When choosing an environmentally friendly web hosting company what factors should you be looking for. Obviously you still want a web host that offers maximum up time, a quality support service and everything else you come to expect from a traditional hosting company. In addition you need to know if the green claims made are real, what makes an organization a green web hosting provider?

Should I Pay More for Green Web Hosting?

Absolutely not! Many coutries offer grants for companies to invest in renewable energy projects. Also, taking away the capital expense for constructing a renewable solution, ongoing energy costs should be much lower.

The fact that you choose to sign up with an environmentally friendly web hosting provider such as does not mean that you should get any less of a service. With Green Web Hosting you can still expect to get industry standard uptime and the service you would expect of a traditional host. But, you also get the benefit that your blog or company web site is not having a detrimental effect on the environment.

Is Your Host Really “Green”?

Currently many hosting companies are jumping on the environmental bandwagon and claimimg they are green. However, a comapny came claim to be green simply by planting trees to offset heir carbon emissions. Better than nothing but they are still utilizing power generated by burning fossil fuels. There is also some question as to the effectiveness of carbon offset. What type of trees are being planted, in what location and how long until they are felled.

Renewable Energy Web Hosting

WebHost Inspector believes that for a web hosting company to be truly green they should be generating most or all of their power using renewable energy. This includes wind turbines and solar heating as well as air exchange systems that cool buildings using the outside air. Without doubt the biggest power requirement for a data center, where all the web servers are located, is cooling. Green web hosts may also use a mix of renewable energy and carbon offset.

Recently renewable energy web hosting has grown significantly as a factor in consumer decision making when purchasing domain hosting. New start up host providers have set up new, up to the minute, energy efficient data centers that use renewable energy.

That is not to say that the big players have been left sleeping. Several major web hosting providers have made the switch to green energy.

How to transfer a domain to a new hosting account.

Time was when transferring a domain was a technically difficult prospect for even computer savvy website owners, fraught with all sorts of difficulties and expenses. Thankfully those days are long gone and nowadays a domain transfer is a simple process and should be free.

Do I Need to Transfer my Domain?

For whatever reason you want to change your web hosting company and move your website there are a few things you should be asking yourself. Think about the reasons why you feel you need to move.

Perhaps you have found a cheaper alternative web host or are unhappy with the level of support provided by your current provider.

Is the cheaper hosting package you have found offering anything better? And how do you know if their support is any good?

Make sure you are completely happy with your new chosen provider. Check out this list of web hosting companies who will transfer a domain to themselves, not just for new customers but for existing customers too.

Am I Allowed to Move My Domain?

Many people ask us “will my current host allow me to move my domain to another host?”

Often we here a saying “of course you can move your domain, after all it is your domain.”

Well sometimes they may be wrong.

If your domain name was bundled free with a hosting package you may need to read the small print before signing with a new hosting provider. Also if your site is provided free by a company you are an affiliate for then it is highly likely that the domain name belongs to them.

Bear in mind that some hosting companies will only accept the transfer of domains with the most popular extensions i.e; .com .org .net .info and .us. You may also have to register the domain name for a further 12 months with your new host.

You cannot transfer your domain if you registered it with in the last 60 days or have moved it to a new host withing the same time frame.

If you registered through a reputable web hosting company then you should have no trouble moving your domain to a new hosting company.

What do I need to Transfer my Domain?

You need to be the registered owner of the domain name and you need to have another hosting account to move it to. If you just want to keep hold of the name and not run a website for now there are many companies that you can use to simply “park” the domain for a later date.

How do I Transfer my Domain to a new Host.

This process varies from company to company but this is the basic process.

•  If you have privacy enabled you need to pause or disable it.
• You then need to “Unlock” your domain
• Then you need to change the name servers from your current provider to the new host’s name servers. There may well be a “Transfer Domain” or “Manage Domain” option in your web host’s control panel that allows you to do this. Your new web host will tell you what their name servers are called.
• You will also need an authorization code which should be provided by your current host.

The above is not an exhaustive list and the process may vary from host to host but that is pretty much all there is to it.

How long does it take to Transfer a Domain?

Once you have carried out the necessary steps to move your website to a new host it may take between a couple of hours and up to 12 hours for your site to be fully accessible. This is because it takes that long for your domain’s new name server address to be propagated to the whole of the web. This is an automatic process as the various routers and DNS (Domain Name Servers) relay the information to one another and your hosting company has no control over this.

Because of this you may want to wait until a quite period before moving your domain to minimize interruption. If you site is down for a long time it may slip down the Search Engine Results for a while.

How to register your chosen domain name.

So have you found a great name for your website and now you want to register it.

First thing you need to do is make sure the domain name is actually available for the extension you want. Most people like to go for domain names with a .com extension. The theory, and to be honest the truth, is that a site with a .com extension will be easier to rank in the search results of Google.

If the .com is gone then check for the .net .org or .info be aware that if the name your are seeking to register is a recognized brand or the domain name is associated with an established company then you might want to have a rethink.

Large companies have good lawyers, stay away from infringing anyone’s copyright, registered trade marks or names.

Checking Domain Availability

Use a domain name availability checker provided by the hosting company of your choice.

If you find that your domain name is available and with the extension you want then go for it. Do not delay in registering the name. Especially if it is an exact match of the seach term. Domains like these have the potential to be highly valuable depending on the search volume for that phrase. They also tend to be quite rare nowadays.

Hosting Your New Domain

At this point you need to think about what kind of hosting package you need. Are you going to use your website for blogging as a hobby, do you want to start a forum on your particular hobby or are you going for an all out e-comerce site for an existing business.

On the other hand you can simply register a name and “Park” it with the registering company. Some parked domains can even earn you advertising reveune, as long as your domain registrar has a revenue sharing scheme.

If it is your first domain purchase then you might want to think about going for a basic shared hosting package with a major web host. You register your domain through them and pay for a hosting package. Even the most basic hosting packages have lots to offer in the way of site building and management tools that make creating a website easy.