Web Hosting Blog » Tutorials & Guides

Search Engine Optimization 201: Off-Page SEO Issues

Chinonye — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:00:35 +0000

You’ve learned what can be done on-page to help increase your search engine rankings and how you can help engines like Google find your page faster and index it on a regular basis. But search engine optimization goes deeper than that, and there are a number of performance metrics that underlie high-performing sites. Thanks to tools now available online combined with knowledge about what kind of links generate the best traffic, you can expand the impact of your website and capitalize on gains you’ve already made with your on-page SEO efforts.

Analyzing the Data

The first step in building a better SEO profile lies in looking under the hood and seeing what visitors are searching for, how long they’re spending on your site, and what types of content are most viewed. In order to help you find out what’s going on behind the screen, search engines like Yahoo, Google and Bing have developed analytical tools that allow you to see how your site is being viewed in nearly real-time.

Google Analytics is free to use, and allows you to track the number of visitors to your site, how long they stayed and how well your content is performing. In addition, the application will let you compare data across a broad spectrum of dates and other modifiers, and can be setup to automatically notify you if there is a significant change in recorded data patterns. Yahoo gives you a customizable dashboard that allows you to install multiple widgets – each representing a point of data collection or collation. Data can be seen within minutes of a visit to your website, and up to 50 actions can be tracked at any moment.

Webmaster tools can also be of benefit to your site’s success, and the Google Webmaster application will allow you to do a number of things, including analyzing how your site is perceived by Google, how your site is found in searches and the program will also send email alerts if malware is discovered on your site or if errors are returned when customers are searching for it. Tools provided by search engines themselves can be very useful in tailoring your site to perform up and above their expectations.

Why Hosting Matters

You have a number of choices when it comes to hosting your website. Doing it yourself is possible, but not particularly cost effective. Shared hosting is still a valid option, but shared IP addresses may lead to trouble if other users are using SEO methods that are not entirely above board. If you’re looking for a way to give yourself a bump and feel that this might be a factor, try adding your own dedicated IP address to your site.

A dedicated or VPS hosting is one way to resolve these problems, as well as helping to increase page speed and give you more exclusive resources. The more bandwidth and space your page has, the quicker it will load, and Google has stated that while it is not an overriding factor, page speed does have a minor impact on the ranking of your website.

The Right Hat, And Your Social Circle

There are a number of not entirely legitimate ways to bring traffic to your website, known as “black-hat” SEO. If your company is found to be using these, Google, Bing and other search engines will remove your page from their index, and you will not be found. The number of links that come to your site are still an important factor in your overall ranking – more links equals higher ranking – but manufacturing links or generating them from a false source will only lead to issues in the long run. SEO-focused, white-hat, organic link building using quality content is the key to long-term traffic gains.

Social media can also be a component in organic link building, and having a Facebook page, Google + page, or Twitter feed lets customers get the word out for you.

Stay Informed

Best practices for SEO are always changing – the Google Panda update is a prime example, so it’s a good idea to follow the blogs of SEO industry experts, and if possible attend an SEO conference if there happens to be in one in your area. A little knowledge can go a long way in avoiding SEO pitfalls and growing your site using analysis, the right hosting and social link-building.

Search Engine Optimization 101: On-Page SEO

Chinonye — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:00:51 +0000

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a term you’ve probably heard a great deal about since deciding to launch your own website. Companies all over the country are now making substantial sums of money by helping small businesses to get the most of their on-page content and increase their search rankings. Although there are a number of SEO techniques that may be best left to professionals, a great deal of on-page SEO is something you can do yourself once you know the basics.

Titles, Meta Tags and Keywords

SEO is all about ensuring that search engines can find your content, and will then list it because it provides information relevant to the product or service that you’re selling. All SEO starts with the most basic elements of your Webpage: titles and meta tags. Each page on your website should have unique and descriptive title, rather than simply “page 1, page 2” or “My Company”. By giving each page a title that indicates what it contains, it will be easier to find for both customers and search engines.

Meta tags, specifically keyword and description tags, are also important – these are pieces of HTML code on your website that are not visible to viewers, but that help search engines classify and rank your page. They should contain basic descriptions and keywords relevant to your website, without over-stuffing, as engines will ignore content or words that are endlessly duplicated.

You also need to consider what goes into your URL, and add descriptive elements or your brand name to foster recognition. You may wish to purchase a generic keyword-rich domain name that speaks to what you sell, if your brand name is not reflective of your market.

HTML Optimization and Your Sitemap

HTML tags are also an important part of ensuring that your Webpage is found. The tags are used to denote headings on your page, with

as the most important, down to

as the least. Tags such as bold or strong are also useful, as they can help to emphasize or highlight keyword text.

Also consider that everything you put on your page matters – including the tags on photos. If you have a keyword-rich page, tags, and content, don’t forget to include these same keywords in the image filename you use, as well as within the IMG tag’s ALT attribute.

The XML sitemap you use also plays a role in how search engines find you – this sitemap is a file that lists all URLs that can be crawled by a search engine and it is crucial that this map be consistently updated as new pages are added, or new content is uploaded.

Content is King

It’s important to understand that most search engines only “crawl” for text, and may not index images or videos. Some, such as Google, have begun to analyze image and video files, but the bulk of crawling, indexing and ranking happens because of words written on a Webpage. To make the most of your content, it’s important to understand not only what to write, but how to write it.

First, this means finding out what your target audience is searching for. Do the research and ensure you know what keywords are being entered in search engines by your customers, and tailor your text content around them.

Next, make sure that the content you write is actually relevant and rich. Avoid repetitive “keyword stuffing” or the creation of derivative content, and instead focus on writing articles or blog entries that are up-to-date and deal with the product or service you are selling.

A recent update to the way Google crawls webpages – known as the Panda/Farmer update – has significantly lessened the ability of content that is stuffed or repetitive to achieve high rankings with search engines. If your content is thin and not information-rich, it is possible that search engines will pass it over entirely or that no one will find it interesting enough to read, meaning that no one will visit your site. Always remember – content is king, and text is what matters. Keywords and descriptions can’t take the place of well-written, focused articles.

SEO is something must be considered in order for a website to perform optimally. While some traffic will come your way organically and by word of mouth from customers who already know your work, taking the time to properly craft your on-page optimization strategy can lead to quicker indexing and higher traffic volumes.

Everything eCommerce: Get Setup Online and Start Selling!

Chinonye — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:00:14 +0000

If you have a product to sell, you need to sell it online. While brick-and-mortar storefronts continue to provide consistent business and positive word-of-mouth, eCommerce is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with, and according to Forrester Research, will account for 53% of all retail sales in the United States by 2014. This means you can’t afford to ignore the world of online selling, even if you’re not familiar with the process. Thankfully, the increasing interest in eCommerce means companies have sprung up to fill every niche of the market, making the process of getting set up and selling with eCommerce hosting easier than ever.

First in Line – The Shopping Cart

The first thing you will need to get your eCommerce website up and running is a shopping cart application. Most shopping carts will allow you to create a list of product pages that customers can choose from, as well as place items in a virtual “basket”, while the customer continues to shop. Popular shopping carts include Pinnacle Cart, Magneto eCommerce and Zen Cart, to name a few, and all come with a variety of features to create a streamlined shopping experience for both you and your consumers.

Pinnacle Cart, for example, included with the myhosting.com Professional eCommerce Hosting Plan, offers a drag-and-drop interface that requires no prior programming or Web knowledge. This cart is also PA-DSS and PCI compliant, which is a requirement in order to accept many major credit cards or run SSC transactions. Magneto eCommerce offers a variety of solutions for you to get set up on the Web, from Magneto Go, a turn-key cart which includes hosting, to Magneto Enterprise, which has greater functionality for larger businesses. All of the carts mentioned – Pinnacle Cart, Magneto eCommerce and Zen Cart – are supported with hosting solutions to give you everything you need to get up and running quickly.

Making Sure You Get Paid With Payment Gateways

eCommerce hosting starts with a shopping cart; but in order for you to get paid for the orders that are placed, you must also consider which payment gateway you are going to use. Payment gateways are services that allow information to be transferred between a payment portal (your website) and a bank or front-end processor which handles the transaction. When an order is placed on your website, the payment gateway you choose will handle the transfer of the customer’s credit card or other payment information and send it using SSL (secure socket layer) protection.

SSL protection is essential for data transfers from your website to remain encrypted, and most payment gateways will use this technology in order to ensure privacy. It is a good idea to advertise that your website does employ this technology in order to assure customers that you are, in fact, following best practices.

The time from when a customer clicks on the “place order” button to the time an authorization or rejection is returned is typically two to three seconds, with full payment settlement typically happening within three days. A payment gateway is best thought of as the pinpad or payment terminal in a physical store, and a number of options exist for you to choose from for your store, including PayPal, Authorize.Net, Google Checkout, and many more.

Shipping What You Sell

Once you’ve set up your website for selling, chosen a shopping cart and found a payment gateway, the next thing you should consider is how to ship what you sell. The most common choices in the United States will be UPS or the United States Postal Service, and the benefit to online ordering is that your shipper can pick up wherever your factory or retail operation is located, and then take the product straight to the customer.

Other shipping options include Canada Post if you’re shipping north of the border or the Royal Mail service in Britain, and in many cases US shipping companies will have arrangements with providers in other countries in order to ship products.

Most shopping cart applications will include shipping-cost calculators. But before going live with your website, make sure that your customers can not only see the cost of the items they are ordering in local currency, but that they have a rough idea of how much they will cost to ship and what, if any, taxes will be applicable when they arrive. It is always in your best interest to provide as much information as possible up-front.

SEO, Social Media and Great Deals

Once your site is up, running, and secure, your next task will be to attract visitors. There are several important facets to attracting online attention, the first being the use of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. In order for your website to be found by search engines like Google or Yahoo, it must contain data they are looking for, and this includes things like regular content or product updates that are relevant to the site, as well as keywords that are relevant to the products being sold. A number of shopping carts come with built-in SEO options which can help you tailor the Meta descriptions and page names of your product pages so that they attract favorable search engine attention.

Social media is also a key component in driving interest, and starting a group on Facebook or a Twitter feed can garner attention that will be spread organically. In addition, you should consider offering a deal or promotion with sites like Groupon, Living Social, AtCost or Yipit. While you can also offer deals or discounts right on your website, advertising a promotion through a “coupon” website can provide favorable exposure.

In addition, consider listing your product on sites other than your own – Amazon, Google and eBay come to mind as easy places to generate extra sales and, more importantly, virtual word of mouth.

While a great deal goes into creating a high-performing eCommerce store, going from start-up to up and running is easier than ever.

Choosing the Perfect Domain Name for your Business

Chinonye — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

If you’ve started building your website, or even if you have one up and running, you’ve probably heard about the importance of choosing a domain name that gives you the best chance of being found, one that speaks to the services your business provides. The right domain name can let you be found more easily by search engines, and ideally will be easily remembered by regular customers and potential buyers alike.

The most important question you’ll initially face about your domain name will be whether to use your brand name or a generic name that includes a keyword relevant to your business. If your brand name is short and easy to remember, or has a keyword in it, such as www.joesconstruction.com, then branding is likely a good choice. If your name is not descriptive of what you do, a keyword-rich domain name may be a better option.

Why What’s After the Last Dot Matters

In addition to choosing your domain name, you will also need to choose what top-level domain you will use. TLDs, as they are commonly known, are the part of the domain names that come after the last period in the name, for example “.com”, “.ca”, or “.gov.” There are many types of top-level domains available, and they are separated into different types such as generic categories, country codes, and internationalized domain names. The .com TLD is the most common and easily recognized, but often the most difficult to obtain, as many names have already been taken. Other options include country-code top level domains such as .ca or .uk, which can be of benefit if your business operates in or ships to another country. In some cases, such as the .ca TLD, you will need to confirm that your company does in fact reside in or ships to Canada. Other options for TLDs include .org, which is intended for organizations of any type, or .net, which is commonly used for business that deal in network or Internet applications.

Why More TLDs Are Better

Just buying the .com version of your chosen domain name often won’t be enough to corner the market space. While this is the most common TLD on the market, if you leave other popular domains unclaimed, it is possible for another business or individual to take all of them and register them using your brand name or keyword. In the case of a branded, trademarked name, you may have a copyright case if another domain name chooses to mimic your own, but this will depend on the country in which the domain was purchased – some systems of law do not include copyright or trademark protection. If your budget allows, buy up as many TLDs that match your chosen domain name as possible, and then redirect all of the domains to your chosen main page TLD.

The Use of IDNs for SMBs

IDNs or “internationalized domain names” are those that contain more than simply the ASCII characters used by the Domain Name System. An approved IDN contains non-ASCII characters such as those in another language or those made up of symbols, which are then translated into an ASCII format. If your business operates in a country that uses non-ASCII characters as language, an IDN can help to ensure that local Internet users will be able to easily find your Web page without having to memorize any domain names which are not in their native language.

What to Do If Your Name Is Taken

Especially for .com TLDs, many of the best names are already taken. This means that even if you have an incredibly clever and unique idea for your domain name, you may not be able to register it because another business or individual arrived before you. In some cases, simply using a different TLD will solve the problem, but if you need the .com version, the option does exist to buy out the domain name from the holder. Services are now available online that will attempt to contact the owner and ask if they are willing to sell the domain name, and for what price. There is no law concerning a maximum or minimum price for domain name sales, so there is no guarantee of success.

The right domain name and TLD can help your SMB make a name for itself online by being easily search-able, relevant, and simple to remember.

Game Server VPS Hosting: Upping Your Game

Chinonye — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 13:00:44 +0000

You’re a gamer. That much is evident from the rig you’ve custom-built, the peripherals you’ve sourced, and the multitude of collector’s edition statues and maps that line your walls. Counterstrike, CoD, Half-Life 2, DoTA, LoL – you know the games, and you own the scoreboards. But now you’re considering upping your game and taking it to the next level by hosting your own server so that the characters you attack can never complain that lag was the thing that took them out. But where do you start?

Why Hosting it Yourself Won’t Work

Servers have become a requirement for multiplayer games as graphics have improved to a point of near-realism. Even the best custom-built rig won’t be able to run your own copy of the game and support 31 of your closest friends – pushing the data out to them during each match or campaign will be almost impossible. When FPS and RPGs were young, it was possible for a single computer to do it all; run your own game, run a server and client, and give everyone playing a decent response time. Now, the upstream bandwidth required to host any more than 10 players will itself be a limiting factor, even if the hardware in a computer isn’t. Pioneers in the industry started creating their own, co-located dedicated gaming servers, and private companies quickly picked up the slack, offering servers for rent to gaming clans and guilds.

Benefits of a Gaming Server

There are a number of up-front benefits to paying for a private server to run your games, starting with the fact that you won’t have to join games created by anyone else. You can set up your own parameters and have only your guild-mates, clan members, and those you choose to invite as part of your games, and with nothing else running on your server to bog it down but an OS and the game itself, you’ll be able to see far better performance and lower lag. Most gaming server companies will offer a number of plans for those looking to host, including varying amounts of hard disk space and RAM.

The VPS Option for Gaming

If you go looking for a gaming server, you’ll have a few options thrown your way. One is to buy and install your own server in your home, but this can be expensive and time-consuming. Another choice is a dedicated, non-local server, but these can have a large cost attached to them. A third option is a VPS server for game hosting, which can offer a number of benefits for your gaming experience. Gaming VPS hosting companies will offer you a portion of a server they maintain, and will in many cases allow you to choose the operating system that you use. Once rented, you can then install whatever games and clients you want, removing the need to have anything but a hard copy of the game on your computer at home.

What You’ll Need to Run a Game Server VPS

While the technical aspects of server maintenance will be handled by the hosting company, you’ll need to make sure a server you choose can handle the game you’re looking to play. To run a server for CoD4, for example, you’d want to look at having at least 2.4 GHz and at least a Gigabyte of RAM. Anything less and you’ll be looking at a performance hit for all users. In addition, you’ll want to consider installing cPanel or Plesk panel for your gaming VPS so that you can configure accounts on the VPS to your liking and give the right permissions out to your guild and clanmates.

Increasing the Load

New games that are drawing multiplayer attention like Minecraft have the potential to attract huge followings and see the development of massive guilds. Should you need to upgrade your space thanks to an influx of new members or if the game you’re playing becomes the hottest thing on the market, a game server VPS can give you the option to easily buy more space and scale up the amount of resources you need at any given time. Your gaming experience isn’t just defined by what you play and who you play with, but how your server can perform. If you’re finding your current server setup isn’t living up to your potential, it might be time to level up.

How to publish your iWeb website to myhosting in 5 steps

Dan Feferman — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:48:59 +0000

As you might have read in our previous post, Apple is closing iWeb hosting next year. Moving your website from iWeb to myhosting is simple. We have put together a quick video tutorial and some instructions on how to do this.

Open up your website in iWeb and follow the instructions below.

Update your Publish settings by clicking your Site Name in the top left corner.
Change the Publish To field to FTP
Under FTP Server Settings enter in the following info:
- Server Address: your domain name at myhosting.com
- User Name: your FTP username
- Password: your FTP password
- Directory/Path: folder name to publish to. Generally you can leave this blank if uploading your site to the main root folder.
Fill in your Website URL
Click Publish Website.

That is it. Your website will now be published to your hosting account and available online using your domain name.

The above tutorial assumes that you have already added your domain name to your myhosting.com account and have updated your DNS. If you haven’t done that yet, please add your domain name to your account and update the name servers to ns1.myhosting.com and ns2.myhosting.com at your registrar’s control panel. Visit our Domain Management wiki for more information.

5 Non-Technical Tips to Speed Up Your Website

Chinonye — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:00:47 +0000

Why try to optimize your website for faster loading times if it already loads fairly quickly? Well, first of all, Google uses site loading speed as a factor in its PageRank (PR) algorithm. The faster your website responds to requests, the better this is for your SEO. Secondly, we live in a world that is obsessed with speed. Millions of homes have high-speed internet connections, and cell phone networks have began to embrace 4G technology.

Also, with the explosion of wireless internet technology for mobile devices, a statistically significant portion of traffic to your site can come from mobile users. These people are on the go, and they expect web pages to load quickly. Luckily, decreasing your web site’s load time doesn’t have to be overly complicated.

1. Optimize Images

Reducing image size is one of the easiest methods for decreasing page load time. Many tools exist that will optimize images for you, such as Smush.It from Yahoo, ImageOptimizer.net, the ImageOptimizer from DynamicDrive and the ImageReducer from SiteReportCard.

At the Velocity 2008 conference, YSlow developer Stoyan Stefanov pointed out some mistakes to avoid when optimizing images for the web:

Mistake #1: Using animated GIF images instead of PNGs. GIFs are larger than PNGs and take longer to load. Since the goal is faster load times, choose the PNG format over animated GIF. Stefanov’s measurements concluded that if the top ten most visited websites converted all their GIF files to PNG, the average space savings would be 20.42%. The more images a page has, the more it benefits from using PNGs in place of GIFs.
Mistake #2: Not crushing PNG files. According to the PNG specifications, a PNG image stores information in what are called chunks. These chunks can be deleted without altering the image. Several programs can be used to do this, such as pngcrush, pngrewrite, OptiPNG and PNGOut. Stoyan found that “crushing” PNG files for the top 10 websites would yield an average savings (in size) of 16.05%.
Mistake #3: Not stripping metadata from JPEG files. JPEGs contain metadata that includes comments, a record of which programs modified the image (e.g., Photoshop), and EXIF data such as camera make and model, photo date and time, exposure time, lens focus, a thumbnail preview, and even EXIF audio information (RIFF or WAV headers) from certain cameras, such as the HP R607. Stefanov estimated that removing this data from JPEGs across the top 10 sites with the tool jpegtran would result in an average of 11.85% in saved space.
Mistake #4: Choosing Truecolor PNGs instead of Palette PNGs. Truecolor PNGs can display millions of colors, while Palette PNGs (aka, PNG8) have only 256. Most PNG files never use more than 1,000 colors – those that do are photographs and should be saved in JPEG format. Converting Truecolor PNGs to Palette reduces image size by as much as 50%. The human eye can almost never tell a Truecolor PNG has been converted to Palette because our vision is not that sensitive. Programs such as pngnq and pngquant are used for this kind of conversion.
Mistake #5: Serving dynamically generated images as-is. Images such as charts and graphs use very few colors, so PNG8 (256 colors) is the best format choice. When an original PNG image that allows 707 colors is crushed and converted to PNG8 format, this yields about a 38% smaller file size.
Mistake #6: Keeping images separate. Using CSS Sprites to combine images will reduce the number of HTTP requests that a browser must make to load your page.

2. Link to Internal Pages with a Trailing Slash

Let’s say your website is www.mysite.com, and a user wants to go to a specific, internal page on your site named “internal.” The final slash tells the web server that “internal” is a directory. When the trailing slash is left off, the web server searches for a file named “internal,” and when it doesn’t find the file, it issues a 301 redirect and searches for a directory named “internal.” Using a trailing slash for internal links will stop the web server from using those extra milliseconds to search for a file when it should be pointing to a directory.

Correct: http://www.mysite.com/internal/

Incorrect: http://www.mysite.com/internal

3. Identify Bottlenecks

If you want to get an idea of how fast (or slow) your website loads, use a free tool such as Pingdom. This is a bit technical, but your coder or designer will be able to easily interpret this information. Pingdom and similar tools show how long it takes for each element of a web page to load. This gives you a clear view of which elements can be tweaked or optimized to load faster. Using this data to make many tiny changes to your site can add up to create noticeable speed gains.

4. Get Rid of the Clutter

Are there any elements on your website that could be considered “distractions” for a reader? Widgets for current weather, a stat counter, etc.? Give your visitors what they want with as few distractions as possible. If you run a site via WordPress, look for any unnecessary plugins and remove them. Does your site really need animated GIFs? What about guest chat boxes, popup ads, and popup e-mail opt-ins? Some of those elements can be removed completely, while a newsletter e-mail opt-in can be placed in-page.

5. Use a Content Delivery Network

If your site reaches an audience that’s dispersed geographically, keep in mind that visitor distance from your server affects loading time for them. Regardless of how fast a server can handle requests, the speed of the network determines how fast content gets delivered. A Content Delivery Network (CDN) improves loading times for geographically dispersed audiences at far faster rates than a single server can achieve. This is because CDNs have servers that are physically closer than your web server to many visitors. According to developers at Yahoo, using a CDN for high-traffic sites “improved end-user response times” by over 20%. EdgeCast, level3 and Akamai Technologies are examples of CDN service providers.

Cloud Storage VPS: Using a VPS for remote fill storage

Ozgur Akman — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:48:42 +0000

There are a lot of advantages to using your VPS as a cloud storage facility. For starters, it will allow you to free up a lot of disk storage space on your home or office desktop computer as well as all of your mobile devices, such as the laptop computer, tablet or even your iPod or cell phone. If you store music files, videos or graphics files you know how quickly storage space gets eaten up. With a VPS cloud server, you will never again have to worry about running out of room for your files.

Even better, all of these files can be accesses from anywhere using any of your internet capable devices. It is as easy as going to a website to get to any and all of your files on the cloud. Your music, movies, contact list, work files, documents and all of the other things you need for business or personal reasons can be stored on the cloud and accessed at any time from any place that has internet access.

The main reason that many people are reluctant to use a cloud is security. But the new software available can give you any level of security you demand. A very high level of encryption is available that is commonly used by banks and other institutions with very high levels of security needs. Your VPS service provider can offer you security measures, and you can install software on your VPS that will give you an added level of security.

Even if you keep most of your files on your computer at the office, having a cloud as a backup plan will give you added protection against large scale damage to your system or the hardware. Then those files can be accessed at any time from an entirely new system if yours is ever destroyed. A VPS server is also an excellent way to archive old files and keep them safe while you free up space on your own computer hard disk.

The convenience and security that a VPS cloud server can provide is affordable for even private individuals. But companies can especially benefit from the advantages provided by a VPS cloud server. When large numbers of files or amounts of data can no longer be feasibility stored on site, consider a VPS as a solution to your data storage and retrieval problems.

Jabber VPS: Setting up your own communications server

Ozgur Akman — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 07:04:15 +0000

Jabber is an open source code instant messaging software program. While it is not the best choice for chatting with buddies on Yahoo! IM, it is an excellent and powerful tool for business purposes. It allows users to have conversations (chats) in near real time. It can detect the presence or absence of another user so that all users know who is available for chat. It also helps users maintain their contact lists so that they are current and up to date. Over 10 million people worldwide are using Jabber.

If you need to set up Jabber, the first thing you will need to do is select a client. The client that is best for you will depend on the operating system you are using and what your needs are regarding the software. You may want to choose a Jabber client that is similar to the IM services you have used in the past so that it will be easier for you to learn. Clients include Exodus for Windows and Gabber for Linux, but there are also other clients for you to choose from.

After you select your Jabber client, you will need to choose your Jabber server. There are any number of VPS web hosting services to choose from that will support Jabber. Jabber is open source code, and it is free to all users. It is not the easiest IM software, but it is very powerful.

Register your account with your server. Open Exodus or Gabber and the registration box will automatically pop up. When selecting user names in Jabber, remember that they are case sensitive. Write down your information as you type it if you will have trouble remembering it later on. If your user name has already been taken, you will need to be prepared with another one to use. You might want to have several options in mind when you start if your name is a fairly common one.

When you have registered your account, be sure to test it to make sure that it is working properly. Features to test include the one on one chat feature, the group chat feature and whether or not you can see other users that are present and they can see you. The process for finding others on Jabber is different for Exodus than it is for Jabber. Once you have confirmed that everything is working properly, you are ready to take advantage of your Jabber VPS.

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Green Hosting: Save money and save the planet with VPS Hosting

Ozgur Akman — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 20:55:45 +0000

Many people grossly underestimate the amount of money that they will spend to have their own dedicated server on site. Aside from the actual cost of the server and the software that you will need to make it usable, you will need to allot about 2 days for the set up and installation of the server. If this is something you have never done before you will need to pay an engineer to set it up for you. An engineer will usually charge about $100 per hour, and for two days work this will run you about $1,600. So you are already out about $3,000 before you use it a single day.

There are other costs of owning a dedicated server that people tend to overlook. The server will need to be in a secure location. You do not want just anyone walking off with it, and if it is not secured, they will. The quality of your internet connection is also an important factor. How much will it set you back if the connection is down for a day or two?

It is also costly to make the server sufficiently safe from hackers. An unprotected server will be detected by bots and hacked within less than an hour of going online. There are also costs associated with backing up the data on the server. You will need to have plans in place to protect your data from fires, flood and theft. You will also have to spend money to have the server monitored around the clock. Though today’s servers are reliable, not many server owners can afford several hours offline because the server went down and nobody knew about it.

Last but certainly not least, is the power consumption that a server is responsible for. It is common to spend as much money powering the server as you spent buying it. Whatever the server consumes in power, the cooling necessary to keep the server running is that again. If the server is eating 500 watts in power, the cooler will eat up an additional 500 watts. This is just the raw power for the server, not including the data center. The server will also need to be protected from power spikes and possible brown outs.

This is a lot of power. Aside from the money you will spend, which is not negligible, this is an environmental waste. For the vast majority of purposes, a VPS is the clear choice for the environment and for the pocketbook.