Editors Column

Web Hosting for 2009

Are you looking for a new web host to host your website(s)? Right now is a great time to pick a new web host. The economy is in bad shape and businesses are competing even harder for your business. The web hosting industry is no different from other markets. Customers are going out of business all over the place or cancel their web hosting to be able to make months end somehow after a layoff.

The Web Hosting Resource Kit monitors the industry and while there are hundreds or thousands of web hosts to work with, we decided a small, honest list of our Top 10 Web Hosts. The advantage with any of these guys is that they are large enough to make it through the recession and eventually even acquire a competitor here and there. Of course that is not a guarantee of survival, but by looking at the cut-throat competition going on the web hosting industry, I am rather with one of these guys knowing my websites stay afloat, than sleeping bad at night with worries about my online ventures.

While the Top 10 List is mainly for shared web hosting, I would like to recommend The Planet .com and Liquidweb for their dedicated servers. I do have a mix between shared hosting / reseller hosting / and dedicated server hosting in my portfolio and those 2 providers should be high on your list for choosing a dedicated server at low pricing with great support behind it.

Anyway – 2009 is upon. The Web Hosting Resource Kit will be here as always. We’re not going anywhere. We hope 2009 will be a great and prospering year for you. From our families to yours – all the best for 2009. Happy New Year 2009. 🙂

Best regards,

Christoph  Puetz. / Web Hosting Resource Kit

What would you do to get a Job at Google?

Do you want to work for Google? What would you do to get a job at Google? The German domain owner Sebastian Lützig (Sebastian Lutzig) is offering his domain names to Google hoping to land a nice job at the Googleplex in return. The idea itself is pretty interesting, but the way how Sebastian executed this plan has quite some humor to it. Normally you would apply through Google’s website for an open position. Not so Mr. Lutzig from Germany. Instead of writing a normal job application, he decided to register several of Google-related URLs like adwordsgoogle.de, docsgoogle.de, gdrivegoogle.com, labsgoogle.de and many more and then posted his job application on it. It seems like either Sebastian has started to redirect his domain names to Google or the Google legal department send a cease and desist letter via express delivery – most of the domains are now pointing to Google property on the web.

This story could end here, but what’s better than desperate job applications? Desperate applications written in hilariously broken English! Sebastian has some conditions that he lined out with his application:

“Important for me is that I every weekend somehow come to Cologne, in order to visit my daughter. Of course, there can be exceptions, but I would not be longer than a maximum of three weeks away from Cologne. Of course money also plays a certain role.I would like to perform a lot and also be paid well. However, quite clearly I am ready to put back with the money if for it the work is great fun. I do not have more conditions.”

And

"About me:

With 11 years I got from my parents my first computer as a gift and since it i could not life without a computer anymore. In addition to the school, I worked several years for Vobis in the computer workshop. I am a trained scientist for systemintegration (with professionallevel) and my training was from 3 years to 1.5 years shorter (because of good shool grades, the first half %1.0, the second half %1.2, leaving certificate %1.0). With my 27 years I worked for a year now in the network administration of a larger enterprise (1000+ employees) with focus on IT security. I have maximum rights and enjoy full confidence of my superiors. The work gives me a great deal of fun."

Well, best of luck to Sebastian and his application to land a job at Google. At least he managed to get quite some attention across the Internet.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS248US248&q=Sebastian+L%C3%BCtzig+

Point Zero

Just a quick update. We recently upgraded the software we use on the Web Hosting Resource Kit and bug artificially inflated the views per article. The numbers looked quite impressive, but we not that kind of website that is trying to be something that we aren’t. We’re honest with the information we present and that includes the views per article.

We could have manually altered the database, but sometimes a clean cut is the best. We decided to wipe all article view counts clean and start from scratch. So, if you see articles with a low view count, don’t be mislead. It’s just cosmetics and does not affect the quality of articles and content on our website. The Web Hosting Resource Kit is in there for the long term and our goal is it to provide free information for the web hosting industry – businesses and customers.

Anyway – enjoy your stay on our website.

Regards,

Christoph Puetz
Owner Webhostingresourcekit.com

"Google has some sort of moral responsibility to Webmasters"

Reading a discussion in a web forum I found the following statement. "Google has some sort of moral responsibility to Webmasters". These days I am not happy with Google at all as it is not treating me and my websites very well. Reading the statement above made me laugh. Sure, Google is market leader when it comes to search, but do they really have a moral responsibility to webmasters? No, I do not think so. However, the business of search is not just about the search engine and that’s where I think Google is having issues.

Searchers use Google because in the past it delivered great search results and they have one of the biggest search index built up. Now Google is using the power given by the searchers to dictate what webmasters have to do to be included in Google’s index. Fair enough. But recently Google (communicated through Matt Cutts) is giving this a new twist and I think the webmaster community at one point needs to decide if they want to become the tools to exercise Google’s rules or if they want to be an equal part in the world of search.

Example 1: The infamous rel="nofollow" attribute. Google wants webmasters to use this attribute on paid links on their websites. Apparently Google is having difficulties properly recognizing paid links and they want to reduce the page rank value from such links. If the nofollow attribute is in place the Google Bot will be able to identify paid links and no page rank value is given. It is clearly to see that Google (and only Google at this point) asks webmasters to do something so that Google can do its business.

Example 2: Matt Cutts is asking for SPAM reports and similar things in his blog. Reading the comments in his blog, this apparently turned into a witch hunt. There are certain individuals that apparently have nothing better to do to search the web for SPAM or what they think is SPAM and to report it to Big Brother (did I say that loud? of course I mean Google). It is not exactly clear if Google is just looking for SPAM samples to improve the algorithm to recognize SPAM or if they are just not able to find "good" SPAM themselves. The step of asking individuals to report what they think is SPAM, I do not know about that. Who sets the standard and who really decides what is SPAM and why? Honest businesses can be punished because they hired somebody to do search engine optimization and are not aware of that there is something like Black Hat SEO. Google gets out the stick and punishes a website without properly finding out what is going on.

I do see a certain trend here. I would assume that Google needs to be able to do its own job and not rely on the webmaster community. Sure, setting certain guidelines and rules are pieces the webmaster community needs. But I think Google is now using its power to push a second standard into the market. Wasn’t it Google/Matt Cutts who said that websites should be build for the visitors and not the search engines? Now they are asking the webmasters to do stuff that only helps one search engine (example: nofollow). They are also asking for SPAM reports from individuals – opening the door for other businesses to make their competitor look bad eventually?

The rules are changing and webmasters have to become more careful if they can trust their business mainly to Google. The power Google nowadays has can break a business. A small change to the algorithm or a black listing due to a competitor reporting something as "SPAM" and Google not verifying the circumstances, can wipe out the traffic flow to a website completely. These risks need to be put into consideration when looking at Google.

Does Google have a moral responsibility to webmasters? No, it does not. But if Google starts treating business partners (webmasters) as partners of lower value, it might backfire one day. For years webmasters promoted Google just to be kicked in the back now. That is not right.

 

1 year Web Hosting Resource Kit
 

About a year ago the idea for Webhostingresourcekit.com was born. I had already operated the Webhostingreport.net with web hosting related information. Overall the website at that time was asking for a better concept. I decided to use a different domain name which would be a little more descriptive (= www.webhostingresourcekit.com) and I also decided to move from Open Source software to a paid Content Management product. Most of the content would come from Webhostingreport.net to get the site of the ground.

In early December the new website went live. The initial response from visitors was very good and has carried on until today. Overall the site hit the market with limited competition, but it seemed like that shortly after the initial launch of my site that several other sites targeting the same market segment were launched. Competing on certain keywords in the search engine has shown to be very difficult, but not impossible. Referrals from search engines make the majority of my visitors. Other are coming from Webhostingtalk and other hosting related websites. The visitor group therefore seems to be very targeted.

Maintenance of the site has slowed down due to other projects of mine requiring more time. Overall – the Webhostingresourcekit.com is build with the thought not needing a lot of maintenance and hand holding and that concept seems to work for now. However – more time will be dedicated towards this website with the beginning of the year to bring fresh content and eventually other ideas to make the site even more valuable.

Anyway – I’d like to thank every visitor who finds his/her way to this website and hope that the information available is of value for you.

 
Best regards,

Christoph Puetz

Owner Webhostingresourcekit.com

Is your business promoting a certain mission but then never lives up to it? Is business management preaching a message that never arrives at the employee level or it gets executed in a completely different way? Let’s say your mission statement and quarterly or yearly updates made in business reports say one thing but in reality things look completely different?! If this sounds familiar have you ever thought about why this happens?

I see those things every once in a while. Companies promoting how good they treat their employees but in reality they are looking into outsourcing them to increase profits and then wonder why moral and productivity are down. Or they are proud how cutting-edge their products and services are but the bottom line shows something different when products are being implemented (I am speaking of those things not always visible to the customers). Instead of competing with awesome products and excellent service, these businesses don’t live up to their own promises.

If the customer could take a look under the hood he would be surprised.

Some businesses cover it up by competing over price only and pretending that the cutting edge technology allows them to do so, others do hide that they are just ‘cooking with used water’ and not with clean water and a new pot. Nice looking press releases or websites show a picture that does not exist.

Why is that? Is the gap between upper management and plan executing employees getting too big? Is greed the driving factor behind all this that businesses use ‘version A’ for marketing but implement “version B” of the same plan? Who is at fault? Is it the CEO who never sees the way how the products is implemented and who only gets to see those cool presentations? Is it the CFO who locks down the budget but still expects operations to work with the latest technology and a large group of staff?

Is it the customer who wants the best of both worlds – low bottom-end prices and cutting edge products? What is the long-term impact onto the business strategy and success? I personally think that these businesses will always stay average (or below average) and that they never reach the upper 20% of class. This strategy will work fine for a while – even a few years but when the going gets tough these businesses will struggle more than other ones. There is only so much cover-up a business can do before the cover blows. What kind of business are you? Do you want to be just average or do you want to be in the upper 20% of the market you are in?

Until next time …

Regards,

Christoph Puetz

Owner Webhostingresourcekit.com

 

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