DEV Community: Online Tools Expert

The Need To Have A Good Web Hosting Company

Online Tools Expert — Sat, 20 Jun 2020 09:44:06 +0000

As you are setting up your website on the internet, it is important to have a good quality web hosting company to host your site and ensure that it runs in the best possible manner. You need to be cautious about the web hosting company you choose as a lot of scammers and fake companies exist in the market today.

Web hosting is considered to be one of the most important things for making a website since it is where your entire website and its database will reside. The main purpose of web hosting is to make your website easily accessible to people around the world through the internet.

There are many types of hosting packages available today for both small and large-sized websites. These packages are classified into web hosting and VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting plans which helps you to save on the cost and also makes sure that your website runs smoothly and effectively.

Since there are so many companies offering these services, it is essential that you know how to choose the best web hosting company for your needs. There are some things you need to look for in web hosting that can help you find a suitable web hosting provider.

It is important that you need to know how much bandwidth and storage space you will need before you go shopping for a web hosting company. This will ensure that you have a cheap and reliable hosting plan that meets your needs. The fact that your hosting company offers you unlimited bandwidth and storage space will obviously help you save a lot of money.

Some hosting companies offer unlimited disk space, but if you have large sites then you will have to look for a web hosting company that offers you a large amount of disk space. Some of the major hosting companies offer a reasonable amount of disk space and other hosting companies will give you a lot of disk space at a very reasonable price. Once you know how much disk space you need then you can easily compare different web hosting companies and choose the one that offers you the best deal.

Before you go out and choose a hosting package from the market, it is also important that you need to consider the customer support of the company that you want to buy your hosting plan from. This will ensure that your hosting company is reliable and is going to offer you with quality support for your hosting needs.

The only way to determine whether a web hosting company is the best one is to test it out and see how it runs. So, take the time to do a little research about web hosting and find a hosting company that can help you make your site as profitable as possible.
If it made you curious, check out our VeeroTech webhosting review, which is probably the best hosting server this days.

What is Linux Server Hosting?

Online Tools Expert — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 19:23:41 +0000

Linux Hosting is any type of hosting using the operating system called Linux on the server. Linux is a Unix-like operating system provided as a free, open-source choice. Linux is the most common and widely used operating system in the web hosting industry.

Even though Windows OS is the most widely used OS for computers because of its simplicity to use, this isn’t the case with Windows Hosting. Windows Hosting is very complex compared to Linux Hosting. And it doesn’t support PHP, a scripting language which is widely used and very simple. This makes way for Linux Hosting. So no wonder Linux Hosting Powers about 80% of web servers in the world.

And we’re all price-conscious who need top-notch features at a very low price. This is why Linux Hosting is most preferred as opposed to Windows Hosting.

So the challenge here is to choose a web hosting provider who provides the best service for the money that we shell out. So there are some factors you need to analyze before going with a web hosting provider.

If it made you curious, learn more about Linux hosting, which is probably the best hosting server this days.

Why Should You Start a Blog?

Online Tools Expert — Sat, 02 May 2020 18:39:50 +0000

Books and articles provide information, work gives experience, and a blog helps to comprehend all this. It will assist you to hold in your head not 1%, but 3% of useful information. Three times more, by the way! The numbers are conditional, but they demonstrate the main principle. Also, a specialist with a blog will become more known in his field than a specialist without a blog.

Other blogging rules and benefits:

1. Blogging boosts your understanding of things. While you writing, you yourself will understand the topic better.

2. If you have to explain something for the third time, write a post and give a link to it. This will save time in the future.

3. Some posts will be useful to other people. These people will trust you more. Inside the company, this happens very quickly, changing attitudes and atmosphere. Especially important for distributed teams.

4. A professional blog is more important than any resume.

"Hire great writers. When choosing between several applicants for the same position, give preference to someone who is better at writing. It does not matter if this person is a marketer, seller, designer, programmer, or anyone else, his writing skills will pay off."

5. Being a good writer means more than being able to write. The ability to clearly state one's thoughts is a sign of a clear mind. Great writers can interact with other people. They make things more understandable. They can imagine themselves in the place of someone else. They know what can be neglected. And these are the qualities that you want to see in any candidate. "

6. A blog is a personal project. Blogging trains self-discipline and the skill of managing long projects.

7. A blog works as a thought book: it describes an idea --- it frees up space in the head for the next. You can not even publish. I have 97 drafts and I'm unlikely to publish most of them. This is normal.

The blog is well suited for exploring a new field of knowledge. Keep a blog as a diary, organize information. This will serve as proof that you are ready for real tasks in this area. "

If it made you curious, learn more about how to start a WordPress blog, which is the best blogging platform these days.

What is FTP (File Transfer Protocol)?

Online Tools Expert — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 22:41:21 +0000

FTP is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol. As the name suggests, FTP is used to transfer files between computers on a network. You can use FTP to exchange files between computer accounts, transfer files between an account and a desktop computer, or access online software archives. Keep in mind, however, that many FTP sites are heavily used and require several attempts before connecting.

How to use FTP?

Graphical FTP clients

Graphical FTP clients simplify file transfers by allowing you to drag and drop file icons between windows. When you open the program, enter the name of the FTP host (for example, ftp.microsoft.com) and your username and password. If you are logging into an anonymous FTP server, you may not have to enter anything. Two common FTP programs are Cyberduck (for Mac) and WinSCP (for Windows).

Web browser

You can use a web browser to connect to FTP addresses exactly as you would to connect to HTTP addresses. Using a web browser for FTP transfers makes it easy for you to browse large directories and read and retrieve files. Your web browser will also take care of some of the details of connecting to a site and transferring files. While this method is convenient, web browsers are often slower and less reliable and have fewer features than dedicated FTP clients.

To use your web browser to connect to an FTP site such as ftp.empire.gov, where you normally enter a URL, enter:

ftp://username@ftp.empire.gov/

Command-line FTP

Windows, macOS, and Linux have built-in command-line clients; see Common FTP commands. For example, to start FTP, at the command-line prompt, enter:

ftp ftp.empire.gov
If you are connecting to your own account, enter your username and password. If you are connecting to an anonymous FTP site, for your username, enter anonymous. For your password, enter your email address.
Check it out to learn more about FTP.

9 Tips Before Buying A Domain Name

Online Tools Expert — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 16:08:21 +0000

Before you purchase a domain name, consider doing some proper investigation. After all, the name of your website is one of the first things that visitors will see. Here are some important tips to keep in mind:

Do your research. It’s important to study your niche and to know what the average user wants. Being aware of the most popular keywords and search terms will let you find a domain name that’s best suited to represent your project.
Make it catchy and easy to remember. Don’t go for something that is absurdly long or difficult to pronounce. A catchy and short domain name will greatly increase the chances of visitors remembering your website name.
Go with .com if possible. Currently, .com is taking a firm stand as the most popular domain name extension. Thus, it’s a good priority when buying a domain name, as most web users will easily recognize it.
Check for trademark infringement. To avoid any legal issues, it’s best not to register a domain similar to popular, well-established brands. You can use various online tools to look up trademark information and avoid such situations.
Avoid numbers and hyphens. While numbers and hyphens let you create more domain name variations, they can sometimes do more harm than good. For example, people can mistake the number zero (0) with the letter (o) or the number (2) for a word (two). Hence omitting numbers and hyphens may be a good idea.
Look for close alternatives. If you already have a domain name in mind, think of possible mistype variations to make sure all the potential traffic reaches you. A great example would be amzon.com which takes you the main Amazon website, or fb.com which goes directly to Facebook.
Research social media platforms. Once you have a rough draft of your domain name, look it up on popular social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram or Facebook. Even if you’re not planning to do anything with them at the start, reserving a page for your project will ensure it’s not taken by someone else.
Think future-proof. Websites and domains are a long-term investment. Hence revolving the name around the most overhyped thing at this very moment might not be the best approach in the long run. So don’t be afraid to think outside the box! Also, know that all the field is regualted by ICANN.
Discuss your ideas. If you feel like picking the right name for your website is the hardest choice of your life, perhaps you need some help. Present your ideas to friends, family, colleagues. Who knows, they might give you that golden nugget of advice that you’re looking for.

To learn more, you can check for example this how to register a domain name guide.

Registrations for .inc domain names are open, but is it worth it to get one?

Online Tools Expert — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 18:10:07 +0000

There’s a new top-level domain seeking to give businesses a home on the internet, as an alternative to .com or .org. The .inc registry, opening on Wednesday, joins the fray of over 1,000 generic top-level domains (gTLDs) opened for registration following ICANN’s decision to allow for arbitrary top-level domains to be created back in 2013.

The .inc registry is being positioned as “an intuitive domain ending that quite literally ‘means business’,” and “the black card of the internet.” This is a distinction the initiative quite likely deserves, as Intercap Registry is asking $2,500 per year in registration fees for a .inc domain name — a steep price compared to the $12 per year Google Domains asks for a .com domain.
Registering a .inc domain name does come with business benefits other gTLDs do not offer, however. The company touts offers like “up to $1,000 in free transaction fee credits” from Square, and “free base formation, name check, tax ID, & Minutes and Bylaws” from LegalZoom, in addition to other benefits from Intuit, Google Ads, WeWork, Indeed, VistaPrint and others. These benefits might make the upfront cost sting slightly less, though these are not recurring benefits — making the proposition value of these benefits less useful after the first year.

Launch spokesperson Shayan Rostam is also claiming that the introduction of .inc protects against cybersquatting, or registering a domain containing a trademark in bad faith to sell it to the trademark owner for an inflated price. Cybersquatting is technically illegal in the US, though jurisdiction issues limit the efficacy of regulation. Likewise, the cost of going through arbitration channels to force forfeiture of domain names is a lengthy and expensive process, giving cybersquatters room to profit in the low five figures by simply offering a domain for sale at a lower price than the cost of arbitration.
The registration of a .inc domain name, for comparison, is essentially too high for cybersquatters to meaningfully profit, though this “solution” does little more than change which pocket such money would go to.

How do I register a .inc domain name?

Prior to general availability, there are two “early bird” registration periods. The first is from March 27 to April 30, and “is exclusively for trademark holders to secure their intellectual property,” according to Rostam. The “priority public” period is from April 30 to May 7, to allow organizations to register variations of trademarks or “or other domains that are important to their businesses.” Registration fees are higher during this time. For trademark holders, the fees are $3,600, though fees jump to $59,999 when the priority public period opens.

Should I register a .inc domain name?

Understanding of gTLDs among the general public is still not particularly high, so most companies have stuck with .com despite other options being available. The .biz TLD, introduced in 2001 in an attempt to address congestion of the .com TLD, has stagnated at 2 million registrations for roughly the last 10 years even without the price premium that .inc is asking. (Rostam states that “.biz doesn’t look or sound professional, and it’s frequently blocked by spam filters because .biz is commonly used by bad actors.” The spam claims, at least, are true.)
For comparison, the .llc gTLD launched in mid-2018, and has 6,399 registered domains as of March 25, 2019. If your company is smaller, that might be worth a consideration at $30 per year, though it is easy to imagine people trying to type in businessname.llc.com due to a lack of public awareness of that gTLD.
To the credit of Intercap, there are not excessive restrictions on how you can use a .inc domain name. Using one for internal-facing systems, like an employee portal, is allowed.

Ultimately, registering a .inc name is difficult to recommend unless your organization can afford a recurring $2,500 fee, when far less expensive options are available.

To learn more, check out about .inc domain name.

WP Engine Review : Hosting Plans, Pros & Cons 🔍

Online Tools Expert — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 15:58:26 +0000

Getting started with WordPress is easy. Most web hosting services offer simple one-click installations, and some also provide more capable managed WordPress plans. But although every provider claims great WordPress expertise, these plans are usually just a tiny part of the overall product range, and there's no way to tell how much experience of the platform a host might really have.

WP Engine is a provider of managed WordPress hosting – and nothing else. There are no e-commerce plans, VPS, dedicated servers or anything else to get in the way, just a single-minded focus on delivering and managing the best possible WordPress service. And the results look impressive, with the company trampling over the competition in just about every area.

All hosts claim their WordPress plans are optimized for speed, for instance, but typically that just means installing a few standard tools (NGINX, Varnish) and tweaking a handful of settings. WP Engine has its own custom EverCache system, HTTP/2 and PHP 7 support, a free CDN and a choice of data centers in North America, Europe and Asia.

Your site isn't hosted on some cheap and underpowered VPS, either. WP Engine is now using Google Cloud Platform interfaces in many zones, and the company claims these are 40% faster than Google's previous instances. (We're not going to try to assess that, but it's good to have transparency about the hosting infrastructure.)

An auto-migration plugin helps to import you existing site, or you might build something new with help from 36 bundled premium WordPress themes.

WP Engine does its best to keep the service running smoothly, automatically installing major WordPress updates and testing minor ones before recommending them. There's built-in malware detection and blocking, and help removing anything that might get through. Even if all that fails, you can still fall back on the automated daily backup (typically a premium extra elsewhere).

To learn more about WP Engine, check out the full WP Engine Review.

Google launches Site Kit plugin for WordPress

Online Tools Expert — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 09:38:49 +0000

Google announced Thursday that Site Kit is available globally for WordPress users.

What is Site Kit. Site Kit is a WordPress plugin that allows users to set up and configure Google services to get insights in their WordPress dashboards.

Users can see stats from Google Search Console, Google Analytics, PageSpeed Insights, AdSense all in one place.

Because it’s a plugin, it doesn’t require source code editing. Site owners can also assign roles and grant individual permissions

The company released Site Kit in developer preview earlier this year and says thousands of developers have installed it.

What does the dashboard offer? There is a main dashboard, shown above that provides a high-level view of significant changes and how users are finding your site.

Individual page reports show how specific content is performing.

You can also do things like enable PageSpeed Insights and Analytics in order to “see whether page load time affects bounce rate.”

Why we should care. The ability to see all of the metrics about your site performance that are captured across these various Google products in one with Site Kit will give WordPress users an out-of-the-box dashboard experience without the headache of pulling data from these disparate sources.

You can download the Site Kit plugin from the WordPress directory. Check it out for more information about Google Site Kit.

What is SiteGround?

Online Tools Expert — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 21:05:10 +0000

A popular and highly-regarded web hosting service for WordPress, SiteGround offers excellent WP speeds and security solutions. These capabilities ensure that you get the Website speed and security that you need. It has a myriad of features that you will find very beneficial, which include automatic updates, CDN, GIT version control, one-click installation and WP caching. These functionalities are intended to keep your site running all the time.

What’s great about SiteGround is its provision of location-specific web hosting services. This is made possible through the service’s data centers in the United States, Asia and Europe. Uptimes of 99.9% are guaranteed with the platform’s fast servers. The vendor also does not take security lightly, having security measures in place such as antispam apps, hotlink protection and anti-hacking monitoring capabilities. You can also be sure that your passwords are safe with the service’s Leech Protect feature. Password checking and password strength enforcement can also be done using its password checker.

In addition, SiteGround provides freebies that include daily backups, free setup, free domains, unlimited bandwidth and emails, free setup and migration and free CloudFlare CDN. A built-in control panel enables users to create multiple email addresses. It can likewise access open source apps such as PrestaShop, CS-Cart and Magento, among others. These features are ideal for users who want to set up online stores, shopping cart or other eCommerce components.

The service comes in a variety of pricing schemes, which start at $3.95 per month. You can also avail of a free trial but the vendor offers a 30-day money back guarantee.

For more information, check out this SiteGround web hosting review.

New Income Stream for Your Site: How Website Owners Can Run a Successful Site Monetization With Repixel

Online Tools Expert — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 17:22:37 +0000

Have you ever noticed that when you’re shopping for something but you decide not to make a purchase, for the next couple of weeks (or even months), you’ll start seeing a noticeable surge in the number of online advertisements that show up for that item? That’s retargeting at work.

Advertisers have been leveraging this technique for decades now, and it’s typically very effective. But by definition, traditional retargeting is limited in scale by the number of people visiting your website.

Now, a new tool has been introduced by Repixel.co which allows you to monetize your site(s) without displaying any ads, but by empowering the retargeting possibilities of its ad network. To learn more, check out this Repixel review.

EIG the famous WordPress hosting company (Hostgator, BlueHost) to Acquire eCommerce company Ecomdash for US$9.6 Million

Online Tools Expert — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 19:41:39 +0000

From the press release:

“We are impressed with the Ecomdash management team, and the emphasis the company has placed on delivering valuable product features to its growing customer base,” said Jeffrey H. Fox, president and chief executive officer of Endurance. “We see an opportunity to enhance the value we deliver to our customers by leveraging the team’s expertise and platform. We look forward to welcoming the entire team to Endurance and to investing to make these capabilities available across our email marketing and web presence platforms.”

“We couldn’t be more excited to join the Endurance family,” said Nick Maglosky, chief executive officer of Ecomdash. “We believe our inventory and listing management platform will provide a strong complement to Endurance’s current product set as we continue to jointly serve our customer base in this large and growing market for SMB services.”

Ecomdash is located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Under the terms of the definitive agreement, Endurance will acquire substantially all assets of Ecomdash for approximately $9.6 million to be paid in cash. The closing of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close on or before October 1, 2019. Subject to the closing of the transaction, the Company expects to provide additional information on its third quarter 2019 financial results conference call

Learn more: https://www.onlinetoolsexpert.com/endurance-international-to-acquire-ecomdash-for-us9-6-million/

What is WordPress hosting?

Online Tools Expert — Sun, 08 Sep 2019 22:37:14 +0000

WordPress hosting is an optimized shared web hosting for running WordPress sites particularly. As the overall high performance including loading speed, security, reliability, etc, it has the own characteristics and is favored by more and more WordPress users.

Besides, some web hosts provide many custom features such as marketplace integration of themes & plugins, sFTP access to WordPress platforms, automatic WordPress backup, WordPress file update versioning, and so on.

As generally accepted, there are 4 types of WordPress hosting including free, shared, VPS, dedicated and managed hosting.

Let's explore those.

Free WordPress Hosting

Some companies offer WordPress hosting for free, which is attractive but seldom good. We never recommend free WordPress hosting to anyone looking for a real online presence due to numerous drawbacks of this kind of hosting. For example, users have to put up with pop-up banners, ads or frequent shut-downs; users are not allowed to place their own ads, to access their files, or to have their own domains for free; and they’ll eventually be converted into paying customers or just leave their sites. Remember, there is always a price to pay for something free.

Shared WordPress Hosting

Shared WordPress hosting means many users host their sites on a single server, which is administered by the hosting provider. The advantage of shared hosting is its low cost because all users share the total cost of the server. Shared hosting plans are often claimed to offer unlimited bandwidth and space, but in fact the resources for each account are limited and unevenly distributed. Useful tools, such as cPanel and one-click installer, are available for users to set up and manage their sites easily.

Basically, shared WordPress hosting is a good point for anyone to start their hosting adventure. However, it works better with light-traffic websites owned by bloggers or start-up companies because an average plan can handle no more than 300 visits per day.

VPS WordPress Hosting

VPS hosting providers offer dedicated resources to all users by allocating a fixed portion of server resources to each account. Compared with shared hosting, it is more expensive as a physical server is shared by less users.

VPS offers more privileges which allow users to run multiple WordPress sites and make more profits. Besides, the performance of VPS hosting is faster and more stable because of more advanced technologies and better monitoring methods.

VPS can be used to host traffic-extensive WordPress websites such as popular blogs or medium-sized enterprises with thousands of visits per day. The VPS of InMotion Hosting is a good choice considering the balance among feature, price and performance.

Managed WordPress Hosting

Managing a big WordPress site can be a very complex task, that’s why managed WordPress hosting exists. The benefit of managed WordPress hosting is that users don’t need to worry about anything. It is the provider that deals with all the technical stuffs including server activation, site backup, security, monitoring, maintenance, and continuous optimization. So, managed hosting is more expensive than the same level of other hosting services.

It's recommended to those who are well-off but have no time or skill to manage their sites.

Check it out to learn more about what is WordPress hosting