These tools, some created in-house by Lunarpages technical personnel while some by Lunarpages partners, are especially useful when it comes to SEO work.

What are the free web tools?

You can check out these free web tools yourself by visiting Lunarpages website.

For reference, here’s the complete list.

• Ping Tool
• Pages Indexed
• Dmoz & Yahoo Directory Checker
• IP Lookup
• Partners
• Link Popularity Checker
• Meta Tag Generator
• Pagerank Checker
• CrazyEgg
• PageMason Web Builder
• Lunarpages Toolbar
• Competitor Analysis
• Position Checker
• Simple Submission
• Deluxe Keyword Density

Are these web tools helpful?

Some of these tools are obsolete nowadays. Simple Submission, for example, is not much needed in current time as Search Engines spiders do not need invitation to visit your website anymore. However, there some of the tools that’s worth mentioning. For example, I found great value in ‘Competitor Analysis’. Competitor Analysis allow you to study your SEO competition closely by checking thru the details, including a website’s word count, image count, link popularity, link count, usage of Flash files and iFrames, as well as keyword density counts. Such metric data is valuable in SEO measures and are useful for any webmasters who wish to rank better in their target SERP.

I’ll be covering more about these free tools from time to time. For the time being, I strongly recommend you to make use of them and build a better search engines optimized website.

Basic and Business Hosting

For Basic and Business Hosting Plan, additional features available for upgrades are:

• ASP Enabled Account
• Dedicated IP
• Java/JSP Enabled Account
• Premium Restore Service
• Shell Access
• Dedicated SSL Certificates
• Apache 1.3 or 2

Reseller Hosting

Reseller Hosting Plan, additional upgrades are:

• ASP Enabled Account
• Dedicated IP
• Java/JSP Enabled Account
• Premium Restore Service
• Dedicated SSL Certificates

Windows Hosting

Addon features, however, are pretty limited with Windows hosting due to licensing and costing issue. Customers who subscribed to Windows Hosting Plan get these three extra hosting features:

• Dedicated IP
• Premium Restore Service
• Dedicated SSL Certificates

What if I need more?

In case you couldn’t find the necessary features here, what you can do is request directly from the customer supports (email: support@lunarpages.com). I’m sure folks at Lunarpages will be happy to sort things up with you. However, do note that there are additional charges too for these additional features. So in case you do not wish to spend extra on your hosting account, perhaps you should build your website with the usage of standard features.

Lunarpages’s all new homepage designs

Webpage linking to additional supporting resources

Webpage introducing Lunarpages community profiles (Facebook, blogs, etc)

Lunarpages free webmaster tools

What’s different with Lunarpages new website?

The new design looks much cleaner and professional and I guess the company website converts better after the change. However, I think it’s a waste to remove the flash presentation that shows customers feedbacks. I think that gives very positive image to the company and should be kept in the new design.

Anyway, according to the officials, the new website design is meant for better functionality. It improves on several things, including

• Better navigation and user experience designs
• Inclusion of additional supporting resources
• Better looking community section for web users
• Easier access to Lunarpages free webmaster tools
• Quick overview on Lunarpages latest hosting offers

So, what do you think about their new website? Have a look yourself.

For website owners that are not using spam protection, it’s very likely that your mailbox will be attacked by spammers. Drugs ads, scams trap, get rich scheme, email virus, Trojan files – you name it! It’s therefore crucial to run an effective anti-spam opeartions.

Lunarpages hosting was pretty effective when it comes to spam protection. Generally, email protection are divided into SpamAssassin and SpamBox at Lunarpages.

What are SpamAssassin and SpamBox?

Quoted from their own words, SpamAssassin is an automated mail filter that uses a wide range of heuristic algorithms on email headers and message bodies to identify “SPAM” (unsolicited email). The anti-spam system is specially crafted to identify and mark emails that score beyond your threshold (spam) measurements. An email’s SpamAssassin score is the sum of values given to certain known spam characteristics.

As SpamAssassin uses a wide variety of local and network tests to identify spam signatures. This makes it harder for spammers to identify one aspect which they can craft their messages to work around.

SpamBox, on the other hand, allows emails identified as spam by SpamAssassin to be delivered to a separate mail folder named “spam”. If this folder is not regularly checked and emptied, it may cause your email or filesystem quotas to be exceeded, resulting in a failure to receive legitimate messages. You can easily use IMAP or Horde/IMP to check messages that are routed to this box. If you wish to use pop3 to check the spam box, just add “/spam” (without the quotes) to the end of your pop3 login. (Example: user@domain.tld/spam)

How to enable SpamAssassin and SpamBox in Lunarpages?

The basic setup process is pretty simple as all you need to do is just a few clicks. To start, login to your Lunarpages cPanel. Click in the ‘Mail’ icon and look for the line named ‘SpamAssassin’. The link will lead to a page where you can enable/disable the spam protection system for your Lunarpages hosting account.

Enabling Spam Protection at Lunarpages: Step-by-step guide

Screen captures are shown below for your references.

Step 1: Login to cPanel and get into the ‘mail’ features.

Step 2: Look for the link named ‘Spam Assassin’.

Step 3: One-click activation for SpamAssassin and SpamBox

It should be aware however, further configuration is needed if you’re setting up Spam Assassin for the first time. Input of black and white list for your system is necessary to avoid accidental spam tags; and if necessary, you might want to revised on the default spam scores.

Lots of server migration happening in Lunarpages for the past few months and I guess we are seeing the final transfer early this year 2009.

Server boxes were moving physically from Los Angeles datacenter to San Diego datacenter. I can’t find any reasons for the move but the migration planning and progress can be tracked from the official forum.

Migration of server Isis, Seth, Tsohea, Felix, Deneb, as well as Ez-web-n-mail are reported in late year 2008.

Generally the servers being affected will be offline for 6 – 8 hours (for physical transportation). As the migrations are planned properly, I don’t read much complaints about the users site. There are, however, quite some change on the server IPs, Isis server for example, switch to a new IP as: 67.210.119.235 IN PTR isis.fastsecureservers.com.

Server software upgrades

Folks at Lunarpages are also taking the chance to upgrade their software. Quoting fully from the forum post, these are the list of software being upgraded:

Apache to 1.3.41 if it wasn’t already this version
PHP4 to PHP 4.4.9
PHP5 when applicable to PHP 5.2.6
MySQL to MySQL 5.0.51a
Ruby when applicable to Ruby 1.8.6 newest patched release
Zend Optimizer to 3.3.3
ImageMagick to 6.4.3
IonCube to 3.1.32
ffmpeg when applicable to latest release snapshot

According to Tristan (Lunarpages technical staffs), these updates are for security purposes to update each service to the newest, secure release. Generally there shouldn’t be any effects on Lunarpages users but in case you’re one of the unlucky one, reviewing the php.ini file(s) might helps.

Not many web host are willing to open their server for download speed testing. Not many, but not Lunarpages. If you would like to check out the download speed for Lunarpages hosting, you can test it right here. The speed test was in fact created back in year 2005 and it’s widely tested by Lunarpages users.

An addon domain is a domain hosted on the same Lunarpages account but is pointed to a subfolder of your main domain. It works like an independent website where e-mail account and stats reporting can be added separately from the main domain.

To create an addon domain, you’ll first need to login to Lunarpages cPanel. Once you have made your way to the cPanel front page, look for an icon named ‘Addon Domain’.

Click in and you’ll see a series of addon domain already hosted on your account (if there’s any). For the first timer, here’s the screen you’ll be seeing where a simple form is given at the Addon Domain Maintenance screen.

Fill in the form accordingly and click ‘Add Domain’ when you’re done. The cPanel system will setup everything automatically and you should be done within minutes.

In case you need help for the form (which I don’t think it’s necessary), here is a rundown quoted from Lunarpages Wiki Page:

New Addon Domain:

The domain you wish to add to the account (such as example.com). Be sure you do not add the “www” in front of the addon domain when putting in the address.

Username/directory Name:

The subdomain/director in your account you would like to point the addon domain.

Password:

Create a new password for the addon domain. Please make it 6-8 characters and it should not contain the domain name.

The setup process is pretty simple and direcet. It’s, however, worth noting that addon domains will not be functional unless the domain name is registered with a valid domain name register and the domain name is configured to point at the Lunarpages nameserver for your account (something like NS54.Lunarpages.com and so on).

Also, do not confuse addon domain with a subdomain. Sub domains are extensions of your main site. They look like subdomain.yourdomain.com; while add on domains are self standing domains which are simply located on the same account as your original domain.

At the time of writing, the group has over 100 of members where mostly I believe are Lunarpages staffs and satisfied clients. I’m indeed very happy to see that the company is working hard in reaching their affiliates and customers – this shows that they are serious about the business and are willing to adapt to the new environment for further expansion.

Now in case you had heard about Lunarpages or are using their services at the moment, why not take some time visit Lunarpages’s Facebook group? It’s, seriously, a nice place to meet up with some nice guys.

Have fun!

Ever thought of running your own website online?

Thanks to open source software, free web services, and cheap computer hardware; hosting websites online nowadays are much cheaper and easier. Look around yourself, there are so many bloggers and webmasters around – almost everyone are publishing content online or trying to develop their own cash machines online – why not you?

Although it’s cheap and easy, there are few consideration points that must be taken seriously. Web hosting, for example, is something that can make or break your website. In fact, picking up the right hosting service is the most crucial factor when comes to starting a new website.

5 Quick Tips in Web Hosting Shopping

What I’m going to show you today in this article is about web hosting shopping – a list of 5 tips for web hosting shoppers.

1. Getting the right hosting company

A good hosting company assure smooth and easy web operations. Reading hosting reviews at forums and blogs, checking complaints on Better Business Bureau or other organization, reviewing hosting features and pricing, as well as reading customers feedback are always the must-do steps to filter out the right web hosting firm.

Getting in touch with the customer support of your candidates might be a good suggestion as the quality of customer supports reveal (more or less) the quality of the management. Also, it’s wise to choose a hosting service that runs their own data centers (server centers). This is to ensure that your web host is not one of those small hosting resellers.

2. Dedicated or shared hosting

A shared hosting is cheap and affordable; while your website works safer and faster (theoretically) with dedicated hosting, it cost a lot more. For newbies or mom-n-pop webmaster, shared hosting is often the wiser choice.

In case you’re in dilemma, read further at: When you should take up a dedicated server?

3. Hosting operating system: Windows or Linux?

Web server operating system (OS) is another major consideration point.

Most shared server nowadays are running on Linux operating system due to the fact that Linux is more reliable and cheaper. Windows hosting on the other hand requires extra maintenance work and is much expensive. Windows hosting are normally selected when certain web applications (Microsoft ASP.net for example) are needed.

A point worth noting is that not all hosting firms come with dual OS hosting service. For example both Bluehost and Hostmonster offer only Linux hosting. For readers who wish to setup their website on a Windows hosting, kindly check Lunarpages Windows Hosting offers – they are one of the best in industry.

4. Web Hosting Features

Different hosting firms offer different web hosting package. Before making decision, you must understand what you need for your website.

Answer questions like: How much storage capacity do you need for your hosting server? What are the necessary hosting features – do you need shopping cart? Private SSL? How much bandwidth do you need? Do you plan to host addon domains on the same hosting account? How many MySQL databases are allowed? Does the web host support cgi-bin access? Is web stats report available?

5. Pricing

It’s no secret that there are full of scams and crooks in the hosting industry. Don’t be ripped off by lousy third-class reseller web hosts! Check and compare hosting prices before you hand out your credit card info. Also, a check on the hosting company refund policy is always necessary. Reliable hosting companies normally offer long trial period. Go with these web hosts as you can simply quick and refund if the the hosting company doesn’t suit your needs.

Sidenote: Lunarpages for example, offer a 30 days trial period for all their customers.

Conclusion: Get the right hosting service!

Finding the right hosting service is the first and most important step in building your website. All features that you need for your website should be carefully checked and studied before you make the decision. This is important so that you time spent for all these can be a long term benefit. In conclusion, we should not fall for lousy hosting plan and regret later. Instead, we should invest more time in the beginning to search and study everything that is out there to see which is suitable for us and select depending on our need.

With that, we will be able to build ourselves a good website.