Top 3 Best Free FTP Programs
If you’re building a site by yourself with HTML & CSS, then the next step is to move away from your site builder or file manager within your hosting account, and move to FTP (file transfer protocol). FTP is a program used to transfer files from one host (your computer) to another host (your website host) over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet.
The Doc has used FTP for over 13 years now, and has lots of experience in what FTP programs are the best and which ones are junk! Below are the Doc’s top 3 favorite FREE FTP Programs (ranked in order).
1. FileZilla
By far the Doc’s favorite FTP Client, FileZilla is not only 100% free, but extremely powerful and trimmed of any nonsense features that you would hardly use. The team that builds FileZilla is very active, with updates to the program almost weekly! Highly recommended FTP Client for everyone from beginner to advanced! Works on PC, Mac, and Linux.
2. CuteFTP Lite
The Doc used CuteFTP in the 90′s when it was free and extremely popular. These days its still great, but the basic version is not free. However, the Lite version is still a great #2 pick for FTP Client, and its free!
3. SmartFTP
A good #3 pick, SmartFTP is almost like the other 2 selected FTP Clients. One plus is the good amount of free knowledge-base information, video tutorials, and support forums. For Windows only!
All 301 Redirect Methods
Apache Web Server .htaccess file
Single Page Redirect:
Redirect 301 /old/url /new/url
or
Redirect Permanent /old/ur /new/url
Canonical Hostname Redirect (non-www to www):
This solution will redirect any page requested via a non-www domain to the same URL with the www domain, and as such it can be placed in the DocumentRoot of your site and will be enforced globally:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Microsoft IIS Web Server
Note: these instructions require administrative access to IIS. If you do not have this access (e.g., if you have a shared hosting account on a Windows server), you should use one of the server-side scripting methods such as ASP or PHP given further below.
Single Page Redirect:
Open Internet Services Manager and right-click on the file or folder you wish to redirect.
Select the radio button “a redirection to a URL”.
Enter the desitnation page for the redirect.
Check “The exact url entered above” and the “A permanent redirection for this resource”.
Hit “Apply”.
PHP 4 and PHP 5
Single Page Redirect:
<?php
header(‘HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently’);
header(‘Location: http://www.new-url.com/’);
?>
Canonical Hostname Redirect (non-www to www):
<%
If InStr(Request.ServerVariables(“SERVER_NAME”),”www”) = 0 Then
Response.Status=”301 Moved Permanently”
Response.AddHeader “Location”,”http://www.” & Request.ServerVariables(“HTTP_HOST”) & Request.ServerVariables(“SCRIPT_NAME”)
Response.End
End if
%>
Active Server Pages (ASP)
Single Page Redirect:
<%
Response.Status=”301 Moved Permanently”
Response.AddHeader=’Location’,'http://www.new-url.com/’
%>
Canonical Hostname Redirect (non-www to www):
This code should be inserted into a global include file or any ASP script which is executed for every page on the site before the page output begins:
<%
If InStr(Request.ServerVariables(“SERVER_NAME”),”www”) = 0 Then
Response.Status=”301 Moved Permanently”
Response.AddHeader “Location”,”http://www.”
& Request.ServerVariables(“HTTP_HOST”)
& Request.ServerVariables(“REQUEST_URI”)
Response.End
End if
%>
ColdFusion
Single Page Redirect:
<cfheader statuscode=”301″ statustext=”Moved permanently”>
<cfheader name=”Location” value=”http://www.new-url.com/”>
Creating a 301 Redirect
Why do you need to worry about a 301 Redirect?
You add a 301 Redirect within your .htaccess file to establish proper search-friendly 301 redirects to manage duplicate content issues and changes to your site’s information architecture (URL structure).
Its good to keep a habit of adding a 301 redirect when you create your website, but you might get an error message from Google Webmaster Tools or Bing Webmaster Tools that you have a “URL Canonicalization (URL Normalization)” issue.
How do you create a 301 Redirect?
Simple, just create or edit your .htaccess file (located in your root directory).
- Find and open your .htaccess file
- Add the code below to the bottom of the file
- Replace the DOMAIN with your actual domain (DON’T FORGET!)
- Save your .htaccess file and replace with the existing file in your server.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Note: This solution will redirect any page requested via a non-www domain to the same URL with the www domain. If you want to redirect individual files from an old site to a new one, visit all 301 redirect methods.
Cheap Domain and Hosting
These days, websites are being built on cloud hosting services and prices for hosting are gradually rising. The cost for a domain name has also increased from around just $5 per domain in 2005 to around $12 per domain (per year) in 2012.
I always look out for discount coupons and special promotions for cheap domain and hosting, and listed below are the best companies currently providing cheap domain registration and website hosting plans. They are also recommended because of good support and honest business ethics. Always do your research before buying yourself!
Cheap Domain Registration
Netfirms
(Use Coupon: Cyber495 for $4.95 domain)
Cheap Hosting
Top 2 Best WordPress Blog Hosting Companies
While you can easily host your future WordPress blog with any hosting company, there are a few web hosting companies that provide the rich hosting environment for your WordPress site to flourish.
Our first pick is Bluehost, which is a fantastic web hosting company that the Doc always recommends. On top of having the instant “WordPress Auto-Install” feature, Bluehost installs new WordPress updates within 24 hours, other hosts take their time and sometimes go months until updating.
Whats next? Well you get Unlimited disk storage and Unlimited monthly data transfer, Unlimited domains on 1 account, 1 free domain name for as long as you host with BlueHost, 2500 POP / WebMail addresses, 50 MySQL databases, free control panel, free Fantastico, free SimpleScripts, 24/7 network monitoring, 99% uptime guarantee, mirrored storage backups, no hidden fees.
Another company gaining huge momentum these days is Page.ly which is a WordPress only hosting company. Talk about expertise hosting! The team behind this company dedicate their time and services to only WordPress clients, so that they can focus their time and support with anything WordPress related. After signup, your website is up in 2 minutes, and your disk space & bandwidth are scaleable & fault tolerant to handle any huge spikes in traffic. Its always good to be on the safe side!
Both these companies use the next generation firewall and secure cloud technology, and both are the best WordPress blog hosting companies according to the Doc! Both have expert support services for WordPress users and you can cancel your contract at any time.
Web Hosting Services For Your eBay Store & More!
Without a doubt, becoming an eBay seller can lead to a very profitable career for some. Selling products online from the convenience of your home or small warehouse can mean you have the time to initially set up your products on eBay and sell while you sleep!
Here are some recommended businesses to help you manage your eBay Auction site.
Auctiva is a free marketing tools website with lots of resources to make selling on eBay easy and profitable. From 1,800+ professionally designed eBay templates, to our cross-promotional Scrolling Gallery, to Auctiva’s easy-to-use One-page Lister, using this website will start saving you time and increasing your profitability from day one.
- The largest selection of eBay listing templates
- A quick, easy-to-use One-page Lister
- Our incredibly popular FREE Scrolling Gallery
- Abundant help resources
- World-class customer support
- Compatibility with eBay’s latest features & policies
- Frequent updates including user-requested features
- E-commerce education and expert advice
- A comprehensive set of tools to list, market and manage all your eBay listings
Vendio is a company that allows you to open a free online store and sell products on eBay, Amazon, Facebook & more. The e-commerce software solution does it all.
- Pay nothing!
- Unlimited products – Sell 10 or 10,000 products, there’s no limit.
- Automate sales – Run your eBay business with ease.
- Secured data – Hosted on reliable and secure servers with SSL encryption.
Hope these 2 websites help you start your eBay business online and get a great design for your eBay store.
Basics of Web Hosting
Before you begin to look for cheap web hosting plans, you need to know the fundamentals of web hosting. Below are some examples of everyday website talk that you might experience.
What is the World Wide Web?
- The Web is a network of computers all over the world.
- All the computers in the Web can communicate with each other.
- All the computers use a communication protocol called HTTP.
How does the WWW work?
- Web information is stored in documents called web pages.
- Web pages are files stored on computers called web servers.
- Computers reading the web pages are called web clients.
- Web clients view the pages with a program called a web browser.
- Popular browsers are Internet Explorer and Firefox.
How does a Browser Fetch a Web Page?
- A browser fetches a page from a web server by a request.
- A request is a standard HTTP request containing a page address.
- An address may look like this: http://www.example.com/default.htm.
Find Hosting of Website
Want to find the best hosting for your website?
What kind of hosting do you need depends on what kind of website you want to build.
Simple website hosting
For simple site hosting, you don’t have to look further than disk space and monthly bandwidth usage. If you are hosting a simple business website, blog, or personal page, you only really need about 500mb of disk space (about 40-50 pages of content with medium image usage), and about 1gb-5gb of monthly bandwidth to handle about 500-1000 daily unique visitors.
E-commerce website hosting & Complex site hosting
For more complex websites like an e-commerce store or a complex site like magazine/news, community boards, and so on, you need to look deeper than just disk space and bandwidth usage. Find out how many MySQL databases you need, if you’re hosting a blog, you need only 1 database per wordpress blog. If you want to have a blog, forum, and other dynamic features all in one hosting account, then you need to seek a hosting company that provides more than a few MySQL databases.
You might also want to check email accounts allowed per account if you intend to have staff working with you on the site, so they can manage tasks and communicate.
There is a free way to have unlimited branded emails though, and thats with “email forwarders“, which means you basically create branded email accounts like “admin@webhostingdoc.com”, and then have any emails sent to that name directed to one of your freely hosted email accounts like gmail or yahoomail.
In closing..
You don’t need to get overwhelmed by all the different options provided by hosting companies to find hosting of your website. Lots of the features added to their list is just extras that you barely might use. The fundamentals are disk space and bandwidth, and then the next most important is MySQL Databases and Email Accounts if you want to have a more grander website.
If you need help finding the right web hosting company, the doc is here top help! Just contact us for help and we will gladly do our best to find the right host for your website.
Biggest Web Hosts Worldwide
Its true that when you host with a smaller hosting company, you tend to get better quality support, but the biggest web hosts are there for a reason and that’s because of great hosting infrastructure and the lowest hosting prices online. Below are the biggest web hosts worldwide, with the best hosting prices online.
- Host Gator – By far one of the biggest web hosts online, Host Gator hosts over 7 million domains online today with thousands of new signups daily. With this much membership, you can bet that they have top of the line hosting servers with guaranteed 99.9% uptime. Prices start as low as $3.96 monthly, and there are tons of extra features. Check them out today for solid hosting.
- Blue Host – Hosting millions of domains and up to 20,000 new members monthly, Bluehost is one of the bigger web hosting companies that tries to personalize with their clients to maintain the small company appeal. Though their prices start a bit higher than the other 2 big hosting companies (at $5.95 a month), they offer superior customer support and also have tons of bonuses when signing up.
- Just Host – Another one of the bigger web hosting companies online. They also host millions of domains and have plans as low as $3.50, including tons of added bonuses like $150 in Google Adwords and Bing Advertising credits. If you want the lowest priced & biggest web hosts online, this is your best bet.
Free Web Hosting Provider 2012
Free hosting is hard to come by these days, but the Doc did some research and found 2 free web hosting providers that are above the rest.
000WebHost.com
This free host provider gives 1500 MB of free disk space and 100 GB data transfer. That is more than enough hosting for a small business site or even a mini-forum, and you have more than enough bandwidth for massive traffic use.
Webs.com
The Doc considers Webs.com as the premier free web hosting company online, 24/7 support, and great add-ons like SEO helper, free website builder, and free mobile site option.
The Doc recommends you take a look at both hosts and see which is right for you, depending on how much space and bandwidth you need. If you need a free site without ads, go with 000WebHost. If you want hosting from the most popular free web host today with lots of extra options, Webs.com is for you!
