Edge-Host because they have sold out to allprohost, allprohost has a very bad rep*
www.myacen.com Another very good and high quality webhost. Although, they don't have a 24-7-365 support staff like the first one I mentioned, they are still very good. There prices are slightly lower, just rember you get what you pay for. Read Jamble7000's review on them below.
www.Tera-byte.com This host has been in the industry for a long time, they are extremley stable company, with a fairly good support staff and decent servers. They own there own data-center, and also run the freewebhost http://www.spaceports.com. There only drawack is that they are the most expensive of the three. Added on 03/36/03: Tera-Byte has apparently lowered prices and now are cheaper then myacen
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For Dedicated hosting, when you just need your own server:
www.rackspace.com One of the leaders in dedicated server hosting, I have heard some very good things about them, and as there tv commercails say, they do have "Fanatical Support". They are abit expensive. *I have not used them directly*
www.rackshack.net I have heard good an bad things about them, they are have are a very-low-cost dedicated alternative. *I have not used them directly* Also, personally recomended by: iCEBERG2000 and antne
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As for my directory information, I must recomend http://www.webhostingtalk.com. You can also post a request on there boards, and have webhosts bid to provide you with there service.
Note: Just, rember, price should never be the only decideding factor!
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= Free Web Hosts =
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Ahh, yes, free web hosts. I no longer work with free web hosts (refered to as FWP from now on). So, I will only post my personal recomendations while I was with them, again for uptodate information I greatly recomend my directory site pick.
www.spaceports.com The tera-byte.com owned webhost. They are one of the bigger players in the fwh market. At the time of writing they currently offer unlimited space (you must put in a request to get more allocated) 5gb of transfere, cgi-bin, PHP, MySQL. They have a great user base on there forums, and they have a live chat where you can talk with someone from spaceports between a certain time period. They do have a large banner on the bottom of each page (I suggest you check out some of there hosted site by clicking on "Top Sites" to see a demostartion of it). It still appears that for $20/yr you can still pay to have all forms of advertising removed. They have no site builder, so it is recomended you know HTML. *Highly Recomended*
www.geocities.comAlthough, not nearly as good as the one mentioned above, and even though they have a very bad rep sheet, they still arn't all that bad. Although they don't provide you with a whole lot of space nor very much transfere (~500mb's or so, I forgot). There advertising is very minimal, no banners to interfere with your design, just a skyscraper popup, that can be easily mimized and closed posistion to the right of your browser. Rember, when using a FWH, don't expect a lot!
sorry, those are all my recomendations, all others have gone bust.
As for my directory site recomendation, http://www.freewebspace.net is a great site!
Rember: With the ad market the internet is currently experiencing, don't expect an "All for nothing" in the FWH market.
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=Web Site Promotion/Profitability=
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Now, that you have got your great site running, you probably want to know how to make some $ off it and get your visitors porring into it!
www.trafficology.comA very good periodic e-mail newsletter, that provides tips and tricks of the trade on how to get more users to come to your site. They provide many ideas on how to get users to come, and stay! All ideas are submitted by the readers, and are ussally lowcost- to free. The newsletter is free, but a "premium" addition is available at monthly subscription free, and comes monthly with the more 'lucrative' tricks and tips. *highly recomended*
http://www.net-ads.com/sponsorship/index.html A site with a lot of comprehensive reviews, of ad companies in all types of ads, CPM, CPC, CPA, popup, .etc.
http://www.******************.com/linkexchange.htm A very good link popularity site, the runner is the all famed member of FK, vampstko. Most of the members to this are FK users, and they are high-quality sites. *recommended*
www.theprofitableweb.com My new and upcomming site (um, well in a few months or so...). The site is not up yet, but it will feature articles on attaing profitability in todays web, as well as, articles on promotion. The articles will be from many different people, as well as my self. *highly recommended*
Remember: Don't expect miracles in a day, you can't expect to have a 1mil user a day visitor, racking in 100s of Thousands, a week, as soon as you start your site. It will take, work, and even perhaps a little money. But, if you hold on long enough, bear the bullet, keep pushing, you will be able to do it.
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There you have it, I hopes this will help out all of you that have questions that pertain to this. I will add info to it, and update it as I see fit.
Good Luck!
mods, if you see fit, please make this sticky, and then lock it
[Edited by onlinegs.com on 09-29-2002 at 09:40 PM]
