Web Hosting Reviews

How To Get Your Web Host Featured On Our Website

Over the period of last few months we have received several dozens of requests by different web hosting providers to be featured and review on our website. Unfortunately we were able to address only few of those requests and actually produced only one review.

Although we would like to have as many web hosting providers reviewed as we possibly can, there is no full time staffers managing this blog. Of course it would be helpful if the web hosting providers who ask to be featured on Web-hostingreview.com would prominently display the information about their companies on their own websites. One of the main reasons we have decided not to proceed with the rest of requests was that we could not locate some essential information on the companies websites.

To facilitate and speed up the process we have decided to create a special page where web hosting providers can request to be feature on this website. If you are working for or representing a web hosting company, feel free to use the form on the above mentioned page to have your web host featured on our site.

Benefits of being featured on Web-Hostingreview.com

We work hard on promoting this website, and there is no reason you, the web hosting company, should not benefit from the work we have already accomplished. Once your request is reviewed and processed, your company will benefit from following:

• be featured on a prominent profile placement on our blog (see following few examples: Bluehost, Apollo Web Hosting, HostGator, LiquidWeb)- the profile will remain with us for the life of this website
• depending on the number, nature and quality of reviews we receive about your company- we may consider to follow your company more closely and from time to time dedicate special posts about your companies new products, achievements and awards.
• starting in 2009 our website will begin to give awards and recognitions of our own- should you company preform well and receive outstanding reviews, your company will be considered for an award from us

We look forward to your requests. If you think the form we have provided is incomplete we are opened to your suggestions- feel free to voice them here in the comments section.

Basic Things You Should Know About .htaccess

Many web hosting providers, offer access to a file called .htaccess – hypertext access. This “dot” file (the name begins with a “.”) when placed in a particular directory provides the ability for customization of the configuration of certain requests to that particular directory and it’s subdirectories. Following are the most common uses of the .htaccess file:

• Rewriting URLs (aka Mode Rewrite)– is probably one of the most common uses of .htaccess file. Some blogging platforms and Content Management Systems by default produce URLs that may contain parameters in them, which are commonly referred as “ugly urls”. Implementing the mode-rewrite should not be attempted if you are not comfortable modifying the .htaccess. Platforms like WordPress or Joomle (as well as many others) provide either a reconfigured .htaccess file or allow modifying that file through the platforms interface.
• Customization of the error responses. You can also use .htaccess to to customize which page should be shown to a visitor if a server side error occurs. For example you can tell your server to show a specific page if 404 Not Found error occurs by creating a custom “Not Found” page which can resemble the look and feel of the rest of your website and placing the following line into your .htaccess file:
  ErrorDocument 404 /Not-Found.html
  The above command will only work if the custom error page is placed in the root directory of your website (example: http://www.yourwebsite.com/Not-Found.html )
• Redirects– another common use of .htaccess file is to implemen redirects. You can find more about 301 redirects, including non-Apache and Non-Linux servers here. One of the common redirects used by many web masters consist of following code in the .htaccess file:

  redirect /file.html http://www.somesite.com/
  The above command instructs to redirect a user to a specified URL.

• Authorization and authentication. The .htaccess cna be often use to restrict the access to certain directories on your server. This is accomplished with an aid of .htpasswd file which is used to store valid user names and passwords needed to access a Basic Things You Should Know About .htaccessdirectory.
• Cache (Cash ) control– allows you control user agent caching used by web browsers, which can reduce bandwidth usage and server load.

While .htaccess offers incredible flexibility in configuring your websites, it is also should be noted that use of this file can result in performance loss and may cause some security issues if not configured properly.

If you know of any other uses of .htaccess file, feel free to voice them in the comments.

WordPress vs TypePad- Poll

While some of my friends think that WordPress sucks, I am a huge fan of the blogging platform. I would recommend WordPress to any one for any purpose. So whenever I get an e-mail asking me to recommend something else “as compared” to WordPress, I feel like exploding. So hopefully after this post no one will ask me to compare anything to WordPress (yeah right!). Yes I am a bias. But hopefully readers and visitors to this blog are not as bias as I am….

The other day I have received and e-mail in which I was asked to help making a choice between WordPress and TypePad. I did not answer the e-mail. Instead I decided to ask readers and visitors to help me out.

Please tell me why do you recommend either of the blogging platforms.

I would really love to hear why did you choose one over another- please explain it in the comments.

How To Install WordPress On Bluehost… And Other Web Hosts

Currently there are three ways you can install WordPress on BlueHost: you can install it manually, using Fantastico or SimpleScripts. Manual and Fantasctico installation can probably be used on 99% of web hosts today. SimpleScripts on the other hand is Bluehost’s “invention” and only handful of web hosting providers are offering SimpleScripts to their clients.

Installing Your WordPress Manually (Least Recommended)

I am not going to spend much time on this one, since the good folks at WordPress have created am outstanding manual which you can use if you desire to install your WordPress manually. If you host does not offer an installation script (such as Fantastico), you may have no other choice. Otherwise I would recommend using Fantastico for such purpose, or SimpleScripts.

Installing WordPress Using Fantastico.

If your web hosting providers offers you to manage your account cPanel chances are it has Fantastico – just look for a blue smiley face in once logged into your cPanel (just as shown in the image to the right). After clicking on it follow the steps below:

1. From Fantastico naviagtion menu click on “WordPress” to be taken to page with the quick references about WordPress installations on your website. There might not be much information if you have never installed WordPress on your website:



2. Next click New Installation to be taken to the next step:



3. In this step you will be asked to provide information needed to install your WordPress. For the purpose of illustration we’ll install WordPress on our website www.web-howtingreview.com, placing it in a directory called “wordpress”, therefore our new WordPress can be accessed by using following URL – http://www.web-hostingreview.com/wordpress/ . You may however chose to install the WordPress at the top level of your domain (in this case just leave the “Install In Directory” empty. Below the snapshot are short explanation of each piece of info you will enter and how it is used to power your WordPress:



4. After clicking the “Install WordPress” button you will be brought to a review page:

   
   At this point nothing was installed, you need to click “Finish Installation” to complete your WordPress installation.

5. After you click “Finish Installation” button, you will be taken to a confirmation page where you can specify an email address to which the details of your new installation will be sent. It is a good idea to have that information handy in the future since it includes the user name, password and details about newly created MySQL database.

Installing WordPress via Fantastico should not take more than 5 minutes – but it if course can vary depending on your internet connection.

Installing WordPress Using SimpleScripts

If your web hosting provider allows you may want to choose to install using SimpleScripts. You can also locate simple SimpleScripts in your cPanel. For the full list of participating web hosts visit SimpleScripts‘ sign up page. Some of the participating web hosts have chose to pay for their clients for the use of SimpleScripts, but you need to login into SimpleScripts from your cPanel.

The tutorial bellow was compiled while installing the WordPress with Bluehost, but the process should be similar (if not identical) with any web host.

1. Once logged into your SimpleScripts click on WordPress installation icon, to be taken to WordPress installation overview:



2. Click “Install Now” to be take to a page where you will provide some essential information for your new installation:



3. Provide information need it for your installation. Here you can choose the version of WordPress (latest is always recommended), the directory on your website, etc. :






4. Click “Complete” button- you will be taken to a confirmation page as shown below:

That’s it, you have just installed WordPress on your Bluehost account using SimpleScripts.

This tutorial should be used at your own risk and discretion.

The above tutorial was inspired by a question we have received from one of our readers. If you would like ask a question please use our contact form. Not all the questions will be featured on our blog, however every question gets an answer.