Internet Basics: A Server is Like a Chef

Ever watch the chefs in a restaurant kitchen? They have all the ingredients just sitting there waiting to be combined and sent out in one nice presentation on a plate to your table.

Thats what a server is like.

A server is really just a computer thats been set up to deliver its contents over the Internet to the people that come its way. For example, if you want to go to the website mywebsite.com, the individual webpages that make up that website are saved as files on a computer somewhere. That computer is a server. So you type mywebsite.com into your browser, and what happens? The mywebsite.com website appears!

True, but some other stuff happened first.

First, when you typed in mywebsite.com, your browser sent out a request over the Internet that found its way to the server where the mywebsite.com files are saved (the unique domain name, mywebsite.com, is what found the server).

Then, just like a chef, the server receives the order and starts putting together everything required to fill that particular order. If the file you requested is just a good old webpage, not too much has to be done.

But if thats a database-driven webpage, then the server has to get a bunch of information from a database on the server first, then stick it into the webpage in all the right places, and then its ready to go. Just like in a restaurant, each request is different and the server has to combine everything into one package, then send it out to you.

In this case, the server sends all the information back to your browser, which makes sure you see the webpage as its supposed to look.

The same holds true for email. If you use software like Eudora or Outlook Express to open your email, youve actually sent a request to an email server where all your incoming messages have been waiting for you. The server sees your request for your new emails, and it sends those files to your email software, and voila!, there they are.

And thats why a server is like a chef.

Copyright (c) Grant Pasay 2005. All rights reserved. You may forward this article in its entirety (including author bio/links) to anyone you wish.

Grant Pasay is a professional website copywriter, advertising copywriter, and SEO copywriter serving clients in Vancouver, BC and everywhere. Grant is also the author of the FREE e-book, "The Internet Is Like A Refrigerator."

For copy that captures your business message without any of the hassle, go to http://grantpasay.com/

Check out Grant's FREE e-book at http://grantpasay.com/refrigerator/

Affiliate Marketing Tips - Learn How To Find Great Website Content

The question that stumps almost every newbie to affiliate marketing is "How do I find great content for my site?"

You have a great niche, you have done your research and found a great product to promote and so you excitedly sit down to build the web site and nothing. What do you write, where do you start.

Here are some tips on how to find great content for your affiliate marketing website

1. First write down everything you know about your niche. Even if you think you do not know anything, just start writing. You will be amazed at how much you can actually put down on paper
2. Do a Google search for your exact "keyword phrase" [with the keyword phrase put within quotation marks]. Look at the top 10 websites that are returned in the SERPs. You have to understand that these sites rank highly for two reasons, great content and good backlinking strategies. Read the content of these sites, note how the pages are structured, what headings or subheadings are used. Your mind by now should be overrun with ideas
3. Search for articles at EzineArticles on your niche or keyword phrase. EzineArticles are written by people who are experts in their chosen field. The articles tend to have great content and are usually succinct. You can either study these articles as learning material or you can use articles from ezine articles and paste them on your website. NB. Remember that articles copied from EzineArticles must be used as is and the authors signature profile must be included if you are republishing the articles on your webpage.
4. Subscribe to newsletters from other affiliate marketers in your chosen niche. You can learn a lot from these newsletters
5. Always remember that website content in affiliate marketing should be dynamic. It is not enough to put up a webpage and forget all about it. You need to continually renew the content of your website so that your site is not seen as stale by the search engines. This means that the tips given to you above are not just a one time thing, this is something you as an affiliate marketer will be doing on a regular basis

These are just a few affiliate marketing tips for developing your website content.

Abi Noah
Now that you have your content you can click Free HTML Editor to review and download a website builder.

For more affiliate marketing tips visit http://www.affiliatemarketingintro.com

3 Options For Hosting Multiple Websites

The prices of domain name registration and web hosting have dropped to the point that it's possible to own multiple websites without going broke. If you plan to operate multiple websites, here is some information on the different options available to you.

The first thing to consider when setting up multiple websites is whether or not to host them all with the same web hosting company. Many web hosts offer packages that let you set up multiple sites on a single account and almost all will let you set up multiple accounts, one for each site.

If you are happy with the hosting company you're using for your existing website(s), one advantage of using them for another site is the fact that you know they offer good service and support.

They might also offer discounts for multiple sites, so your costs might be lower if you stay with them again.

On the other hand, if you choose a different host you'll be able to compare the quality of another company with whomever you're currently using. If you ever run into problems with them, you'll have an alternative. It's wise not to "put all your eggs in one basket" as the saying goes.

Another advantage of using a different host is that you'll get a different IP address for each of your sites. If your sites are related to one another and you want to link them together, having different IP addresses can sometimes help your site rank higher in the search engines.

Links from other sites are one of the most important factors in getting your site ranked highly. If those links come from sites on the same IP address, it is a signal to the search engines that they are quite likely all owned by the same person, and they may discount the value of those links.

If you do choose to host all your sites with one company, there are essentially 3 choices - separate accounts for each site, a reseller account where they are all hosted or a dedicated server, again where they are all hosted.

Separate accounts are self-explanatory, so let's look at reseller accounts. As a reseller, you are basically acting as an agent for the hosting company - a middleman between them and the end user.

The idea is that you can set up your own company offering web hosting that is ultimately hosted by the company. You don't have to resell this hosting however - you can use the hosting services for your own websites, essentially "reselling" the hosting to yourself.

A reseller account is nice because all your websites are "under one roof" and you have a single point of contact for any technical problems.

Hosting on a dedicated server gives you complete control of the computer that is the web server. You can install any software you want, any operating system you want and you can allocate resources like memory and hard disk space however you want to divide it up between your sites.

The disadvantage of a dedicated server is that you are responsible for maintaining the server and sometimes even for the technical side of things. If you aren't familiar with the technical side of running a web server, you may need to choose a managed dedicated server, where the hosting company looks after these issues.

Dedicated server are, of course, more expensive than the other options, so unless your websites are well established, with a lot of traffic, they may not fit within your budget.

John Lenaghan writes about web hosting and other related topics for the Hosting Report website. For more information, visit http://www.hostingreport.org.