So you’re ready to start your own website? Congratulations! Here’s five easy steps to get started without wasting any time!

Step 1: How does it work?

In order for your website to be available to anyone at anytime, you need to host it with a web host. In other words: you need a web server leased to you by a web hosting company.

Also, in order for your visitors to easily access your site by name, you will need a domain name such as `yourdomain.com`. This will allow to make your site available at `www.yourdomain.com` (for example) but this will also allow you to receive email on addresses like `your.name@yourdomain.com`…

Most hosting companies offer all-inclusive packages by default, which include:

• a domain name,

• the web-hosting itself

• several email addresses/mailboxes.

Thus, if you’re just starting out, it is generally a good idea to get both your domain and your hosting in one single sign up with a hosting company. (Depending on your needs, you may or may not want to also take advantage of the email addresses.)

Step 2: Which kind of web site do you want?

Think about your smartphone for a minute: you can enter notes into the basic existing apps, but you can also install new apps on your phone. It’s similar when you get a website: you can put up some basic information using basic tools but you can also install new app, powerful apps… like b2evolution!

It basically boils down to 2 kinds of web sites:

• Static sites (simple sites): you will build one or more web pages (called HTML pages) with software like DreamWeaver on your computer. You will then upload the pages to your host’s server using FTP software like FileZilla for example.

  Every time you will need to change something on your site, you will have to edit the pages on your computer and upload them again. The website never changes by itself. That’s why it’s called a “static” site.

  Note: If you don’t have any such software, don’t worry: many web hosts will actually provide you with free “site builder” software to get you started.

• Dynamic sites (blogs, forums, photo galleries…): instead of uploading HTML pages to, you will install a piece of software (called a web application) on your web server. This software will let you add and edit content (text, pictures, videos…) at any time directly online without the need for any special tools on your computer. The software may also allow your visitors to leave comments or start discussions of their own if you let them.

  Of course we recommend the b2evolution blog/CMS software to kickstart your site and let it grow over the years, but there’s plenty of choice here. Other popular web apps include WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, phpBB, Gallery and plenty more…

  Note: If installing a web application sounds complicated, don’t worry: many web hosts will automatically install the application of your choice for you. Their tech support should also be able to help you.

Read more »

BYET Host is a free hosting provider that uses the classic strategy of luring you in with promises of a free hosting plan... only to upsell you as quickly as possible to a paid hosting plan.

Free Hosting Limitations and Issues

The free hosting provided by BYET is really underpowered in the sense that it does not support InnoDB, which is a basic requirement for any modern CMS such as b2evolution.

What's worse is that they don't tell you about this limitation and even make you think you can install a lot of different web applications. They even provide an installer for these... But all you get at the end is a broken installation.

Here are 2 examples of forums threads showing problems with this free hosting offer:

• http://forums.b2evolution.net/weird-mysql-erro-during-upgrade
• http://forums.b2evolution.net/installing-problems

Recommendation

As with any other Free Hosting plan, our recommendation is to stay away, not waste any time and energy with it, and go directly to a tested hosting solution.

It's easy to get lured into the sweet deals of "Free Domain Name" when purchasing web hosting. Many web-hosting companies advertise such a free domain name.

The same is true for transfers. You'll get something for "free" if you transfer your domain name to your hosting company.

Well...

First, the domain name is never really free. You may get the first year for free, but after that, you'll pay full price for renewal every year. And that price may be well higher than what you would pay at a domain registrar. See what various webhosts really charge you for your domain here.

But that's not even the worst part...

The worst is this: if your domain name is controlled by your webhost, they can make it very hard for you to leave!

Unfortunately, this has happened more than once: customers of some fine web hosting company suddenly realize said hosting company has been acquired by another. Soon they cut costs, staff leaves (or is fired) and service degrades rapidly. Comes time of renewal, customers try to leave for another hosting company only to find that the company makes the procedure so convoluted they pass the due date for renewal. Renewal price is unexpectedly high... but hosting company holds the domain hostage and locks down your site. Customer has no choice but to pay through the nose...

Don't let this happen to you!

Pass on the one year of "free domain" and keep your domain free instead!

In case you wonder: some good domain name registrars are Namecheap Domains, Uniregistry and Moniker to cite a few.

Why you need a CDN

Using a CDN is one of the easiest and fastest ways to boost your website performance.

In order to see where the biggest peformance bootlenecks are, you can start by having a look at a waterfall graph of your website. The example above comes from b2evolution.net (before optimization). Any modern web browser will let you display this for you own site by using its developer menu/tools. When you do this for your site, just remember to clear your browser cache before measuring, otherwise your results won’t really show what your visitors experience.

The waterfall graph shows one line for each file that is downloaded to display your page. Here are the color codes used by Safari:

• The blue line is the main PHP/HTML file;
• The green lines are for CSS files;
• The yellow lines are for Javascript files;
• Finally the purple ones are for images.

Pay attention to 3 important aspects here:

• There are usually more files than you think that need to be downloaded to display a single web page.
• All files don’t start downloading right away.
• Each file has a long Latency time and a comparatively short Actual Transfer time.

Let’s look at these 3 problems in order.

Read more »

The problem

Many of us have registered domain names at Moniker.com. And while they are both effective and efficient at registering and managing your domain names for a low "bulk" price, their DNS servers have proven to be utterly unreliable with several day long outtages over the last year.

This means your domains are all good and safe but if you use Moniker's own DNS servers (instead of, for example, your web hosting company's name servers), people may experience additional delay in trying to access your site or they may even not get there at all.

One solution would be to use your web hosting's provider's DNS servers. But these tend to not be very reliable either... and to say the least, they are very slow.

The Solution

So we went out to look for a dedicated DNS service provider. There are many but only a handful use AnyCast. AnyCast allows your visitors to use a DNS server closest to them, cutting latency times and getting their DNS queries answered 10 to 100 times faster than with standard UniCast DNS providers.

Out of these, only one has affordable pricing: DNS Made Easy . For less than $30/year can host DNS service for 10 domain at lightning speeds!

Measuring results

Go check out the speed of your current DNS service here at ultratools.com. Look at the max delays! With Moniker DNS servers you may get delays as long as 350 ms, if not flat out dropped requests! You can compare it with b2evolution.net since we use DNS Made Easy ourselves. You should see results as low as 3 ms!