Saturday, September 20, 2008

Downtime,No logs

Downtime



If your Web host provider cannot keep servers up and running 24/7, people will not be

able to find your site. The search engine spiders won't find it either. They will assume

your site is gone and remove it from the search engine index. You will have to resubmit

and wait weeks or months for the spider to re-index your site. If your site already is

indexed and ranking well, it might lose its position altogether.



No matter what web host provider you use, it is highly recommended that you sign up for

a free site monitoring service like EasyMonitor. This guarantees that you're alerted within

minutes when your site goes down. This enables you to get to work immediately to solve

the problem and dramatically increase the time your site is up and running.






The speed and reliability of your Web host provider will depend on several factors.

Look for a web page host with



A T3 connection (or better) close to a primary Internet backbone

Safeguards against systems, network or power failure

Several connections to the Internet (in case one goes down)

Backup power supplies and

"Uptime guarantee" with at least 95% uptime



No logs



Access to raw web log files is one feature often missing with low quality Web hosting

services. Some Web host providers provide logs, but do not include referrer information.

Others delete logs frequently, making it impossible to use them effectively. Make sure

your Web hosting service gives you access to raw server logs, preferably in "Extended

Common Log File Format", a standard that can be understood by most log analyzers.



The server logs will give you some valuable information for your search engine

optimization work, including what search engines people are using to find your site,

exactly which keywords do they type into the search box, and when the search engine

spiders visit your site. This is crucial information. You cannot properly optimize your site

without it.






Other features include daily back up of your data, high bandwidth and, of course, the

quality of their support services. In addition, you must consider the features offered by

the Web page host. Some features to consider are



The space available for your site

Monthly transfer limits

POP mail server availability

Support for CGI, SSI, Perl, databases and FrontPage 2000 extensions

Secure server access (SSL)

Anonymous FTP and

Shopping Cart Software.


1 comments:

ketz said...

Now we can see the importance of website monitoring services. I acquired this last year and you will really see the difference.