Let’s say that you are a webmaster that buys hosting for a number of customers, sets up those sites, designs them and maintains them. You might think that you have to host each of these individual sites on a shared hosting account. It is actually easier and more economical to host those sites with a reseller account.

With a reseller account, you can allow each site you host to have their own cPanel access. Using cPanel, the customer could set up their site very easily. If you choose, you could setup their site for them but cPanel makes it very easy for your customers to manage their own domain.

Reseller accounts are managed with Web Host Manager (WHM). WHM can create cPanel accounts for each of your customers. With WHM, you can create and control multiple accounts whereas cPanel controls just one domain.

I spoke to a Google AdWords representative today to ask her if it were possible to see the IP address for Google AdWord clicks instead of having to look it up in web logs, an extremely tedious task. The representative’s response was:

“…it is not possible to view IP addresses from AdWords or any of or tracking features- you will need to stick to your weblog for this.”

This is unfortunate because I thought it would be a cool and useful feature to be able to see the incoming IP addresses from Google AdWord web visitors.

There are many attributes that one can use to evaluate when trying to choose what web package to purchase and which company to purchase from. One of the attributes that I have noticed on all web hosting company websites is that they each list how much disk space comes with each particular package that they carry.

Something that does vary is some companies, like A2 Hosting, list how much “monthly data transfer” comes with a package while others list how much bandwidth comes with each package. I always figured that these terms were synonymous to one another until recently when I discovered the truth.

I wanted to let you in on the truth. Bandwidth refers to how much data can be transferred at a time whereas data transfer refers to how much data is being transferred. These almost mean the exact same thing, but it is important to know the difference when researching web hosting companies.

As you may have noticed on certain holidays, Google changes their logo to match the theme of those particular holidays. On New Years you might see a Google logo with confetti and on the 4^th of July you might see the Google logo surrounded by a firework backdrop.

I think that any kid that grew up building Legos would appreciate today’s Google logo. Today is the anniversary of Legos. In honor of this anniversary, Google has displayed their logo built with Legos. This is by far my favorite Google logo. Check it out for yourself while you still can.

And for fun try and say “Google Lego Logo” 10 times fast. Now that is a tongue twister.

In yesterday’s post, I briefly mentioned that A2 Hosting gives free PCI DSS compliant scans. I thought that I would elaborate on this very important ecommerce service today.

A2 Hosting has a special partnership with ScanAlert, a company that offers third party PCI compliance certification. ScanAlert normally costs $149 per year, but because of A2 Hosting’s partnership with them, the first year is FREE and each additional year is only $19. Good deal eh? This Scan Alert certification program includes:

* Scheduled quarterly and unlimited manual PCI compliance scans for up to 6 domains

* Full DSS vulnerability support solutions from certified security specialists

* Assisted online PCI DSS self-assessment questionnaire

* Online assistance for creation of a mandatory PCI DSS security policy

* Unlimited telephone technical support

* The ability to the compliance reports directly to your bank of choice

A2 Hosting customer’s also receive discounts of as much as 70% off their Hacker Safe service. With this service, your site will be certified daily communicating to your customers that the data they will transmit will be safe from hackers and they will be protected from identity theft.

I have a scenario for you. Think of the exact same ecommerce site that has only one difference, one is Hacker Safe certified and the other is not. Which one would you prefer to purchase from? Of course the one that is Hacker Safe certified because you know that your private information is secure.

Increase your conversion rate with A2 Hosting PCI compliant web hosting.

I should have probably known what PCI DSS was before researching it recently. I give myself some slack when it comes to the web hosting terms as I am the “marketing guy” and still new to the industry. However, PCI DSS probably falls more under a general marketing term so I can’t really cut myself slack in that respect.

PCI stands for Payment Card Industry. This is a general term for all of the companies that issue credit cards, debit cards and ATM cards. DSS stands for Data Security Standard. DSS is a guideline developed by PCI to prevent fraud, hacking, and security threats in regards to the information that is processed, stored and transmitted by the PCI.

I think we all know someone that has some sort of private information compromised. Prevention of the corruption of such data is the purpose of these guidelines. Consumers need to know that this private data is handled properly and securely. Companies within the PCI must follow these guidelines or they could lose the capacity to process credit, debit and ATM cards. There are 12 DSS guidelines. They are:

1. Must install a firewall and maintain it to protect data

2. Cannot use vendor-supplied defaults for system

3. Protect stored cardholder data

4. Cardholder data sent over public networks must be encrypted

5. Anti-virus software must be used and updated on a regular basis

6. Secure systems and applications must be used

7. Cardholder data must have restricted access on a need to know basis

8. Each person with access to this data must have a separate ID and password

9. Non-electronic access to this data must be restricted

10. Access to cardholder data must be monitored

11. Security processes and systems but be tested on a regular basis

12. An information security policy must be developed and addressed

For FREE PCI DSS compliance scans, visit A2 Hosting for more information.

Press Release featured on TheWhir- New features and improved usability makes VPS Hosting from www.a2hosting.com better than ever.

Ann Arbor, Michigan, December 6, 2007 — A2 Hosting has released brand new Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting packages with an array of new and innovative features. The announcement comes in conjunction with A2 Hosting’s initiative of remaining on the leading edge of the web hosting industry by maintaining their developer friendly environment that offers the latest versions of the most powerful hosting software.

According to CEO Bryan Muthig, “Our new VPS Hosting packages will enable us to attract hosting customers that need more space, power and flexibility than traditional shared hosting packages have to offer, but also need a financial alternative to managed, dedicated hosting”.

A2 Hosting’s VPS hosting is powered by OpenVZ, ensuring that all allocated hosting space will always be readily available. Each package is powered by HyperVM Control Panel for superior hosting control. Additional features include:

* 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

In addition to the range of features included, each VPS package is compatible with the most popular Linux distributions including Debian, CentOS, Fedora. Gentoo, Slackware, openSUSE, Ubuntu and Ruby on Rails. Every VPS hosting customer also has the choice of custom OS Templates that include the following, with more options coming soon:

* CentOS 4: Host In A Box
* CentOS 5: FastCGI + Ruby on Rails
* CentOS 5: Mongrel Pound + Ruby on Rails
* CentOS 5: Linux Apache MySQL PHP/Perl/Python
* CentOS 5: Linux Apache PostgreSQL PHP/Perl/Python

About A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting, Inc is a Linux based web hosting company based in Ann Arbor, Michigan focused on meeting and exceeding all of their customers’ needs. A2 Hosting’s range of services include affordable, developer friendly website hosting for personal homepages up to full service solutions for businesses of all sizes.

I just wanted to announce that A2 Hosting is launching a monthly company newsletter/corporate blog. If you want to sign up for the newsletter mailing list, you can do so here. The newsletter is focused at our customers, but has a ton of great information for potential customers as well. If you are not interested in receiving the newsletter, each month we will post the newsletter at our news site where you can read the A2 Host Post online instead of in your inbox. The first newsletter is up right now. Be one of the first to read it!

I wrote a blog post last week announcing the expansion of our support staff’s hours. I liked the post so much, I decided to alter it a bit to make it this week’s forum posting.

A2 Hosting Expands Support Hours

As A2 Hosting continues to grow, so do our support hours. Our amazing technical support staff now supports our growing client base from 9AM-12PM EST, Monday through Friday via the phone, support tickets and live chat. In addition, support hours have also expanded on the weekends from 10:00 AM-6 PM EST.

As you can see, if you are in need of hosting support, there’s a good chance that based on these expanded hours, our support staff will be there to help. If you happen to encounter something during one of those rare off-support times or you prefer to figure out a problem on your own, don’t forget about our extensive amount of information available via the A2 Hosting Knowledgebase, the A2 Hosting Wiki, as well as our Customer Forums.

Trust me, I know from experience that we have a top notch hosting staff. Being the “marketing guy” there have been plenty of times when I have needed assistance and one of the members of the support staff has given me quick, solid and most importantly knowledgeable help. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone makes you feel brainless if you are not knowledgeable in a particular subject. I can promise you that that will never happen at A2 Hosting.

I logged into my Commission Junction account yesterday for the first time in a little while and I was looking at a number of programs and their statistics trying to decide if certain affiliate programs would be profitable or not. I stumbled across a phrase called Action Referral Period. I honestly had no idea what that phrase meant.

My first guess was that it referred to the amount of time it took for the company to approve a sale that was made. I was very wrong. After a bit of research, I discovered that it was just a fancy way of saying “Cookie Life”.

If you are unaware of what cookie life means, the term merely refers to the amount of time an affiliate cookie is active on a potential customer’s browser so that if something is purchased from the company via an affiliate, the affiliate still receives credit.

Here is an example. The A2 Hosting Affiliate Program has a cookie life of 30 days. Let’s say that Adventures In Hosting was an affiliate of A2 Hosting. Let’s say Joe Schmoe came to Adventures In Hosting, realizes that A2 Hosting was an amazing hosting company (which they are) and clicks on an affiliate ad for A2 Hosting. Joe doesn’t buy his hosting package immediately and instead decides to shop around a bit. Let’s say after 13 days, Mr Schmoe comes back to A2 Hosting and decides to purchase a hosting package. Adventures In Hosting would receive credit for that sale because that cookie is still active. Now let’s say Joe comes back after 31 days and purchases a hosting account. Unfortunately that cookie has expired and Joe Schmoe wouldn’t receive affiliate credit for that sale.