If your web site is important to your business, you need reliable, high-quality web hosting infrastructure and the expertise to keep your site up and running smoothly for all the world to see. This article aims to provide some pointers on choosing the right web hosting provider for you. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s been awhile since our last post. So why the hiatus?
Well, we’ve been busy readying a new service for introduction, ah ……. now!
So I’m excited to announce …….. Ascent Hosting, our new business-class web hosting service. Ascent Hosting offers its clients premium web hosting services - powerful servers, peak uptime, performance and, importantly, a strong dedication to great customer service and support.
For more information check out Ascent’s web site.
Although we’ve been hosting and managing web sites for our web design clients since 2000, until now we haven’t offered hosting as a distinct, stand-alone service under its own brand. Ascent represents a translation of that experience to providing excellence in web hosting services to a broader clientele.
And our existing web hosting clients will also reap the benefits of our investment in a world-class network, servers and expertise.
Many of you will have hosting packages that come with the Webalizer statistics package as a standard feature. Those of you who track your site’s performance carefully will already know this stuff, and can skip this post.
But for those who may need to get reacquainted with their site stats, I thought a brief refresher on the terminology used in your Webalizer reports might be in order.
This extract comes courtesy of the Webalizer Quick Help page.
Hits represent the total number of requests made to the server during the given time period (month, day, hour etc..).
Files represent the total number of hits (requests) that actually resulted in something being sent back to the user. Not all hits will send data, such as 404-Not Found requests and requests for pages that are already in the browsers cache.
Tip: By looking at the difference between hits and files, you can get a rough indication of repeat visitors, as the greater the difference between the two, the more people are requesting pages they already have cached (have viewed already).
Sites is the number of unique IP addresses/hostnames that made requests to the server. Care should be taken when using this metric for anything other than that. Many users can appear to come from a single site, and they can also appear to come from many ip addresses so it should be used simply as a rough guage as to the number of visitors to your server.
Visits occur when some remote site makes a request for a page on your server for the first time. As long as the same site keeps making requests within a given timeout period, they will all be considered part of the same Visit. If the site makes a request to your server, and the length of time since the last request is greater than the specified timeout period (default is 30 minutes), a new Visit is started and counted, and the sequence repeats. Since only pages will trigger a visit, remotes sites that link to graphic and other non- page URLs will not be counted in the visit totals, reducing the number of false visits.
Pages are those URLs that would be considered the actual page being requested, and not all of the individual items that make it up (such as graphics and audio clips). Some people call this metric page views or page impressions, and defaults to any URL that has an extension of .htm, .html or .cgi.
A KByte (KB) is 1024 bytes (1 Kilobyte). Used to show the amount of data that was transfered between the server and the remote machine, based on the data found in the server log.
Common Definitions
A Site is a remote machine that makes requests to your server, and is based on the remote machines IP Address/Hostname.
URL - Uniform Resource Locator. All requests made to a web server need to request something. A URL is that something, and represents an object somewhere on your server, that is accessable to the remote user, or results in an error (ie: 404 - Not found). URLs can be of any type (HTML, Audio, Graphics, etc…).
Referrers are those URLs that lead a user to your site or caused the browser to request something from your server. The vast majority of requests are made from your own URLs, since most HTML pages contain links to other objects such as graphics files. If one of your HTML pages contains links to 10 graphic images, then each request for the HTML page will produce 10 more hits with the referrer specified as the URL of your own HTML page.
Search Strings are obtained from examining the referrer string and looking for known patterns from various search engines. The search engines and the patterns to look for can be specified by the user within a configuration file. The default will catch most of the major ones.
Note: Only available if that information is contained in the server logs.
User Agents are a fancy name for browsers. Netscape, Opera, Konqueror, etc.. are all User Agents, and each reports itself in a unique way to your server. Keep in mind however, that many browsers allow the user to change it’s reported name, so you might see some obvious fake names in the listing.
Note: Only available if that information is contained in the server logs.
Entry/Exit pages are those pages that were the first requested in a visit (Entry), and the last requested (Exit). These pages are calculated using the Visits logic above. When a visit is first triggered, the requested page is counted as an Entry page, and whatever the last requested URL was, is counted as an Exit page.
Countries are determined based on the top level domain of the requesting site. This is somewhat questionable however, as there is no longer strong enforcement of domains as there was in the past. A .COM domain may reside in the US, or somewhere else. An .IL domain may actually be in Isreal, however it may also be located in the US or elsewhere. The most common domains seen are .COM (US Commercial), .NET (Network), .ORG (Non-profit Organization) and .EDU (Educational). A large percentage may also be shown as Unresolved/Unknown, as a fairly large percentage of dialup and other customer access points do not resolve to a name and are left as an IP address.
Response Codes are defined as part of the HTTP/1.1 protocol (RFC 2068; See Chapter 10). These codes are generated by the web server and indicate the completion status of each request made to it.
Flip Interactive, through our partner Ascent Hosting, offers your organisation premium web site hosting services, powerful servers, peak uptime, performance and 24/7 support across a range of very competitive web site hosting packages.
If you are in the market for premium hosting we offer top notch performance, service and support at an affordable price point.
There are many, many hosts out there who will offer you unlimited everything for peanuts. But such business models rely on volume to succeed. Can you be confident your host - and your web presence - will still be there in six months? Twelve months? Who and where are these poeple anyway?
In the real world you get what you pay for, and what you get with us is dedication to prompt, personal client service on top of our reputation for hosting performance and reliability.
Add to that dedicated support, triple monitoring services, RAID 5, nightly backups, an offsite disaster recovery information web site so in a crisis support communications are kept open, and much more (more details on the way).
Our web site hosting packages offer some of the best value, features and cost/benefit outcomes available. Take advantage of what we can offer to help make your web site really perform for you day in, day out, year after year.
For web hosting enquiries, please use our contact form, or browse the Ascent Hosting web site directly for a speedy reply.
Permalink Comments off
Flip is a small, talented website design team based in Brisbane Australia.
Our focus is on website design, blog design, web content writing services and web site hosting for small to medium sized businesses.
Here are just a couple of examples of the great feedback we receive, demonstrating our focus on becoming a valued and trusted online partner to our clients through excellence in service and advice.
Rob Phelan of Flip Interactive has not only efficiently supplied me
with the core technical, marketing and design expertise I have needed
since 2002, during that time he has been a trusted adviser and
sounding board.A true professional, Rob Phelan puts his client’s
interests first by not holding back on, but instead sharing his
empowering knowledge.Robert Garvey, Solicitor
Role: Flip Interactive contracted as Principal Project Manager (Client Service Delivery Strategy), Queensland Department of Transport
It has been very challenging at times but we have always worked as a team, everyone contributed unselfishly and I am proud and thankful to have had you as a member. I wish to extend my sincere appreciation for your effort, enthusiasm and contribution. We have achieved a lot under difficult circumstances.
Debra Graham
Director (Client Service Delivery Strategy)
Queensland Transport
More testimonials available here.
Custom web site design » » Web site redesign
We partner with our clients to co-create professional, clean and stylish web site designs that engage target audiences and deliver a high grade user experience.
Collectively we’ve built and consulted on web sites and online services for many types of organizations, from government departments, international, national and state corporations, professional firms, a retail chain, through to one-person, home-based consultancy businesses and everything in between.
Find out about our web design services and why Flip Interactive is the right choice of partner to work with you on your next web site design, redesign or upgrade project here.
It’s an exciting time to be working in the web industry right now. Why? Well, weblogs or blogs are a big part of the answer to that question.
Smart businesses are now able to transform their web sites into far more interactive, dynamic and powerful platforms than possible with the “static” web. When properly implemented, a weblog can provide an informal communications channel that really drives your marketing strategy and maximizes return on investment from your web site.
Why not use all the tools available to get and keep the attention of your prospective customers?. Weblogs are powerful enablers of communication and interaction. Use weblogs to your advantage.
Find out how Flip can tailor a smart blog design and content strategy just right for your organisation.
Read more about our blog design services here.
Professional web copywriting » » Blog writing (blogging) services
Need help with your web site copywriting? An engaging, articulate voice for your corporate blog?
Writing for online viewing is different. People read and consume in a different way online. As users we all expect to be able to find and then extract from a site what we want as quickly and simply as possible. It’s crucial that your web site’s copy and content makes this fundamental task easy.
Flip Interactive can help you create smart content strategies and snappy, warm and engaging copy and content voiced just right for your organization. Your readers expect it.
Learn more about our web and offline copywriting services here.
Permalink Comments off
Entries RSSComments RSS
©2007 
Flip Interactive. All rights reserved.