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Green Web Hosting Review

August 5th, 2010 admin No comments

All around the world, businesses in various different industries have put together a lot of effort to “go green” and to do whatever they can to reduce the damage that their operations could have on our environment. When we think of protecting the environment, many of us would think about using home appliances that are more energy efficient or cars that use less fuel, in addition to making changes in our daily routines such as recycling more and avoiding excessive waste production. With the growth of the internet, many IT experts have noticed that they too can play a large part in helping out our environment.

Wind power is one of the most environmentally ...
Image via Wikipedia

While many people don’t think about it, whenever you visit a website, the content that is displayed on your computer has to be read from a remote source somewhere. It doesn’t magically generate and teleport itself to your computer. The servers that are used to host websites are machines, just like your home computer that require the use of electricity in order to run.

While it is true that a single server doesn’t consume much power, most web hosting companies have a complete data center that houses dozens and even hundreds of servers. A web host also needs to use network equipment, temperature control machinery, and security and access control systems. All of these devices combined to use a large amount of power, which would be enough to power hundreds of typical households. Out of concern for the impact they have on the environment, a lot of web hosting businesses have started to adopt a “green” business model. This is why you will see a lot more web hosts advertising that they use clean power to run their servers. They are trying to be carbon neutral and more eco friendly.

There are two main ways in which web hosting companies can make a difference. The first one is to reduce their overall electricity consumption. It may seem a bit tricky, as web servers and other equipment cannot simply be turned off, it needs to run at all times in order for the websites that depend on them to stay available. Some companies have replaced their servers with newer models that are more energy efficient. Others have made sure that their data center is set up in a way that requires as little cooling equipment as possible.

In their offices, many web hosts have put together policies that reduce the amount of paper being used. Thanks to today’s online world, paper documents are becoming less and less used, save for some legal documents that require a hard copy to be kept.

There have been a few green web hosting companies that have even gone as far as installing solar panels and wind turbines. However, this remains a rarity due to costs and the fact that the power supplied by these devices could sometimes be insufficient or unreliable. Many green web hosting firms have instead resorted to purchasing renewable energy credits. These credits means that for every unit of energy used by the web host, the power company will produce one unit of power by using renewable sources, like wind power or solar power.

For a top rated green web hosting company, check out Hostgator. This site is hosted on their green energy efficient servers.

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SuperGreen Green Hosting Review

August 1st, 2010 admin No comments

Many people are getting increasingly aware of the problems that affect our environment. One topic that has especially been talked about lately is the emission of CO2 in the atmosphere. Many companies, such as car manufacturers have become aware of the problem and have started developing products that have less of an impact on our environment. Web hosting companies, such as SuperGreen green hosting are also doing their part to help our environment.

Control Panel
Image by Tim Dorr via Flickr

What many people who use web hosting do not know, is that servers as well as related equipment, such as network switches and the cooling equipment needed to keep them running use a relatively large amount of electricity. While some of that power comes from renewable and environmentally friendly methods of generation, most of it still comes from power plants that burn fossil fuels. These, in turn, release pollutants such as CO2 in the atmosphere. A single server produces the same type of emissions that a 15 mpg sport utility vehicle does. A data center that contains hundreds of servers operating 24 hours a day uses as much electricity as 30 000 homes!

In order to reduce the environmental impact of their operations, SuperGreen Green Web Hosting uses Dell servers which are specially designed and configure to use less electricity and require less cooling, therefore producing about 20% less CO2 emissions than other servers. For the other 80%, SuperGreen is directly involved in a tree planting project that seeks to neutralize the impact that their business has on the environment.

SuperGreen green web hosting has one hosting plan. It costs $3.95 per month if you prepay for 36 months, $4.95 per month if you prepay for 24 months, $5.95 per month if you prepay for 12 months and $6.95 per month if you prepay for 6 months. They also offer a monthly option of $7.95 per month, however you would have to pay a $20 setup fee for account activation. If you prepay for 12, 24 or 36 months, the domain name registration is free, otherwise it costs $9.95.

Their web hosting package gives you unlimited hosting space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email accounts and unlimited domain hosting. You also get many features that you would expect from a quality web hosting company, such as an unlimited number of email accounts, FTP, cPanel control panel, a site builder, as well as support for PHP5, Perl 5, Python, Ruby on Rails, and more.

All of their servers are quad processor systems running on Linux, which are monitored 24 hours a day and have a full UPS backup system in place in order to ensure that your site will stay up in the event of a power failure. Their support team is always there to answer your questions, whether by telephone, live chat or email. SuperGreen green web hosting also offers you exclusive video tutorials on how to set up and administer your site, as well as an extensive knowledge base to help you troubleshoot any issues with your website.

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FatCow Green Web Hosting Review

July 31st, 2010 admin No comments

FatCow green web hosting has acquired Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to ensure that all the energy it uses comes from environmentally friendly and renewable sources, such as wind power. When you host your website with FatCow green web hosting, you can be sure that all the electricity that is used to supply power to various pieces of equipment in their data center is powered only by 100% renewable wind energy.

You also have the option of putting a badge on your website which indicates that your website is powered by 100% wind energy and is therefore eco-friendly. By putting this badge on your site, you can show that you support the use of environmentally friendly and renewable sources of energy. If you run a business, this can have many positive impacts for you. For example, it will portray your company as one that is caring about the environment. This can in turn attract a lot of business from people who share your concerns for the environment.FatCow Green Web Hosting

Many of FatCow’s employees have also taken actions in order to help the environment. Some have developed creative ways to reuse old paper, while others have chose to bike or use public transportation to get to work instead of using their cars. Protecting the environment is everyone’s responsibility and the folks at FatCow are showing that they truly care. Remember, every action, no matter how small, counts when it comes to protecting our environment.

FatCow has been serving customers since 1998 and has proven itself as a reliable and cost effective web hosting services provider. FatCow green web hosting has one main plan that is mostly geared towards their home and small business customers. It costs $55 per year and comes with unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited number of domains hosted on account and unlimited email addresses. While the $55 needs to be paid in advance at the time of the set up of your site, if you do the math, it comes to only $4.58 per month. This is approximately 4 times less than what competing hosting companies would charge you for green web hosting with unlimited disk space and bandwidth.

FatCow also gives you access to many great tools to help you design, maintain and promote your website. You will have access to great website builder tools, as well as add-ons such as photo galleries, polls, surveys and web counters. It also comes with a complete range of analytics tools that let you see exactly how much traffic your site gets, when and where it came from.

The FatCow green web hosting company also takes pride in the quality of the support and customer service that they give to their customers. Should you need any help with building or running your web site, FatCow hosting gives you access to a full range of FAQs as well as tutorials to help you out. They also have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week support available by phone, email and live chat. Their telephone support is based in locations in Canada or the United States.

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