Update: Sep 2018

The link to the infographic is dead, so I am taking the liberty to upload it here, since there has been quite a few people interested in it.

Here was a great infographic(https://training.linuxfoundation.org/images/lftc_evolution_sysadmin.jpg - link now is dead) on the evolution of a linux beginner to a seasoned sysadmin and the steps and skills that you need to gain in the process. It also have a resources included on each step with links below, so you can start your journey today.

Why is the above infographic useful? Here is another one that shows in 2013 the demand of sysadmins have increased 90% and the salaries with 9%. The trend will grow and the demand for experienced linux users who know their way with a server as well, since the internet continues to grow and all those sites need a web hosting.

Be sure to check the sites of the top companies that we have included in our best 10 uk web hosting reviews and find even more resources on the topic.

And here is the original from the Linux foundation

It is 3000px wide so right click on the image and 'view image' to check it in full resolution.

There are thousands of web hosting solutions and most of them are able to host WordPress. WordPress is just a PHP platform that uses MySQL or MariaDB database to store the data. If the hosting service meets the minimum requirements to run the latest version of WordPress (as of today 12.02.2017):

• PHP version 7 or greater
• MySQL version 5.6 or greater OR MariaDB version 10.0 or greater
• HTTPS support
• The mod_rewrite Apache module

You can go with them. To find this out, just browse trough their hosting plans and check the features or drop them an email.

Your Wordpress blog is like a tree tho, so it needs the right soil to grow. Based on our experience with hosting web sites for more than 15 years, here are the most important criteria you should consider before buying a web hosting service for your blog.

First, make sure it is a reputable company that provides hosting for the UK. This is where your audience is and you want your WordPress content to be delivers as fast as possible. That is why see if the company got a datacenter in UK or nearby. Also most of the UK hosting companies got inhouse tech support team that will help you move and install your blog and will be in your time zone. Also if they have SSD drives for the MySQL database is a big advantage since your database queries will load much faster.

Price and bandwidth. When you begin, make sure the price does not extend 5GBP/month and if they give you 5GB of traffic a month, it will be enough for more than 10000 visitors. This is just to be sure you are not paying extra for something that you do not need. Make sure tho that the company has other plans so when your blog grows, you can easily upgrade to another plan.

Security. See if the hosting provider have some isolation of the different WordPress accounts and the databases. Hosting is more secure when PHP applications, like WordPress, are run using your account’s username instead of the server’s default shared username. The most common way nowadays for hosting companies to do this is using suPHP. Just ask your potential host if they run suPHP or something similar.

WordPress optimized. A lot of the web hosting companies have made it easier for WordPress blogs to be run and managed by having a specific tools in the control panel like 1 click WordPress install, layered caching, auto updates, controlling your blog from a command line, updating your plugins and so on that will make it so much easier for you to manage your blog.

Any reputable UK web hosting that meets the above criteria will do for your WordPress blog, site or shop. Based on our experience we can recommend as WordPress specific UK web hosting companies Siteground and Godaddy. For more details read our reviews on Siteground and Godaddy and if you have any other suggetions or questions, post them in the comments below. And you can also check our the full list of the best 5 WordPress hosting reviews here.

Edit: here is our indepth domain buying guide that can give you detailed information on domain buying and domain registrars.

Domain names don’t have to be registered with your hosting company.

Don’t take this the wrong way, this isn't implying that your current web host is not trustable. It’s more about finding a dependable and trustworthy registrar right from the start. After all, your domain name is your online identity, the most expensive and irreplaceable asset while hosting services are just there to accommodate your website.

A lot of people would register their domains with the same hosting company for the sake of convenience, you can manage the domain and the hosting with one login and the support staff of the hosting company will make sure everything is configured the right way.

Here are the reasons tho that we would recommend that you keep your domain and hosting accounts separate:

- with the right register you can store all your domains on one place and manage the DNS records faster

- if you for some reason get mad at your current hosting provider, you will want to move to another hosting. If your domain is in a separate register, you just have to change the DNS records. If you have it with the hosting, you will have much more trouble and it will slow down the process of moving, since you will have to transfer the domain too.

- enhanced security. If your hosting account is hacked, the hackers can transfer your domain too and it will take a long time to prove you are the rightful owner, in which time the site will not operate and you will lose money and credibility.

So we recommend if you decide to buy a domain, do to GoDaddy, they are a register and with a coupon code you can buy a .com domain for as low as 2$ a year and register your site with Siteground - they are an outstanding web hosting provider for the UK area. You can also read our reviews about them: Godaddy UK Hosting review and Siteround UK hosting review.

Let us know if this article was helpful or if you have any questions in the comments.

More about domain names you can find on Wikipediaor read our our best 10 UK website hosting reviews

Nominet is prepared to launch the new .UK TLD in June 2014. They claim it will boost the business in the UK and will make the domain names shorter, more focused on the business and easier to remember. They claim 84% of the people in the UK consider buying and looking for information from .co.uk more reliable. However, since already 93% of the UK businesses use .co.uk, this means that for them it will be an additional cost. If you own the .co.uk you would buy the .uk because you don't want it to be bought by your competitors. On global scale, this means £50 million per year in additional costs for the UK business. However we recommend that you go to your favorite register and pre-order your .uk domain name. Our choice for .uk registrar is names.co.uk

The launch of the new top level domain .UK is scheduled for 08:00hrs on 10 June 2014. You can pre-order it now or you can think about it and do it later, since the reservation period for existing customers who already have a .co.uk, .org.uk, .me.uk, .net.uk, .ltd.uk or .plc.uk runs up until 07:59hrs on 10 June 2019. This means that if you own any of the other domains now, you have 5 years registration right to get the .UK name as well and then it will be available for the public.

How the .uk reservation works

Here is an example. If all of the other TLDs name are free, then on 10 June 2014 you can purchase the .UK domain. If someone owns example.org.uk then he has the right to purchase example.uk for 5 years. If example.org.uk and example.co.uk are both taken, the reservation right go for the example.co.uk current owner. On this link you can check the reservation rights for a .uk domain

How much will the .uk cost?

From Nominet they say the wholesale price will be the same as the .co.uk domains: £3.50 per year for single year registrations, £5.00 for two year registrations and £2.50 per year thereafter for multi-year registrations. However they use various registrars and the retail price may vary since it can be combined with another hosting service. When browsing online, we consider that a price of £5 for a .uk domain is reasonable.

What is colocation and is it for you?

Colocation is one of the recent tech terms that explained in simple words mean that you rent a space in a Colocation data center for your own server. This service is very close to the more widely known Dedicated server hosting. The difference between colocation and buying a Dedicated server from a hosting company is that in the colocation you own the hardware and you are responsible for the upgrades and maintenance. There is a difference in the price as well.

Is colocation for you? If you are just starting and your needs for bandwidth and space are not high, you should start with a shared hosting. It is managed by the hosting company, has support team that can help you with the setup and care about the hardware. The price is the best too. Shared hostings are good for up to 30k visitors per month tho, depending on your plan. We recommend Siteground and Tsohost as a very good shared hosting alternatives that will work for you.

If you have more traffic, you have large download files, videos, music etc. and you require more hard drive space and bandwidth, then the colocation hosting service is for you. You have to search for a colocation data center in your area, buy the server equipment that you need (or rent it), rent a rack and you are good to go.

Colocation Pros and Cons

Data colocation can have a lot of benefits for you if you are small to medium business and you want to have to juice of a large scale IT department. It also has its disadvantages as you can see in the table below. See for yourself if this service is for you.

Conclusions: Colocation is a great service if you need it. The major types of businesses that can benefit from colocation are Web commerce companies, Major enterprises, Telecommunication companies, E-commerce sites with a lot of visitors.

If you need to just manage a blog, simple CMS, display site or sell a few products, colocation is not for you. Keep with the shared web hosting since it will offer you better support and price. Here are our reviews of the best shared web hostings in the UK.

Website hosting company The GoDaddy Group Inc is preparing for a moment run at initial public offering (IPO), relating to a couple familiar with all the matter, as the 2014 tech IPO pipeline keeps growing.

GoDaddy, the online world domain name registrar and web host known for its racy advertisements, would join a number of high-profile tech names anticipated to go general public this present year in the wake of Twitter Inc's successful introduction. They include Candy Crush developer King Digital, and cloud services providers container and Dropbox.

The business is within the process of picking underwriters for its IPO, among the two resources stated on condition of privacy.

GoDaddy had been not instantly readily available for comment.

GoDaddy had filed to get general public in 2006 but had been advised during the time that it would be necessary to just take a 50 per cent haircut - a portion that is subtracted through the par worth of possessions that are being used as collateral - on its IPO.

The organization as an alternative decided to pull its filing, citing bad market circumstances.

The business, established in 1997, had been eventually acquired by an exclusive equity consortium led by KKR

Other exclusive equity purchasers included Technology Crossover Ventures.

GoDaddy, which offers website domain name brands, is famous for airing bawdy commercials with scantily clad women for the previous decade during the Super Bowl.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the programs.

UK2, one of the country's largest web hosting providers, has launched their new Website Builder product with an introductory offer of 50 percent off the first three months' payment. Aimed at getting sole traders and small businesses online with minimal costs, the package is an all-in-one solution to building a professional looking website.

Website Builder works using a simple drag-and-drop interface, allowing users to customise any of the 200+ templates to their liking, or start from scratch to build a completely unique website. Users can add text, images, social media plugins and lots more to their site, then rearrange everything on screen. Website Builder comes with web hosting included and customers can choose a free domain name, giving them everything they need to get their business online.

"A lot of small businesses find that they lack the resources to build their own website, or the finances to pay someone else to do it well," said Sara Cunha-Rego, product manager at UK2. "With Website Builder, we are removing that obstacle by providing a way to build websites that don't require any knowledge of programming or writing code. Customers can easily personalise one of our templates until they're happy with the result."

 To launch the product, UK2 are offering a 50 percent discount on the first three months of any annual contract. Customers can redeem this deal by entering the voucher code WSB50 on the payment page.

"The 50 percent discount is a great offer that will allow businesses to minimise the initial cost of setting up a website," added Cunha-Rego. "We want to get our customers online as quickly and easily as possible so that they can start reaping the benefits of having an online presence."

UK2 has been offering innovative web hosting products since 1998 and has got millions of customers online since then. The new Website Builder will be a further asset to their product range, and another tool that helps them make web hosting easy for customers.

Make sure to read our reviews on UK2 and the other top UK web hosting plans compared here.

UK web hosting provider eUKhost announced on Monday it has launched its new disaster recovery as a service on its eNlight Cloud platform.

The move comes a month after eUKhost updated its virtual private server plans to offer auto-scalable CPU and RAM, an  add-on feature that customers have to pay an extra monthly fee to use.

eNlight Cloud is the company’s auto-scaling cloud platform, and with DR service on eNlight, its versatility increases even further.

The need for an effective disaster recovery plan is critical these days for all organizations as they continue to rely on a massive amount of data to run their businesses, store it longer and retrieve it as needed.

DRaaS on eNlight Cloud includes a range of features which offer benefits over traditional DR setups.

These benefits include significant cost savings, as DR setup is fully used, and hence fully paid for, only in case of a disaster; allows aggressive recovery time objectives stringent recovery points can be set ensure minimal or no data loss; and flexibility in terms of cost and utility.

“The sheer dependence of business on online data created a need for a business continuity strategy that will ensure uninterrupted operation and create a competitive advantage for growth opportunities,” said Robert King, managing director of eUKhost. “The “DRaaS on eNlight Cloud” service brings that flexibility, scalability, and rapid provisioning to help accomplish those needs.”

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HostPapa provides high performance and reliable web hosting services to our customers. Our web hosting infrastructure is the heart of our service offering.

Our data centers have all the security features you can imagine to protect the equipment and the premises and are equipped with complete climate and temperature control, raised floor facility, fault protection, security, fire-suppression systems, water detection systems, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), standby and redundant power generation and diesel backup generators.

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Yes, it's true! Our energy is certified by the following sources:

HostPapa has taken the initiative of going green by purchasing 100% green renewable energy to power our data centers, web servers, office computers, laptops and office space. These energy sources supply HostPapa's entire equivalent energy consumption into the power-grid with certified 100% renewable green energy sources, such as wind and solar-powered energy.