Gawkwire: Web Hosting and Internet News Resource

Kemp Technologies Virtualizes LoadMaster Technology

2010-03-31T14:20:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) Kemp Technologies, creators of the LoadMaster series of load balancer products, recently announced the launch of its latest product a virtualized load balancer. The new Virtual LoadMaster (VLM) will be sold under a Service Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA) starting at only $99 per month. Web Hosts will also be happy to note that there are no startup or setup fees involved.

The idea for VLM was born from the needs of customers. Many were impressed by the technology of the hardware load balancers and the price was already far below the competition; however, even at the low costs, end users would have to have long-term contracts to recoup the initial costs of the product. Other added costs such as shipping, hardware maintenance costs, installation, removal, et cetera also hindered growth "Three years ago we toyed around with taking the highest end box and splitting it into individual load balancers," reminisces Peter Melerud, Kemp Technologies VP of Biz Development. Though the idea was shelved, it served as a basis for developing VLM. Instead of splitting a box, VLM takes the same technology used in the hardware load balancers and places it in a virtual environment in a server supplied by the client.

Although the solution is software based, it should not be confused with most forms of software based load balancing. “The VLM offers the same functionality as our hardware appliances, including advanced Layer 7 content switching, health checking, persistence, caching, compression and SSL offloading. As MHPs and MSPs consolidate and virtualize servers in order to reduce hardware and related management costs, the Virtual LoadMaster delivers high value at an incredible price point from which both the provider and its customer can benefit,” said Kevin Mahon, founder and president of KEMP Technologies. Essentially, the client receives a user-friendly version of the firmware and installs it to its own virtual machine using VMware.

The benefits for Web hosts are many. Due to a lack of setup fees or long-term contracts, the system can immediately pay for itself the day it is turned on, unlike hardware load balancers. The solution is scalable to the constraints of the hardware. For instance, if a Web host wanted to offer a higher end load balancer using VLM they could increase the amount of resources going to that virtual machine or use a higher quality box. The hardware and software necessary for running VLM are already a part of most Web hosts' inventory reducing upfront costs. Maintenance costs such as power, cooling, and the like are also reduced because of the virtualized nature of the system.

Matthias Machowinski, Directing Analyst, Enterprise Voice and Data at Infonetics, put it simply, "As businesses increasingly demand sophisticated application delivery solutions to maintain their competitive edge, managed hosting and service providers are trying to figure out how to offer these while keeping service pricing affordable and maintaining margins. By decoupling the application from the hardware through a virtual machine, they can offer advanced application delivery functionality in a software-only application, which allows them to deliver cost-effective and profitable services."

End users also benefit from VLM. The low-cost makes it appealing for SMBs, e-commerce sites, application hosting, and media sites. On the other end of the hosting solution equation it also provides more flexibility for cloud and application delivery models.

Kemp Technologies' Virtual LoadMaster offers Web hosts a unique means of providing end users with load balancer technology without the added costs of hardware solutions.

Writer’s Bio: David Dunlap is celebrating his 10th year as both a Web host industry analyst and commentator. Prior to his active writing career, David was a network and communications technician for four years for the U.S. government. He currently is the Editor-in-Chief for www.WebHostMagazine.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/reviews/kemp_technologies_virtualizes_loadmaster_technology.html

Moving Host to Host

2010-03-30T09:46:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) Saying goodbye to an old home, no matter if you live in an apartment, shack or three story house is never easy to do. Before you can say hello to your new dwelling, you have to get all your personal belongings organized, boxed up, onto the moving truck and sent over. Now depending on how much stuff you have gathered over the years and how well you organized before hand this could a very simple task to complete or a difficult one. The same mind set could be used when it comes to moving you web site over to a new web hosting company.

For hosting clients, the move is not always an easy one to understand. Some do not even realize that the files must be moved to a new machine. Often times I'll get people who almost seemed shocked. While this is amusing to us who spend our day to day lives neck deep in server, disk space and bandwidth, others still find the process of moving from host to host a difficult one to wrap their minds around.

The first and most important thing you can do is backup your web site and get it ready for the move. Remember to grab all of your static files. This would be all of your non-dynamic pages, images, templates and more. To make it easier to understand, consider it anything and everything you can FTP into the account to grab inside of where your public files live. The exact files that you do backup might change depending on how your site is setup. If you have organized your web site well you should know exactly what files are in what folders and you should have no problem knowing for example, all the images are in the image folder. If your like me though, and a 'bit of a server slob you might have a more difficult time. Those of us who just kind of "toss" things onto the hosting account and say, "I'll organize that later" will have a harder time finding all the static files to backup.

Backing up Isn't Fun To Do

If your using a content management system, then you might search the official site for that CMS to find the best way to backup the information it stores. Often you can also backup you databases (MySQL, MSSQL, ect). Control panels can really come in handy when it comes to backing up too. All of the major control panels that your hosting account could come with should have a backup function built in.

You should also always keep a backup of your web site in my opinion (make one at least one a month) no matter if your moving or not. That makes this job easier to manage and getting everything moved from the Web to your computer shouldn't be such a big job.

Put Your Moving Pants On…

Next step you are going to want to take is to take all of those files, folders, databases and more from your computer to the new web host. Before transferring the information over, check with your new web host to see if you will be able to view your web site as it should be seen with the temporary URL they give you. Often if they give you a URL like this: http://www.dummyurl.com/~yourname

You will not be able to execute JSP, PHP and other advanced code types. If that is the case, see if they can set you up with a temporary real domain or sub domain. Most web hosts will be happy to do so - but it will be a service you need to ask for. Then you will know your web site will be able to be viewed by your domain name (with the old web host) or your temporary domain name (with the new web host).

They give you a domain such as testsite.testermctesttest.com. Now that you have a temporary domain that works with your new hosting plan you are ready to transfer over (via FTP) all of your static web site files.

Syncing Content, Keep it Static

Once the files are uploaded with your new web host - go back to your older web host and disable your databases and put up a nice message saying, "Web site going through move, will be back soon." or something to that effect. You need to turn off any dynamic content generation (like with forums or blogs/comments) so that your information moving from the old host to the new host will not be out of sync when your done.

Now let us go back to your new web hosting account and upload your scripts, services and databases that need to be restored. Each script will have it's own way of doing this so best to check with the script provider to see what the best method might be.

Take a break. At this point you should have two working versions of your web site. They are: the web site with your domain name at the old web host and the web site with the temporary domain with the new web host. Both should be static, so that no content can be added or removed from them at this point in the move.

If all systems are go, then you are ready to move to the next step in the process.

Domain Names and Nameservers

Now you need to get your domain name to point to your web site with your new web host. To do this, login to the place where your domain name is registered and update your nameservers. These should be supplied to you by your new web hosting company and are what tells the domain name to point to the new hosting account and away from the old one.

Also, please not that if you talked your new web host into giving you a temporary domain (remember testsite.testermctesttest.com), now you will probably need to tell them you want to go back to using your actual domain name.

Now this nameserver update will take some time to complete. I would say give it 24 to 48 hours. After that time has gone by your domain name should be pointing at your new hosting account. While the change over it taking place, people will be taken (most often) to your web site with your old web host or your web site with the new web host.

As another side note of something to consider Matt Cutts (who works for the quality group in Google, specializing in search engine optimization issues) says that before you cancel your old web hosting account and take down that old web site you should wait until you see in your web site statistics that your new hosting account is being crawled by the search engine spiders. To quote his post on the subject on his blog, "Once you are sure people or Googlebots are fetching from the new webhost/IP address, you're done. You can shut down the old site". Although the post where this advice was given is a little dated, this is still good advice in my opinion.

Once your domain starts pointing at your new web hosting plan, you are almost all done. Turn back on your dynamic content, forums, blogs, comments, and more. Break open some of the good bubbly stuff too because you just completed something that most people dread. I would put moving a web site from web host to web host right up there with doing your taxes. It is no fun at all. I would give it a week or two there before you cancel your old hosting account so that if you forgot to backup something you still have time to grab it before you old web host deletes it for good.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/moving_host_to_host.html

Merchant Cash Advances

2010-03-25T18:20:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) If you are like most business owners you are probably always looking for financing sources to grow your business. Perhaps there is a new marketing campaign you want to launch or a new piece of equipment that would help you expand. Or maybe you need to stock up on additional inventories in anticipation of the holiday shopping season. Traditional sources of financing are becoming increasingly difficult to qualify for. But a relatively new industry has sprung up in the past few years that offer cash advances based on anticipated credit card sales. Under a typical program merchants can be approved for $3,000 to as much as $300,000 based on a review of their credit card processing volume and typical daily receipts.

What is a Merchant Cash Advance?
A Merchant Cash Advance (MCA) involves the purchase of a portion of a business' future credit card sales at a discount. Merchants receive a lump sum of cash from the MCA provider for use as working capital. Some of the more common uses are:

• Advertising
• Equipment
• Renovations
• Equipment
• Expansion
• Inventory
• Taxes
• Working Capital
• Emergencies

A Merchant Cash Advance is not a loan - it is the purchase of specified amount of future card sales. Because it is not a loan it has no fixed term. Instead, the MCA provider collects a fixed percentage of the merchant’s daily net settlement batch through a process known as “batch-splitting” or a closely related variation through the Automated Clearing House (ACH). As a result, the repayment of the advance correlates with the merchant’s cash flow and is better aligned to the short term fluctuations of their business than traditional financing arrangements which require the payment of a fixed dollar amount regardless of sales volume.

MCA providers usually require less paperwork than traditional lenders and can often fund the advance in a week or less. To qualify for and advance, most MCA providers require merchants to have been in business for nine months and maintained a minimum of $1,500 to $4,000 per month in credit card sales for three consecutive months. On average, MCA providers advance about one-and-a-half times the merchant’s monthly credit card sales volume.

Pros and Cons
One of the biggest advantages of an MCA is that it is unsecured, uncollateralized and does not require a personal guarantee. Another big plus is that there are no set payments. So, during slow months merchants pay back less money. In addition, there are no penalties if merchants decide to pay their advances off early.

A Merchant Cash Advance is more costly than traditional sources of capital due to the fact that there is more risk to the MCA provider than to a traditional lender who typically will have recourse against the assets of the business or the owner. The MCA provider will calculate a retrieval percentage based on your type of business and an analysis of your processing history. This percentage can range from 2% to 9%. It is important that you determine whether or not your margins are high enough to absorb this additional cost so you do not run the risk of going out of business.

Another drawback is that most MCA Providers will require the merchant to agree not to switch their credit card processing account.

Finding a Reputable MCA Provider
Most payment processors have a relationship with a Merchant Cash Advance Provider. Chances are that they have done some due diligence to make sure the company is reputable. This industry is still growing and is self-regulated. Some disreputable MCA Providers might increase the retrieval percentage without the merchant's consent if the merchant's sales slow down and the MCA Provider is not getting their money back in a timely manner. Make sure all fees are clearly disclosed in the contract. Choose a provider that has the infrastructure in place to support their client base enabling you to receive answers to questions and get problems resolved within reasonable times.

Summary
A Merchant Cash Advance can be an excellent non-traditional source of working capital for many small business owners who don’t qualify for traditional types of financing.

About the Authors:
Russ Gottlich, CPA is CEO of FDIS Loud (www.fdisloud.com), an independent agent of First Data Independent Sales (FDIS), a leading provider of payment processing services and tools for Internet and retail merchants worldwide. Corey Bryant has been with FDIS Loud since 2002 and is an expert in the field of e-commerce. He currently writes a blog at www.mymerchantaccountblog.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/merchant_cash_advances.html

How to Leverage SEO to Acquire More Customers

2010-03-24T07:06:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) Search engine traffic is probably the internet’s leading source of targeted buyers. Nowhere else online do people explicitly tell you what they’re looking to buy, and nowhere else do you have the opportunity to find potential web hosting clients who have their credit card in hand. The problem is, your competitors also know that search is a powerful advertising medium, and with over a million people a month searching for “web hosting”, both paid advertising and organic search engine optimization for web hosting has become an extremely competitive niche.

What’s a web hosting company to do? How do you compete with the large advertising budgets and high Cost of Acquisition that your competitors are using? Here are a few tips that will help you propel your web site’s rankings and get more customers:

1. Employ good on page practices – Make sure your website code is validated and can be crawled by search engines. Your website needs to have unique content and preferably a good amount of it. This helps with both Organic Search and will also improve your Google Adwords Quality Score if you are advertising through AdWords.

2. Avoid Spam Tactics – Using tactics like doorway pages, stuffed keywords, link farms and other “black hat” tactics won’t work long term and will only result in getting your site banned from search engines.

3. Target Niche Phrases – While ranking for “web hosting” is a laudable goal, you will get more conversions and find it easier to rank for longer phrases, such as “small business web hosting” and “blog hosting”. Not only that, you’ll experience a higher tier of customers if you target more lucrative niche phrases.

4. Build Links to Your Site – Most modern search engines rely heavily on links to a site to determine the popularity and ranking ability of a website. The more quality web links a site has, the better chance it will rank for more competitive terms. Link building is an art unto itself, but you can start the process by soliciting links from satisfied customers, affiliates, vendors, and advertising companies. There are many pitfalls to be wary of, including over optimization and getting your site banned from Search Engines, so it’s a good idea to learn more about link building before beginning.

5. Enter the Social Web – Being active on sites like Twitter, Stumble Upon, Facebook and Digg can help both your company’s reputation and give you a better chance at ranking for competitive terms. Give an employee the extra job of being responsible for maintaining your company’s social media accounts, and have him interact with both existing and prospective customers.

6. Optimize for Conversions – Perhaps one of the most overlooked parts of web marketing, conversion optimization entails taking your existing web site and use various tools to test, measure and discover which parts of your site convert the best. This allows you to test different ad creative, copy and promotions to see which results in the most customers. If you can only do one thing today in your marketing, it’s a very good idea to start optimizing and making more money from your existing traffic.

Search Engine Optimization for web hosting companies is a tough vertical, but the benefits in terms of customers and branding are enormous. Try starting with these simple steps listed above, and with a lot of work and some luck, you too can start getting customers from Search.

Writer's Bio:
Ariel Ozick is CEO of Wired Rhino, Inc. and can be reached at ari@wiredrhino.com.He is happy to receive any feedback and answer questions related to Search Marketing.

http://www.gawkwire.com/seo_sem/how_to_leverage_seo_to_acquire_more_customers.html

Web Hosting Companies for Sale

2010-03-16T06:39:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) The market for buying and selling web hosting companies ebbs and flows with the general business climate. It may be the case that the current economic downturn has created a buying opportunity for anyone looking to step up and buy a hosting company. You might think that buying a hosting company would take tons of cash. In some cases that is true, but in many others the size of the property is so small that the entire web hosting operation can be bought for thousands of dollars – not millions of dollars.

If one were inclined to seek out a website hosting company to buy – where do you look? How do you know what the market prices for any given type of hosting company are right now? I asked the advice of the experts at website hosting company 34SP.com. Here are a few resources they recommend you check if you are researching or considering buying a web hosting company.

MergerNetwork was the first online marketplace for buying and selling businesses. It went online in May 1995 under the name M&A Marketplace. The site now claims to have an additional 2,000 businesses listed for sale each month. You can see a number of different types of businesses for sale as well. The category link that displays web development and web hosting businesses is: http://www.mergernetwork.com/businesses-for-sale/industry/135. You will need to register if you want to see the listing details.

Claiming over 50,000 businesses for sale, BizBuySell is the ”Internet’s most active marketplace for businesses and franchises for sale. Each month BizBuySell receives over 700,000 visits from individuals looking for new business opportunities and from business owners looking to sell their business or franchise.” Similar to MergerNetwork, you can search by category or geography. The site is vast and the categories and search make zeroing in on a web hosting company for sale pretty tricky. The site is here: http://www.bizbuysell.com.

Flippa is billed as ”The #1 marketplace for buying and selling web sites.” Clean and easy to use, just go to the homepage and click the ‘Buy a Website’ button. I did a quick search by using the keywords ‘web hosting’. The results of that search query are here. While there are many other types of sites included in the search results, there were a few web hosting companies listed as well. The nice part of this site is that the information about number of visitors, PageRank, and Alexa rank are all listed for each site on the right column. This saves you a few steps of research. Also has a ‘Buy It Now’ feature in addition to bidding.

Another option in looking for a web hosting company to buy is Web Hosting Talk forums. This is a community made up of web hosting professionals, so the offers tend to be right to the point. You can usually find at least a few companies currently for sale under the category of ‘Other Related Offers’. Here is a direct link to the section that frequently has the web hosting companies listed for sale: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=97.

As described on their website, Cheval Capital is: ”A boutique investment bank that specializes in mergers, acquisitions and corporate finance.” The company is run by Frank and Hillary Stiff. Together the team has vast amounts of experience and have handled many hosting-related transactions over the past few years. What I have found to be supremely helpful over the years has been a list of web hosting companies for sale that the company distributes via email. Dubbed the ”Cheval Opportunities List” it is comprised of assets currently for sale. The companies for sale are usually in the range between $50,000 US and $5 million US. The list is emailed out about every 2 weeks.

Cheval acts as an advisor in the transactions and is paid a modest fee by the buyer. The fee is paid as the buyer pays the purchase price – so if the seller is paid over time, Cheval Capital is paid over time as well. To get added to the mailing list for the Cheval Opportunities List, contact Frank Stiff at: fstiff[at]chevalcap.com, or phone directly at 703-549-7390.

So there you have it. A few places to check and see what types of hosting companies are for sale and get a sense of prices as well. Good luck in finding the right web hosting company for you.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/web_hosting_companies_for_sale.html

Leverage SEO to Acquire More Customers

2010-03-10T06:19:00-05:00

6. Optimize for Conversions – Perhaps one of the most overlooked parts of web marketing, conversion optimization entails taking your existing web site and use various tools to test, measure and discover which parts of your site convert the best. This allows you to test different ad creative, copy and promotions to see which results in the most customers. If you can only do one thing today in your marketing, it’s a very good idea to start optimizing and making more money from your existing traffic.

Search Engine Optimization for web hosting companies is a tough vertical, but the benefits in terms of customers and branding are enormous. Try starting with these simple steps listed above, and with a lot of work and some luck, you too can start getting customers from Search.

Ariel Ozick is CEO of Wired Rhino, Inc. and can be reached at ari@wiredrhino.com.He is happy to receive any feedback and answer questions related to Search Marketing.

http://www.gawkwire.com/seo_sem/leverage_seo_to_acquire_more_customers.html

Anti-Piracy Groups Target Disgruntled Employees

2010-03-01T06:34:00-05:00

(Gawkwire.com) Are you guilty of Software Piracy? BSA & SIIA $1 Million Cash Reward Programs entice disgruntled employees to report alleged software piracy.

The Business Software Alliance and the Software & Information Industry Association, trade organizations of software publishers, including Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk, Apple, IBM, Oracle, Novell, and Symantec, pursue small and medium businesses demanding audit details of computer systems under the threat of litigation. BSA and SIIA members give them power of attorney to represent them in software audit matters and they retain all revenue received from settlements extracted primarily from small to medium sized companies.

Robert J. Scott, whose law firm, Scott & Scott, LLP has represented over 135 clients in software audit defense cases, says: “The $1 Million Reward Programs advertised by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) appear to be very effective. The SIIA reports that they had the highest payout to informants in 2009 since they started the program in 2003. The BSA admits they receive an average of 2500 reports annually, the majority of which come from current or former employees.”

Scott recommends that businesses adopt the Boy Scott motto: Be prepared. Companies should adopt a corporate policy on software compliance, have tighter restrictions on desktop users, and institute best practices for documenting software purchases.

1. Strive to be in an audit-ready mode. At least annually, audit what software is running in your environment. Generally, it is best to use an automated software and license reconciliation tool designed expressly for this purpose.

2. Keep all receipts from software purchases indefinitely, and purchase only from authorized dealers.

3. Understand that software license compliance is a legal not just an IT issue. If you receive a letter from the associations or one of their member software companies, seek experienced legal counsel.

4. Avoid use of vendor-provided free SAM tools.

Scott says: “For years, I have questioned whether the BSA and SIIA was actually encouraging software piracy by giving disgruntled employees cash rewards with the belief that they could become millionaires. Clients have regularly told me they felt strongly that the person making the report was their employee in charge of software compliance. I understand the publisher’s need to protect their intellectual property. I do not support their methods of doing so by paying a reward to a person who may have loaded pirated software intentionally.”

About Scott & Scott, LLP (www.scottandscottllp.com and www.bsadefense.com) is a leading law and technology services firm representing businesses in matters involving software licensing. Scott & Scott’s legal and technology professionals provide software audit defense and software compliance solutions, all protected by attorney-client and work-product privileges.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/anti-piracy_groups_target_disgruntled_employees.html