Ecommerce website hosting is a large part of any business’s online services. If you have a product to sell, you need an ecommerce hosting plan that can be tailored to your website’s specific needs.

Ecommerce hosting is just a term to describe an online business website, where the primary function of that website is to sell goods or services. While many small ecommerce sites can be hosted on a shared server, most if not all of the big ones (such as Amazon.com, Shopzilla, Overstock.com, etc) are hosted on a dedicated web server or many dedicated servers clustered together.

There are several things you need to establish to run a successful ecommerce website, including:

* a reliable web host
* a Dedicated IP address
* an SSL certificate
* a Payment Gateway

Once you have all these things, you can begin to create your ecommerce website and watch the money start rolling in.

Having an ecommerce website is a big responsibility for any webmaster, and oftentimes you need to do a lot of research in order to get started. Here’s a quick list and brief description of the things you’ll need to have in order to start your ecommerce website.

* Dedicated IP Address

This is necessary in order to get an SSL Certificate, as only one site (yours) will be using this IP. In a shared server environment, many websites might share the same IP address, while if you are running on a dedicated server, you’ll likely need your own dedicated IP anyway. Purchasing one ahead of time will save you time and money in the long run.

* SSL Certificate

This certificate secures your website and all purchases made within its pages, so that each transaction is safe, secure, and fully encrypted. Without an SSL certificate, your customers’ critical payment information could be shared across the internet, as their information will not be encrypted without one. Having an SSL certificate also normally gives you a “trust logo”, which assures your visitors and all potential and future customers that you are a safe and reliable seller.

* Reliable Web Hosting

Whether you are searching for shared, dedicated, windows, or VPS hosting plans, our recommended web hosting provider, Lunarpages Web Hosting, has all the solutions under one roof. Having a reliable web host to rely on will assure your business saves money and your web presence is only 24/7.

* Payment Gateway

Finally, in order to actually process monetary transactions on your website, you need a payment gateway. Payment gateways take the internet transaction and process it into actual funds that are deposited wherever you want them.

Domain Name Servers (DNS) are an important part of setting up and configuring your Dedicated Server. Without them, nobody would be able to find your website online or see any of the content you have hosted there. In a Dedicated Server Hosting environment, you’ll need to create your own name servers, instead of using ready made ones as you would in a Shared Hosting environment.

So why register your own name servers? Without your own registered DNS on your dedicated server, you would be forced to have your Dedicated web host maintain an A record and point your website to the server’s primary IP address. This means that your web host is the only entity that can add subdomains, park domains, etc. Registering your own name servers also associated all content within the search engines and helps with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and getting your site ranked properly for its keywords and content. Registering your own DNS will also facilitate faster lookups for your domain on the server, resolving connections to your sites much quicker.

How much does it cost to register name servers? Your domain name registrar should offer this service completely free!

How do I register my name servers? This depends on where you registered your domain name. If you registered it with Lunarpages Dedicated Hosting, you’ll simply need to follow these easy steps:

1. Login to https://manage.opensrs.net
2. Click the “Manage Nameservers” link or change the address to
https://manage.opensrs.net/index?action=manage_nameservers
3. Scroll down to see “Create nameserver”
4. Server Hostname as –> ns1 and Server IP as primary nameserver info, we sent you.
5. Repeat the process for ns2 also with the IP of the secondary nameserver,.
6. Once you did that, choose “NameServers” in the top menu and change the primary and secondary nameservers.

If you are hosting a website or even just visiting one online, you are using domain name servers (DNS) – probably without even knowing it. Domain name servers are an important part of what makes a website work when you type it into a browser. Understanding how they work will help you understand how to change them when you set up your own Dedicated Server.

So what is a domain name server and how does it work? Every time you type a domain name (www.YourWebsite.com) into a browser, you are using the Internet’s domain name servers (DNS) to translate the familiar word-based domain name into the technical machine-readable Internet Protocol (IP) address. Domain name servers basically transfer your domain name into its IP address, so that you are properly directed to your website. Without domain name servers, typing in a domain name would come up with blank results.

Hosting your website on a reliable Dedicated Server means you will need to create your own domain name servers, so that anyone who visits your website will be directed properly to its content and the server in which it’s hosted.

SSL (secure socket layer) Certificates are designed to keep your website files protected, but a lot of ecommerce webmasters require something even more secure in order to accept monetary transactions via their websites.

So when is it time to get a pro SSL certificate and when is it okay to have just a basic shared SSL?

Shared SSLs

• These are good for personal or business websites that do not require an active ecommerce website. So if you are not planning to take credit card payments directly on your website through a merchant gateway, you can use a shared SSL just fine.
• Shared SSLs are just that – shared! So know that you are sharing a secure space with multiple users. The IP address for this certificate will be shared among most likely very different websites. Some customers fear being associated with an adult website or moneymaking scheme in this way, so they opt to upgrade. Most customers will never have to worry about this.
• If you are using PayPal to receive payments or referring your customers to a website outside of your own for payment, you do not need a pro SSL.
• If you purchase a dedicated server hosting plan, you only have the option of purchasing a pro SSL since your server isn’t ‘shared’ with anyone else.

Pro SSLs

• Pro SSL certificates are best for websites that require ecommerce payments to be made directly through their websites.
• If you are working with a payment gateway to take payments through your website, more than likely you will be required to purchase a pro SSL.
• Pro SSL certificates secure all transactions made on your website and ensure your customers feel safe about their purchases.
• On a dedicated web hosting account, you must purchase a pro SSL, as shared SSLs are not an option.

After installing BFD on your dedicated server, you’ll want to configure and enable it out of test mode to get started protecting your server.

1. Edit the configuration file, which should be /usr/local/bfd/conf.bfd

2. Now we want to enable “brute force hack attempt alerts”. So first find ALERT_USR=“0” and change that to ALERT_USR=“1” which is ensuring that yes, you want alerts when there is a brute force hacking attempt.

3. Where you want to send those alerts comes next! Find EMAIL_USR=“root” and change that to EMAIL_USR=“emailaddresshere”

4. Ctrl+X then Y

5. But wait…if you are disallowing everyone from accessing your SSH, doesn’t that mean you can’t get in either? Yep, so let’s prevent that. pico –w /usr/local/bfd/ignore.hosts and add your own IP(s). Ctrl+X then Y.

Now you can run BFD by entering /usr/local/sbin/bfd –s

There are also ways to customize the configurations, but as these vary there’s no standard editing to describe! So you’re all set! Your dedicated web server is now ready to alert you to any brute force hacking attempts.

Every dedicated server hosting client will experience some kind of user-initiated attack. It’s simply all too common for you to think it’ll never happen to you, so the best thing to do is be prepared.

To start, choose a reliable dedicated web host to handle your server. Second, install APF on your dedicated server to prevent and stall most of the attacker that will try to hammer it. And thirdly, you should learn how to ban a specific IP Address from reaching your server. This last little trick can be a lifesaver, and can actually be setup in as little as 4 simple steps! Once you’ve verified the IP you want to block:

1. Login to your server to the root.

2. With APF Firewall installed, you simply need to enter apf –d <ip>

3. By default, rebooting resets all your IP bans, but that’s why we recommend APF for your dedicated server firewall protection – with APF, there is an easy workaround. Simply open the deny hosts file. Scroll to the bottom and paste in the IP address you want to ban. Ctrl+X then Y will help you save so you can exit and keep these settings for default.

4. Now, just restart your APF and you’re set!

You may be thinking why do I want to block IP addresses from my dedicated server? If you have never run a dedicated server before, you might not be aware that there are people who attempt to hack entire servers to bring websites down. There are many types of server attacks, and one of the most popular can occur from a single dedicated IP address – a DdoS attack!

In order to subdue the attacker and ban them from coming back, you will need to block their IP address from your dedicated server entirely. Luckily, you can do this in one simple step.

Add the following code to your .htaccess file, which can be found in your web server’s document root directory. More than likely this is named public_html, httpdocs, or webdocs.

<Limit GET>
order deny,allow
deny from 209.23.123.110
</Limit>

Adding this to .htaccess will block a single IP across your entire website and server! Be aware though: spammers and hackers alike can change their IP addresses very easily and most IPs that come from a home computer, for example, are not static and may update often. You can always add more IPs to your server, but this really showcases the importance of having a workable managed hosting solution on your dedicated server.

If you are running an online business, you need the most reliable dedicated hosting for your business web hosting plan, and that can be hard to find.

But what is business web hosting?

Business web hosting and ecommerce web hosting are fairly interchangeable website hosting terms, though there is a slight difference. In the realm of dedicated server hosting, business web hosting just means that you are using your dedicated server to host your business website. And as far as ecommerce web hosting goes, this just means you are actually selling a product on your website, whereas with business web hosting, you can simply run your business online or produce a business portfolio, contact information, products and services offered, etc.

As you set up your online business or ecommerce web hosting website, you are likely going to look into a dedicated IP address and/or an SSL certificate and merchant account if you plan to sell goods or services via your website. Make sure you know what you need for ecommerce web hosting so that there are no surprises down the road.

Make sure you choose reliable dedicated hosting from a dedicated server hosting provider that is well-known, respected, and affordable.

Some web hosting companies don’t take into account that you may be new to their hosting terms, so if they ask you to perform a WHOIS lookup, many providers can’t understand why you don’t know what to do. However, the best dedicated server hosting provider will surely explain it to you in the simplest of terms.

WHOIS is pronounced “who is” and doesn’t stand for anything. It is merely an official database of information on every domain name in the world. While it was originally used for IT and hosting professionals to determine the owner of a domain name, many now use it to also establish who owns a specific IP address as well as for domain transfer requests.

A WHOIS request returns results for information about the domain’s owner, so you can see information such as full first and last name, mailing and billing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and hosting-specific information such as where the domain name was purchased and where the Name Servers point.