The recession brought lots of competition between hosting companies. There are also more and more businesses looking for ways to cut costs. But there are several other things that business owners consider when they choose web hosting company—besides price. These attributes are as follows:

Price: Price is one of the most important things business owners consider when choosing a web hosting company, but they should be aware that web hosting company is a business as well—and managers of web hosting companies are looking to earn profit on resources that could be offered for free.  In other words, if a company offers extremely low prices, that could be indicative of low quality work.

Customer base: To see if the chosen company is capable of doing a web hosting job, the business owner can look at other businesses’ choices. If many other reputable businesses choose the same company for their hosting, that’s a good sign. When doing research, keep in mind that it is easy to track from where a website is hosted by name servers.

Background: It is easy to see if a company is reputable by looking at its history and progress over time. Better volumes and an active, wide client base indicates that the company managers have the right vision.

Innovation: Technology advances so fast quickly that few business owners are able to keep up with it. People who enjoy and are devoted to their business not only stay up-to-date, but also tell others what’s coming next in their field. So in other words, it is smart to look what technology a company uses—and if there are signs that the hosting company is a pioneer in its industry, then it is probably the right place to do business.

So if a business owner or manager is going to look for the right web hosting company, they must verify the above items to ensure the highest quality service for both their business and their customers.

By Alex Brown

HMSPANEL v3.5 is expected to be released August of 2009.

The much anticipated release of v3.5 for HMSPANEL is just around the corner.  Along with updating some of the basic functions of the application, this version will include a list of customer requested upgrades.  The biggest improvement will be the addition of new customer pages and a unique front-end template.  The new design will also have the HMSPANEL shopping cart already integrated into the template pages.

HMSPANEL v3.5 will give customers an out-of-the-box hosting management solution that will require little configuration before it is put to work.  This turnkey solution will make it easy for any web host to get started and start taking on customers.  HMSPANEL is a light-weight linux control panel which makes it one of the fastest and one of the most robust systems out there.  HMSPANEL also features a wide variety of web host management tools, which are completely free & optional to use such as a billing system, robust plan builder, billing per GB or Mbit and so much more.

Other v3.5 upgrades and fixes will include:

1) Improved and redesigned CSR/SSL creation

2) Improved hosting plan manager

3) Server monitoring enhancements have been added

4) Fixes have been applied to the server bandwidth usage graphs

5) Full CentOS 5.3, Red Hat 5, and Fedora Core 10 support

6) Improved and optimized server installers

7) Simplified secondary server installers

And much more…

Along with the navigational improvements, the new version offers an improved look and feel giving users the ability to be up and running with a complete web hosting management system in a matter of a few clicks.

Twitter is rapidly progressing as one of the most discussed and most active social networking tools right now. The twitter bird and twitter logo are unique and cute and in case you wish to see your name or your website name in the same style as Twitter logo, here is a very easy way!

TwitLogo is a simple online tool which can create custom twitter based logos on the fly. Just input your desired name in the textbox provided and you will get the output in seconds.

If you wish, you can change the font size, font color and the outline color.

Check out the Twitter Logo generator tool - TwitLogo!

Think virtualization in a data center, and you most likely think of the latest generation of multi-core chips, such as Intels recently released Nehalem-EX processor, which comes with eight cores a a whopping 2,300,000,000 transistors. But the future of green data centers may be in the opposite end of the spectrum, with server clusters built using many small, power-efficient processors.

The Power of Software blog gives a very good rundown about the possibility of using small computers and processors instead of large ones like the Nehalem-EX. It mentions the Dell XS11-VX8, also called “Fortuna.” The Via Nano powers Fortuna, and it is a 64-bit chip that offers hardware virtualization for Hyper-V. Amazingly, it uses only 29 watts when at full load, and 15 watts when idling, according to the blog — less power than a UPS uses. Load up plenty of these devices and you can get plenty of computing power, while using not much electricity.

There is been talk for a while that the low-power Atom chip, used primarily to power netbooks, can be used for data centers as well. The blog points out that Microsoft Research has already built two server clusters using Atom processors controlled by the Marlowe control system that in the blogs words, ””””can place servers into the sleep or hibernate low power states and then wake them up. This dynamic state control enables groups of computers to respond to changes in load very rapidly.””””

Will you be using Atom chips and Fortuna today or in the near future to power your data center? Most likely not. But do not be surprised if you do a little further on. Just as smaller servers replaced big iron mainframes, one day devices like Fortuna and the Atom chip may power data centers, and save plenty of electricity while doing so.

Microsoft and Apple have been in the forefront of efforts to green IT and computing in general — and, of course, letting the world know about their efforts. But one columnist believes that Linux is the greenest operating system of all.

Jack Wallen, on ZDNet, argues that Linux can go a long way towards helping IT departments go green, and offers ten ways that Linux can help IT go green. I won””t go into all ten reasons here — I don””t necessarily agree with them all — but following are the high points.

First, he argues that because Linux requires less processor power and less advanced hardware than Windows or Mac OS X, you can use hardware much longer with Linux. That means less landfill problems, and less production of new equipment overall. He cites a study by the UK Office of Government Commerce in 2004 that claims that Windows users have to upgrade their computers twice as frequently as Linux users. The study concludes: “Industry observers quote a typical hardware refresh period for Microsoft Windows systems as three to four years; a major UK manufacturing organisation quotes its hardware refresh period for Linux systems as six to eight years.”

Wallen also claims that Red Hat Linux uses less power than Windows Server 2008, and cites a study that says that Red Hat Linux servers beat Windows Server 2008 in 13 out of 16 tests of energy consumption.

Many of his other reasons, though, don””t necessarily hold up, and some of them aren””t really a comparison of Linux to other operating systems, but instead advice on how to make Linux greener. He points to netbooks as a reason that Linux is greener than other operating systems, but these days 80% or more of all netbooks ship with Windows installed, so that simply doesn””t hold water.

Still, he has some intriguing points. I””d like to see a detailed comparison of energy consumption of Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux done some day. If I find one, I””ll let you know.

Small Business SEO Checklist: The Do’s

1. Commit yourself to the process. SEO isn’t a one-time event. Search engine algorithms change regularly, so the tactics that worked last year may not work this year. SEO requires a long-term outlook and commitment.

2. Be patient. SEO isn’t about instant gratification. Results often take months to see, and this is especially true the smaller you are, and the newer you are to doing business online.

3. Ask a lot of questions when hiring an SEO company. It’s your job to know what kind of tactics the company uses. Ask for specifics. Ask if there are any risks involved. Then get online yourself and do your own research—about the company, about the tactics they discussed, and so forth.

4. Become a student of SEO. If you’re taking the do-it-yourself route, you’ll have to become a student of SEO and learn as much as you can. Luckily for you, there are plenty of great Web resources (like Search Engine Land) and several terrific books you can read. Aaron Wall’s SEO Book, Jennifer Laycock’s Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin are three I’ve read and recommend.

5. Have web analytics in place at the start. You should have clearly defined goals for your SEO efforts, and you’ll need web analytics software in place so you can track what’s working and what’s not.

6. Build a great web site. I’m sure you want to show up on the first page of results. Ask yourself, “Is my site really one of the 10 best sites in the world on this topic?” Be honest. If it’s not, make it better.

7. Include a site map page. Spiders can’t index pages that can’t be crawled. A site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site, and help the spider understand your site’s hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links. I tell clients 75 is the max to be safe.

8. Make SEO-friendly URLs. Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html. Don’t overdo it, though. A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look spammy and users may be hesitant to click on it. Related bonus tip: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.

9. Do keyword research at the start of the project. If you’re on a tight budget, use the free versions of Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, both of which also have more powerful paid versions. Ignore the numbers these tools show; what’s important is the relative volume of one keyword to another. Another good free tool is Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool, which doesn’t show exact numbers.

10. Open up a PPC account. Whether it’s Google’s AdWords or Yahoo’s Search Marketing or something else, this is a great way to get actual search volume for your keywords. Yes, it costs money, but if you have the budget it’s worth the investment. It’s also the solution if you didn’t like the “Be patient” suggestion above and are looking for instant visibility.

11. Use a unique and relevant title and meta description on every page. The page title is the single most important on-page SEO factor. It’s rare to rank highly for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title. The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing. Related bonus tip: You can ignore the Keywords meta altogether if you’d like; it’s close to inconsequential. If you use it, put misspellings in there, and any related keywords that don’t appear on the page.

12. Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally. Anchor text helps tells spiders what the linked-to page is about. Links that say “click here” do nothing for your search engine visibility.

13. Build links intelligently. Submit your site to quality, trusted directories such as Yahoo, DMOZ, Business.com, Aviva, and Best of the web. Seek links from authority sites in your industry. If local search matters to you (more on that coming up), seek links from trusted sites in your geographic area—the Chamber of Commerce, etc. Analyze the inbound links to your competitors to find links you can acquire, too.

14. Use press releases wisely. Developing a relationship with media covering your industry or your local region can be a great source of exposure, including getting links from trusted media web sites. Distributing releases online can be an effective link building tactic, and opens the door for exposure in news search sites. Related bonus tip: Only issue a release when you have something newsworthy to report. Don’t waste journalists’ time.

15. Start a blog and participate with other related blogs. Search engines, Google especially, love blogs for the fresh content and highly-structured data. Beyond that, there’s no better way to join the conversations that are already taking place about your industry and/or company. Reading and commenting on other blogs can also increase your exposure and help you acquire new links. Related bonus tip: Put your blog at yourdomain.com/blog so your main domain gets the benefit of any links to your blog posts. If that’s not possible, use blog.yourdomain.com.

16. Use social media marketing wisely. If your small business has a visual element, join the appropriate communities on Flickr and post high-quality photos there. If you’re a service-oriented business, use Yahoo Answers to position yourself as an expert in your industry. With any social media site you use, the first rule is don’t spam! Be an active, contributing member of the site. The idea is to interact with potential customers, not annoy them.

Just like last week, this list could continue well beyond these 21 “DOs.” Your additions are welcome in the comments.

Be bold. Use the <b> </b> tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.

Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site. Here is an example of deep linking, in this case to my personal happiness workbook.

Become a foreigner.  Canada and the UK have many directories for websites of companies based in those countries. Can you get a business address in one of those countries?

Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their archives.

First come, first served. If you must have image links in your navigation bar, include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they find to any particular page. They will not follow additional links to the same page. You can see this in action at the link to the home page on this web site monitoring page

Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Why not a site dedicated to gumbo pudding pops?

Article exchanges. You have heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else article on the history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. You both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in other tips.)

Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page.

Not anchor text. will not overdo the anchor text. You will not want all your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like automation – something Google frowns upon.

Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. it is called the navigation bar. See how the second navigation bar at the bottom of Last Minute Florida Villas is like a mini-site map?

There it is: 10 important SEO Tips, a free tip sheet that comes with will not Get Banned By the Search Engines:

There is a lot more to search engine optimization, and there are always more details when looking at an individual site. But these tips should help any website significantly improve its rankings.