One of the purposes of this blog was not only to write about web hosting from a non-technical perspective, but also to make it fun along the way. I noticed that I haven’t written any purely fun posts, ever. Christmas passed and I didn’t do post anything fun. I am not going to let New Years pass making the same mistake again. I wanted to post a few links to pictures of my new kitten Buffy which I have put to work as the A2 Hosting marketing manager. She has made my life much easier as I pass all of my work onto her. Just don’t tell anyone!

Enjoy the pictures and have a happy New Year!

Buffy hard at work

Buffy after I gave her a ton of work to do

I just wanted to post a quick note about our new affiliate coupon you can use in order to promote A2 Hosting. The coupon code is below:

Save 10% off all A2 Hosting packages with the coupon code aff10off. Expires 3/31/2008

Just a few suggestions…

1.) Make sure that punctuation and capitalization is correct. Poor punctuation can reflect poorly on your company and website.

2.) Poor grammar and spelling can also reflect poorly on your website. Make sure to proofread your ads.

3.) Your most important keyword that you are focusing on should be included in the first line of your Google Ad Word. This gives the audience a clear understanding of what they can expect to see when they click on your ad.

4.) You will want to make sure to include what’s unique about your product, also known as your competitive advantage. Make sure to let everyone know what sets you apart from your competitors.

5.) Do not include repeat language in your ads. They should be concise, interesting and free flowing.

6.) Try to avoid promotional words such as “free”, “new” and “for a limited time”. If it is necessary for you to do this, make sure to link to the specific product or page that you are referring to.

7.) Make sure not to tell your user’s to “click here” or some other synonymous phrase. Google likes their Adwords to appear almost like their search results.

I just wanted wish everyone a happy holiday! I hope all of your wildest dreams come true this season. Today’s post is this week’s forum post.

The A2 Hosting’s Power Package gives you unheralded VPS hosting power. With this mighty hosting package, you get 256 MB Dedicated RAM, 20 GB of disk space and 350 GB of monthly transfer space. Take a moment to get over your initial shock. Here are just some of the features that come with our VPS hosting packages.

VPS Feature Overview:

HyperVM Control Panel
Choice of Linux operating system from a number of OS templates
Ability to reload and re-image your VPS at any time
Full root access
Boot, shutdown and reboot controls
Access to install or compile your own custom software
Full control over network services running on your VPS
Port monitoring and IP blocking

Choice of A2 Hosting custom OS templates

Specific specifications for the Power VPS Package include:

512 MB Dedicated RAM (1024 MB Burstable)

20 GB Disk Space

350 GB Monthly Transfer

4 IP Addresses

CPU Share: 4x

And just like all A2 Hosting packages - FREE Setup!

This week we would like to announce that you can become a VPS Power Package customer for as low as $42.95 per month. Make sure to use the coupon code a2forumhost07 to save an additional 15% as this coupon expires on the 31^st, so act fast!

It took me a bit of time to understand exactly how much each advertiser is charged so please bare with me as I explain using the above example.

Advertiser X has the highest rank number (Max PPC bid times quality score), so they will get the number one ad position. The rank number helps determine the lowest minimum bid needed to maintain the number one ad position. Just because the Max PPC bid is $.50, doesn’t mean they will spend $.50. To determine the actually CPC for advertiser X, the cost is advertiser’s Y’s rank number (.66) divided by Advertiser X’s quality score (2), to get $.33. You also need to add 1 penny to lock in the spot. This is the cost of advertiser Y to be in advertiser’s X’s position and what the actual CPC for advertiser X is.

Notice also that because X has a higher quality score, they are actually spending less than advertising Y for a higher position. Kind of crazy and confusing, but I hope this helps you out. If anything, it is definitely a guide for me.

FYI:

(Advertiser Y’s Rank Number/Advertiser X’s Rank Number) + 1 Penny = Actual CPC

I have spent the past work day researching and refreshing my memory in regards to PPC advertising with Google, as well as learning the ways of PPC bidding in MSN and Yahoo.

Though ad ranking with Google ad words may be common knowledge for some people, I didn’t know how the ads ranked before this year when I read all about Google ad ranking. Any webmaster who is planning on advertising their site should know this information. The thing that I found most surprising is that the cost per click is only one factor in determining where the ad ranks, not the only factor as I had previously thought. I had always thought that whoever bid the most would be ranked the highest. Untrue!

Besides maximum price per click, the other factor is quality score which is multiplied to the maximum cost per click. The factors that play a part in the quality score are the click-through rate of the advertisers’ ads, the relevance of the ad and the keywords associated with the ad compared to the term that was searched within Google, and the historical performance of the keyword. The person with the highest quality score multiplied to the maximum cost per click is the person or company ranked number 1 in the ad rankings. There is more to the actual ranking, which I hope to discuss in the coming days.

I am a little partial, but I think that the A2 Hosting affiliate program is one of the best affiliate programs on the web. You can make money with other ones as well. There are some sites out there that actually point some of the better programs to join. One of those sites is AffiliateGuide.com - Your guide to the best web affiliate programs. In case you were interested, A2 Hosting’s affiliate program is listed on that page.

It has been awhile since I posted about the A2 Web Hosting Affiliate Program. Just because I don’t have any major news to report, doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to say about the program. I actually have a ton to say about it. The first and most obvious topic is our 300% commission. Pick any non-dedicated package out on our page. If you refer a new customer to us that purchases that package, you earn 3 times that amount as your commission. Our program is very lucrative.

I know if I were an affiliate, I would be all over this program for a number of reasons besides our insane commission structure. One of them in particular sticks out at the moment. As an affiliate, you always want to make sure that you are joining a program that you know has a dedicated affiliate manager that will be there whenever you have questions, requests, and concerns. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I feel as though I definitely fit the bill of a dedicated affiliate manager.

Here is one such example of how I will be there for you as your affiliate manager of this program. At A2 Hosting, we understand that business moves extremely fast. I know that whenever I have a question or send an email request to another business, I hate having to wait a long time for a response. I know that affiliates feel the same way. I have a number of methods to make sure that affiliates do not have to wait an extended period of time to hear from me. Here is one such example. I have my email software set up so that I get a notification every time someone sends me an email. This means that anytime an affiliate signs up for the affiliate program or emails me with a question, I will see a notification pop up regardless of what program I am using telling me who sent the email and what the subject of that email was. As a rule of thumb, I will generally drop whatever I am doing, regardless of that tasks importance, if I see that an affiliate question or an affiliate application has just been sent my way to respond. I know our affiliates are valuable and they work hard. They should be ensured that during the work day, they will always get a prompt response from the A2 Hosting affiliate program.

Along with a number of other types of hosting capabilities that A2 Hosting has, one to add to that list is PostreSQL hosting. I am definitely new to this type of hosting and the purpose of this blog is to describe the different types of hosting to new webmasters, so here we go.

To best understand what PostgreSQL is, one must know that it is an object-relational database management system (ORDBMS) is because that is what PostgreSQL is.

Breaking down ORDBMS:

1.) It is a relational database management system. The relational management system is based on predicate logic and set theory.

a.) Predicate logic is a general term for formula systems such as first, second and infinitary logic.

i.) First order logic is breaks down sentences or mathematical equations into subject and predicates, with the predicate defining the subject.

ii.) Second order logic is an extension of first order logic as it allows for further explanation of the subject.

iii.) Infinitary logic is a statement that can be infinitely long

b.) Set theory is the theory of the sorting of objects into different groups (or you could say “sets” in this instance).

From all of these definitions, I think the easiest way to break this down is relational management is simply grouping objects and defining those objects by creating “relationships” as designated in the term relational management.

2.) It allows software developers to mix together their custom sets of data and specific tasks to be performed associated with that data.

PostgresSQL is not controlled by any one company and it is made available for everyone, allowing developers to edit it in any way that they see fit.

Over the last few weeks, I have been posting on forums regarding A2 Hosting’s VPS hosting. This week’s forum post is no different, except that I posted about the specific Enhanced VPS package.

If you have had the chance to read some of the latest A2 Hosting posts on this forum, you would have read that we have unleashed brand new VPS hosting technology and VPS packages. This week we would like to introduce our Enhanced VPS Package which comes with 256 MB Dedicated RAM, 10 GB of disk space and 200 GB of monthly transfer space. If you haven’t had a chance to read our previous VPS posts, here is a quick recap of all of the features included with our VPS hosting.

VPS Feature Overview:

HyperVM Control Panel
Choice of Linux operating system from a number of OS templates
Ability to reload and re-image your VPS at any time
Full root access
Boot, shutdown and reboot controls
Access to install or compile your own custom software
Full control over network services running on your VPS
Port monitoring and IP blocking

Choice of A2 Hosting custom OS templates

Specific specifications for the Enhanced VPS Package include:

256 MB Dedicated RAM (256 MB Burstable)

10 GB Disk Space

200 GB Monthly Transfer

2 IP Address*

CPU Share: 2x

And just like all A2 Hosting packages - FREE Setup!

This week we would like to announce that you can become a VPS Enhanced Package customer for as low as $24.95 per month. We will even sweeten the pot more by offering an additional 15% until the end of the year with the coupon code a2forumhost07 on our Enhanced VPS package, as well as all other hosting packages.