SEO tips = better search engine ranking

Lunarpages.com just increased storage and bandwidth

I already use Lunarpages.com (though not for this blog) but their basic and business plans (I have one of each actually) just got much stronger:

Basic Plan:

- 250 Gigabytes Storage (Previously 35 GB)
- 2500 Gigabytes Data Transfer (Previously 800 GB)
- 10 Add-on Domains Included ($300 a year in free add-ons)
- Free Domain Name
- $700 of CoffeeCup Webmaster Software

Still priced at only $6.95 per month

Business Plan:

- UNLIMITED Storage (Previously 50 GB)
- 3000 Gigabytes Data Transfer (Previously 1000 GB)
- 10 Add-on Domains Included ($300 a year in free add-ons)
- Dedicated IP free (save $30 p/year)
- Free SSL Installation (save $24.95)
- 4 Free Domain Names
- $700 of CoffeeCup Webmaster Software

Still priced at only $21.95 per month

Free Microsoft web hosting for small businesses

Office Live is a suite of mostly free services but Microsoft plans to profit by offering various upgraded services. But if you want to keep it free, it is supposed to be possible.

You'll be able to pick any dot-com (or .net, or .org) web address, design a web site (with links, graphics, search boxes, tables, forms and navigation bars), keep it online, and get traffic reports.

That's all free.

Globat.com dirty selling tactics

Regular readers may have heard me complain about some web hosts before. I've certainly found a few worthy of contempt. Globat.com is one of the ones I really hate. I already wrote about how you can't give someone FTP access to a certain folder without giving them access to the entire site. I thought I had written about how they lied to me. They talked me into paying 29.95 for an upgrade, promising that I'd be able to add 5 more domains free of charge. After adding two new domains to the account they started charging the regular 12.95.

Anyway, they are also spammers. I get about an email a day from these bastards asking me to upgrade again or whatever. Naturally I've started deleting them. I actually looked at one just now and saw it was an automatic upgrade. In other words, if I didn't opt-out I'd get the upgrade and be charged for it. The lesson is to stay away from Globat.com web hosting.

Spam reminds me to backup my sites

You may remember how unithosting.net vanished into thin air taking many of my web sites (that I hadn't backed up) with them. Well I've learned my lesson but did get a spammy reminder today:

In today’s fast paced data-centric world of information technology, businesses have developed a reliance on digital data. We have particularly developed a dependence on data stored on various magnetic media such as hard drives, removable disks, and magnetic backup tapes. (This could be file data or application data, such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, Oracle, Lotus Domino or Lotus Notes). While some users may never have had a problem with loss of data due to viruses, Internet worms, file corruption, flood or fire, most of us have at some time experienced the frustration and loss of productivity that comes with the loss of computer data.

It is more than possible that someone in your office deleted files off the network that your entire team had been working on for months. Or maybe the corporate firewall didn’t stop the latest Internet virus that has a penchant for overwriting “.doc” files with junk data. Like it or not, if you connect your computers and IT infrastructure to the Internet (and in some cases, even if you don’t), your mission critical data is at risk. The question is: What can you do about it?

An excellent solution is to employ offsite backups. Offsite backup solutions allow you to store critical data that is crucial to your business or personal computing experience. Offsite backup providers make it quick and easy for you to back up your most important files to a secure, offsite facility that offers redundant storage, and round the clock accessibility to your files in the event of a critical “system meltdown”. When you use an online offsite backup provider, you can be secure in knowing that your files and important application data will be available to you no matter what happens to the machines you work with every day.

Even if your computers or servers needs to be completely formatted or even replaced, your laptop may have been stolen you can have the peace of mind that the most important part of your computing experience — the data you generate on a day to day basis — is safe and secure and always available to you.

Your DATA is your Life. Protect it.

Choosing between Lunarpages.com and Ipowerweb.com reseller hosting

Lunarpages.com - I like that they have been around for along time and have a great reputation as well as a message board. I don't like that After 2 domains, there's an extra charge of 2.50/month/domain. In other words, hosting 5 domains would cost an extra 7.50 every month. Features I care about:

7.95/month
FREE Domain Name For Life
UNLIMITED MySQL Databases
Up To 5000 Megabytes Storage
400 Gigabytes Data Transfer

iPowerWeb.com - Here's another company that has been around for along time and still has a good reputation. 6 domains/account should be enough for my purposes and they don't charge the extra 2.50/month that Lunarpages does.

7.95/month (6.95 if you pay for 24 months)
FREE Domain Name For Life
UNLIMITED MySQL Databases
Up To 10,000 MB Megabytes Storage
250 Gigabytes Data Transfer

Well, I've checked out a few others, but I suppose Ipowerweb is the one for me. If you're curious, I have accounts with Powweb, Globat, Splitinfinity, Hostgator, Bluehost, RealWebHost, and d7host. I like to spread things out. I used to also host with evil unithosting.

Registerfly.com billing multiple times

Registerfly.com is at it again. This time they billed me three times for one transaction (on two different credit cards). I renewed once and got an email that renewal failed. I did it again. Got another failure to renew email. I contacted support. They said they did it manually on my other card.

I've threatened to do it before, but I hate spending my time on something that shouldn't be causing me any problems.

Hostgator.com restore service

A few days ago I was complaining about hostgator.com support, but they did come through. I had to pay 15.00 for a restore of my sites, but that's OK. I'm not sure why it took so long for them to recommend the restore or why it took so long to have it done once I had ordered it, but it's harder to complain when your sites are up and running smoothly.

Hostgator.com support reviewed

Several of my reciprocal link directories are with hostgator.com because their shared accounts have unlimited domains and they got good reviews. However, my recent expereince with hostgator.com has been very frustrating.

A couple of days ago I thought my WSNlinks directories had been hacked because there were numerous php and template errors as well as links to web sites i've never heard of.

Hostgator.com support told me there had been a general php exploit but that their security would be blocking future exploits. That told me, my sites hadn't exactly been hacked, it was some kind of server issue. I asked how to fix it.

They said reupload the directory scripts, which I did. The PHP errors went away, but not the template errors. I asked again how to fix it. They said it was a problem with my css.

I said it can't be only my css (the script's css works fine on other servers as it used to on hostgator.com), as I've explained before there are foreign links in my template. How can I fix it?

They said "I would order a restore". So I did. Now I got an email that says "we may not be able to restore your sites the way they were before the exploit because we recently updated the backups.

I'm thinking hostgator.com support people are not getting the job done. I've done everything they told me to do and my sites are still broken. I told htem how disappointed I am with their support, considering that their support has been giving me "solutions" but that support hasn't been able to solve my problem.