Web hosting is a business that provides servers or computers for your website to actually reside in. It allows users all over the world to be able to access your website. There are a number of ways you can use web hosting.

One of the methods is to do web hosting on your own. This method allows you to have total control over your website and be able to have control of all hosting services you require.

The biggest drawback for this hosting method is it is very expensive and can be very difficult. It requires a lot of technical skills to do web hosting. Unless you have the money and technical skills required, it is highly recommended that you turn to one of the many hosting services provided by reputable hosting providers rather than doing it on your own.

But if you are determined, you can host your websites on a desktop computer. The disadvantage in doing this though is that all files and accounts on your personal computer can be exposed to security risks, such as hackers.

In order to prevent this you need to install costly software called a firewall and this in itself can prove very time consuming as well - these firewalls sometimes block the very things you want on your computer!

Aside from that, the amount of time you need for web hosting leaves you little time to attend to other business - not a good idea.

Another web hosting option is free hosting. Free hosting can be good if your website is a personal one. Also, if the web hosting features are secondary considerations for you.

There are some disadvantages in using free web hosting though

1. fact that you cannot use customer service,

2. the number of selling banners on your site,

3. uptime is not guaranteed and others…

If you are running a business, it is a huge disadvantage to have no uptime guarantee considering the fact that you are relying on the business site to generate sales or provide necessary info about your products.

Paid web hosting is another viable option. But you need to consider the web hosting costs before you sign the dotted line. You also need to know beforehand what features are you exactly looking for to prevent paying for costs of features that you do not really need.

When choosing a web hosting service, there are a number of things you should look out for:

1. Does the service offer an easy to use control panel. i.e. is it easy to upload your files and so forth.

2. Has it got a stats counter, so you can see what activity is going on on your web sites.

3. Does it support your actual applications. Some sites may only offer Linux, which may not run some applications.

4. Does it offer good levels of technical support

5. Does it run an Affiliate Program ( so if you are happy, you will recommend it, and make a few bob)

6. Does it offer a high percentage of ‘Up Time’. i.e do they have a good reputation. You don’t want your sites down rally for any time at all. Time is money.

7. Does it offer a fixed number of domain names, or sub domain names, or is it pen ended?

8, What volume of bandwidth can they offer you, or do you have to pay more over certain volumes of downloads per month.

9. Based on personal experience, if you go for a ‘branded’ web hosting site ( i.e. an affiliate of a large organization (like GoDaddy for instance) make sure that the affiliate is not going to go belly up, or walk away with your money. Check that you are covered at least in some extent from the main web server organization, I once lost all my hosting on such a service provider during 2005, which cost me dear in lost business and relocating dozens of my web sites to another host.

10. Make sure the service is within your budget.

This is not by any means an exhaustive list. There is a Blog on my main site I see the Author Bio Box) if you would like to add any other comments.

Web hosting services could cost you for as low as $10 to as high as $5,000 a month. The cost will depend on the disk space, data transfer, features you add and whether or not you require a dedicated server.

Dedicated server refers to web hosting a single company’s web site only. Dedicated servers cater for large companies with complex features in their websites. That would justify their huge monthly charges of $5,000. Chances are you are not looking to something quite that big - not yet anyways!

Payment schemes for paid web hosting are monthly, semi-annually, annually or once every 2 years.

Small companies can use shared server services so as to minimize the costs. $5,000 a month web hosting fee is definitely way too much for individuals or small to medium-sized companies. Shared servers serve the same purpose and are much more affordable.

Most paid web hosting service has money back no questions asked guarantee. They also assure you of 99% uptime. In cases where they were not able to maintain a 99% uptime, some reputable web hosting service will reimburse you an amount equal to the number of downtime minutes.

Web hosting can be a simple or complicated process depending on the kind of features your website requires. Whether you opt for a free or paid web hosting service, the decision would boil down to personal preference and necessity.

Getting on the web can be a profitable and enjoyable experience, I hope this article has helped clear up any issues you had with web hosting information.

About midPhase

Based in Chicago, IL, MidPhase has seen a steady stream of growth and prosperity in the web hosting world. Out of 40,000 web hosting companies, MidPhase is listed as the fifth fastest growing. The company is also reported to be debt free, privately held, and financially stable.

One of the company’s moral strong points is their heavy philanthropic tendencies. MidPhase gives large amounts of money to charities to benefit AIDS treatments, among others.

MidPhase Plans

MidPhase has their hosting packages broken into two basic plans: Mega-Phase and Pro-Phase.

The Mega-Phase plan, normally at $7.95 per month, is now for $6.95 per month as a spring special it provides 750 GB of disk storage, 10 TB bandwidth, unlimited email accounts, a free domain name for life, and is e-commerce ready. Support is provided for PHP, MySQL, CGI-Bin, Perl, JSP, SSI, SSL, SSH, and a private .htaccess file. Additionally, MidPhase provides their customers with a free marketing toolkit featuring search engine submission, overture advertising credit, ad tracking software, and other excellent tools.

Additionally, the SilverVPS plan, at $49.95 per month, has 15,000 MB of disk storage, 600 GB of bandwidth and the ability to host unlimited domains.

All plans feature a free setup, valued at $29.95, and, again, a free domain for life. No more annual fees to keep that domain name.

Reliability

MidPhase’s data center is located in Chicago, IL, known as the award winning Equinix IBX Center. Every server is connected directly to a line capable of up to 100 MBPS – traffic levels have never exceeded 15 MBPS so there is no need to worry about losing bandwidth and having a slow website. The data center also has primary and secondary connections to Internet backbone providers such as Time Warner, Internap, and Bell South, among others. MidPhase guarantees a 99.98% server uptime and a 99.999% network uptime on all of their hosting.

Service and Support

Service and support is available 24 hours per day, seven days per week, and 365 days per year. A variety of contact options are provided, such as a trouble ticket system with an average wait time of seven minutes, live chat with an average wait of two minutes, or telephone support with an average wait time of 11 minutes.

Additionally, a user forum and frequently asked questions area are provided to assist even the newest of webmasters with the most commonly sought out questions and problems. Finally, animated Flash tutorials are provided for those who prefer to be shown visually how to set up their email, log in to their web site or many other procedures.

Conclusion

An award-winning hosting service, pricing that is very easy on the pocket book, and a money back guarantee offer a very nice and enticing entry to this hosting company. Top-notch hardware and excellent support nicely round out this company’s already impressive array of offerings and make MidPhase a sure-fire winner.

	Mega-PHASE	Pro-PHASE
Disk Space	200,000 MB 750,000 MB	250,000 MB 999,000 MB
Number of Domain Names	Host 1 20 Domain Names	Host Unlimited Domain Names
Special Offer	1 Free Domain 4 Life	1 Free Domain 4 Life
Bandwidth	3,000,000 MB 7,500,000 MB	Unmetered
E-commerce	Enabled	Enabled
Price	$7.95/month	$11.95/month
Setup Fee	FREE (Save $29.95!)	FREE (Save $29.95!)
Exclusive Tools:
midPhase Webmail
midPhase Cpanel
Online Billing
Advertising Credit	$50 Ad Credit $25 Ad Credit (terms) $25 Enhance Search Credit $20 Search 1-2-3 Credit	$50 Ad Credit $25 Ad Credit (terms) $25 Enhance Search Credit $20 Search 1-2-3 Credit
SiteStudio (demo)
Service Guarantee:
99.9% Uptime Guarantee
Customer Support:
24/7 Phone Support
24/7 E-mail Support
Tutorials & Online Help
Active Community
E-mail Features:
Integrated Organizer, Task Manager, Personal Memos, Address Book and Calendar
POP3 or IMAP E-mail Access
SMTP for Outgoing
Sendmail/Exim Access
Auto-Responders
Forwarding Addresses
SpamAssassin
Developers:
MySQL	1 Database	3 Databases
PHP
Python
PERL/CGI and your own CGI-BIN
phpMyAdmin
CRON Access
Server Side Includes
SSH*
Private .htaccess
File Handlers
MIME Types
IP Banning Access
Online Statistics:
Webalizer
Analog
Current Visitors Reports
Sub-domain Stats
E-commerce Features:
PayPal Support
Merchant Account Support
OS Commerce
Agora Cart
Self-Signed SSL
Web Design Technology:
Dreamweaver Support
FTP Client Support
Online SiteStudio
FTP Access
Online Form Builder
CMS Software

UK2 Continues Expansion by Acquiring Shared Hosting Assets from midPhase Services Inc.

Leading web hosting organization UK-2 Group, Ltd. (www.uk2group.com), announced today that it has completed the acquisition of US hosting provider midPhase Services Inc.’s Shared and Virtual Private Server businesses. This acquisition continues the expansion plans of UK-2 Group and closely follows the recent acquisition of clients from US host Stargate.

“We are extremely happy to announce our acquisition of midPhase” commented UK-2 Group CEO Ditlev Bredahl. “It is the next step towards achieving our ambitious growth strategy and the continued international expansion of UK-2 Group. This acquisition now makes UK-2 Group one of the largest international hosting companies, which will allow us to have a hugely positive impact on the marketplace.”

UK-2 Group has been a significant player in the British and European hosting markets for many years, and recently underwent a large restructure, making important organizational changes in readiness for customer growth plans and challenging the bigger hosting brands. UK-2 is one of the largest domain registrars in the UK having registered over 1 million domain names.

“Zak and I are both very happy to announce the handover of our shared and VPS customers to UK-2. We’re very happy to have been able to reach a deal which results in minimal disruption to our customers,” said Dan Ushman, Co-founder and President of midPhase Services, Inc.

UK-2 Group intends to continue operation of midPhase’s various brands, including: midPhase.com, ANHosting.com and Autica.com, due to its successful approach and market leadership to date. UK2 will not integrate midPhase into any existing UK-2 Group brand. This means there will be no impact on existing midPhase customers in terms of products, services, prices and support. UK-2 does not plan to migrate servers and has chosen to collocate the existing midPhase servers with SingleHop, Inc., a company owned and operated by Zak Boca and Dan Ushman.

About UK2
UK-2 Group, a major player in the British hosting industry since the late nineties, provides domain name registration and web hosting services to many customers through its family of hosting brands - UK2.net, US2.net and Resell.biz. The group operates its services out of several state of the art, multi million pound data centers and are committed to providing reliable, secure and great value products and services underpinned with excellent support. UK2-Group is also a major shareholder in the merged Redbus Interhouse and Telecity Group, the leading European data centre provider.
About midPhase Services, Inc.

midPhase Services, Inc. is a privately held web hosting and Internet services company founded in 2003 and based out of Chicago. midPhase provides budget, shared, advanced and other types of web hosting services to a wide range of clients ranging from small business to individuals. By providing a robust technological base and reasonable pricing, midPhase is able to offer customers an unbeatable value. midPhase is able to distinguish itself from countless other providers by offering an incredible value to our customers. This combination of advanced products and affordability has helped midPhase retain a record-breaking growth pattern, faster than the industry average every month since inception. Unlike most web-hosting providers, midPhase owns all of the hardware it uses. midPhase does not rent or lease servers.

Level 1 PCI DSS Certified Service Provider! DataPipe delivers the best network & support; top tier data centers; New York metro, Silicon Valley, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai. DataPipe - Personal Touch, Global Reach.

“We’ve spent a lot of time thinking of the best way to do this,” says Dan Ushman, co-founder and VP of marketing for midPhase. “We have come up with a simple, fast and uniquely tailored service called Design-PHASE. You get five custom-designed pages, finished in just five days, for a very affordable price.”

Customers will receive one-on-one service with a designer from midPhase’s design team. This person will manage all of midPhase’s in-house design work and will work with the customer to achieve a result tailored to meet his or her needs, says the company. According to Ushman, all code written is W3C compliant and the designs look the same in every browser. In addition, there are no templates and customers receive two revision rounds.

In light of the launch, midPhase is offering a free custom logo design and one additional page design if an order is placed before February 2.

MidPhase also announced last week it achieved record growth in 2006.