Jun 2, 2006 : The webhost industry: week review

📅 June 2, 2006 - This week's Web hosting industry news was overflowing with announcements that Web hosting providers had added new features to their offerings, particularly of the Web site building tool variety.


Early in the week, site building software maker WiseNav announced that it had signed the first partner for its WiseNav/Personal service, with Web host Cirrus Tech. Cirrus Tech says it will be one of the first hosting providers in North America to provide the WiseNav solution, which will be of particular benefit to its customers.

Several Web hosting companies announced that they had begun offering SWsoft's SiteBuilder tool this week. The first was Server Intellect, which launched its new solution on Tuesday. Server Intellect's QuickStart tool is based on SiteBuilder and is provided to customers free of charge. It includes a visual editor and more than 450 templates, as well as functions for blogs, photo galleries, guest books, online stores and forums.

On Thursday, Web host Reseller Zoom announced that it had added SWsoft's SiteBuilder tool as-is to the features of its hosting services. Reseller Zoom says its resellers can sell SiteBuilder to their customers, giving them a competitive edge. Reseller Zoom offers a range of add-on tools, including SiteStudio, Miva Merchant and Urchin stats, among others. On Wednesday, site building software vendor CM4all announced that Canadian hosting provider NetNation would begin marketing CM4all's WebsiteCreator software to its customers. NetNation is a subsidiary of Hostway, and the deal extends CM4all's existing relationship with that company. The deal with NetNation is CM4all's second agreement with a Canadian Web host this year, extending the European company's efforts to establish its presence in North America.

While several hosting companies launched site building tools based on third-party software, Affinity Internet announced this week that it had released the new version of its own CreateIt! Online site building tool. Affinity says that as part of the launch promotion, it will provide CreateIt! Online for free to all its new and existing domain and Web hosting customers as well as ValueWeb and Gate.com customers.

While a good number of hosts introduced site building tools this week, there was an assortment of other offering added this week, as several hosts added security and domain registration related services.

Aplus.Net announced on Wednesday that it had launched two new security tools, Hotlink Prevention and IP Blocker, adding them free-of-charge to its hosting services. The Hotlink Prevention tool helps customers prevent other sites from linking images on their sites. And the IP Blocker tool enables customers to prevent abuse of their sites, including DDoS attacks, by blocking connections from a specific IP address.

Go Daddy also introduced new security tools on Wednesday. The company added TippingPoint intrusion prevention systems to its network in an effort to prevent attacks. Go Daddy says it put the systems in place to protect all its dedicated and virtual dedicated hosting customers at no extra cost. The tool scans traffic and identifies legitimate or malicious data packets.

And on Thursday, Verio announced that it had introduced some new services around domain registration. The company's new services include a domain name generation tool that provides suggestions on alternatives when a customer's first choice is not available. It can also offer suggestions based on keywords. The company also introduced a domain reservation service, which attempts to register an unavailable name if it should ever become available.

The addition of these new services by Web hosting providers illustrates some of the immediate demands of hosting customers. In particular, simple, affordable Web site building tools have become a must-have feature for most Web hosting customers, and certainly something every Web host should be offering by now.