Posts Tagged ‘Web Hosting’
New Domain name: Dot Tel
DotTel ( .TEL ) is a new type of domain name that promises a new way of locating information on the web. It may also include benefits to compliment your existing SEO Strategy.
Search news contacted the Dot Tel registry recently for some information about the new TLD, to see what all the hype was about, and the benefits it has to offer for a company’s Search Engine Optimisation Strategy.
DotTel is a different concept from most other ordinary domains such as .COM or .COM.AU, because rather than using the domain for ‘regular purposes’ such as hosting a traditional web-page that presents your company or product information using a HTTP web server, Dot Tel is a ‘directory service‘ of sorts, which presents a company or person’s contact information, and that content is serverd over the ‘DNS’ or Domain Name Service protocol.
DNS is s the underlying technology that runs the domain name system, in essence, allowing you to type a web address into your web browser, and it locates where on the web you need to go to retrieve that information or website.
A spokesperson for .TEL said the new domain has very specific and unique content, which allows customers to locate your business and provide information on the products or service you provide, in addition to your contact information and location. You are also allowed to to specify keywords related to your business, so this has the added benefit of being crawled and indexed by local search engines.
Making use of DNS technology presents many incentives for search engines such as Google to crawl and index the information because it is in a standard and easy to read format, and updates to content are almost instant, search engines have more incentive to re-index .TEL content in short intervals.
Finally, the spokeperson feels .TEL adds a great deal of value to the end customer because .TEL content is easy to maintain, can be updated at short intervals and has the best return on investment in the SEO business because it is expected to retail at very low prices (approx $15-20 USD/year).
When asked about privacy concerns, DotTel has advised that just like many social networking sites such as Facebook, customers can decide on what information is made public and who gets to sees information that they would prefer not to be seen by the public. In a similar way that you can see the friends of your contacts in Facebook, DotTel will also allow you to see a limited amount of information to people in your approved contacts network.
The Dot Tel landrush is currently on (Jan 09 to February) and landrush applications start on Feb 3rd at a premium price, and general availability (GoLive) begins on 24th March.
Visit the Telnic website for more information on this new and exciting Domain TLD, and view their demos for demonstrations of the many features and benefits offered by DotTel.
We’d like to thank DotTel for supplying this information.
Article brought to you by Search King.
Growing too big for your web host
Technology and adaptability is problem akin with many new startup business that experience great success and rapid growth.
Generally most startup businesses are one or two man (or women) businesses that are for obvious reasons, run on a very tight budget.
Over time, some of these startup businesses are fortunate enough to experience rapid growth and see their businesses go to great heights, but whilst this is occurring, there often remains a problem with the original technology solution they started with that may be hindering performance in the long term.
In terms of e-commerce and web hosting, these problems may be poorly designed web pages, or database structure which can sometimes be costly to fix if left unattended, and often should be addressed as soon as possible, when time and budget allow.
Other problems, and fortunately easily curable issues, but those that have an obvious and immediate impact on the business is the choice of web hosting company, or in some case web hosting solution that has been selected to host a fast growing website.
It is all too easy to order a very cheap web hosting account, which is sufficient in the short term whilst you develop your business, but when your business grows legs and takes off, can your web host handle it?
The most obvious problem you will encounter with increased growth in your e-business is traffic. This is usually the bad issue that you really want to have. Traffic is the page requests to your site or browsing, so in simple terms, traffic = customers, but there are bandwidth considerations.
Bandwidth is basically the amount of data, and the speed at which the data travels from the server to your computer.
Bandwidth issues are obvious in a few ways:
- Speed is affected. Your hosting server might not be able to keep up with the requirements of the vast number of visitors your site attracts.
- If you exceed the amount of bandwidth allocated to you, you may incur high excess usage charges.
- If your web hosting company only allows you to send or receive a small amount of data, then they may lock your account, which is embarrassing and unprofessional if your site says “suspended, contact accounts” as most companies will display with default hosting control panel software.
Last month we published an article on dead clicks, which explains how having your website down costs you money if you are running a pay per click campaign. This is a similar problem encountered when you exceed your bandwidth.
Other issues might related to the actual server that you’re hosting with. Shared hosting is great for small businesses as it is cost effective, but if your site is running intensive applications, then you might be too big for your own boots, and it’s times like these when you need to consider finding a hosting supplier that can handle your demands, or look at hosting your own dedicated server.
The cost considerations associated with these upgrade paths can sometimes be hard to swallow, but in most cases, these perceived problems are good problems that you want.
A busy website is a successful website, one which gives you opportunity to promote and sell your product.
When choosing a web provider, whether you are running a start up or blue chip supplier, you should look for a few factors:
- Cost, location, specification of hardware, software and network
- Account limitations - does it come with a lock-out limit, or will you incur high fees for excess usage?
- Upgrade path - can your host meet your current and future demands? Can they easily add more resources at the press of a button, or will you outgrow them and need to go through the trouble of relocating your website to a new host?
Search King is an expert in Web Hosting and Search Engine marketing, and we can’t stress enough that “traffic is king”, so whilst hosting your site with a quality hosting company may be an expensive exercise, if you have the volumes of traffic and potential customers, then you really don’t have a problem, and it’s now a matter of you turning that traffic into converted sales.
The cost of dead clicks
It’s 3pm on a Tuesday afternoon, the peak period of the week for sales on your website.
Something obscure is happening: Your inbox is empty, and your phones are not ringing. A quick check of your website shows a page could not be displayed error message.
Panic!
Your web host has gone done yet again. The third time this month.
For some businesses, this is an encounter they can afford, but when your business relies so heavily on the Internet for sales leads, not to mention other operational functions of the business, you can’t afford a minute of downtime.
The impact of having your web host go down is not only costing you from leads that are unable to convert, there is an immeasurable non-financial impact of damage to your reputation for having your site down all the time, and let’s not forget the cost of a dead click.
If you have a google adwords or yahoo search marketing account for online advertising, you’re paying each and every time someone clicks on one of your ads.
If you’re running a new campaign or product launch and have allocated a large budget to online marketing, and your website is offline whilst countless number of potential customers are clicking on your link only to find your website is down, you’ve just wasted a lot of money and lost a lot of sales.
Here are a few tips from Search King few tips to minimise the potential for dead clicks:
- Pick a good web hosting company, and avoid cheap hosting plans
- Check the hardware specifications of the hardware you’re hosting on, make sure your hosting provider has redundant internet connections, power supply and most importantly good uptime.
- To ensure maximum uptime, ask your hosting company for an SLA, or service level agreement. This means they’re agreeing to give you a certain level of service (ie 99% uptime), and if they fail to meet this expectation, you can lean on them.
- Make sure your hosting company has upgrade options. If you start small but begin to grow, your server needs to keep pace with your traffic. Make sure if you have disk or bandwidth quotas, that they can be increased
- Keep an eye on your website,
Don’t stick around listening to the same excuses from your hosting company. Downtime costs you money, so vote with your feet and make sure you move to a quality web host.
You may also find that a standard web hosting package just isn’t enough for your very busy website, and this is when it’s time to make a decision on buying or renting your own server, but these are things you should discuss with your hosting company, do your homework, and shop around for the best options (remember, don’t always choose the cheapest!)
This article was brought to you by SearchKing.