Tag Archives: Domain Names

Why Your Web Hosting Account Is More Important Than Your Internet Banking Account

Why Your Web Hosting Account Is More Important Than Your Internet Banking Account

We often neglect securing devices and services which don’t result in a direct loss of money to us. We take them for granted and live in hope that they will never get compromised, or better still, we may live in a false sense of security that those devices or services will never get compromised or fall prey to wrong-doers. One such area of concern is the Web Hosting Account. We have seen numerous persons and businesses who are so careless about the security of their hosting account, that they will only learn when a major “hack” or compromise leaves them stranded.

Official Email Address

If you are using an official email address of your company or business, it would be foolish if you don’t take care of your account. Regularly changing the password and setting a long tough password is ideal. You should also scan your network and computers for virus or malware on a regular basis, especially on the computer where your email address is configured. Your email address is interlinked with various other accounts of other services. Your banking, your utilities and your clients information is all stored in the email account. If your email address gets hacked or the password falls into the wrong hands, it may be the beginning of a disastrous journey to recover the account and retrieve any lost or stolen information.

Your Website

Your hosting account also contains access to your website, which is another reason why special care should be taken to keep the passwords and logins safe. The website represents your business online and is the online face of your brand or organization. Just like you would not want someone to misrepresent your brand or create confusion in the minds of your clients, the same way you should protect your website from unauthorized access and defacement. If you are selling products online and also collecting payments, then you need to ensure that the payments and sensitive personal information of the clients is safe and cannot be compromised. Ensure that your Main Control panel password is not shared with anyone. If your website developer needs to upload or download files, he can be given an FTP login with restricted access to only the necessary folders. If some database needs to be accessed, then only the database login needs to be given. If you do end up giving your control panel password, ensure that you change it once the work is over. Also ensure that you take backups of get backups taken before and after the work is done. This way you will be able to compares changes and identify any unneeded changes.

Business Secrets

You may often store business secrets or confidential information in your hosting account. This could include plans and drawings of inventions, customer information, employee information, price lists and even something as simple as a suppliers list. If these are exposed, it could lead you to lose out on a lot of business and cause immense damage to your contractual obligations. Business Secrets are always on the hunting list of competitors and people will jump to the opportunity of getting information which will benefit their business. Following strict practices of physical and online security will ensure that your data remains safe. Using multiple login names and passwords on each computer will help you identify the flow of compromise, incase you are ever a victim.

Automation Tools and Web Applications

If you are using an eCommerce or Billing Software and have set it to perform actions on your behalf, it may be quite disastrous if someone got a hold of it. This would cause a major loss of goodwill and would immediately lower your reputation in the eyes of clients. Following the same practices for securing your website can also be followed here. However, more care needs to be given when you are authorizing a software to communicate on your behalf.

Is It Worth Buying A Domain Name With The New TLDs?

Is It Worth Buying A Domain Name With The New TLDs?

Everyone is overwhelmed by the number of new domain name extensions or TLDs that are being released since the past few months. Although their sale is slower than expected, they should become more popular as time passes and more people realize their value addition. This article emphasizes the benefits of having a domain name which does not follow the standard .com or .net convention, but describes your website much better.

Help Organize the internet

Not many people know it, but the whole purpose of releasing these new TLD extensions is so that the internet is more organized and better classified. Till now all businesses and commercial organizations were using the .com extension willy nilly. From lawyers to engineers, everyone was stuck with a .com or .biz name without knowing which one was the right one for them. When you visited a website with names like webxtreme, you didn’t know whether it was a design firm or hosting provider or an SEO company. You had to take a guess before landing on their website.

Stand out from the crowd

Not only does the new naming system allow you to be identified easily, but it also enhances your brand value and helps you when compared to your other competitors. Many of your competitors will not even be aware of the fact that a TLD suiting their business will be available. As they say, “The early bird catches the worm”, getting a suitable name could give your brand a real boost, one that it may be badly needing since a long time. The right name will position you, in the mind’s of your customers as being active, updated and enterprising. The novelty of the new naming system will wear out once everyone is hooked onto it. Although with the plethora of names in the market, it will take a while before the “new toy” syndrome fades away, it is important for a young business to build its brand image online.

Be the first

Did you ever want that .com name but when you searched it was taken by someone else? Now’s your chance to get the name you always wanted, infact a shorter and cooler name. Gadget Guru’s can now get gadget.guru rather than just having gadgetguru.com, which makes the name shorter, funkier and easy to remember. Philomena’s Enterprise can now get the name philomena.enterprise and shed the .com completely. Numerous other businesses can also get a more descriptive and reader friendly name. It’s a total liberation from the normal conventional names which end in .com .net .biz .info and so on.

Show off

Your new TLD also comes with a limited time package of bragging rights. Everyone will remember you for being one of the first in the industry to get a unique name. Not only will it give you and your fans something to talk about on social media, you will also be able to promote your brand and provide unique offers and discounts with the excuse of celebrating your new name.

Start a new business

For a new business or for an experienced business looking to branch into a new industry, these new TLDs offer a good starting point. Finding a name for a new business or venture is now easier with the wide range of options on offer. Earlier, a travel and tours company was stuck with .com as their primary option. When the .travel name release, everyone jumped to take it. Now the travel industry has a larger number of options, including .holiday .tickets .world .town .discount .hotel and many more.

Although some of the TLDs are priced higher than the standard names, it definitely makes sense to capture these names before your competitors do.

Web Hosting Companies That Include Arbitration Clauses In Their Terms Of Service

Does your web hosting company include an arbitration clause in its terms of service? This is an important question to know the answer to. If there is an arbitration clause, you have to mandatorily seek out arbitration if you want to seek damages, either from contract for a wrongful termination of the agreement.

If something goes wrong with your services, and if you want to claim civil damages against the hosting company - you would have to do it through arbitration proceedings. This can be very expensive. Merely appointing an arbitrator can be very expensive. Some arbitrators charge $5000 or $10,000 to merely accept a retainer.

Hostgator, one of the popular web hosting company places the following clause in its terms of service;

“15b.) Arbitration By using any HostGator services, you agree to submit to binding arbitration. If any disputes or claims arise against HostGator or its subsidiaries, such disputes will be handled by an arbitrator of HostGator’s choice. An arbitrator from the American Arbitration Association or the National Arbitration Forum will be selected in the state of Texas. Arbitrators shall be attorneys or retired judges and shall be selected pursuant to the applicable rules. All decisions rendered by the arbitrator will be binding and final. The arbitrator’s award is final and binding on all parties. The Federal Arbitration Act, and not any state arbitration law, governs all arbitration under this Arbitration Clause. You are also responsible for any and all costs related to such arbitration.”

As you should note - all the costs of arbitration are to be borne by you! That is extremely unfair and inequitable. It should at least be 50/50. If you are buying a hosting account for $3.96 per month, and you have to pay $5000 to appoint an arbitrator, and resolve a dispute. Further, even if you have other tort claims - such as interference or fraud (non-criminal fraud) those claims would also have to be determined by the arbitrator. This is very unfair. It takes away your right to a jury trial under the 7th Amendment (or the Sate’s version of it).

Godaddy on the other hand does not include an arbitration clause, but only adds a waiver of jury trials;

“You agree to waive the right to trial by jury in any action or proceeding that takes place relating to or arising out of this Agreement.

Yahoo does neither. It makes you litigate in California. Which seems more just.

While although you would not think about suing the hosting company you buy from at the outset, you should know about it, because it is quite common for disputes to arise when you suffer damages from downtime. Say the site is down for 1 day - due to no fault of yours. You may have a cause of action for damages against the hosting company. You can not only sue them for actual damages - you can also sue them for consequential damages, ie. lost sales, lost advertisement revenue and loss of your online reputation. These can be significant as the uptime goes to your SEO reputation.

At HostingXtreme we pride ourselves in a 99.98% uptime. We provide imeccable servcie, and are proud to have a five star rating. Check out our web hosting plans.

Pros and Cons of Domain Name Privacy Protection

Pros and Cons of Domain Name Privacy Protection

Whenever a domain name is registered an optional service is made available with a small amount of fee which is called “domain privacy”. How does it work? How will the service benefit you as you are paying an extra amount for it? We will make things easy for you, with the domain registration to detailed reviews and its pros and cons.

An introduction to domain privacy

Generally when a domain name is registered by someone the actual personal details are required to be entered as mentioned by International Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers. The personal details include the name, working phone number and postal address. As soon as the registration is done, the personal details will be featured to whois database, and will be viewed by everybody. Domain privacy registration is a service which keeps the personal details hidden from whois search. All the personal details will remain hidden in whois database. The personal details will be hidden behind proxy, what others will view from whois search will be information regarding proxy server. This is the reason why domain privacy is also called whois privacy.

For-domain privacy

As explained about domain privacy, after its registration all the private information are hidden from people’s search, thus saving the details from abusing. The benefits which can be availed by opting for this particular service are:

Prevent Spam: One of the advantages to have domain privacy is that you will be free from all the spams, all your personal information is hidden from public. Your details will remain hidden from spammers, they won’t be able to get through your email, phone number or fax number. That means that you will be free from spam emails, fax messages and crank calls. For the same reason domain privacy is suggested, to get rid of unwanted spam.

Avoid domain capturing: if you have a high value domain name which may attract a lot of people. They might attempt to capture your domain. But if you have a private registration service, your personal information will be hidden. Though it does not fully guarantee your domain, but it at least saves you from the registrar’s end.

Against-domain privacy

Keeping all the advantages of domain privacy in mind, there still are some negative effects that we must know. It is necessary to put everything into check, based on internet development. You must consider these points if you choose to register private domain.

Not trustworthy: Hiding information from the public means that they cannot view anything about you. For an instance, if you are registered under domain privacy and you own a shopping site, then people will not be able to view your personal details when they search for it. As a result they may think that you are a spammer and hesitate to shop from you site, as only spammers hide their details.

Negative impact on SEO: The search engine guidelines suggest that your personal details must not be hidden. Less rank will be awarded by a search engine like Google if domain privacy is registered. Google would want to match all the details for the authenticity of the content.

Conclusion

You security is the main concern for you then you can get your domain registered, but if you are looking forward to run an ecommerce site, then your site will get less ranking, as the authenticity of you site will be questioned. For that, you will have to remove this service.