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DO YOU BELONG TO A LINK FARM?
Have you bought into the whole "link farm" scam in an effort to increase your inbound links so that you can get higher placement in Google and other engines that give you credit for the number of links to your site? linkstoyou.com is the one that...

Google's Sandox is Alive and Well - Official !
Sandboxes and Google Sandboxes are used to "quarantine" things in the real world (you keep all the sand in one place that way, in theory, but then again have you seen the trail from a kids sandbox?, still I digress), the term being...

Price your eBook to Sell Well
Q. The big question asked me in teleclasses or client sessions is "How should I price my eBook? A. The big answer is "it depends." Here's seven tips to help: 1. Determine your audience's need and demand for your book. If your...

The Ways To Reach your Dream
Several days ago, I wrote an article to show you what you need to do, if you decide that you want to have your own money making site, if you haven’t read that or you want to read that, please look at that article in this site the title is “Do You...

Turn Your Old Articles Into Profitable E-mail Courses
If you've written numerous articles, you can use them to further promote yourself and your business, e-zine or web site. You can re-use your old articles by transforming them into another form of promotional tool. And one way to re-use them is...

 
Web Hosting for E-Commerce Sites

If you're going to pursue an e-commerce site, hosting is going to be an issue. Here's a primer on web hosting for your site.

E-commerce web hosting is the technology of storing, servicing and maintaining files for one or more web sites selling products or services online. Web site owners who pay for a web host (generally on a monthly basis) upload their web pages to a shared or dedicated web server through an ISP (internet service provider). The web host should ensure a fast and consistent connection. Experienced web entrepreneurs desire flexibility, security and high performance from an e-commerce host. An e-commerce web server also stores information, images, videos and just about any other content that can be retrieved from a web site. Security is a priority for e-commerce web servers.

E-commerce web hosting can be divided into two major components, the site and the host (where the site is stored for access on the web). Web hosts are computers that offer storage space and Internet connectivity. Web hosts make your web site work with and connect to the Internet. E-commerce, or web commerce, allows people to buy goods and services online. On the Internet, one can buy almost anything, at any time.

E-commerce web hosting must support e-commerce software. Often a web host will provide the tools that handle online transactions and sales. In other cases, the web business owner is on their own to ascertain e-commerce software. Common tools that are provided with e-commerce web hosting are shopping carts, business account services, SSLs (secure socket layers), secure transactions, web promotion applications and advertisement packages.

While choosing a web hosting company for your E-commerce business, it is helpful to decide how much data storage is required and the data transfer rates you require for your site. A web host is the physical location of a web site, so you must be confident in the connection and security of the hosting company. Doing some research


to make sure that data reaches the end-user quickly and efficiently can payoff in a big way. Backup systems should be in place so that data is routed even if there is a router failure. Web hosts should be able to accommodate a client's web traffic (measured in volume of data transfer) in peak hours as well.

Security is a major issue for E-commerce transactions. Private information needs to be kept safe from unauthorized parties. SSL, from Netscape, helps a lot with secure transactions. SSL is an encryption technology that encodes a message that a receiver decrypts by using RSA security. For integrity and authentication of messages, digital signatures, or certificates, are required. Digital signatures ensure that sensitive information is not picked up by any other party, by posing as a legitimate e-business or in any other way. A digital certificate is a document, issued by a certificate authority, which recognizes a legitimate online business. To ensure security, many web companies store confidential information on offline disks or on a separate PC. E-commerce web hosts should also maintain multiple backups of vital information. SSL uses PKI (public key infrastructure) and digital certificates to ensue privacy and authentication. Bear in mind that security can be an expensive and complex business.

In short, when selecting an e-commerce web host it is often best to look for a pre-packaged solution that allows you to create a shopping cart, an online catalog and a secure credit card transaction and storage system. Selecting an e-commerce web host with a broad range of tools and a solid reputation is an important step for just about any e-business.

About the author:

Halstatt Pires is with the Internet marketing firm - http://www.marketingtitan.com - a San Diego Internet marketing and advertising company offering automated web site systems - http://www.businesscreatorpro.com - create web databases, e-commerce sites, business lead management systems and more.