If you are going to do much of anything on the Internet, sooner or later you will need domain names and web hosting. There are lots of suppliers of domain name registration and web hosting space out there. Some are better than others. And there are some things you should know about managing domain names and web hosting so that YOU stay in control.

According to Murphy's Law, things tend to go wrong. And they do so at the worst possible time and when you least expect it. There is a silent war going on between web hosts and hackers. The web hosts generally win, but not always. The times that they lose can be catastrophic. They can be offline and incommunicado for a week or more.

Your data can be destroyed in a hacker attack. Additionally, earthquakes, fires, electrical storms, vandalism or terrorist acts can destroy servers and their data in seconds.

How do you protect yourself? You need redundancy and alternative recovery routes. Protect yourself by following certain rules and guidelines. These are (heretofore) unwritten rules that will protect you from nasty surprises and give you maximum control and protection. Here they are:

1. The vendors of web hosting and domain name registration who advertise the most, push hardest, are easiest to find, are the most expensive. [Somebody's got to pay all those promo costs; it ends up being the customers who pay.]

2. Keep your domain name supplier and your web space supplier strictly separate. Never get both services from just one outfit. Keep them separate.

[The reason is that web hosts occasionally have problems and their servers go down. With an independent, separate domain name registrar, you simply go into your account and set the pointers to another web host. Upload your website and you are back online in just a few minutes.

If your web hosting provider and your domain name provider are the same company, when problems come up (as has happened to me on 3 separate occasions, 3 different webhosts in the last 4 years) the webhost will be tied up trying to fix the problem and will be unavailable for contact. It is not in their best interest to redirect your domain and lose you as a customer for web hosting. Your hands will be tied and you can be stuck with the problem.

With a separate registration service, YOU are in charge and your interests rule. With domain registration and web hosting all at one supplier, that supplier will be in charge, and their interests will rule!]

3. Always have more than one webhosting account, each with capacity to handle the rest of your domains. This for redundancy and alternatives.

[For example, you might have 2-3 different web hosting accounts, each with different web hosts and on servers at different locations. Each of the accounts should have the capacity to host all of your domains and websites. Then if one webhost goes down, you can immediately move all your websites, that were on that webhost, to another of your web hosting accounts.

You will be able do this without having to ask anyone or open another account. You can do it at 2AM on Sunday morning on a holiday weekend if need be. Setting things up that way keeps you in a position of control, able to keep your websites online and functional at all times.]

4. Always have a recent copy of each of your websites on your hard disk so YOU can restore that site anywhere, anytime. If you are in Internet Marketing, those websites are your lifeblood, your source of income. YOU need to have control of up-loadable copies of each of your websites so that you can keep them functional.

5. Backup your hard disk frequently.

[You can backup onto a portable hard drive, on CD's or you could store backup files somewhere online for security.]

Accidents, problems, disasters happen. Follow the above rules and you will minimize the chances of their wiping out your Internet income.