Adult-Friendly Credit Card Solutions

Now that you’ve chosen your content, designed your site, you’ll need a way to process the credit card payments. You’ll need a credit card processor, preferably one who caters to the adult industry.

The problem is that any financial institution, whether its a bank or creidt card processor, will go through your application with a fine tooth comb. There are very strict standards and criteria that you will need to have before you can get a merchant account.

Ready for the ugly truth? Adult websites and companies are considered very high risk. That One very important thing you have to understand though, adult businesses are considered high-risk businesses. This translates to higher fees and a significant sign up fee. The reason for this is simple. Chargebacks.

Chargebacks, one of the biggest headaches of processing credit cards for porn sites, typically occur when, say, someone’s wife finds out he’s been buying porn. Rather than owning up, the aggrieved party tells the credit-card company that he’s shocked–shocked–that someone else was purchasing porn on his card, and demands that the charges be removed. This happens far too often and is the reason why there is low leniency for chargebacks in the adult world.

Ok now that you know the headaches of the average adult webmaster, start researching adult processors. When you find them, write down how much their fees are, their setup fee, and what they require from you. When you find one that is reasonable, then apply for an account.

The type of information that they’ll usually ask for is

  1. Contact information for the company.
  2. How long you’ve been online, how much is your traffic and estimated revenue or actual revenue, etc
  3. A description of the types of services and products that will be sold on your website.
  4. Any information about any payment processors that you have been with in the past or currently.
  5. Any information about past sales volume, chargeback ratio, transactions, and refund ratio.

If you find that you have been rejected, it can be due to something as trivial as paperwork. Some common reasons could be

  • documentary deficiencies
  • grave complaint record filed to the Better Business Bureau (BBB)
  • ripoff record
  • misrepresenting certain, if not, all information about yourself and your business

If you find that you’ve been rejected, correct the information and apply to someone else. Avoid making the same mistakes twice.

Submit to Search Engines

There are several ways to Submit to Search Engines. The best way is to manually submit your url to each search engine. The next most popular is going through a web submission form such as below. The third most popular way is to use software the submits to search engines for you. Be careful when using a paid submission service. We highly recommend submitting manually, 2 pages per domain per day tops not exceeding 30 at any time, and resubmitting every 60 to 90 days. Remember, if your site is not optimized, it will not rank. Make sure to add Meta Tags and read our expert articles on optimization and search engine news here

Manual Submission to Major Search Engines:

Before you submit, are your pages optimized? See our Marketing Tips for the lowdown on who updates who and use the Meta Tag Generator to get that page ranked high!

It is always safer, and more productive to take a few minutes to submit manually. It is usually ok to auto submit to minor engines, just make sure you are not submitting to the sames engines twice. For questions, please interact at our forums.

General Search Engines

 

Search Engine

 

General Rules of Thumb:
Submit no more than 2 pages per domain per day that focus on different keywords to avoid spamdexing.  Avoid submitting more than 30 pages per domain at any time.  Follow the rules outlined by each engine carefully.
FREE SUBMISSION
Click Engine Name to Go to Directly to Submit Page
Alexa Partnered with Google. Only submit if your URL does not yet appear in Alexa.
Google Updates Aol and Netscape default search 6-12 weeks for addition.
Yahoo
Altavista
Fast/AllTheWeb
BASIC SUBMIT (FREE) LOGIN REQUIRED
Submitted pages take @ 4 weeks to appear.
MSN Powered by MSN.
NightSurf MSN Adult Search. Pointless, but you can try..
DMOZ.org Open Directory Project  * Important now for indexing of Netscape, HotBot, Lycos, Netscape, AOL, Google, and a host of smaller search engine directories. Again, pointless but you can try.
EntireWeb Small Engine/WorldLight Network: Accepts submissions from Addme.com, express inclusion to Entireweb, Mamma.com, Ixquick.com, Search66.com
Exact Seek ExactSeek is a Meta-tag search engine. Your site will not be added if it lacks Title and Meta Description tags. powers (Aesop.com, OnSeek.com, MaxPromo.com, Best-SearchEngine.com and SitesOnDisplay.com)
SingingFish Accuired by AOL, SingingFish is a Multimedia search engine, “audio video search,” “streaming media search” and “multimedia search”
ScrubTheWeb You may submit only one URL per email address per day.
PAID SUBMISSION
Overture
Yahoo Search Marketing
Powered by Overture, Looksmart, DMOZ, and Infospace. No longer free submission.
Yahoo Paid Inclusion Paid listings only for Business/Shopping/Services anything Commercial. $300 – $600! Now Using its own Search Engine for listings. Recently Purchased Inktomi.
Lycos Paid submission via Lycos Insite
LookSmart Updates  Excite, Altavista, MSN, iWon and other popular directory results.
Ask Jeeves/Teoma Human Powered Searches, some results appear on altavista. Can be express submitted through Position tech.com
OTHER ENGINES
Aeiwi.com Easy Add URL feature- Directory!
Jayde Online Required Site Registration, Only Includes the Index page of a web site. This is a human reviewed directory.
Splut UK based banner-free engine. Accepts UK sites only.
WiseNut Acquired by Looksmart. You can submit to Looksmart.
Answerz Now Powered by Yahoo- AU NZ engine. NO LONGER ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS.

Pay Per Click Engines

ENGINE LISTING INFO
Google Adwords Google AdWords ads connect you with new customers at the precise moment when they’re looking for your products or services. The Google Network reaches more than 80% of Internet users.
Yahoo Sponsored Search It only takes a $5 deposit to open a Sponsored Search account.¹ Your click-through charges (the cost you pay for each click-through) are deducted from this amount. After that, you can spend as much or as little as you like each month based on the keywords you select and how much you bid for each one.
Kanoodle Pay-Per-Click Engine with Search lisings powered by Inktomi.
GenieKnows Partnered with BrianFox, Marsfind, Findology, Superlogy.com.
Ah-ha Targeted pay-per-click advertising programs, including Paid Lisings, contextual Advertising, and Guaranteed Inclusion
7 Search Pay Per Ranking According to independent traffic ranker Alexa.com, 7Search.com is the second most visited pay-per-placement search engine in the world.

Please Note: Always consult with a professional before doing any submissions. Your site must maintaining 100% uptime after first submissions. Please do not submit if you plan to move your site in the next 8 weeks.

Adult Industry Publications and Magazines

Keeping abreast of what’s going on in the adult industry is key to knowing what the current trends are for adult webmasters. There are a few publications dedicated to the adult webmaster and the adult entertainment industry as a whole and we have them linked right here. If your in the business of marketing adult products and websites we suggest you take a look at the information you can find in these publications and a subcription to them you’ll find as a valuable marketing tool for your adult business. If you publish for the adult industry and would like to us to list you in our directory we welcome you to submit your site for consideration.

Klixxx is committed to the dynamic education and success of webmasters worldwide through the dissemination and sharing of current information and proven resources designed to facilitate their ability to achieve and surpass their objectives, by enabling them to increase their knowledge, productivity, and innovation. Delivered in Print and Online. Get 12 Issues of Klixxx for under $10!

Adult Industry Publications and Magazines

The voice of the adult industry in a digital media world, AVN Online magazine provides the knowledge and insight necessary to operate an efficient and profitable adult business. From advances in technology to critical news and legal perspective, every issue of AVN Online delivers compelling analysis of the largest sectors in the adult industry: content production and affiliate marketing. The authority of record in adult entertainment for more than 22 years, AVN Publications evaluates, articulates targeted solutions in print, in person, and online.

XBIZ World is the industry’s most popular source for timely and unbiased business news and information. Providing trusted coverage of the online adult entertainment market to an international readership base, XBIZ World delivers a wide range of informational resources designed to help both new and experienced industry professionals succeed.

How to Get Traffic to Your Adult Website

Wow, you’ve gotten to the point where you have a site up and running, and you’re waiting for the money to roll in.

Where are the visitors?!?

Everyone uses one of the top 5 search engines. Google, Yahoo, MSN, ASk.com, or Aol.com, but a little known fact amongst those new to the game, is that your site doesn’t just end up there magically. If you wait for the search engines to rank your site, you’re going to be out of business long before that happens. Besides, you ever do a search on google for porn?

As of this article, there are 226,000,000 results for the word porn. Granted, you’ll have a more niche market and content, but generally you’re going to have to do some work to get your website in front of potential visitors. We’ll have many articles on various subjects for you to reaed, but this is a general overview of the different types of advertising that you can do for your products or services.

  1. Optimize your website so that the search engines will pick up on it naturally. You’ll want to strive to be on the first 2 pages of results. To jus tget on the search engines, it could take 3-6 months, and there is no guarantee of where you will show up.
  2. List yourself on various directories. This website is a great resource for how to get your site on directories and to share your link.
  3. The single best way for you to get traffic is to pay for advertising. This very website pays its entire staff and the bills by offering ads on select pages, and you bette rbelieve that if these ads didn’t bring traffic to the respective sponsors, that they would not advertise here. You can advertise on many different websites but you’ll want to research the amount of traffic that they get and how many prospective vistors will see your ad. Don’t worry about designing the graphic for your ad because sites will typicall offer that service for free or an additional cost.
  4. Do what we do. Create content, create a blog, do anything that gives people a reason to visit your site besides the images and videos you have. A popular tactic is to post samples of free images on your blog and that would entice ppl to sign up.
  5. Thumbnail Gallery Post (TGP) employ a variety of schemes to trade traffic with other TGPs; signing up for these trades is usually easy and free for other TGP owners. Perhaps the most basic trade is to link to other TGP sites. In a a nutshell, you provide free galleries of your content to share on these TGP websites, they will utilize your gallery page, which will contain a link to your site. This is a very effective way of getting traffic.

Getting traffic to your website is a lengthy process and will not happen overnight. You will need to employ all of the tactics mentioned and be creative. Keep with it and before you know it you’ll have a steady stream of traffic.

Choosing the Right Domain Name

1. Your Domain Name Should Be Your Website Name

Naming your website after your domain name, and vice versa, may seem obvious , but you”ll be surprised to know that not every website is named after the domain name, even when the webmaster owns that domain name. This could prove to be a costly mistake that is easy to avoid if you know the pitfalls.

Naming a site after its domain name is important, for the simple reason that when people think of your website, they”ll think of it by name. If your name is also your URL, they”ll automatically know where to go. For example, when people think of AdultChamber, they don”t have to wonder what URL to type into their browser to get there. The name of the site is also the URL.

Imagine if your company is called “college coeds at home”, but somebody else owns that domain name. Instead, you have to register something like, collegecoedshomealoneonline.com or mycollegecoedshomealone.com. What happens with customers assume that they can just type in collegecoedshomealone.com and get to your website? They”ll wind up at a competitor”s website and you”ll lose the sale.

In the modern world of the the adult industry, where people automatically turn to the web for entertainment, it pays to have a domain name that will reflect your content. Moreover, it will make it easier for your customers and other webmasters to remember your site if the name reflects your content. There are only so many “Hot horny milf” domain names to go around. Try to be creative and unique. In the instance of turnkey situations, you”ll be able to choose exactly the content you want and you”ll be able to have a point of reference to choose your domain.

What if you cannot get the domain name of your choice? It really depends on how committed you are to that particular name. If so, you might simply want to try to buy over the domain name from the current owner. Check up the “whois” information for the domain, and contact that person listed to see if they”re willing to sell it. You probably should be aware that they are likely to want to charge a higher fee than you”ll normally get when buying new domains (assuming they want to sell it in the first place).

2. Generic Names Or Brand Name Domains?

I know that a number of people seem to think that your domain name really must be some generic name like “cars.com” if you are selling cars. Witness, for example, how much money those generic names are being sold for. Although, if you were looking for a car, you”ll probably already have some brands in mind, and you”re more like to try out things like jeep.com or toyota.com rather than just cars.com.

To put it in perspective, there are a number of reasons why generic terms like hotsexyteens.com and honrylonelywives.com aren”t on the tip of your tongue, but you may have definitely heard names like, bangbus.com, hotmovies.com, adamandeve.com. They have not only built a website, but a brand name as well.

3. Long or Short Domain Names?

Domain names can be of any length up to 256 characters. You don”t have to settle for an obscure domain name like ccha.com when what you mean is collegecoedshomealone.com.

Having said that, there appears to be some disagreement about whether a long or short domain name is better.

Some argue that shorter domain names are easier to remember, easier to type and far less susceptible to mistakes: for example, “collegecoeds” is easier to remember and less prone to typos than “collegecoedshomealone.com”.

Others argue that a longer domain name is usually easier on the human memory – for example, “ccha.com” is a sequence of unrelated letters that is difficult to remember and type correctly, whereas if we expand it to its long form, “collegecoedshomealone.com”, we are more likely to remember the domain name.

Some of these arguments are actually academic. It”s increasingly difficult to get short meaningful domain names. As of this posting, all 3, 4, and most 5 letter domain names are already taken.

Long domain names that have your site keywords in them also have an advantage in that they add value to your search engine optimization.So for example, if your domain name was collegecoedshomealone.com and it featured content of 80 year old women wearing leather, then you”re going to get penalized for that. We”ll get into search engine optimization later.

4. Hyphenated Names?

Should you get a hyphenated name? There are a few things to consider here:

a. Disadvantage: It”s easy to forget the hyphens when typing a name. Many users are used to typing things like collegecoedshomealone.com but not college-coeds-home-alone.com. They”ll probably leave out the hyphens and wind up at your competitor”s site.

b. Disadvantage: When people recommend your site to their friends verbally, having hyphens in your domain name leads to more potential errors than when the name does not contain hyphens. For example, how do you think your visitors will refer to your site if it is named “college-coeds-home-alone.com”? They might say, “I visited college coeds home alone yesterday. It was fabulous.” Their friends, remembering that comment later, might type into their browsers “collegecoedshomealone.com”. Oops.

c. Disadvantage: It”s a pain in the ass to type. Enough said.

d. Advantage: Theoretically, search engines can distinguish your keywords better and thus return your site more prominently in search results for those keywords occurring in your domain name .However, if you optimize correctly, this will not be an issue.

e. Advantage: The non-hyphenated form may no longer be available. At least this way, you still get the domain name you want. However, see B for reasons why this could be bad.

5. Plurals, “The”, and “My” Forms of the Domain Name

Very often, if you can”t get the domain name you want, the domain name registrar will suggest alternate forms of the name you typed. For example, if you wanted website.com, and it was taken (of course it is), it might suggest forms like:

thewebsite.com
mywebsite.com
websites.com

and the like, if they were not already taken as well. The question is, should you take them?

My personal opinion is that if you take the “the…” and “my…” forms of the domain name, you must always remember to promote your site with the full form of the name. Otherwise, people are likely to forget to affix the necessary “the” or “my”. For example, what if you registered mycollegecoedshomealone.com, you would want to advertise the entire name and not just “”College Coeds Home Alone”.

6. COM, ORG, NET, etc?

One common question r is from people who can”t get the “.com” domain of their choice, but find the “.net”, “.org” or other country-specific top level domains (TLDs) available (like .de, .nu, .sg, etc). Should they try for these?

The answer is not as straightforward as you might think. One thing to be aware of is that the most common domain that people know of is .com. If you registered collegecoedshomealone.net or .org because the domain name you wanted was taken, and your visitor went instinctively to .com, then you risk losing business. Keep that in mind when choosing which domain extension would work best.

Protecting yourself Legally

Just because you’re going to be providing products and services to people that will bring them pleasure, excitement and happiness, doesn’t mean that the adult industry is not very serious. There are laws that are setup to protect models, visitors, and more importantly, yourself. We’re certainly not lawyers, and our advice should not be a subsitute for actual legal counsel, but consider it more of a brief overview of laws and standards you need to implement to have continued success.

18 U.S.C. 2257 – This is the big one. Familiarize yourself very well with this law because you will have to adhere to it very strictly.

(a) Whoever produces any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, or other matter which—

  1. contains one or more visual depictions made after November 1, 1990 of actual sexually explicit conduct; and
  2. is produced in whole or in part with materials which have been mailed or shipped in interstate or foreign commerce, or is shipped or transported or is intended for shipment or transportation in interstate or foreign commerce;

shall create and maintain individually identifiable records pertaining to every performer portrayed in such a visual depiction.

(b) Any person to whom subsection (a) applies shall, with respect to every performer portrayed in a visual depiction of actual sexually explicit conduct—

  1. ascertain, by examination of an identification document containing such information, the performer’s name and date of birth, and require the performer to provide such other indicia of his or her identity as may be prescribed by regulations;
  2. ascertain any name, other than the performer’s present and correct name, ever used by the performer including maiden name, alias, nickname, stage, or professional name; and
  3. record in the records required by subsection (a) the information required by paragraphs (1) and (2) of this subsection and such other identifying information as may be prescribed by regulation.

(c) Any person to whom subsection (a) applies shall maintain the records required by this section at his business premises, or at such other place as the Attorney General may by regulation prescribe and shall make such records available to the Attorney General for inspection at all reasonable times.

In a nutshell:

If you have dirty pictures on your website, you need to maintain documentation that anyone in those pictures are 18 or older.

Regardless of whether you bought the content, stole the content, or created it yourself, you need to have access to the documentation.

The documentation is usually a model release, scan of the model’s Driver’s License or state issued ID card and a photo of the model posing with that ID. You will need to have this information available for any law enforcement official who requests it. If you’re buying the content, the provider will make this access available to you. You will post text on your website, that includes a disclaimer and the contact information for your Custodian of Records. They typically look like this::

18 U.S.C. Section 2257 Record Keeping Information

In compliance with United States Code, Title 18, Section 2257, all models, actors, actresses and other persons that appear in any visual depiction of actual or simulated sexual conduct appearing otherwise contained at www.domainname.com were over the age of eighteen (18) years at the time of the creation of such depictions. Some of the aforementioned depictions appearing or otherwise contained at the site contain only visual depictions of actual sexually explicit conduct made before July 3rd, 1995, and, as such, are exempt from the requirements set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 2257 and C.F.R. 75.

The operators of this web site is not the primary producer (as that term is defined in 18 U.S.C. section 2257) of any of the visual content contained within. The original records are kept by the following Custodian of Records:

John Doe

123 state streed

Van Nuys, CA 91405

USA

All external links on www.domainname.com are the responsability of the pointed sites owners respectively since we don\’t have any control over the content of these sites. Please refer to the linked website for any inquiries about subject.

With regard to the remaining depictions of actual sexual conduct appearing or otherwise contained at www.domainname.com, a copy of the records required pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2257 and C.F.R. 75 are kept at the following location by the Custodians of Records. For any inquiries pertaining to any models/actors/actresses shown on these pages, please contact:

Porn company

123 state streed

Van Nuys, CA 91405

USA

Most of the time, you’ll be buying content and when you do you will recieve the 2257 information from the content producer. If you’re going to produce and create your own content, then you will need to get these documents yourself.

Choosing the Right Adult Content

Now that you’ve decided on a domain name and a theme for your website, you can move on to the fun part. Choosing content. Typically you will need pictures, videos, streaming video which will interest those who visit your site. Some sites can be profitable if you have a digital camera, creativity, and a few open-minded, kinky friends. There are some sites that cater to offering candid pictures that are submitted by its members. There are sites that are simply girls who chat live with others using webcames. We have an entire section devoted to adult contenr providers, so brows on over there and you can see what they have to offer. One word of caution that deserves to be repeated. NEVER use under-age models. There is a difference between Adult Material and material that is not only illegal, but immoral. We all know where that ultimate line is drawn and staying on the safe side of the line will allow you to remain profitable and out of legal woes.

Quality vs Quantity

We all have a sense of frugality in us. When you’re at the grocery store, we’ll tend to go for items that are “buy 1 get 1 free” or 50% off. You’ll experience the same type of pricing in the adult content industry. There was a time when content for an adult website was a bit on the pricey side. Nowadays, adult content providers is an industry unto itself and there are plenty of providers trying to give it away. One common theme is that 1 affiliate will over free access to 4-10 additional sites as part of their membership. Thats now gigs and gigs of data that is being strewn about for practically nothing.

Let’s start thinking of your content in terms of 2 things. Premium content and Filler. Buy all the 10.00 packs, and overexposed content you want and use it for your thumbnail promotions, your free galleries, promotional pages and forum posts. Use this cheap content as a way to play with your site. Experiment with various genres and start dipping your foot into the many pools that adult sites will make available to you. You’re not going to make a dime with this content, so use it to hone your skills and as a learning experience. If you have any doubts, ask yourself this. If this content is costing 10.00 for a set of 200 images, how many other webmasters have purchased this and offering it on their site? The answers is, countless. This is Filler.

You will not make a dime in this industry if you are not willing to send money. The old adage holds true, “You need to spend money, to make money”. We’re not saying that you should mortgage your house and buy premium content and sit back and watch the money pour in. We’re saying that you should do this intelligently. Choose a domain, get a cheap hosting account, buy some content and take it slow.

Now that you’ve played around a bit and you’re ready to move on and make some money, you’re going to want to buy some quality content. The reason why its called quality content is because there are less people that have purchased it, and its much better content than you’ll see on the typical affiliate site. This means thats since it costs more than your bargain basement content, that not every weekend webmaster is going to have it.

Be on the lookout for terms like Limited, Exclusive, Semi-Exclusive. If your budget allows you can certainly have a content provider take custom content for you and you alone. This is content that they will not sell to anyone else and will be exclusive to your website. This is how the big boys do things. The high-end paysites hire photographers, wardrobe , makeup artists, set designers, and talent to produce exclusive content. Although this is the most expensive way to go, this puts you ahead of the competition because they do not have access to this kind of content.

Semi-Exclusive or Limited content is less expensive and more readily accessible. Limited release refers to when a content provider is going to sell their product to a set amount of webmasters. For example, if you buy a collection of videos of college coeds home alone with a Semi-Exclusive relate, that license will guarantee that only you and say, 10 other webmasters will have that content. As you can see, this puts you at a significant advantage and your competition with that content goes down significantly.

The goal here is that you want pics and videos that almost nobody else has. Ideally, you want a model that you can build a membersite around. You want content that will get people begging to pay you to let them download it. You want to give people a reason to keep paying you month after month. Which brings us to another subject you should be ready for. Updating your content. Its a good rule of thumb to be prepared to update your website with a new picture set and video at least once a week. This will keep people coming back time and time again.

Hosting your Adult WebSite

Getting a webhosting account is going to be the easiest part of this. We’re going to go over the details of an average webhosting account, so that you can decipher what it all means.

Types of Hosting

The key responsibilities of a web hosting company are to provide server space, web services and maintenance of servers which host websites owned or controlled by individuals and companies. Most web hosting companies offer shared hosting and dedicated hosting, which are explained in detail below.

  • Shared Web Hosting
  • VPS (Virtual Private Server) Managed
  • VPS (Virtual Private Server) Unmanaged
  • Dedicated Server Managed
  • Dedicated Server Unmanaged
  • Colocation

Shared Hosting

Another name for shared hosting is virtual hosting. It works as follows: your website, content, images and videos are placed on a server which is shared with other customers who also use that web host. The equipment and server are owned and managed by the web host provider, with technicians on hand to monitor and manage the servers.

Companies choose to go the shared hosting route because it is much cheaper and it works well. It may be worth your while to ask about shared hosting management tools which will allow you to use shared hosting, but still get the benefits of a dedicated server (described below), It is important to review the control panel which the hosting company provides you. Although popular, shared hosting has its restrictions.You’ll need to find out what your data limits are, what the overage fees are, and whether or not they allow adult content.

A brief word about Disk Space and Bandwidth. Your website provider will offer you an account with, for example, 50 gigs of disk space, and 1000gigs of bandwidth. This means, that all of your images and videos, would have to be under 1 gigabyte in size, when you upload them to your account. Each time someone visits your website and downloads images or videos, that gets added up towards your bandwidth. For example, say you have a 100 megabyte video on your website, and you have 1 gigabyte of bandwidth. This file could only be downloaded 10 times before you were over your limit and forced to pay higher overage fees. MONITOR YOUR BANDWIDTH ! You could always make it easy on yourself and get a provider who offers unlimited bandwidth, or bandwidth so high that you don’t have to worry about tracking it.

VPS (Virtual Private Server) Unmanaged

A VPS or Virtual Private Server is a great step up from a shared hosting account. A VPS is basically a server but instead of having an entire server to utilize a server is broken up into, normally, four parts and each part is setup as its own virtual private server.

Basically the client will get access to all the functions of a real server and anyone on the server will think they are on a fully dedicated server, but in all actuality they are only using part of the server and around four or so other people are using the other half.

When we speak of unmanaged servers we are referring to the type of management that is included in the server. Unmanaged would mean that the provider doesn’t offer any assistance with running or keeping the server updated, they will of course make sure it stays on with working hardware and also a working connection, but they will not keep it updated, fix or resolve software errors or anything dealing with the software side of the server. The client is responsible for making sure the software side of the server stays running.

VPS (Virtual Private Server) Managed

The managed portion of a VPS is basically the complete opposite of the unmanaged. Everything that they wouldn’t do on an unmanaged server they will do on a managed server. Normally they keep it up and running, monitor it incase anything happens to it and will resolve anything with it if it does go down. They also keep it updated with the latest software patches and fixes and will install most any software if the client asks.

Virtual Private Servers are a great upgrade from a shared or reseller account and can also be a great way to learn how to utilize a dedicated server.

Dedicated Servers – Unmanaged

Dedicated servers are as good as it gets as far as webhostins is concerned. Dedicated severs range in speed and space and the specifications of the hardware are the determining factor of the monthly price. Dedicated servers can do anything web related. There was a time when servers were very costly, nowadays you can get them for as little as 50.00 per month.

The only draw back a user may find with a dedicated server is the fact that they are leased and not actually owned by the renter, meaning that when signing up for a dedicated server service, a user is actually renting the server monthly instead of purchasing or leasing the server to own it. In few cases providers allow rent/lease to own service. Many users do not like the idea of not owning the server because all of their valuable information is contained within it.

Next thing we need to factor with a dedicated server is the fact that 90% of them are unmanaged and most will not state they are unmanaged; they will only state they are managed if they are. So if nether is stated assume that it’s unmanaged. A dedicated server takes a good bit of experience and knowledge to get up and running and keeps it running safely. There are quite a few factors to take into consideration while running a dedicated server and for that matter some experience in it is normally required.

Dedicated Servers Managed

Dedicated servers that are managed are the best bet if you do not want to learn how to manage it yourself, or hire someone to do it for you.. Managed dedicated servers are basically the exact same as an unmanaged server but just how the name implies, it’s managed.

Now with managed service there is a lot that is taken care of, but not everything is actually taken care of. Setting up the server, installing some software and making sure it’s updated and secure is basically all managed service will provide. Some providers offer a tiered managed service and the more they manage the more expensive it will become. Basically you’re hiring one of their guys to take care of the server for you, but it’s cheaper then hiring someone full time to manage the server.

Colocation

Colocation is one of those things that shouldn’t really need to be explained, if you’re in the position of needing collocation you probable already know exactly what it is. But for the sake of this article, we’ll explain it in lames terms for the rest of us that are unsure about collocation.

Colocation is for those websites that need more physical accessibility to their servers. You would put your own servers in the provider’s data center and connect to their high speed network. The provider provides a safe, clean and stable environment to run the server 24/7.