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What Is ASP.NET Hosting?

The post What Is ASP.NET Hosting? appeared first on HostGator Blog . One of the most important decisions every website owner must make is choosing the right type of web hosting services. And there are a lot of different types of hosting plans out there. Selecting the best web hosting solutions for your website depends on a number of different factors, including the programs you use to build and maintain your website. For a certain subset of website owners, that makes considering ASP.NET web hosting services an important part of the process of finding the best plan for you. Before we can provide a good explanation of what ASP.NET web hosting is and who it’s right for, we need to define what ASP.NET is. What Is ASP.NET? ASP.NET is an open source framework programmers can use to build dynamic websites, apps, games, and online services with the .NET platform. In ASP.NET, programmers build web forms that become the building blocks of the larger website or app they work to create. While ASP.NET is not as commonly used as PHP—the most ubiquitous of the programming languages used to build websites—it provides some distinct benefits for web designers that make it a strong choice for many websites. 10 Pros of Using ASP.NET ASP.NET isn’t for everybody, which is why it has a much smaller market share than PHP. But the pros of using ASP.NET to build your website or app are notable enough to make it well worth consideration. Here are ten top reasons to consider using ASP.NET. 1. It’s open source. As an open-source framework, any developer or programmer can make changes to the ASP.NET architecture to make it work the way they need. And often developers will share any updates or improvements they make with the larger community, so you can benefit from the work being done by a wide number of talented, skilled ASP.NET programmers. Any open source piece of software or program gets the benefit of all the great minds that use it. Every programmer that sees a way to make it more flexible, secure, or feature-rich can contribute to it. With over 60,000 active contributors, you can count on ASP.NET to just keep getting better. 2. It’s known for being high speed. ASP.NET makes it easier to build a site while using less code than other programming options. With less code to process, websites and apps load faster and more efficiently. ASP.NET packages also uses compiled code rather than interpreted code. Compiled code is translated into object code once, then executed. And every time after that, it loads faster. In contrast, interpreted code has to be read and interpreted every time a user accesses it, which slows things down. While you always have options for speeding up your website , no matter what you build it with, ASP.NET means you’re starting off with a website that will work and load that much faster than with other options you could choose. 3. It’s low cost. In addition to being open source, ASP.NET is also free. You can download the latest version of the software from the website for nothing. You can write ASP.NET code in any simple text editor, including free options like Microsoft’s Visual Studio application. In some cases, as with Visual Studio, the most useful text editors have a free basic plan you can use to start, and paid versions that provide more useful features for the common needs of big businesses, such as collaboration options. You may end up spending some money to get the full use of it you need, but businesses on a budget have the option of using ASP.NET for free. 4. It’s relatively easy to use. While PHP has a reputation for being easier to use, ASP.NET also has many features that make it intuitive for programmers or reduce the amount of work required to create a website or app. For one thing, programming with ASP.NET requires creating less code than most other options. That both means less time spent working on code for developers, and that your pages will load faster because it takes less time to process the code that’s there.   For another, it offers code behind mode, which separates the design and the code. This creates separate files for the design part of a page, and the code part of a page. That makes it easier to test things out and make changes as you go without messing anything up. Finally, ASP.NET allows for template-based page development and server-side caching, both of which mean you can make the design elements you build go further and easily re-use them for different parts of the website or application. While ASP.NET is primarily a resource for professional developers rather than beginners, they have a range of free resources available for those who want to learn the ropes. 5. It has a large developer community. Even though ASP.NET is relatively easy to use, many website owners will want to hire a professional developer to help with the particulars of building out a website or app. Luckily, the ASP.NET community is big enough that finding a skilled developer to hire who has experience in using the framework shouldn’t be a problem in most cases. And having a large community also means that, as an open source software, there are more smart minds working to improve upon ASP.NET on a regular basis. Many of the issues it had in the past have been fixed, and anything about it you don’t like today may well be taken care of in the months or years to come. 6. It requires less setup for Windows users. If your business already uses Windows products, then picking a Windows framework to build your website or app on will make the overall process easier on your team. Since it’s made by Windows, ASP.NET works seamlessly with other Windows applications. Getting your various products to play nice together and work in tandem will be simple. And you won’t have to worry about an update to ASP.NET or any of your other Windows applications screwing up compatibility. Windows will make sure that updated versions of its various products and applications still work well together, even as they all evolve over time. 7. It offers support for multiple languages. Programmers using ASP.NET have a couple of different programming languages they can choose from: C# and VB.net. C# in particular is a popular option with many developers because it’s powerful, flexible, and easy to learn.  It’s one of the most popular programming languages today and is known for being particularly well suited for building Microsoft applications, games, and mobile development. 8. It’s now compatible with all servers. Some articles on ASP.NET list one of the main disadvantages as being that it only works with Windows servers. In fact, several years ago Windows released the ASP.NET Core which made the program compatible with all types of servers—Linux, MacOS, and Windows. While it still may work best with a Windows server, since it was initially designed with that compatibility in mind, you can use ASP.NET no matter which type of web server you prefer. 9. It’s supported by Microsoft. Microsoft is one of the biggest and most powerful tech companies in the world. Any product that has their backing can count on regular maintenance, updates, and improvements. With some free products, there’s always the risk that their creators will stop supporting them and anyone dependent on them will have to start from scratch, but ASP.NET has the power of a company that’s not going anywhere behind it. 10. It’s got a great reputation for security. One of the main areas where most experts agree that the ASP.NET service beats PHP is for security. The program supports multi-factor authentication protocols that allow users to control who has access to the website or app they create with the framework. And ASP.NET includes built-in features that protect against common hacker protocols like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL (structured query language) injection attacks, open redirect attacks, and cross-site request forgery (CSRF). Website security is an increasingly important issue for all website owners to consider, especially as hacks and high-profile data breaches become more common. Choosing ASP.NET is one of several steps you can take to make your website more secure. 5 Cons of Using ASP.NET That’s a long list of pros, which may have you wondering why so many people still choose PHP over ASP.NET. It’s not all positives, there are a few downsides to choosing ASP.NET as well. 1. It’s not compatible with fewer CMSes than PHP. One of the main reasons that some people prefer PHP is that it works with popular content management systems like WordPress. For people more comfortable using a CMS, which makes creating and updating a website easier if you don’t know how to code, ASP.NET puts a serious limitation in their path. With over a quarter of the entire internet running on WordPress, and content management systems like Drupal and Joomla powering much of the web as well, that makes PHP the natural choice for a majority of websites.   2. It has fewer templates and plugins. Because ASP.NET has fewer users, it also has fewer extras. With fewer people to develop useful features like templates and plugins, there just aren’t as many available to users of ASP.NET. These kinds of extras extend the functionality of a program and can make it easier for people to create the exact kind of website or app they want. While there are still definitely options you can take advantage of with ASP.NET, fewer choices means getting your website where you want it to be will be harder. 3. It’s potentially expensive if you’re not already using Windows. As we already mentioned, using ASP.NET is technically free. But using it tends to make the most sense for companies that already have access to a number of Windows products. One of the big benefits it offers is working seamlessly with all those other Windows solutions, so if you need something a Windows product offers while working on your website in ASP.NET, you’ll likely have to shell out for an additional product. Not everyone that uses ASP.NET will feel the need to spend money on other Windows solutions, but some will. If you end up deciding you need the additional functionality various Windows products provide, the cost can quickly add up. 4. It has a smaller community than PHP. While ASP.NET has a community that’s devoted, it’s much smaller than the community that uses PHP. That means fewer support resources and fewer developers working to make the framework better. It also means businesses will find it harder to find professional developers that are skilled in ASP.NET than PHP (although far from impossible). And you won’t have as many forums or user groups to turn to with questions. While that is an inconvenience, there is enough of a community out there that you may not feel a lack if you do choose to go with ASP.NET. But if having a supportive community is an important part of your decision when choosing what to build your website or app with, other options beat ASP.NET in this category. 5. It’s harder to learn than PHP. ASP.NET is relatively easy for developers to learn, but it has more of a learning curve than PHP. And because you can’t use intuitive content management systems like WordPress with it, it’s generally out of reach for many beginners that can’t afford to learn programming languages themselves or hire a professional when building out their website. For big businesses with a budget to put toward building a website or app, this is likely to be a non-issue since finding skilled ASP.NET programmers to hire won’t be too hard. But for smaller businesses and individuals building a more basic website, it’s a good reason to pick a simpler solution. What Is ASP.NET Hosting? Now that we’ve covered the basics of what ASP.NET itself is, we come back around to the main question at hand: what is ASP.NET web hosting ? ASP.NET hosting is any web hosting plan designed to be compatible with ASP.NET. In many cases, that means Windows hosting, but since ASP.NET is now compatible with other types of servers, it doesn’t have to mean that. Two main things define ASP.NET hosting services: 1. It promises compatibility with ASP.NET and all associated web applications. ASP.NET hosting solutions must provide seamless compatibility with ASP.NET itself. But you’ll also want to make sure your web hosting plan provides compatibility with other web applications you’re likely to use with ASP.NET, such as the Plesk Control Panel and any other Windows products you use.   2. It has an easy installation option. A good ASP.NET hosting plan will include simple one-click installation that lets you add ASP.NET to your web hosting platform within seconds. You have enough work to do building your website, game, or app—you don’t have time to spend on a complicated installation process. A good ASP.NET hosting option ensures you don’t have to spend any longer on this step than necessary. What to Look for in an ASP.NET Web Hosting Plan If you determine that using ASP.NET is the best option for your website, then an ASP.NET hosting plan is a smart choice. When researching your options, look for a web hosting plan that includes: A 99.9% Uptime Guarantee – Uptime is the amount of time your website is working and accessible to visitors. It’s one of the main differentiating factors between different web hosting companies. The best companies promise at least 99.9% uptime and back that claim up with a money-back guarantee. 24/7 Customer Support – The moment you have an issue with your website, you want to get it fixed. 24/7 customer support means you can reach someone right away and get the problem taken care of faster. Plenty of Bandwidth – Look for an ASP.NET hosting provider that offers plans at different levels, especially if your website or app will need a significant amount of bandwidth. If you need it, make sure you can get an enterprise-level plan compatible with ASP.NET. A Reputation for Security – Choosing ASP.NET to build your website is one smart step you can take for security, choosing the right web hosting provider is another. A web hosting provider that uses strong firewalls and offers security features like an SSL certificate that will provide an extra level of protection that keeps your website and its visitors safer. HostGator’s ASP.NET web hosting services offer everything on the list. We make it easy to add ASP.NET to your hosting account so you can get started faster. And we have one of the top reputations of any web hosting company in the industry. If you’re still not sure about the right web hosting provider or company for your ASP.NET website, our sales representatives and support team are available 24/7 to answer any questions you have. If you’re looking into a different service like dedicated server hosting , cloud hosting , or shared hosting plans, our experienced team can help you find the best package for your needs. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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Microsoft domain for Sale

Hi i am selling Microsoft.srl domain name . if interested, you can send your offer . Contact us info @ Microsoft dot srl… | Read the rest of http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1746264&goto=newpost Continue reading

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What Is Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Support ?

I want to know about Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Support. Can Anyone Please tell me about this?… | Read the rest of http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1744134&goto=newpost Continue reading

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First Github, now Redhat sold

First we have Github being bought by Microsoft, now this: IBM is acquiring software company Red Hat for $34 billion. [url]https://www.busin… | Read the rest of http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1736816&goto=newpost Continue reading

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10 Ways to Speed Up Your Website

The post 10 Ways to Speed Up Your Website appeared first on HostGator Blog . There’s no doubt about it – website speed matters. As average internet connection speeds increase around the world and mobile use dominates, web users are becoming less and less tolerant of slow load times.   53% of mobile users will abandon a website that takes longer than three seconds to load, and nearly 10% of web users will bounce after 2 seconds. Clearly, every second counts. At the same time, Google has stated unequivocally that page speed is a ranking factor in search results . In short, a fast site gets better results both from visitors and Google. To take advantage of these dual benefits, you need to make site speed a priority on your site.   Any of the following ten tips will help to get you started on this important path. 1. Optimize Your Images. Every time someone visits a page on your website, their browser has to load every part of the page. On many pages, the parts that take up the most space and therefore take the longest time to load are the images. One of the best and easiest ways to get your pages loading faster is therefore to optimize your images . This quick two-step image optimization process can go a long way to speeding your website up.   Step 1: Re-size your images before uploading them. If you use a content management system (CMS) like WordPress or Joomla , you’ve probably noticed that you can upload images at full size and then adjust their display size within your website’s backend.  That’s convenient, but you may not know that doing so forces web browsers to execute multiple commands each time someone loads the page. They must pull up the initial image and then re-size it on the fly – which slows down your site. To prevent this from occurring, use an image-editing program to adjust images to the correct size yourself before adding them to your site. Most of us will have access to a simple tool like Preview (on Mac) or Microsoft Paint (on Windows). With these programs all you have to do is open up the image and re-size it in your editor of choice.   Step 2: Compress your images. Once you’ve done this you can take your image editing to the next level with a compression tool. Even after re-sizing an image the total file size could be large enough to still slow down your site’s loading speed. One of the best image compression tools available is ImageResize . All you have to do is click the link, upload your re-sized image and this tool will reduce the file size without reducing the resolution. Then, all you have to do is download the image and upload it to your site. Your images will look exactly the same, but will load much faster.     2. Do a Plugin Purge. The huge number of plugins and scripts that available for free makes it tempting for website owners to add more than they truly need. Keep in mind, every plugin you add requires resources to run – and more resources means a slower site. If you notice your site is running slowly, or you believe it could be running much more effectively, perform a plugin review. Go through the list and identify any plugins you aren’t actually using or that don’t seem to be adding anything worthwhile to your site performance. Go ahead and get rid of these. If you still feel your website isn’t loading as quickly as you’d like, do a test to find the culprit. Disable every plugin on your site, one by one. After you disable a plugin, run your site through a tool like GT Metrix to check the speed of your site with it gone. If your site speed increases after deactivating a particular plugin, then you’ve found the problem. If the plug-in in question provides a necessary functionality, experiment until you find another plugin that does the same thing without slowing your site down. To save yourself from this trouble in the future, ask yourself moving forward before adding a new plug-in if the functionality is really worth the trade-off in site speed.   3. Ensure Your Site Scripts Are Up to Date. Depending on the CMS or e-commerce platform your site uses, you may need to check back regularly to determine whether new releases of your site’s scripts are available.   If they are, upgrade your site as soon as possible (making sure that you have a current backup file in place first).  Site script developers are always working on improving their code for future releases, particularly when it comes to site speed.  Updating your scripts to the latest versions could go a long way toward eliminating coded roadblocks that prevent your site from loading quickly. If your site runs on WordPress, then you’ll find these updates within the Updates tab of your WordPress dashboard. Just one click and your site will install the latest software updates. No need for anything else on your end. Admittedly, remembering to check-in and update your website can be tough. Lucky for you this isn’t something you have to do on a daily basis. Once a month is enough to do a simple run-through of your site and install any updates that might be available. Set a recurring event on your calendar and set aside an hour every single month. Usually, it’ll take much less time than this, but it’s important to build the habit of always ensuring your site and plugins are running the latest version. Plus, having all of your software up to date will help to patch up any holes that could lead to your site being hacked .     4. Make Use of CDNs. Content Delivery Networks , or CDNs, are vast networks of servers that are housed around the world. Typically, if you’re not using a CDN, then your site will load from your web hosting server’s central location for every visitor to your site, no matter where they are geographically. This can lead to slow site speeds, especially if your visitors are located far away from the central location of your server. Additionally, if you’re just using a single server, there’s a chance it could get overloaded and cause your site to crash. CDN’s solve both of these problems by letting your users access a cached version of your site from the web host that’s closest to them. Better yet, if one of your server locations is overloaded, they can be switched to a new server location, ensuring faster speeds all around. To get started, look into the CDN services offered by SiteLock TrueSpeed , MaxCDN , or Cloudflare .   5. Enable Browser Caching. Browser caching is a technology that allows a visitor’s browser to store copies of your site’s individual pages so that when the visitor returns in the future, the content can be called up from within the cache rather than reloading the entire page. This saves the number of resources used to display your pages, resulting in faster overall load times for your visitor. If you use WordPress, you can easily enable browser caching with a plug-in like W3 Total Cache .  To install this plugin on your WordPress site, follow the steps below: Navigate to your site’s Dashboard, then Plugins > Add New , and search for W3 Total Cache. Click Install , then Activate . Once the plugin is activated, navigate to the new Performance tab at the top or lefthand side. This is where you’ll control all of the features of the plugin. There are a ton of features that you can turn on or off with this plugin. If you want to fully configure this plugin, then check out  this post by WPMU DEV . Alternatively, talk to your web developer about ways to integrate browser caching into your server-side scripting.     6. Turn On Gzip Compression. Gzip compression is a technology that minimizes the size of browser-based HTTP responses – sometimes by as much as 70%.  If that doesn’t make sense, don’t worry. You don’t need to fully understand how it works to implement it for your site. There are three ways to turn on Gzip compression on your site.  You can: 1. Add the following code to your site’s .htaccess file: # compress text, html, javascript, css, xml: AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript   # Or, compress certain file types by extension:   SetOutputFilter DEFLATE   2. Add the following code to the top of your HTML or PHP page:     3. Install a Gzip compression plugin like the  W3 Total Cache  tool for WordPress (just keep in mind what we said earlier about installing too many unnecessary plugins!).   7. Keep CSS files at the Top and Javascript at the Bottom. Finally, keep your site’s code neat and tidy by adding CSS files to the top of your page’s code and Javascript snippets to the bottom when working with raw HTML pages.   Adding your CSS files to the top of the page prohibits progressive rendering, saving resources that web browsers would otherwise use to load and redraw elements of your pages.   Adding Javascript to the bottom prevents your pages from waiting on full code execution before loading – leading to a faster browsing experience for your visitors.   8. Reduce Http Requests. When someone new visits your website, every single element on the web page has to download for them to view it. That includes images, videos, animations, style sheets, scripts, fonts — you name it. For each element you have on the page, a different http request is made. The more different parts each page on your site is made up of, the more http requests are made each time someone visits your site, and the longer the page will take to load. That doesn’t mean you need to strip your web pages down to a minimalist web design to slow down your loading time. There are tricks you can use to identify and reduce the number and size of http requests on your page without losing out on the style you want your site to have. To start, spot how many http requests are on a page on your website by using your browser tools. The process is similar in different browsers, here are specific steps for the main two: In Chrome:       Right-click on the webpage       Choose Inspect       Click the Network tab       Reload the page In Firefox:       Right-click on the page       Choose Inspect Element       Click on the Network tab       Reload the page This will show you not only how many http requests are required for the page, but also how long each one takes to load. You may be able to spot some items on the list that aren’t worth the time they require that you can remove altogether. Even if you don’t, you have options to speed things up:   Option 1: Reduce file size. Look for opportunities in the list to reduce the file size of different elements. Our section on optimizing images includes some good tips. You can also minify the codes in your HTML, CSS, and Javascript files by removing any unnecessary coding or whitespace. Online tools like Autoptimize (for WordPress) and HTML Minifier can make this step easier.   Option 2: Combine files. If you have more than one Javascript or CSS file for your webpage, combining them will reduce the number of http requests the page has to make. Tools like JCH Optimize and Cloudflare  can help with this.   9. Minimize and Optimize Redirects. Sometimes redirects are necessary, but if they’re used any more than required they can slow down page load times. Regularly check the links on your website to make sure that all your links — internal and external — go directly to the main URL for a page. In the cases where you do need to use redirects , make sure you only use one redirect for a page. You never want a browser to have to do the work of redirecting a visitor from one page to another that redirects it to a third. And avoid having additional URLs that redirect people back to your main site. It can be tempting to buy up all the variations on your URL name and primary keywords you can think of and have them all point page to your website, but that will both slow things down and could cause confusion for your visitors.     10. Upgrade Your Web Hosting. When starting out, you probably selected the cheapest hosting option for your website. That’s normal and usually works well enough for a new website while you’re starting to build visibility and traffic. As your marketing efforts start to pay off and your traffic increases, your hosting needs change. If your website traffic has increased considerably and you haven’t upgraded your hosting plan to match, that’s likely to cause slow or spotty performance issues. Going from shared hosting to cloud hosting , or from shared to a VPS , can make a huge difference to how quickly your website loads for visitors. Check with your web hosting provider to see if it’s time to upgrade, or consider if it might be time to switch to a new provider. HostGator’s known for having a 99.9% uptime guarantee and has representatives that will answer any questions you have about selecting the right web hosting plan to keep your website fast and functional.   Conclusion Although these are only a few of the different techniques that can be used to speed up your site, they’re some of the easiest to implement.  This list is a great place to start if you notice your site slowing down. When every second counts, every step you can take for a faster website is worth it. Having said all of the above, sometimes a slow site is simply caused by inadequate hosting. With HostGator , whether you have a cloud hosting, shared hosting or VPS hosting plan, your site will be served from industry-standard technology and backed by 24/7/365 award-winning technical support via telephone and LiveChat. We make it painless to transfer and are happy to assist every step of the way. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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