This shift in the consumer psyche is partially due to the increase in available information and guidance, and partially a result of a difficult economy. Consumers are driven to attempt new feats that they’d never otherwise consider, all in the hope of saving a few bucks.  In the realm of web hosting in particular, the DIY mentality shows no signs of slowing down. There’s no question that as these new webmasters become more capable and aware of the possibilities that come with building their own website, they will also become more dependent on their web hosting companies.  And this dependence is – perhaps surprisingly – not a bad thing.

Here are some reasons why:

1. The more people attempt to build their own websites, the more web hosts will develop their services to meet the growing needs of their customers.  There’s no question that as individuals become consumers of the web hosting industry and don’t leave these decisions to professionals, there will be a shift in the desires of web hosting consumers. Top web hosts will continue to show expanded features and services to meet these evolving needs.
2. Those building websites for the first time depend on their web hosts to make the endeavor as simple as possible. The continued growth of this trend will prompt web hosts to simplify their web hosting services in new and innovative ways. This will be a significant advantage for consumers at all skill levels.  Though many web hosts entice consumers by offering the latest technologies such as PHP 5 and PostgreSQL databases, novice website builders are looking for the simplest technologies. The more new website builders rely on their web hosts, the more hosts will simplify and adapt their platforms accordingly.
3. Web hosting is evolving from a strictly technical field to one that comprises a lot of design elements, and consumers at all levels depend on their hosts to provide these services.  Whether via a drag-and-drop website builder or a wide array of website templates, web hosts have begun to help their clients build not only reliable websites, but beautiful sites – and this is a trend that is certain to extend into the future.

One More Thing to Consider

It’s also important to consider that while DIY endeavors are becoming more popular, we are also living in an age where people are overstimulated and over-scheduled. They can only make time for things that are truly critical.  Some web hosting providers have already begun to offer mobile platforms through which webmasters can update their sites on-the-go. All of the top web hosts provide automatic site backups to protect their clients’ information, without placing this burden on the webmaster.

Moving forward, webmasters will likely find it even more difficult to balance the burden of building and maintaining their websites while tending to their family, business or other obligations.  In turn, they will rely on their web hosts even more to provide support services, reliable uptime and easy access – things which can always be improved.  Though this situation may seem paradoxical, it is certainly one that will have long term benefits for webmasters worldwide.

Jessica Stewart is a researcher at Consumer-Rankings.com and specializes in covering the progress of the hosting industry.

The Bluehost data center is the best in the business. While no system escapes the occasional problem, especially one with as many moving parts as a data center, our professional admin team is always on hand 24/7 to monitor our servers, replace and upgrade equipment, and ensure everything runs as smoothly as possible. But even when running perfectly, data loss still happens. The most common cause? Human error: people accidentally delete or overwrite existing files or emails.

Redundancy, Redundancy, Redundancy

Our internal backups can be super helpful when tragedy strikes, but the timing of these does not always capture the latest changes made to your website. That’s why we recommend you make your own personal backup every time you make significant changes to your site. And even if you aren’t often updating your website, regular monthly backups make it much easier to restore data if needed.

Here’s how to create backups of your files:

1. Login to your cPanel.
2. Scroll down to the ‘Files’ section and click the ‘Site Backup & Restore’ icon.
3. Select ‘Full cPanel Backup’.
4. Select the starting date from when you want to create a backup.
5. Select an archive type (.tar or .zip).
6. Download and Save the file.

It’s just that easy to create a reliable backup of your files right on your home computer for safe keeping. It just takes a few minutes to go through these steps and can help you avoid a lot of frustration and heartache. As always, call us if you have questions or need a hand!

One More Tip

Are you an advanced website builder? Lots of our clients prefer using more sophisticated backup tools. Our Site Backup & Restore Pro tool allows even more control when restoring and backing up files: you can elect to restore only individual files, only the files that have changed, or just databases and tables. Check it out!

Camille B.
Billing Manager

See, a key component to successful blog is to identify and cater to a particular audience. Unfortunately, many novice bloggers begin addressing a broad range of topics. They imagine simply addressing more information will necessarily translate into more readers. In practice this doesn’t work. A blog without focus is like a map without a destination; it’s not very useful.

The formula to securing returning readers is to identify which audience you want to target, understand this audience well, and create specialized content geared toward them. And the best way initiate this is to first identify your “niche.” This simply means to identify the narrow, specific topic which will serve as the main focus of your blog.

Niche Blogging Makes Life Easier

• By defining your niche early, every other decision becomes easier.  A solid understanding of your niche helps guide your choice of domain name, the software you use to build your blog, the visual design or theme you choose for your website, and the plugins you use to increase your blog’s functionality.

• Knowing your niche makes it easier to create regular content for your blog. Instead of struggling with what to write (due to an infinite list of topics), a specific niche makes it much more easy to settle on a post’s content. This frees you to spend more time on creative decisions such as how to write and why.

• Focusing on a niche topic makes running a blog easier with limited resources. Perhaps your blog can’t be the defining one-stop destination for reviews on all iPhone Apps, but you may be able to establish credibility as the one-stop destination for all iPhone apps which control washing machines.

At the end of 2011, there were 181 million blogs. While many of these are spam, it’s clear that a successful blog needs to cut through the noise. Fortunately when you focus on a specific audience you are better able to do this. All you have to do is find your niche and your blog will take off for a long and pleasant flight.

Rob S.
L1 Support Agent

But let’s try to not hold it against the error pages. They may look intimidating, but they’re actually quite helpful if you understand what they represent. Below are the two most common error pages that our customers face. I’ll review what they mean and offer some tips on how you can diagnose them.

404: Page Not Found

This essentially means that the resource (link, picture, post, file, etc…) you’re attempting to view, click, embed or obtain is unavailable. The server attempted to find the specified file and failed.

What should I look for?

1. URL’s are case-sensitive. Verify that your URL employs the correct casing, then try again.
2. Make sure the domain name is entered properly, including any necessary subdomains and subfolders. A common mistake is to either add too much to the URL (e.g. including “/public_html”), or not including the proper subdomain (e.g. domain.com/file.php instead of sub.domain.com/file.php).
3. Verify your files are uploaded to the correct directories. Often files are uploaded to the home directory instead of the public_html directory, making them inaccessible on the Internet. You can check this using your cPanel -> File Manager or your preferred FTP program.

500: Internal Server Error

An Internal Server Error means that the server attempted to handle your request, but something went wrong in the process. Fortunately extensive logs are always kept which make diagnosing these errors pretty straightforward. Simply go to cPanel -> Logs -> Error Logs. You can scroll through entries manually, but often it is easier to search using the IP address listed on the error logs page to locate pertinent information. Press “CTRL” “F” on your keyboard to do so.

What should I look for?

1. Invalid characters in your .htaccess files. This is a special file which allows a user to control certain aspects of the Apache web server. While powerful, it must be very precisely constructed. Your Error Log will tell you if there is a problem and on which line it exists.
2. Invalid permissions are another common cause of 500-type errors. We work to ensure our customers always operate in the most secure web hosting environment possible. This occasionally means certain files are assigned permissions that don’t allow them to be accessed. Generally files or folders with permissions set to “777,” “666″ or any combination where “write” permissions are given to “group” or “world” will result in a 500 Internal Server Error as a security measure.
3. Verify you do not have invalid characters in your index.html, index.php scripts or dependent scripts. Like with the .htaccess, errors occur if these contains errant code or characters. As most websites are comprised of many files, we strongly suggest referring to your error logs for the precise location. You can also replace a suspect file with a version known to be working to see if the switch corrected the problem.

So now you can now diagnose your own site errors in just a few minutes! As always, if you have any questions, you’re always welcome to contact our world-class support department 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Chad K.
Support Communication and Project Coordinator

Technology may change, but every successful business still needs one thing: customers. Gone are the days of catalogs and phone books. Pretty much everyone now uses search engines (like Google) to find what they’re looking for. So if your business website doesn’t appear in search engine results, it’s almost like you don’t exist!

That’s where SEO comes in. SEO refers to actual actions that, if taken, help your website appear towards the top of relevant search results. This is what gives your website more traffic by interested individuals.

Our video explains all this and runs through a real-word example of why SEO is so important for a business, or any website for that matter that could benefit from increased web traffic. Hope it helps!

But how does it all work? Where do websites come from? If you’ve ever wanted to know the answer, just watch our video explaining the basics of how websites work, from start to finish. Check it out and let us know what you think!

See, a website is basically made up of files and computer code. The files are just like those on your computer at home, such as pictures from the last family reunion or the spreadsheets tracking quarterly revenue projections. The computer code then acts like the scaffolding behind the scenes. Written in languages like HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc… this code instructs your computer on where the files go and what they do. So think of the files as pieces of a puzzle and the computer code as the instructions on how to solve it.

Now, these files need a place to be stored. Just like the music and photos on your computer, they take up hard drive space. Well, websites are stored on powerful computers called servers. And these servers have one purpose: to store and deliver data. (That’s why they’re called servers.) Often hundreds of these servers work together, stacked into towers; the effective apartment complexes of cyberspace, with each server holding many websites.

When you build a website, you rent space on these servers through a web hosting company, like us here at Bluehost. Then you upload all your text, photos, videos, and computer code, making it possible for anyone in the world to obtain these files and view your website.

But how do people find the servers on which websites are stored? When someone visits a website they usually enter a domain name into their browser, right? Well, here’ s what actually happens:

Each website address (or domain name) is tied to the IP address of the server on which it resides. Servers all have IP addresses, and these are managed and tracked via the Domain Name Server, or DNS, for short. Think of the DNS as phone book for computers, revealing the actual server IP address tied to a given domain name. Your computer can then use this information to find the correct server, connect to receive the files and computer code, and then present the information on your screen.

So that’s it. Now you know the basics of how websites work! Make sure to check out our video about SEO to find out how to help more people actually find your website.