Current & Past Issues
Past Highlights
- Superb Internet Completes SAS-70 Type II audit. That’s right, after months of hard work we have successfully passed a SAS-70 type II audit.
- New affiliate payout structure coming soon! If you haven’t already signed up for our affiliate program, maybe this will convince you.
- Superb VPS for Linux and Windows. Did you know that we recently launched Virtual Private Servers for both Linux and Windows?
- Tell us what you think!
- Editor’s Note Column: Happy Birthday Internet!
We hope you enjoy this issue ... we’ll see you next month, and in the meantime, talk to us on Facebook, follow the news on Twitter and of course ... superb.net!
Superb Internet Completes SAS-70 Type II audit!
That’s right, after months of hard work we have successfully passed a SAS-70 type II audit. An independent auditing service examined the business processes, and policies in place at Superb Internet and HopOne for the period of January 1st 2010 - Sept, 30th 2010, and found us to be in full compliance.
What is SAS 70?
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) developed a set of guidelines for evaluating service organizations. These guidelines are called the Statement of Auditing Standards Number 70 (SAS 70). An independent service auditor provides an extensive assessment of the service organizations’ control objectives, safeguards and other activities. Their audit report is called a SAS 70 report.
How do you benefit?
There are two ways in which you benefit:
- As a SAS-70 certified company it shows that we have implemented effective control measures and activities, which minimizes the risk in dealing with us an outsourced service provider. It demonstrates a degree of control and discipline that most service providers cannot.
- Many of you may also require a SAS-70 audit of our facility for your own financials, and since we have taken on the burden ourselves, we can pass that savings on to you. Instead of doing your own audit you can use ours instead -saving you many 10’s of thousands of dollars in the process.
E- Mail sales if you have any questions about getting a full copy of our SAS-70 report.
New Aflliate Payout Structure Coming Soon!
If you haven’t already signed up for our affiliate program, maybe this will convince you; effective, Jan 1st, 2011, we are launching and all new affiliate pay out structure that will give you more than ever before. We challenge you to find a better paying program out there.
Here’s the deal: now you will be able to get the following very generous payouts for shared hosting (GIP) and VPS accounts referred by you:
All VPS offerings: $150 one time payout.
GRID Lite: $60 one time payout.
GRID Pro: $90 one time payout.
GRID Max: $120 one time payout.
Superb VPS For Linux And Windows
Did you know that we recently launched Virtual Private Servers for both Linux and Windows? This means that you can get a lot of the benefits of a dedicated server for closer to the price of shared! That’s right, a VPS gives you full control with root/admin access, while also giving you guaranteed resources such as CPU cycles RAM, and diskspace. We even have some very cloud-like features that can give you on-demand access to additional RAM and CPU power (burstable).
>Worried about managing a server on your own? Not a linux guru? Not to worry, all VPS’s come with the ability to add a control panel such as Plesk or Cpanel so that you can manage your server easily with very little command line/windows admin knowledge!
So if you are ramping up for a big year and are feeling a little constrained by your current shared hosting account, then you need to check out our all new VPS line, and right now until the end of the year, you can get 25% off any VPS plan, so be sure check it out here: http://www.superb.net/vps/
Tell Us What You Think!
We think we are doing great, lol but we are always open to suggestions!
Please take a little time to answer 10 simple questions and you will be automatically entered to win a trip to Honolulu to meet the people behind your website! Remember, that we will read through every single answer, and will of course have to weed out the bogus entries. So please take care and give some thought to this. We will publish the results in January’s newsletter, and rest assured we will act on any trends.
Please rate on a scale of 1-10 (where 10 = very satisfied and 1 = very dissatisfied) the following:
Editor’s Note: Happy Birthday Internet!
So how old is the Internet (at least the world wide web anyway)? Well last month it turned 20! It is hard to imagine a world without the Internet, but just 20 years ago there wasn’t much of World Wide Web to speak of, cell phones were about 5 pounds, and mobile apps? What the heck is that??? It is really hard to imagine doing research for a college paper, competitive intelligence for your job, or just getting directions somewhere without the power of the Internet.
I remember my first sales job, I was handed a price sheet and given a desk with a landline phone (yep I am dating myself), and a pad of paper ... how did we survive? And yet somehow the world did go around. Somehow despite being in a recession like today, I feel the country was somehow better off then, now after all the wars, Internet bubbles, 9/11, still more wars, George dubbya, and the complete bankrupting of the US economy by Wall street, it is hard to imagine how things could be any worse.
And yet here we are, still plugging away, still innovating, and still depending on the entrepreneur to pull us out of yet another near calamity. Every day I see new businesses starting up (one benefit of being in the hosting industry), and I can’t help but marvel at the ingenuity and tenacity of the American entrepreneur. It gives me hope, and reinforces my faith in the human spirit to prevail in the face of adversity. No one can be certain where this path will take us, whether this will be a double dip recession, a quick recovery, or a long drawn out painful journey to prosperity, but what is certain is that there will be winners, and there will be losers, and the people who give up will always be losers.
So hats off to the entrepreneurs of America and the world and hats off to the Internet which has opened up the world to a whole new way of everything that wasn’t even conceivable a mere 20 years ago! Makes me wonder what the next 20 will bring as clearly this is just the very beginning of something so transformational it is staggering.
In This Issue
Last month in our Advanced SEO series, we explored different types of searches and spiders, and how their "learned" behaviors affect your website's exposure. As we delve further in this issue, we'll examine Google's PageRank algorithm piece by piece and shed light on how to best perform within its system.
An Introduction to Google's PageRank Algorithm
PageRank is Google's trademarked weighting system that assigns numeric value to web pages, indicating the measure of its relative "importance" within a set of pages by analyzing a multitude of variables. Until recently, Google's algorithm contained over 128 variables to determine PageRank, and with its new universal search function, it now contains over 200 (such as keyword densities, number of backlinks, age of the domain, keywords in the page's URL, H1 tags, title tags, comment tags...to name a very few).
Google examines the entire link structure of the web and determines which pages are most important, then performs hypertext-matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted. By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, Google is able to put the most relevant and reliable results first. This can likely be attributed to adding engagement objects such as social media, video, news, etc. into the organic results pages.
The PageRank scale runs from 1-10 with pages earning points to cross each numeric level or threshold, but is a logarithmic scale (much like the Richter Scale for earthquakes). In other words, each successive level is an order of magnitude higher than the previous one. As such, the number of points needed to achieve level 6 is many times more than the points needed for level 5. Additionally, PageRank (PR) is "passed" via links to other pages. Each time it is passed it loses 15% of its points. The basic algorithm is as follows:
In simpler terms, the amount of PageRank points assigned to any given page is a factor of how many pages link to that page, how much PageRank value they contain, and how many out links exist on those pages. Using this formula, if you buy a link from a site that has a page rank 8, but has ten links on that page, you can calculate the amount of PageRank that will be passed as follows: .85( 8/10) = .68. If the same page had only five links (including ours) then it would be .85(8/5) = 1.36. This has substantial implications for determining what sites you'll want links from, as well as how to structure internal website links—being deliberate and judicious about your choices is key.
Also remember that link building is a continuous process that will never end. The page rank scale grows as the number of pages on the Internet grows, so it's crucial to regularly evaluate and adjust your PageRank. The scale can change leaving you at a lower number simply because you did not keep up with the overall growth of the Internet.
SPAM
Google has become much faster at identifying and filtering spam—and the definition of "spam" is continuously evolving. Whereas previously a new spam tactic could take months to be discovered, it now takes only days, diminishing the return on investment for developing spam tactics to a point of unprofitability. Google generally filters anything that is deemed to be deceptive, including:
- Actions designed to fool search engines—such as keyword stuffing (over-optimization)
- Redirects (Java or otherwise)
- Text hidden behind an image
- Cloaking (a black hat technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different to that presented to the user's browser)
- Manipulated similar content (wildcard replacement)
- Keyword stuffing (loading a page with keywords in the meta tags or in content)
Duplicate content is not spam unless it's deceptive, so it's acceptable to have duplicate content as long as it is managed properly. For example, if an article is published to your site and also is distributed to other sites, the distributed article should be truncated, so Google will index the one that is located on your site (the home site)—the same goes for RSS feeds. Also, duplicate content on separate country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) is perfectly acceptable and reasonable. To aggregate content and maintain PR, canonical 301 redirects (a permanent redirect instructing a browser or spider that the site or page it is accessing has moved permanently, then immediately redirecting that page to the new one) should be used.
Blended Universal Search
Google is now, or soon will be, including what are known as "Engagement Objects" ™, in the search engine results pages (SERPs). These include items such as: images, videos, flash movies, MP3, news/blog posts, books, and maps. These will be displayed depending on the search term and the volume of searches related to a particular subject—you might think of it as the search term's "popularity." For example, if many people are searching for a particular image, the image results will appear at the top of the organic listing for that particular key word (the same is true for videos and other search topics). Google is also including expandable results using an AJAX function when the site is considered an authority on the topic. In penning this article, we searched for "Superb Internet" and saw this effect, as we are obviously an authority on this topic.
Note: Local listings are also included where appropriate but use an entirely different system for displaying these results, largely based on geography and requiring address verification.
Social Media
While increasing in importance, and also soon to be displayed in the universal search results, social media posts will be very fleeting, and will require constant updates and management to stay in search listings. The jury is still out on whether they will drive significant traffic via search engines. This is scheduled to happen in the Caffeine update (Google's new web indexing system called, which the company says will provide 50% fresher results for web searches) later this year, but may be rolled out in Europe first.
In Summary
It's important to be familiar with Google's PageRank algorithms as well as staying current with the evolution of its technology. As the undisputed leader in search and advertising technologies, Google's algorithm is THE standard in measuring your site's presence and performance.
In our next issue, we'll wrap up our series with an in-depth look at the role HTML plays in SEO and how to employ the best tactics to ensure you're maximizing your SEO strategy.
Questions? Want to know more? Contact Dale Bunten, Director of Marketing at Superb Internet (dbunten@superb.net). Dale has 11 years of experience in Search Engine Optimization and PPC marketing for highly competitive keyword terms. He is a frequent speaker on SEO as well as various other Internet marketing topics and issues.
IS YOUR NETWORK SECURE? INTRODUCING MANAGED CISCO FWSM FIREWALL
Malware is listed as the #1 threat to information security in 2010 by Network Security Edge.
In 2009, the FBI reported that for the first time ever, revenue from cybercrime had exceeded drug trafficking as the most lucrative illegal global business, estimated at taking in an astonishing $1+ billion annually in profits.
MyDoom, the worst and fastest-spreading malicious code in history, caused a mind-boggling $38.5 billion in damages in a mere six days.
Keeping your network secure has become increasingly challenging, with the alarming growth of intentional, hostile intruders. Fortunately, our hardware-based managed firewall solution protects your IT infrastructure, using cutting-edge Cisco Firewall Services Modules (FWSM). With Cisco FWSM, you get unmatched security, ultimate control over allowable traffic, and full redundancy—all at the best price-to-performance ratio of any firewall on the market and with expert 24x7x365 service. To find out how to get the best protection for your network today, click here.
FREE 5-IN-1 MANAGED SERVICES BUNDLE WITH XENSERVER PURCHASE!
Consolidate server workloads :: Reduce power and cooling usage :: Lower management costs Increase reliability and flexibility :: Optimize existing hardware :: Minimize downtime :: AND get our 5-in-1 Managed Bundle—FREE!
We recently introduced Citrix® XenServer® to our product line—enabling multiple virtual machines to run on a single hardware platform, with each machine having the capability to run different operating systems and applications. This vastly increases the flexibility of your network and streamlines time-consuming server management—all while substantially reducing IT costs.
As if this weren't incentive enough to get your XenServer today, we are including our exclusive 5-in-1™ Managed Services Package FREE through September 30th, 2010! Click here to get your fully-configured Xen cluster...AND Managed Backup, Managed Firewall, OS Hardening, Patches & Updates, and Proactive Monitoring. It's an unbeatable, limited-time deal!
OUR "SUPERB" FEATHERED FAMILY MEMBER AT THE HONOLULU ZOO
We are proud to welcome the Superb Bird of Paradise, who we adopted at the Honolulu Zoo, into our family. He may not be much help with Web hosting or managing servers, but he certainly lives up to his name with his unique vibrant coloring and equally inimitable "dance," made famous in the Discovery Channel's ground-breaking Planet Earth series.
Since we opened our doors in 1996, we've always promoted eco-responsibility in our offices and data centers, which not only helps protect the Earth's natural resources, but allows us to pass energy-cost savings on to our customers. In supporting our local conservation efforts, we were thrilled about the opportunity to adopt the aptly-named Superb Bird of Paradise right here in Hawaii—one of only five sites nationwide where Birds of Paradise are exhibited. You can find out more (and see photos and videos) here.
EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT
Q&A WITH UDAYA MAINALI, FACILITIES MANAGER (DCA2)
Udaya heads up all facilities, operations, and vendor relations-related functions at Superb's largest data center in McLean, VA. If he's not at DCA2, you might find him tending to his garden, listening to an eclectic variety of music, or riding his bike. Below, we get Udaya to take a break from ensuring our network is in tip-top condition and chat with us:
How'd you get into the hosting industry?
I'm originally from Nepal—the land of Buddha!—where there weren't very many people involved in the IT industry. But I came to Washington D.C. for college and got my bachelors degree in Management Information Systems, and having worked part time in a computer lab as well as in databases, I fell into the field.
And now you're a bona fide veteran—you've been with Superb for nearly 10 years?
Yes, since 2000. It's still fresh and exciting—I like the openness of possibilities and the new challenges of each day. I have a chance to make a positive difference in the company's performance and growth every day.
What's your current favorite technology (gadget, software, etc.)?
I really appreciate how innovative Apple is. The iPad, for example, is a game-changer, and it's a great example of how the company evolves, and remains cutting-edge and relevant.
Lastly, now that World Cup fever has subsided, does it feel like something's "missing?"
I'm a soccer fan—I grew up playing soccer in Nepal so I'm definitely into the sport. And even if we have to wait another four years for the next World Cup, I'll be following MLS—DC United is my favorite team!
NEW FACES
We've welcomed aboard two new members to our Creative team in Honolulu (HNL1)—Sungmin Choe and Janette Council. With a diverse background in multi-media art, Sung joins the team as a graphic designer. Janette is a seasoned designer with a concentration in Web, with more than a decade of experience in a variety of industries, including retail, government, and consumer services.
In This Issue
SEO & You: Advanced SEO Tips Part 2
Intro Offer on Parallels Small Business Panel
Our Network Now Gives You Even More Performance & Reliability
Giveaways... Contests... Prizes! Come See Us at Affiliate Summit East
Employee Spotlight - Q&A with Adam Leszcynski, Senior Developer (HNL1)
Last month, we introduced our Advanced SEO series, discussing the importance of page rankings and ways to make sure your website performs well against the numerous ways these rankings are formulated. Now, we turn our attention to navigating the inner workings of different types of searches and spiders.
Behavioral and Intent Based Search
Google is now using increasingly customized results depending on a user's past search patterns, intent, and proximity search. This complicates SEO by several orders of magnitude and necessitates having separate strategies for each:
Behavioral: It's critical to understand how the history of a customer's searches affect the ranking of your pages for your specific desired query string. Google now tracks past search history (via sessions) and will change search results based on that. For example, if someone searched "java coffee" and then later "java programming," Google will weigh the results to show some "java coffee" results, depending on multiple variables such as frequency relative to the most recent typed term.
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Intent-Based Search: Google also keeps track of conversion rates and shopping patterns. A keyword can be deemed either a research or shopping keyword, and the criteria for ranking sites are vastly different. If your goal is to climb the rankings for a research term, for example, your pages should obviously be largely text based, and should not contain purchase-focused language such as "buy now" or "shopping cart" or other calls to action.
Research Terms vs. Shopping Terms
One way to check whether a keyword has been deemed by Google to be a research term vs. a shopping term is to Google it to if Wikipedia ranks for it in the top three search results. Wikipedia is the ultimate reference research site and ranks for virtually all research keywords. If you type in "load balancing" into Google, for example, you'll see that [as of this release] Wikipedia is #1 and 2 for this search term, with www.webopedia.com coming in 3rd—it's clearly a research keyword. To continue with this example, if your company aims to improve rankings using the term "load balancing" could publish a position paper or related document online, to get it indexed and then passively inform the audience that you offer these solutions. This will build the longer term sales funnel and establish your company's position as an authority on the subject.A smart strategy when it comes to search rank is to create custom pages for individual keywords, determining whether they are shopping or research terms. Shopping terms will rank better for pages that have purchase-centric keywords, with numerous small images indicative of shopping carts, and bulleted lists; whereas research keywords will have three times the average amount of text, links to expert sites, whitepapers, and contain fewer images. Custom pages should also be created for Google vs. Yahoo as Google is research-oriented, while Yahoo is shopping-oriented.
Intent is also based on proximity. For instance, if someone searches for "New York pizza" while in New York, Google will assume an intent to purchase, and therefore will deliver pages that are clearly purchase-oriented, and include localized results as well as a map of locations. However, if the same search is performed in California, it may produce a research-skewed Wikipedia article like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York-style_pizza
Proximity Search: As mentioned above and as the term implies, this refers to the user's geographic location being a factor in the types of search results Google will return. Bruce Clay used this humorous—and true—example to illustrate localized results that change the intent based on the customized definition of that keyword population. In most places in the US, if you type in "drug rehab" it will produce research results; however, if you type the same thing while visiting Los Angeles, CA it is considered a shopping term producing mostly expensive drug rehab center listings!
Spiders
Another aspect of search engine programs to become familiar with and use to your advantage are "spiders"—automated search agents that trail links on the Web to discover new pages. Spiders fetch the HTML of a site, parse the retrieved information, run it through a spam checker, and schedule it to be indexed in a database. This is the database from which results are pulled when you rank for a keyword. There is another database where the information is not parsed and the full content exists, called the data area. To access this area, queries are typed in with quotes so the exact search term is pulled from the data cache of the page, including stop words (and, for, the, to, and so forth).
Spiders are important since they regulate how often your site is visited and updated in the Google index based on how often the content is changed. If spiders see that the content of your site rarely changes, they will reduce the frequency of their visits since it would be inefficient for them to keep re-indexing pages that rarely change.
A word of caution if you're expecting to see an immediate surge of spidering by making large-scale changes to your site content. Spidering frequency is a learned behavior based on established patterns in how often you update your content.
For example, if you rarely make changes to your site, spiders may not visit it for six months even if you suddenly do make significant changes, based on the fact that you had not previously been making regular updates—it takes the spiders some time to "learn" that you are now in the habit of altering your content. However, if you are disciplined and keep up with making changes on your site, the spiders will "learn" to visit more frequently and might visit as often as every day. (This is why RSS feeds—which provide dynamic content to a page on a consistent and regular basis—are so effective. They automatically populate your site with fresh, relevant content, to keep spiders visiting.) Generally, the more consistent you have been with your updates, the more quickly you will see results.
The changes must also be significant (some industry-standard guidelines estimate that you need to change about 20% of your content), so don't expect to register with the spiders if you're only changing a few keywords.
Things to keep in mind when evaluating whether your site is spider-friendly:
- Javascripts still affect spiders, and should be contained in files outside the page, as with CSS files
- Flash is indexed —but separately
- All 404 errors need to be found and corrected, and 301 redirects placed to corresponding pages
- XML sitemaps are very important, but so are HTML sitemaps
- Server speed is exceedingly important as spiders "learn" of slow servers and will stop coming to them
- Directory submissions: if you cannot get into ODP, then apply at the city name level
- Have a robots.txt file and link to the sitemap.xml
- Have an HTML sitemap to pass page rank
- Being spidered is a privilege, not a right
In summary, the sphere of search and ranking is constantly evolving. Being aware of the many factors involved in its complex formulas is vital to ensuring your site's success. Stay tuned for more tips and advice on search, ranking, and a host of other topics key to helping your business grow. At Superb, we are committed to staying up-to-date with developments in this ever-changing landscape and sharing them with you, our valued customers, to help you stay Ahead of the Rest®.
Be sure to check out our next issue, where we'll demystify the ever-changing jumble of Google formulas for page rankings, searches, and more.
Questions? Want to know more? Contact Dale Bunten, Director of Marketing at Superb Internet (dbunten@superb.net). Dale has 11 years of experience in Search Engine Optimization and PPC marketing for highly competitive keyword terms. He is a frequent speaker on SEO as well as various other Internet marketing topics and issues.
INTRODUCTORY OFFER ON PARALLELS SMALL BUSINESS PANEL
We're excited to announce the addition of top-drawer Parallels Small Business Panel to our product line—for a limited time, you can get an ADDITIONAL discount off our introductory pricing.
Parallels' newest offering following their industry-leading Plesk Panel, is specifically designed with SMBs in mind—extremely cost-effective with exceptional ease of use, the Small Business Panel streamlines operations and offers one-stop access to programs and applications.
As a special introductory offer, we're making the Parallels Small Business Panel available to our dedicated server and managed hosting customers starting at just $18/month (introductory pricing after promotion: $25/month). Call or chat with us today to get started!
OUR NETWORK NOW GIVES YOU EVEN MORE PERFORMANCE & RELIABILITY
You already know we offer an industry-leading 100% uptime guarantee and have a fully redundant and fault tolerant coast-to-coast network—one of our featured proprietary technologies. But now, we've added four more GigE circuits to our network infrastructure, boosting the performance, speed, and redundancy of our nationwide network of data centers and core backbone sites.
With the addition of the four circuits, located our DC-area data centers (DCA2 and DCA3), additional uninterrupted routes between data centers and IP backbone sites are now available—connecting DCA2 (McLean, VA) directly to CHI1 (Chicago, IL), PAO1 (Palo Alto, CA), and SEA2 (Seattle, WA); and adding a second circuit between DCA3 (Springfield, VA) and IAD1 (Ashburn, VA) through our new partner Intellifiber, a premier network technology-solutions provider.
In the words of our President & CEO, Haralds Jass: "We truly live our motto, 'Ahead of the Rest®.' Our commitment to our valued clients is to keep ahead of the curve in providing superlative service, performance, and reliability. Consistently assessing and updating our network—such as our investment in adding these four new circuits—is proof positive of our dedication to that goal."
GIVEAWAYS...CONTESTS...PRIZES! COME SEE US AT AFFILIATE SUMMIT EAST
The Affiliate Summit is the industry's largest and most extensive conference, with exhibits, educational sessions, and networking opportunities specifically tailored for affiliate marketers. The conference is one of the most well-attended events of its kind, growing year by year, and is expected to sell out quickly.
Affiliate Summit East will be held at the Hilton New York, August 15-17. We'll be there—so come visit us at booth RG2000 to get great deals and free goodies!
For more info on this year's Affiliate Summit East, click here.
EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT —Q&A WITH ADAM LESZCYNSKI, SENIOR DEVELOPER (HNL1)
A Vancouver native, Adam moved with Superb Internet to our Honolulu headquarters when we relocated from Canada in 2008. Since then, he's been enjoying Hawaii's beautiful beaches and local cuisine (poke, a dish of raw fish mixed with seasonings and onions, is one of his favorites)—and is contemplating learning to surf next. Here, we take a few minutes to find out more about what makes Adam tick:
How'd you end up at Superb?
I got my Computer Engineering degree from Simon Fraser University, which I chose because of their technology-based engineering programs. While I was a student there, I did in a number of co-op programs with companies like Rocket Gaming Systems and Equo. After I graduated, I was looking for a position with a company that favored LAMP/open source architecture, which Superb does.
Tell us a little about what you do at Superb.
I'm responsible for maintaining the company's ordering, billing, and payment systems. Because I've been with the company for a while, I've gained broad knowledge of the systems we use, so I also help out the other developers on my team and fix bugs when needed.
What do you like best about working here?
Getting to move to Hawaii!
Definitely a plus! What's your current favorite technology (gadget, software, etc.)?
Right now, I'm playing a lot of Heroes of Newerth, a real-time strategy/real-time tactics game. It's more sophisticated than most games in the genre, because as your performance and skill level progress, you can see how it affects your opponents—you're not operating in a vacuum. It has a steep learning curve but is a lot of fun once you're proficient.
Finally, our most pressing question...M&M's: plain or peanut?
Plain...I like chocolate on its own rather than mixing it with peanuts. [Editor's note: A purist—we can appreciate that!]
It's a well-known fact that great content and presentation are vital to a successful website; however, in a crowded and increasingly competitive marketplace it has become more and more difficult to stand out and be noticed. Even with a reasonable advertising budget and programs to increase word-of-mouth referrals, finding the right target audience and getting their attention is a struggle many businesses have trouble with.
One of the largest (and least expensive) means of attracting traffic is through search engine referrals. While advertising and other forms of marketing actively seek to reach out and capture people, search engines allow people to find you when they are most likely to have interest which leads to a higher chance you can convert that interest into a sale, or whatever other need your site was created to satisfy.
However, no matter how narrow your niche, you can guarantee that there are dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of other websites that will be vying for the same click you are. Depending on a number of different factors, you may very well not appear on the first page of search results for key search terms that describe your website—perhaps not even in the first ten—and that could be a critical factor that determines whether or not your site will succeed or fail.
In this series, we'll explore strategies to optimize your website's visibility in the increasingly crowded online landscape, as well as understanding the logic behind the world of Search.
Why is SEO so important?
Increasingly, search traffic has become more focused on the top ten results of a particular query, to such a degree that approximately 90% of all clicks are from results listed on the first page. Over 40% are given to the first result alone, with the click-throughs dwindling steadily thereafter. Clearly, it is vital that you try to rank as highly as possible if you want a chance of attracting traffic. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a key part in your success.
The first step in SEO planning is to identify the important keywords and search terms that you want to use to direct traffic to your website. Put yourself in the shoes of prospective visitors and consider what interests, questions, or needs they might have and how you can fulfill them. The best way to do this is to make yourself a definitive source of content and information in your field. Writing articles about any and all topics related to your field will draw traffic and help to raise your ranking, as well as help to show you are an authoritative and knowledgeable source, thereby increasing trust with your audience.
Say no to Black Hat Techniques
It is also important to keep in mind that unlike in the earlier days of search technology, search engines have become very adept at recognizing "spam," i.e. many pages with the same content, or random repeating terms used to try to increase your ranking. Further, the rules used to determine what constitutes spam are always changing in order to prevent abuse. For instance, Google uses an artificial intelligence algorithm which updates every thirteen hours. So while it may be tempting to take shortcuts and in some cases you may even see a short-term spike in rank, over the long term such a strategy will fail.
Keyword Universes and Latent Semantic Indexing
Rankings are also based on keyword populations, which all have different characteristics that are based on the individual environments for each keyword or phrase. The density of a particular word or phrase on your site may actually drop your ranking or cause it to be removed as "spam" if used too often, and the point at which this happens can vary. For example, there may not be any problem if the term "dedicated servers" has a density of 5%, but for "managed hosting" this could cause your site to be banned from searches using that term.
In order to counter this damaging possibility, it is vital to review your competitors' results for each keyword/phrase you are targeting to ensure that you make the appropriate adjustments to improve your visibility instead of harming it. The so-called "universes" that contain each keyword or phrase are based on distribution curves with varying slopes, and your ranking depends on how close to the top of the curve you are scored. Your goal will be to match, and hopefully surpass, your top five (ideally)competitors by figuring out what is working for them and do a better job of it.
You will also want to take care to ensure you use all natural forms and variations of your keywords when writing your content. Despite the fact that you may be targeting the term "dedicated servers," Google's spam detection algorithm will likely dismiss the page as spam and not include it at all if it sees no other forms of that term (i.e. the singular "dedicated server").
Associated Words
Use words that are associated with your top keywords by your competitors. This is known as the proximity factor or latent semantic indexing (LSI). LSI uses a technique called singular value decomposition (SVD) that extracts the conceptual content of a body of text by establishing associations between words that appear in similar contexts. LSI is much more effective than Boolean keyword queries used in the past, which yielded irrelevant results. Implications for search are that we can craft our content and links in ways that are consistent with the way the top performers do, and also create links that are surrounded with these related terms. Whereas in the past purely Boolean searches were often plagued by keywords with multiple meanings that caused irrelevant results to be returned, LSI is able to determine more accurately what the end user is searching for, and by creating your content using these alternate terms to link them to your content, and therefore your site. A great —and little-known—tool for determining associated keywords is to enter a tilde (~) in front of a query, which will pull the associated keywords, and can then be used on pages and links.
Content is KING
Webmasters who put in the effort to develop real, useful content will see their work pay off. The search engines are merely trying to deliver what people want to see, and by keeping webmasters honest they also help you to make a genuine and mutually beneficial connection that will more likely result in you achieving the goals your website was meant to achieve in the first place.
While targeting keywords is certainly a major form of SEO, there are other factors that should not be overlooked. One that some may find surprising is the performance of your website itself. Google has hinted that it "may" consider the speed in which pages load when it indexes websites as part of its page rank algorithm, which would make sense as it aims to deliver a fast and reliable searching experience.
What about Dedicated IPs?
Some have stated that having a dedicated IP (one that is not shared with other sites) can increase rank, but it may instead be due to the fact that websites that have their own IP address are more likely to be on a dedicated server as opposed to sharing a server with many other sites that may be more prone to reliability issues. Also, if your site is not loading properly, it is possible it will not be indexed in the first place. For this reason, it is important to ensure that your site is as fast as possible and always online, which in most cases suggests that you strongly consider dedicated server hosting. Of course, the success or failure of your site depends on the ability for people to reach it, so your choice in hosting has ramifications far beyond the scope of this topic.
Coming up...
In our next installment in this series, we will be discussing how search has evolved through the use of artificial intelligence algorithms to include customized results for each user based on their past search history, what their intents are, and their current location (proximity). We will also look more into how spidering (page indexing) works, how you can optimize your site to make the best use of it, and common issues that can affect the spidering process and interfere with your SEO efforts. Stay tuned for more tips and suggestions from our helpful experts on optimizing the effectiveness of your online presence.
Dale Bunten is Director of Marketing at Superb Internet and has 11 years of experience in Search Engine Optimization and PPC marketing for highly competitive keyword terms. Dale is a frequent speaker on SEO as well as various other Internet marketing topics and issues.
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ELYA McCLEAVE, VP/CUSTOMER CARE TO SPEAK AT HOSTINGCON 2010
It's almost that time of year again—time for HostingCon, the web hosting industry's largest trade show and networking conference! HostingCon will be held in Austin this year, July 19-21.
Elya McCleave, VP/Customer Care, was invited to be a part of the HostingCon's CS Experts Panel second year in a row. With 10+ years in the industry, Elya has deep experience in technical support QA, customer care, staff training and development. At Superb, Elya leads all aspects of external & internal support and customer service-related operations.
Obviously, this is why she's so well-equipped to help businesses thrive by being laser-focused on putting customers first. At the HostingCon she will be sharing strategies for fostering customer loyalty, staff motivation and achieving the results to make your business successful. If you attend HostingCon this year, be sure to come to this can't-miss session!
HostingCon 2010, the premier conference and trade show for the hosted services industry, will be held at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, TX, July 19-21. Visit http://www.hostingcon.com/ for details.
MEET THE NEWEST SUPERB TEAM MEMBERS
The Superb family welcomes the latest additions to our team from coast to coast:
Technical Support
Chris Kelly — Technical Support Representative (DCA) A native of Philadelphia, Chris joins our team with extensive Networking, Programming, OS, and Hardware experience in the IT, healthcare and education industries. Prior to coming aboard at Superb Internet, he performed Helpdesk and Hardware support for Asheville Cardiology Associates in North Carolina. In his spare time, Chris enjoys outdoor sports such as ice skating and skiing, and now that it's summertime, will be doing lots of backpacking and mountain biking.
Evens Louis-Charles — Technical Support Representative (DCA) Evens is a Certified IT Technician, joining the Superb team following stints at IBM and Plexus Marketing. The multi-talented Evens is bilingual in English and French, and is a graduate of Atlanta-based American Intercontinental University with a degree in IT. Evens' expertise spans many areas: Hardware & Software troubleshooting, Oracle, and SQL applications, to name but a few (he can even prepare a full chicken dinner, having worked at the iconic Southern chain Mrs. Winner's during college).
Kavosh Charkhi — Technical Support Representative (DCA) Kavosh honed his IT chops in what some might think an unlikely place—with the organic/natural products giant Whole Foods. Starting as a Customer Service Supervisor, Kavosh migrated into IT as the SSI Specialist, where he oversaw wireless networking, hardware installation, network maintenance, and more. He graduated from NOVA Community College with a degree in IT, and is currently in continuing education with GMU, sharpening his skills even further.
Systems Administration
Michael Yasumoto — Systems Administrator (SEA) A seasoned systems-administration professional, Michael is part of the team responsible for the upkeep, deployment, and maintenance of products, services, operating systems, and hardware which enable the company to function. With an MS in Computer Science from George Washington University and 12+ years of relevant expertise, he is well-prepared for the task. His skills are hardly one-sided, however—Michael cites photography and rock climbing among his hobbies, and even plays the violin.
Sales
Jemez Meyers — Account Executive (HNL) Jemez hails from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is a recent honors graduate of Hawaii Pacific University. He comes to Superb Internet with a background in advertising and public relations and his previous experience includes many diverse fields—he has done everything from conducting tour groups to teaching youth swim classes. When he's not here helping clients find the best solutions for their specific webs hosting needs, you're likely to find him surfing or playing kickball with 808 Sports.
Creative
Esther Sada — Creative Writer (HNL) After more than a decade in the communications industry in Atlanta, Esther recently returned to her hometown of Honolulu and joined Superb Internet's headquarter office. Before coming to Superb, Esther was most recently with the worldwide advertising network BBDO, and brings marketing, writing, and editing experience to the Superb team. If pressed to name her all-time favorite movie (there are several), Esther puts 80's cult classic "The Goonies" at #1 on her list.
At Superb Internet, we are always looking for new, outstanding talent. If you have what it takes to be part of our truly "Superb" team, we'd like to chat with you. Please send your resume for consideration to careers@superb.net or check out our Careers page.
For 15 Years We've Been Building the Business,
Now We've Built the Website to Match
We invite you to visit our totally new Superb.net! Nearly seven months after kick-off, the site is finally ready to see the light of day. Instead of performing a cosmetic refacing, our professional in-house team built the new site from the ground up. We are eager to show you our latest products, services, people, and facilities from an original, contemporary perspective.
Since Superb Internet is a business built to meet your needs—and you are our invaluable partners in this on-going venture—we decided it was time to clarify some outstanding questions, open up more avenues of communication, and streamline the presentation of the multiplicity of options we offer. Sometimes it is a challenge to keep the friendly, personal, flexible approach of a small business when truly our business is a large corporation, but we keep trying. We want you to take advantage of all the many ways you can customize your IT infrastructure, get higher quality hardware at lower prices, and benefit from the expertise of our superior Support Staff...just for a start.
So now, simply by checking Superb.net on a regular basis, you will be fully informed of the latest offers, promotions, developments, news, awards, and more. Our Knowledge Base wiki, archived press releases, and blog are accessible directly from the site. Take a virtual tour of our data centers. Our new "Superbly Magical Domain Name Generator" will give you ideas for domain names if your imagination ever runs dry. (You can still get "redhot-imagination.net," "Dr-imagination.net," and "imagination-overboard.net," in case you're interested!) Learn more about our staff and the many creative avocations that keep them motivated. Discover ways to profit by referring your friends and family to Superb hosting services. Find great unexpected bargains available for a limited time. Read "Our Story," the interesting history of how Superb Internet came to be...established by a visionary teenager who couldn't find quality web hosting for his interactive online computer game.
We've tried to anticipate every need and concern you might have. Of course, this is just the early version. We expect to have corrections, observations, comments, and more come pouring in! Please feel free to e-mail marketing@superb.net to share your thoughts or offer your insights. Thanks for your feedback—and enjoy!
Editor's Note
Readers have been asking what happened to the February issue of The Spearhead? Well, it's a long story...but the short answer is, it's right here, merged with the March issue. Since February was a short month, and everyone at Superb was immersed in the launch of new enterprises (see "The Power of GridIron" and "For 15 Years..."), we decided to pool forces and topics and put out a powerhouse double issue.
In this issue, you'll discover the first winner of our Superb Website Design Contest, learn about the development of a brand new shared hosting product, hear the story of our new corporate website, learn how non-profit websites stay alive in uncertain economic times, and much more!
We encourage your letters, questions, and comments at all times—plus we're eager to see more entries for next month's Superb Website Design Contest. The same team that created the new Superb.net will be helping you with your design and construction questions...so if you like what you see, we hope you'll enter for a chance for a FREE consultation. Send contest entries and letters to the Editor to ldavidson@superb.net. All submissions will be acknowledged.
Thanks for your patience, and here's looking forward to a rewarding Spring!
Lisa Davidson,
Editor
The Power of GridIron®
Many shared hosting solutions "promise" full redundancy, but as they are not built or maintained with precision, they will ultimately fail—meaning downtime for your websites. Thanks to its original design, Superb's GridIron Platform offers full redundancy, maximum availability, and impressive performance. As Matthew Putegnat, Superb's Director of Development notes, "GridIron is built for expandability...application packages will all be added as one-click installs, continually growing as we go."
The secret to failover is parallel redundancy. The clustered servers were architected with security in mind from day one. From the ground up, at the apps level, systems level, and networking level, everything from the Toolbox to the database servers is cross-connected. The large-scale clusters are fully load-balanced. Matthew explains that with GridIron, "you can have a failure at any layer, in fact multiple failures at every single layer, and the platform will still be up and running."
The development team built the platform with three main objectives in mind: "Security. Performance. Availability." The result? There is no single point of failure, anywhere, from edge networks to the components of each individual server. Many failures are detected automatically, and backup systems will take over in seconds. Everything else is monitored 24/7 by highly trained technicians with the know-how and experience to solve problems fast.
And now, nearly two years from its inception, the platform is ready to go, with an unprecedented guarantee of 99.99% Uptime! Jesse Barros, another developer on Matthew's team, remarked that "GridIron is the most thoroughly tested service Superb has ever offered."
Jesse added, "Customers who are new to clustered hosting may have some concerns about compatibility, since most people will be used to working with websites that run on a single server. We've tried to make working with GridIron as easy as working with a traditional single-server solution." Another advantage to GridIron is that many pages in myCP have been redesigned to make managing accounts easier, "so customers can focus more on their business and less on fiddling with knobs and levers."
In future, as the number of subscribers grows, the number of apps will expand, adding new capacity to the service. During busy times, all sites will continue to perform well. At off-peak times, the excess capacity will be used automatically to serve unusually busy sites. The hardware is all high-end, and the software has all been upgraded to enable technical staff to add new functionality and improvements more quickly than before.
So you get performance very close to that of a dedicated server, at shared hosting prices. Check out www.suberb.net/web-hosting/ to compare GridLite, GridPro, and GridMax, and pick the package that works for your business.
Announcing Prom-Night.com, Our First Website Design Contest Winner!
AFTER
Victor Sandoval and his wife were Los Angeles-area school district administrators when they came up with a ground-breaking idea for a niche marketing website: all about Prom Night! The dresses, the hairstyles, the shoes, the corsages (Victor mentioned that "some students didn't know what a corsage was!")...the limos, the banquets, and more.
Both Victor and his wife had years of experience serving as Prom Advisors, so they knew all the ins and outs of preparation, the critical security issues, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of various locations in the San Gabriel Valley area. With 16 years of experience as Activities Advisor, Victor certainly "knew what kids needed or wanted." So in January of 1997, he set up the first version of Prom-Night.com.
The site has always been strictly informational, surviving on advertising alone. For over a decade one of their more prominent advertisers was Anderson's Prom and Party. Seeing the success of Prom-Night.com, Anderson's ultimately decided to establish their own prom website! Many companies have begun to copy the model, but Victor's was first out of the gate. Most companies focus on dresses alone, while Prom-Night has the advantage of plentiful fresh content and a variety of products and services.
Advertisers purchase anything from a text link to a banner...once even an entire page. A local hair salon also featured a styling video clip. One of the hottest categories presently is alternative prom locations. Why stick with hotels, when you can get better security and more interesting activities at large open spaces like bowling alleys and art museums? As Victor laughed, "It's hard to crash a prom in a bowling alley!"
During the height of the season, March through June, the site gets 1200 to 1500 unique visitors daily. Other times of the year, Victor has diversified the site with Senior Graduation Tips, Homecoming Tips, and After-School Dances. Over 80% of his audience is 13 to 18-year-old females. Interestingly, there is an additional small subset of women aged 30 - 35, probably seeking the latest fashion and make-up tips. Victor's wife is the author of "Patty's Blog," which she updates with fresh content every weekday, keeping an eye on the fashions introduced at well publicized events such as the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes.
Another advantage of the prom business is that every year, there is a fresh crop of visitors. The supply is virtually endless. And fortunately, "proms don't change that much ... it's where to get a tux, how to hire a limo." Prices have been rising over the years, but the organizational issues remain the same.
Victor wrote asking Superb's website team for help with two problems: After converting to WordPress, which he loves, he was having trouble coming up with friendly dynamic page URLs. He would rather have "prom-night.com/pattys_blog" than "http://prom-night.com/?page_id=72" but was having trouble making those work. Also, he was having trouble aligning Google adsense ads in the body of a static page—although sidebars are OK.
Our website team met with Victor to solve these problems, and provided him with a free design and content assessment and consultation. Check out his site makeover at http://prom-night.com/ and see how he created a more streamlined, contemporary look with better focal points and spatial balance.
Meanwhile, keep those contest entries coming! No problem is too large or small to write about—just send an e-mail to ldavidson@superb.net with the details of your difficulty, the link to your site, and a daytime phone number. You might be the next featured winner of Superb's Website Design Contest. Remember, you get a free design consultation from a professional website design team. Send us "Before," and we'll help you create a happy ever "After."
Wonderful Widgets for Your Desktop
Uninspired by your desktop? Here are a few fun Yahoo! Widgets that can spice up your screen.
TenPlusTwo: Procrastinating? Finding it difficult to focus and get your work done? This simple widget will kick you into "work mode" for sure. The method is simple: work for ten minutes, relax for two minutes. Repeat as needed.
ShootIt: We've all had stressful days, but now you can make them a little bit better by downloading this widget. Select your choice of ammo and start blasting away at your screen. Feeling better? Clear the screen by clicking on the reset button.
SystemDashboard: This widget keeps track of your user, system, and total CPU usage, while looking like a fancy car dashboard. Beauty and brains... you can't ask for a better widget than that.
Improve Your Server with Our Solid-State Drives!
Want your server to run faster, be more consistent, and use less energy? Great news! We are now offering Solid-State Drives (SSD) as an upgrade for our dedicated servers. Compared with traditional hard disk drives, SSD's have faster access times and are much more consistent. They also have lower power consumption, so they generate less heat. Other benefits include their ability to endure extreme shock, high altitudes, and vibration. Prices range from $25 to $100 a month. Check out a quick video demonstration, "NEW Upgrade for Dedicated Servers," on the Superb Internet blog.
Notes from the Hostmaster
We had a number of queries about .ca domains during the Winter Olympics! Does registering a .ca domain confuse you? This month's article will answer some common questions about registering a .ca domain, and common solutions to your top questions.
Q: I want to transfer my .ca domain to Superb, but I do not have a EPP/Authorization code. What is my next step?
A: This is a very common question for domain owners who want to consolidate domains into one hosting company, but find the lack of an EPP/Authorization code a challenge. .CA domain transfers do NOT require an EPP/Authorization code to proceed with the transfer to Superb. Simply log into your myCP account, initiate the transfer and we contact your previous registrant, notifying them of your intentions to transfer your domain. You will receive an e-mail authorizing the transfer of the domain, and once you reply to this e-mail, the transfer of your domain typically takes 5-7 business days to complete.
Q: I purchased my .ca domain; why does it take so long show up?
A: .Ca domains go through a rigorous registration process with CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority), requiring each domain registrant and administrative contact information be verified prior to approval of the domain. Once this process is complete we add your domain to your Superb myCP.
Q: How many years can I register a .ca domain?
A: 1-10 years at $19.99 per year.
Q: When I search for my domain in a Whois search, my information does not show up?
A: .ca domain information is protected automatically from the public by our registrar Enom as a CIRA requirement.
Q: What happens if my .ca domain expired?
A: You will receive notification from Superb 30, 60, and 90 days prior to the expiration of your .ca domain. However, in the rare case it does expire, you do have 30 days to renew your domain before a $200 reinstate fee is added.
Send your questions and comments to hostmaster@superb.net
Gio Makes Sure You Get the Answers You Need—And You Get Them Yesterday!
GIOVANNI HALE
In this combo issue of The Spearhead, we invite you to learn a little more about Giovanni Hale, who helps us uphold The Superb Standard.® Many of you have experienced Gio's pleasant and efficient approach when you call our Honolulu Headquarters with questions. He brings amazing versatility and a unique skill set to his position with the Superb Support Team, and was instrumental in the launch of the new SuperbCare® via Twitter.
Gio lives by his conviction that what makes Superb really special is that "we bring a human side to what we do ... we never forget that these are real people behind their computers. A single mom trying to make it from paycheck to paycheck, a father who wants to download the photos of his kid... We are real, everyday people."
As Customer Service Representative and Lead Hostmaster (you'll see his column, "Notes from the Hostmaster" in each issue of The Spearhead), Gio mentors new staff and helps people transition to newly designed positions, with customized training sessions. He will soon head the new Training Division
within the Support Department.
Training is an art that Gio refined during his decade in the Navy. His positive attitude and belief system help him to convince others that "You always have a choice. You can influence the direction of your life. It's not 'if,' just 'when.'" Gio's creativity has directed his life choices, and he encourages creativity in every action and decision, no matter how small.
His creative expression started early—he was involved in drama in grade school, and continued on with high school dramatics in his Chicago school district. He also sang first tenor in the school choir, and played on the school's volleyball team. His practical side convinced him that he needed deeper and broader opportunities if he were to find a way to express his creativity in his daily life, so at only 18 he joined the Navy, with the intent of seeing much more of the world and other cultures. There he acquired an impressive background in health care.
While not stationed near the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, he provided medical support on his extensive overseas deployments: working under fire in Iraq (three deployments), Bahrain (four deployments), Italy, Japan, Dubai, Florida, California, South Canada, Chicago, New York, Nevada, and Washington D.C., as well as stints on the ships USS Kennedy and USS Kittyhawk. During these assignments he took care of conditions ranging from gunshot wounds to fungal infections. In one terrible instance, he watched his lead supervisor lose his right arm during a grenade explosion—and Gio was the person who ran to the rescue, sewed the arm back on for transport, and took care of his supervisor's comfort while rushing him to the hospital base in time to save his arm. For this act of courage Gio received a Letter of Commendation for bravery "above and beyond"
the duties of a corps man.
Yet that is Gio—he will always go above and beyond. In every assignment, he finds ways to enhance and improve the current situation.
Gio thoroughly loved his travel experiences—especially meeting other men of mixed color, and embracing the people, music, and cuisines of so many diverse cultures. Reflecting back, he considers Dubai to be his favorite place. So how did this military medical man who was in the habit of giving physical exams, inspecting facilities for food safety, evaluating the drinking water for his corps, and residing at Dubai's only 8-star hotel (with the services of a private helicopter pilot) during the course of his duties, come to the small island chain of Hawai'i? And how did this small island chain in the middle of the Pacific draw him in?
Actually the context was again, more training. To gain another set of skills, this time as a Preventive Medicine Technician, he was assigned to one of only three training programs in the world for Naval Environmental and Preventive Medicine...in Honolulu, Hawai'i. (The other two are in San Diego and Korea.) During this period of his life, Gio began once again to feel the need for greater creative expression. He felt the urge "to plant other seeds, to make a forest." He began to see that his current path was not going to provide "a lot of room for creativity."
Thus on October 10, 2008, Gio accepted a full scholarship at Full Sail University for online studies, declaring a major of "Marketing with a focus on Social Media." He was the first student from Hawai'i ever given a full scholarship to this institution. His new world was about to unfold.
Gio was excited to explore user functionality, learning to think from the customer's viewpoint, and studying the techniques of graphic design, web design, and more. While his primary focus was on school, he also needed to earn some money to cover living expenses, so he worked for Blue Hawaiian Helicopters in customer service and for Pflueger Honda as their Internet Manager.
One day, casually perusing Craig's List, he happened to notice a help wanted listing for customer service representatives at a downtown company "near Jamba Juice." Something about the description caught his interest, so he actually applied online twice, initially surprised at having to answer a series of questions about his concept of customer service, including, "What is your idea of great customer service?" and "How would you
handle Problem X?"
Of course, Gio got the job. At that point, just over a year ago, there were less than ten support staff at Superb's new Honolulu headquarters. The Superb philosophy is to add staff with caution, ensuring a perfect fit, and to hire people for the long-term. Individuals seeking less than a three-year engagement are politely requested to seek a more suitable position elsewhere. But Gio could feel that this position would allow him to grow creatively, as well as to add value in defining the nature of the growing team.
When asked for an example of a problem he is most proud of solving, Gio mentioned his modifications to the Cancellation Report, a critical data collection for future decision-making. In the past, it was just a list. He updated it to a more user-friendly form, with drop-down selections, a better layout and design, a color scheme. His ideal was ease-of-use for the end user—and he accomplished his vision.
Customers who deal with Gio are continually commending him on his courtesy, his efficiency, and his ability to delegate or escalate as needed. Here's a person you can count on, through any kind of emergency! So the next time you call Superb's Honolulu office, be sure to say "Hi" to Gio—he'll always find a creative way to
improve your day.
Survival Tips for Non-Profit Websites During Tumultuous Times
Part One of Two
When you sell products or services online, you know the perils of economic downturns...when consumers start spending less and tightening the purse strings, you have to find more creative ways to make them see the need for what you sell. But what if your website was founded as a charity, a foundation, or an educational resource? If you can't count on commercial sales to keep you afloat, how do you float your boat when the sailing isn't smooth for anyone?
At The Spearhead we've been considering the plight of non-profits during this era of ever-increasing global disasters, ruined economies, and reduced budgets for even the American upper middle-class. Legitimate non-profits may find tips to stimulate their donor base here. We've compiled ways to increase the leverage of your social networking, improve sharing and collaboration, set better goals for your fundraising efforts, and improve the design of your website to give you an edge.
Astonishing but true: according to CharityNavigator.org, an invaluable rating resource for the multitude of charitable giving funds currently collecting donations, "Few people realize how large charities have become, how many vital services they provide, and how much funding flows through them each year. Without charities and non-profits, America would simply not be able to operate. Their operations are so big that during 2008, in the midst of a recession, total giving was still more than $300 billion ... This is a decrease of 2% from 2007." CharityNavigator.org evaluates all 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organizations who file Form 990 with the IRS.
Whose heart didn't hurt seeing photos of hungry Haitian children, or the massive destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina? Regrettably, criminals try to capitalize on the empathy factor during each disaster by setting up website and e-mail scams. Even before Hurricane Katrina hit the coast, the FBI reports that criminals were setting up websites that included the keyword "Katrina," such as www.katrinahelp.com and www.katrinarelief.com, intending to profit by collecting the donations and personal information of charitable givers. In fact, in the weeks following the storm, the agency identified over 4,000 bogus websites trying to capitalize on people's goodwill.
So not only do you have to find more and better ways to survive, you also have to find convincing ways to establish your legitimacy and longevity. Be sure you've submitted your site to non-profit directories such as CharityNavigator, Yahoo Health, idealist.org, and fundsnetservices, as well as general directories including Business.com, Best of the Web, DMOZ, and Aviva. Not only will this show that you are transparent in revealing the allocation of your donations, it will also improve your website's search rankings.
Also make sure that your top-level domain is .org, rather than .com or a series of numbers (people associate these with commercial and/or bogus sites). Do not send unsolicited e-mails with attached pictures, even if you want to portray the tragic side of your particular cause, because these will almost inevitably be deleted as spam, and possibly be targeted as dangerous virus carriers. If you get phone calls enquiring about your site's purpose, be helpful and forthcoming...if you decline to provide information, people will most likely question the validity of your non-profit status or even your entire existence.
The organization "Third Sector, New England," a website offering "best practices for nonprofits"—www.tsne.org—offers three pieces of valuable advice ... 1) "The escalating number of nonprofits and demand for restricted resources calls for a bold refashioning of the donor-organization relationship based upon clarity about an organization's role, its potential reach and its sustainability. The road to stability and viability requires far more than communicating the need for money." What is your mission?
2) Perform an honest analysis of your business model, and answer the following questions: "Are we keeping up with changing needs and demographics? What data do we collect to demonstrate that we are making a difference, which we can share with the public? In what areas do we 'invest' the donor dollars that are critical to the issue that we are committed to? How much of donors' money is spent on direct services rather than administration?"
3) How do you position your non-profit? And what do you do better than any other organization? Just like a for-profit endeavor, you need a unique selling proposition, or in this case a unique positioning stance.
There are multiple ways to go about raising money for a good cause. One type of non-profit site is the private foundation. An example of a private memorial foundation, with an original water color anchoring the home page, is http://www.belvederepoets.com. This site is privately run and privately funded as a memorial. "The Belvedere Room is a place where poets, and those who enjoy poetry, can relax and share in the ambiance of a calm, safe, fun, and often insightful, respite from the cares of the day. The Belvedere Room was opened in April 2002 to provide an environment for poets to enjoy and discuss poetry and present their own poems."
Belvedere Room has become a close community, with a strict privacy policy. In its early days, it won both The Golden Web Awards 2003 - 2004, as well as FTP planet's Site of the Week for March 8, 2004. But now founder Darren Murray and his wife could use more volunteers to help keep the site updated. Since his mother-in-law passed away, there is no one available to select and update the "Poem of the Day" feature. Darren adds, "The Belvedere Anthology works, but has not been updated since early 2006, for similar reasons. It has long been our intention to spend the time to go through the forums and pull out the poems, thus updating the Anthology but, at this point, that would be a Herculean task for which neither of us has the time." The site also posts a Word of the Day (from Merriam-Webster OnLine).
Another type of non-profit is the scholarship/educational fundraiser. The James Lewis Tennis Scholarship Foundation, Inc. is based in Birmingham, Alabama (see http://www.jltsfi.com/index.htm). This site was founded in 1995 in honor of James Lewis, who wanted to build a foundation to aid young people in Jefferson County. Qualified students win tennis scholarships each year. Since 1996 over $16,000 in scholarships has been awarded. The webmaster, Rudy Lewis (no relation to James, surprisingly!), who designed and maintains the site as a volunteer, informed The Spearhead that students use the scholarships for tennis coaching, equipment, travel to tournaments, and other tennis-related expenses.
A review board reviews and interviews scholarship applicants, who must provide three references, show a well-rounded range of activities in addition to tennis, and maintain a GPA of 2.8 or above. Though they've yet to produce a pro, one student who earned the James Lewis Tennis Scholarship went on to earn a full tennis scholarship at a community college, and later returned home to share his skills.
The foundation maintains its funds through ongoing fundraisers, and soliciting an ever-growing database of sponsors and contributors. In January of 2008, the United States Tennis Association Southern Section (9 State area) awarded the James Lewis Tennis Scholarship Foundation Inc. the 2009 and 2010 Southern Sectional Championship Tournament. This means the World's Largest Tennis Tournament is coming to Birmingham in July and August of both years. The city of Birmingham is understandably very excited about this prospect; there will be at least 2,000 tennis players coming to Birmingham for each tournament, and the revenue impact will be over $5 million per year. This inspired the city of Birmingham to make over $500,000 of tennis center improvements—a true non-profit success story. It all started with an idea, some hope, and lots of commitment to the Foundation.
Rudy keeps their website updated with photographs, schedules, and activities. Recently the Foundation was awarded a $25,000 grant from Walmart for a health, wellness, and fitness program. The program takes place every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the George Ward Tennis Center, and participation for both children and adults is free.
"Looking at the future, the foundation intends to do more league play (adults) and get more young people interested in tennis," Rudy commented recently. Coming up at the end of April is the Fed Cup Tournament (USA vs. Russia). The week prior to this competition, the Pros will take time to meet with some of Birmingham's young tennis players to encourage them to continue playing tennis and to give back to their community.
Next month: more tips for website success, budget how-to's, fundraising ideas, understanding web analytics... all in Part Two.
Superb Introduces cPanel's Enkompass - Unrivaled Control Panel Now Available for Windows
Honolulu, HI - August 23, 2010
Superb Internet, one of the most well-established and foremost hosting and dedicated server providers in the web industry, is one of the first in the market to add cPanel's groundbreaking Enkompass control panel for Windows to its service line. Enkompass is the first and only Windows web hosting control panel with the wide-ranging features and intuitive interface of cPanel/WHM.
"Enkompass is truly a game changer—this caliber of power, performance, and flexibility has only been available for Linux users until this point," says William Song, Senior Product Manager at Superb Internet, "Because we constantly evaluate our product line to bring our clients the latest tools to help grow their businesses, we have been eagerly anticipating the release of Enkompass and are proud to add it as a Superb service offering."
He adds that fans of the Linux-compatible version of the control panel will find the Windows version very familiar: "The consistency of features [between cPanel/WHM and Enkompass] is quite impressive, and there are even some Windows-only elements with Enkompass. We're excited that our Windows-based clients can now take advantage of cPanel's unmatched performance and security, reporting functions, lowered support costs, and all the many other valuable benefits Linux-based users have raved about for so long."
A leading innovator of web hosting software for more than 10 years, cPanel built Enkompass in native Windows® technologies employing a user-based approach for supreme flexibility and ease of use while retaining the extensive features of the company's Linux-compatible control panel. Enkompass was made available in June and operates with Microsoft IIS7 and Windows Server 2008.
Superb's Network: Now Even More Performance, Reliability
Honolulu, HI - July 16, 2010
Leading dedicated server and web hosting provider Superb Internet announced adding four additional GigE circuits in its network infrastructure, boosting the performance, speed, and redundancy of the company's nationwide network of data centers and core backbone sites.
Superb Internet's fully redundant and fault tolerant coast-to-coast network is one of the company's featured proprietary technologies—and enables Superb to offer an industry-leading 100% uptime guarantee. With the addition of the four circuits, located in Superb's DC-area data centers (DCA2 and DCA3), additional uninterrupted routes between data centers and IP backbone sites are now available—connecting DCA2 (McLean, VA) directly to CHI1 (Chicago, IL), PAO1 (Palo Alto, CA), and SEA2 (Seattle, WA); and adding a second circuit between DCA3 (Springfield, VA) and IAD1 (Ashburn, VA) through new partner Intellifiber, a premier network technology-solutions provider.
"We truly live our motto, 'Ahead of the Rest'" says Haralds Jass, Superb Internet's President & CEO, "Our commitment to our valued clients is to keep ahead of the curve in providing superlative service, performance, and reliability. Consistently assessing and updating our network—such as our investment in adding these four new circuits—is proof positive of our dedication to that goal."
Superb Adds Parallel's Unrivaled SMB Tool
Award-winning dedicated server and web hosting company Superb Internet added the top-drawer Parallels Small Business Panel to its product line today. Parallels, a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software, developed the control panel specifically with small-to-medium businesses in mind-extremely cost-effective with exceptional ease of use, the panel streamlines operations and offers one-stop access to programs and applications.
"Parallels has always been a pioneer in software development, consistently innovating game-changing products for the consumer, businesses, and service provider-markets" says William Song, Senior Product Manager at Superb Internet, "The Small Business Panel, which is extremely feature-rich and retains many of the elements of Parallels' popular Plesk Panel, is the latest example of that and we're excited to introduce it to our dedicated server and managed hosting customers."
To introduce the new product, Superb is offering special pricing for the Small Business Panel. "We want to continuously provide the latest and best technology to our valued customers, and we hope to encourage them to take advantage of the Parallels panel by offering it at a competitive price," explains Song. The Parallels Small Business Panel is now available to Superb dedicated server and managed hosting customers starting at $18 per month (regular price $25).
Superb Internet Introduces Price Matching for Premium Hosting, Server Solutions
Honolulu, HI - July 1, 2010
Superb Internet, one of the world's first and most highly-awarded web hosting companies, announced the launch of its price match guarantee on dedicated servers today.
"We are known for our great customer service, the reliability of our global network, and for our 100% uptime guarantee, which are all critical to businesses of any size" says Dale Bunten, Director of Marketing. "We have the essential resources, network, and expertise to help businesses grow and succeed, and we're removing cost as an obstacle to getting the best possible service in the industry. By introducing our new price matching policy, we're encouraging people to take advantage of getting best-in-class managed hosting, dedicated servers, and any other business solutions they need-while still saving money."
Superb guarantees matching with any major competitor's current advertised price, and includes the company's entire line of business services, comprising Dedicated Servers, Managed Hosting Services, and Colocation. For more information, visit their price match guarantee page.
Introductory Rate on New Westmere Servers Offers Optimum Performance, Efficiency
Honolulu, HI - June 24, 2010
Newly introduced this year, the Westmere Hexa-Core processor makes top-level performance and faster system communication accessibly-priced for the general market. "The new Westmere-based servers provide increased performance and energy efficiency within a hosting infrastructure," explains Will Song, Senior Product Manager, "But what makes this development so exciting is that Hexa-Core processors, which had previously been cost-prohibitive for many small-to-medium-sized businesses, are now affordable."
Other features of the Westmere series include: higher data capacity on each chip, integrated graphics processors (which results in better graphics and processing functionality with less energy expenditure), and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), for faster data encryption and decryption.
Super Internet will offer an introductory promotion with the release of this new product-customers will get a free memory upgrade to 6GB of DDR3 RAM with the purchase of a Westmere Hexa-core server.
Superb Internet Launches New Lease to Own Programs for All Dedicated Servers
Honolulu, HI - October 21, 2009
Superb Internet, one of the oldest and most prominent members of the web hosting community, announced today the extension of its existing industry-leading lease-to-own program to all of its dedicated servers; a move that is sure to shake up the industry. The existing (so provided since 1996) lease-to-own program, until now only offered on the Superb Enterprise high-end/custom dedicated line of servers, allows - as of today, all - dedicated server customers to pay a small lease to own fee for a year and then at the end of one year they own the hardware outright while the monthly fee is reduced to a minimal colocation fee, saving the customers thousands of dollars over the life-time of the server.
"We understand that in tough economic times customers are looking for more and more value, and we believe this is one of the best deals out there" states William Song, Senior Product Manager. "This represents a paradigm shift in the relationship between customer and web host, offering much more transparency in the billing practices. At other web hosts customers are typically forced to pay outrageous ongoing monthly fees for hardware that is often 3-4 years old. With the Superb lease-to-own program customers always know that they have paid off their hardware after year 1, and the low ongoing fees simply represent, space, power, AC, support, and bandwidth among other costs. If customers wish to upgrade their server they can do so at wholesale rates, and if they decide to leave they can have the server shipped to them, because they own it! Compare that to most companies where customers end up paying thousands of dollars more (many times the cost of the server hardware) and end up with nothing when they cancel."
For more information on the new lease to own program please visit "Lease To Own"
Superb Internet Now Offers Extended Validation SSL Certificates
Honolulu, HI - September 1, 2009
Superb Internet, a global leader of dedicated server hosting and managed solutions, is pleased to announce offering Geotrust's True Business ID with Extended Validation (EV). Extended Validation gives consumers an additional indication of security by showing the Green Address Bar within most internet browsers.
"Gartner reported that over $2 billion of e-commerce transaction is lost every year due to security concerns and nearly half of those losses are due to consumers avoiding sites that seem less secure," said William Song, Senior Product Manager at Superb Internet. "Our True Business ID with EV offering addresses this concern because Extended Validation gives consumers a quick and simple way to verify that the site they are shopping on is secure."
This True Business ID with EV SSL certificate will be available to allshared, dedicated server, and managed hosting customers of Superb Internet.
Superb Internet Launches Managed Hosting
Honolulu, HI - August 17, 2009
Superb Internet, one of the world's oldest and most prominent dedicated server hosts, announced today the official launch of their managed hosting division. Superb Internet has a long history of offering high-end custom dedicated server solutions on a case by case basis to its large clients that have been with the company in some cases for over a decade. As of today, a new suite of managed services will officially available to all new and existing clients.
"This marks a natural evolution for Superb Internet, as companies become increasingly dependent on the Internet to reduce costs and improve efficiencies. As a result, we are seeing heavy demand for our outsourced IT services despite the economic downturn," says Dale Bunten, Dir. Sales and Marketing.
"Working closely with such a great group of dedicated professionals has been a rewarding experience and we are confident that our clients will benefit from our rigorous attention to detail, and strict quality control and change management procedures," says Patrick Ahler, Dir of Business Development. "Our key objective is to ease the day-to-day pain associated with managing IT infrastructure, so our clients can focus on developing their business and applications."
"The new managed dedicated server line provides clients with enhanced security, disaster recovery, proactive monitoring, and managed firewall options," says William Song, Senior Product Manager. In addition, Song states, "Each customer is assigned to a certified Technical Account Manager (TAM), who is responsible for understanding and maintaining the client's infrastructure; including: identification of problem areas and pro-actively resolving them before an incident occurs. We are confident we have one of the strongest managed hosting offerings on the market."
All Managed servers come with a 100% network uptime guarantee, 1 hour hardware replacement SLA, and Gold Level managed support by default. The services are provisioned by certified network and systems engineers 24x7, at all three company-owned data centers.
Superb Internet Rolls Out Managed Dedicated Server Offering featuring R1Soft's High-Performance CDP Backups
Honolulu, HI - July 22, 2009Award-winning Web hosting provider Superb Internet announced today it will introduce a new Managed Server offering featuring R1Soft's high-performance Continuous Data Protection® (CDP) technology to bring customers around-the-clock backups.
R1Soft's disk-based data protection software works by taking point-in-time snapshots at the sector level and only recording changes made since the last backup allowing for backups to run up to every 15 minutes. With the Bare-Metal Restore feature, Superb Internet gains the ability to restore a client's data to any point-in-time snapshot for fast, efficient disaster recovery.
"Our customers depend on us to deliver mission-critical managed hosting services and R1Soft CDP plays an important role in this. By having frequent CDP backups and the ability to perform bare-metal restores we can give our clients peace of mind knowing their businesses are safe from data loss," said Patrick Ahler, Director of Business Development and Operations Manager at Superb Internet.
In addition to leveraging R1Soft's CDP solution, as a member of R1Soft's Hosting Partner Program (R1HPP), Superb Internet gains access to marketing resources and sales tools from R1Soft. It also receives priority technical support and volume licensing discounts.
"The Hosting Partner Program will provide Superb Internet with all of the necessary marketing tools to successfully promote their new Managed Dedicated Server. As a partner, we will work with Superb Internet to bring their customers the best in data protection and technical support to enhance the overall customer experience," said David Wartell, vice president of R1Soft, a division of BBS Technologies.
Provider of domain registration, shared web hosting, dedicated servers, and managed hosting, Superb Internet currently hosts over 250,000 domains. Earlier this month, Superb announced the opening of their third data center strategically located in Springfield, Virginia. All three world-class data centers provide support and are staffed 24x7x365 by certified network engineers to provide the highest level of customer satisfaction.
Superb Internet Launches New Datacenter in Virginia
Honolulu, HI - July 8, 2009Superb Internet, one of the most prominent leaders in the web hosting industry, announced today the opening of a new data center strategically located in Springfield, Virginia. This new addition, DCA3 compliments its two existing data centers located in McLean, VA and Seattle, WA. Superb's McLean, VA data centre, DCA2, is at 90% capacity - due to continued strong demand for businesses to outsource their data centre, dedicated server and bandwidth needs, especially in the current economic climate, where partnering with Superb brings not only cost savings, but also added quality of service and reliability for businesses' mission-critical online presence. As such, DCA3 is being open just in time for Superb to have capacity to continue growing its dedicated and colocated customer base on the east coast.
Superb Internet invested significant resources to ensure this facility has optimal network connectivity with direct access to major fibers with fully redundant systems which include 8 parallel UPS units, 2 parallel redundant 1.25MW diesel generators, and over 200 tons of AC cooling, expandable to over 500 tons.
The new facility will accommodate the growing demand for Superb Internet's dedicated server, and colocation services, coinciding with the launch of its new professional services division, which offers customers a full spectrum of advanced hosting solutions including: managed back up, proactive monitoring, scalability and capacity planning, disaster recovery, clustering, and high availability solutions. Superb attributes their continued success to the combination of offering high-performance servers with superior connectivity and unparalleled customer support since 1996.
As with all Superb data center locations, the Springfield facility is staffed 24x7x365 by experienced, certified systems and network engineers supporting multi-OS server infrastructure solutions including high-availability configurations and application hosting.
"Our Springfield data center has been designed to Superb's standards of excellence for a world-class data center that is efficient, reliable, and secure," said Haralds Jass, Superb Internet's President and CEO. "The addition of this new data center will ensure Superb's customers will have plenty of space for future expansion as our customers' business grows with us."
Superb Internet Offers Fully Customized Hosting Services through New Professional Services Division
Honolulu, HI - May 1st, 2009In response to a growing demand for customized hosting services, Superb Internet Corporation (www.superb.net), one of the most prominent hosting companies in the industry, has announced the launch of their Professional Services Division. The highly talented team of systems engineers that make up the division are an effective, well-seasoned and experienced group that can respond quickly to the needs and requests of clients in an efficient and highly professional matter.
The Superb Professional Services team takes the time to understand the concerns of clients to provide the right answer. By combining business analysis and technical consultation, the team reviews the big picture and achieves the most effective and efficient solutions. With Professional Services from Superb, SMEs can expect projects completed on time and on budget with fewer headaches - working with just one single entity to manage and complete the whole project, the Superb Internet Professional Services Division.
The Professional Services division will also be working in conjunction with Superb Internet's Marketing and Systems Departments to identify, review, and implement new solutions to meet the needs and demands of Superb Internet's clients and the hosting marketplace. Patrick Ahler, Dir. of Business Development and head of the Professional Services Division at Superb stated: "This is an exciting opportunity for Superb to push the boundaries, growing our brand by offering services that continue to meet Superb Internet's mantra: 'Ahead of the rest.' We're committed to excellence and our customers will know it."
For more about Superb's Professional Services: http://www.superbhosting.net/hosting-solutions/professional-services.php
Web Host Superb Internet Corporation Opens New Corporate Headquarters in Honolulu, Hawaii and Brings in new Senior Management Members
Honolulu, HI - Dec 13th, 2008Web host Superb Internet Corporation has opened new corporate headquarters in Honolulu, Hawaii and brought in new Senior Management members, it was reported recently. The company, which bills itself as "one of the oldest and most reputable web hosting companies in the world", is moving into the First Hawaiian Bank Tower, in "the heart of Honolulu's financial district".
According to the company, the move is central to its strategy of "attracting and retaining key talent". As a result of the move, the company has already managed to fill "multiple key senior management positions with extremely experienced and talented individuals".
"We are pleased that in an era of economic uncertainty we are in a position of continued strong growth, remain profitable and are (as we always have been) 100% debt free," explained Superb Internet's President and CEO, Mr. Haralds Jass. "We are very pleased to offer our valued employees an alternative to the normal benefits associated with corporate life. The health and well-being of our employees is very important to us, and we are confident that the move to Honolulu will have a significant effect on productivity, innovation and team cohesiveness - and will also accordingly result in an even higher level of service for our customers. We are very encouraged by the caliber of the senior level executives that have decided to join us in the Aloha State".
The staff joining Superb Internet includes Dale Bunten who becomes Director of Sales & Marketing. Mr. Bunten has 8 years of sales and marketing experience in the web hosting industry. He has worked in senior level positions for NetNation Communications, Hostway Corporation, and Reliant Web Hosting (Canada Web Hosting). Mr. Bunten will lead the global marketing communications efforts and support the move into more advanced hosting services.
Brian Alexander joins Superb Internet as Director of Systems Engineering. With over a decade of experience from building, directing and managing large-scale global properties for Dell.com, to managing the largest public grid computing project on the Internet, Mr. Alexander will be a key asset for designing and implementing advanced hosting solutions for enterprise level customers, as well as building and maintaining Superb's state-of-the-art hosting infrastructure.
Matthew Putegnant joins as Director of Development and brings with him 20 years of advanced software development leadership & management experience, delivering enterprise solutions for small engineering firms and large telecoms alike. Mr. Putegnant is responsible for all phases of the software development activity, including business process modeling, requirements, analysis and design, implementation, testing, configuration and change management, and deployment. His initial mandate is to more than double the size and capacity of the current development team.
Patrick Ahler becomes Director of Business Development and Operations Manager (Hawaii). He offers 12 years of advanced technical experience primarily in the field of systems administration and web technologies. Combined with a strong entrepreneurial spirit and business mind, Patrick has led numerous successful Internet businesses and understands what it takes to succeed.
As the company's new Director of Human Resources Jason Wong offers a wide scope of experience spanning the real estate, finance, banking, computing, and human resource sectors. His mandate is to recruit, hire, and retain quality personnel to support the company's rapid growth, on a global scale at all of Superb's locations, covering staff in five US states and in Canada.
R Curtis, the company's current VP of Sales and Marketing, announced his resignation effective Dec 30th, 2008 recently. "We wish Curtis well in his future endeavors, and thank him for his dedication and customer focus," explained Mr. Jass.
With headquarters in Honolulu, Hawaii, Superb Internet Corporation was established in 1996 Superb Internet and offers a complete range of managed web hosting services, "from virtual hosting through to high-volume, mission-critical dedicated service solutions". The company serves a global customer base in "over 150 countries worldwide" and has operations in McLean, Virginia, USA and Seattle, Washington.
SuperbHosting Awards Dedicated Server Prize to Epiar!
Seattle, Washington - March 11, 2008 - SuperbHosting.Net, a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, a world leader of quality managed hosting solutions, is pleased to announce that Epiar Inc.'s Ken Jurina was the lucky recipient of their Core 2 Duo dedicated server custom hosting prize awarded at SMX West 2008.
SuperbHosting.net's Dedicated Server giveaway concludes the highly successful Search Marketing Expo - SMX West 2008 held this year in Santa Clara, CA from February 26 - 28, which featured all the major players, like Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Ask, and was led by industry gurus Danny Sullivan, Matt Cutts, and Rand Fishkin. The Dedicated Server was definitely the top prize at SMX West 2008 with an approximate value of $3000.
"Epiar is very excited to have won a dedicated hosting solution from SuperbHosting.net, one of the industry leaders in the hosting business. In our Industry, if customers can't reach our site, they lose confidence in us; we need to guarantee our site is always up and pages load quickly." said Ken Jurina, President of Epiar.com. "With hosting located at SuperbHosting.net , we know we have a quality hosting provider, and if there are any problems, we can talk to real people and get real results."
"SuperbHosting.net is strongly committed to the search engine community, and we are extremely pleased that Epiar has taken home the grand prize; they are one of the new stars in the search engine marketing industry," stated Curtis R. Curtis, Sr. VP, Sales & Marketing. "As a rapidly growing player in the search industry, they and their clients will require hosting solutions like ours that are 100% guaranteed, extremely scalable and most importantly, backed by a hosting company that understands the needs of the search industry."
SuperbHosting.net Finds a Wii-nner in Launchfire Interactive
Today, SuperbHosting.Net, a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, is proud to announce the winner of the 'Win a Wii' contest for December 2007. Every customer that signed up for an account with SuperbHosting.net between December 1st and December 21st was entered into the contest, and on December 21st, Launchfire Interactive was chosen as the contest winner.
"Being picked as the winner of the Wii from SuperbHosting.net was a wonderful surprise. I have always enjoyed the excellent service and support provided by Superb, and they have always gone above and beyond to do the job better than anyone else" states Mark Round of Launchfire Interactive. "Over the years I've been a customer of many hosting providers, and none have come even close to the excellent experience I have had with Superb. You folks certainly know what it means to provide top notch, reliable service and excellent customer care! I'll be sure and take care of the Wii as well as you take care of your customers! Thanks again Superb."
"While we strive to ensure our focus is being 'Ahead of the Rest' when it comes to our hosting services and taking care of our customers, it's always fun to be able to reward our customers with something out of the ordinary," notes Curtis R. Curtis, Sr. VP, Sales & Marketing. "Giving away the hottest Christmas gift of the year was definitely out of the ordinary; in fact, just getting one was out of the ordinary. What better way to say thank you, than having to go that extra mile - or thousands of miles - to do so!"
The Nintendo Wii gaming console, the fifth home gaming console released by Nintendo, was the must-have gift for 2007. The unique wireless controller makes it fun for anyone 5-years-old, 85-years-old, or anywhere in between.
About Launchfire Interactive
Launchfire is an award-winning interactive promotions agency specializing in contests & sweepstakes, advergames, and viral marketing. We combine superior strategic and creative thinking, leading edge technologies, and engaging content to deliver measurable results. We have run successful interactive promotions in more than 25 countries for many of world's leading brands and agencies.
SuperbHosting To Give Away the Hottest Christmas Gift
Today, SuperbHosting.Net, a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, is proud to announce that all customers that sign up for a new hosting package or dedicated server from December 1st to December 21st will be eligible to win a Nintendo Wii gaming console, one of the hottest Christmas gifts for 2007.
"We are always looking for new ways to reward our customers; what better way than to offer the Christmas gift of the year to one of our lucky customers?" Lindsay Viscount, On-Line Marketing Manager continues, "At Superb, we are committed to putting our customers first. By making the cutoff date December 21st, we should be able to ship out the Wii so the winner can have it wrapped and under the tree for Christmas morning."
The Nintendo Wii gaming console, the fifth home gaming console released by Nintendo, was the must-have gift for 2006, and continues to be one of the most sought after - and hardest to find - gadgets in 2007. The unique wireless controller makes it fun for anyone 5-years-old, 85-years-old, or anywhere in between, and has some of the most popular console-specific games, like Mario Bros. and Zelda. Although the console is usually the cheapest option when compared to the Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3, demand for the Wii has pushed up the price as it gets harder and harder to find.
SuperbHosting.net Joins RatePoint Partner Program
RatePoint, the leader in providing businesses with the only comprehensive online reputation management and customer feedback platform available, and SuperbHosting.Net, a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, today announced a new partnership that will give SuperbHosting.Net customers access to the RatePoint platform and consumer approval program. As a result, RatePoint has extended its reach to SuperbHosting.Net's customer base of over 12,000.
"We are extremely excited to be a member of the RatePoint partner program, and to have the opportunity to offer a truly unique and high-demand value-add service to our current and potential web hosting customers," (Curtis) R. Curtis, VP, Sales & Marketing, SuperbHosting.Net. "RatePoint's easy-to-implement customer feedback platform will help us improve customer retention and loyalty, better communicate with our customers, and increase sales and conversion rates."
RatePoint allows businesses to manage their online reputation by easily capturing and publishing consumer reviews and feedback directly from their web sites. RatePoint verifies actual consumer ratings for authenticity, and businesses then have an opportunity to respond to feedback. RatePoint memberships include:
- The RatePoint site seal, a dynamic website seal that businesses can use to collect and publish reviews, and a recognized and trusted symbol of a quality business.
- A customized listing in the RatePoint online business directory that is searchable by millions of consumers. Directory listings can provide better search engine optimization (SEO) and increased traffic for businesses.
- Access to the RatePoint Business Center, an online interface that allows businesses to easily manage and respond to feedback and reviews. The Business Center also provides a host of other feedback management and marketing tools for businesses.
SuperbHosting.Net joins the RatePoint partner and reseller community of more than 100 companies. The RatePoint partner program gives website hosting companies, ISPs and other technology providers a way to not only grow their businesses and revenue, but to also provide added value to their customers.
SuperbHosting.net helps your site get Ahead of the Rest®!
Today, SuperbHosting.Net, a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, is proud to announce two separate promotional online advertising credits that are now available to new and existing SuperbHosting customers redeemable for pay-per-click (PPC) search engine advertisements.
Online advertising is becoming increasingly important with more and more people using their search engine instead of their phone book to research and purchase products and services, but it's difficult for some companies to take funding away from their traditional advertising. Now, Superb has the solution.
Superb has partnered with some of the leading online advertising companies on the Internet to offer coupons for free online advertising! Take this opportunity to test out two different, mainstream online advertising platforms, and find out how you can use search engines and PPC ads to generate new business. With a credit of up to $100 (some conditions apply) available for new and existing Superb customers, it's a guaranteed win - and the best part, you only pay if someone clicks on your ad!
"We are continuously seeking newer & better ways to enrich our web hosting services to ensure we are delivering complete hosting solutions that meet the needs of all of our customers, " states Lindsay Boudreau, On-Line Marketing Manager. "As part of our commitment to our hosting customers, we want to make sure that our customers have access to all of the products and services that are going to assist in making their business a success because when our customers succeed - we succeed!"
SuperbHosting Receives Multiple Awards for Best E-commerce Hosting
Today, SuperbHosting.Net, a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, is proud to announce that they have received two awards for Best E-Commerce Host for August 2007 from Web Host Directory Ltd. and FindMyHost, Inc. This is the third time in three months SuperbHosting.Net has received awards for their E-Commerce Hosting. Superb recognizes the importance of providing quality hosting solutions in all areas of the hosting spectrum, including E-commerce and small business web hosting, and is constantly striving to improve the customer's hosting experience
"There is nothing stopping us from providing top of the line hosting experiences to all of our customers, and it is definitely wonderful to continuously be recognized for our efforts," states Lindsay Boudreau, On-Line Marketing Manager. She continues, "Taking a customer-focused approach to delivering superior support and services allows us to maintain a level of trust within the marketplace and establish long term relationships with our customer base."
"Superb Internet was chosen as an Award Winning Web Host by our visitors because of their powerful and scalable hosting plans which are suitable for SOHO (Small Office/ Home Office) sites to growing business websites, along with their commitment to providing all the features and support that both novice users and experienced designers alike are demanding today," comments Lee Brant, Web Host Directory Ltd., Account Manager. He goes on to say, "In summary, SuperbHosting.net has been empowering Internet businesses, web designers and non web savvy users to establish a web presence and fully harness the power of the Internet since 1996. With such depth of experience, you know SuperbHosting.net is a great choice for any website."
About Superb Internet Corp.
Since 1996, Superb Internet has been consistently rated as one of the very best web hosts by all web host rating agencies, such as Web Host Magazine, in all areas, especially customer support and reseller services. Superb Internet recently having celebrated it.s 10-year anniversary (July, 2006), provides a complete range of managed web hosting services, from virtual hosting through to high-volume, mission-critical dedicated service solutions. Superb.s core focus is customer service, and continuous service improvement, as a part of its commitment to staying "Ahead of the Rest.®"
Superb Internet has offices and 24-hour/365-day operations in McLean, VA, Tukwila, WA, and Vancouver, BC, serving customers in over 150 countries worldwide.
About Web Host Directory Ltd.
Web Host Directory provides one-stop shopping for hosting services. They offer a neutral site for comparing and purchasing hosting products. Web Host Directory is the product of over 10 years hosting industry experience. As part of the Web Host Directory group of companies you are assured of concise accurate information and product offerings.
About FindMyHost, Inc.
FindMyHost.com was established in January 2001 to showcase the best companies in the web hosting industry as a consumer service. The FindMyHost "Approved Host Award" tests companies based on their control panels, network speed/stability, technical support, dependability, and customer satisfaction (based on consumer polls). In addition, FindMyHost offers detailed "Report Cards", editor reviews, consumer reviews and help guides for each web host company to help consumers with their web hosting choices.
For further information contact:
Lindsay Boudreau, On-Line Marketing Manager, Superb Internet,
TEL: (888) 354-6128 x2110
lboudreau@Superb.Net
Superb Internet to Giveaway $25,000 High Availability Solution at Hostingcon 2007
Today, SuperbHosting.Net, a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, is giving away " FREE for 1 year; a high availability, geographically load-balanced hosted solution, complete with Coyote Point Equalizer Load Balancers, and dedicated servers located in both the Seattle, WA and McLean, VA data centers - valued at over $25,000."
"We would like to invite every attendee of Hostingcon 2007 who's number one priority for 2007 is having a mission critical, completely redundant online solution, to stop in at the Coyote Point booth #220 to enter to win what every serious online company should have; a very high availability hosting solution," said (Curtis) R. Curtis, Sr. VP of Superb Internet. "With the hosting solutions we provide using Coyote Point technologies, balancing across geographically distributed server clusters is no longer rocket science. We are able to deliver advanced hosting solutions that will ensure that your data is always online and optimized for performance."
"In today's online environments, very High Availability has become a business imperative for managed services," said James Scriba, Director of System Engineering for Coyote Point. "Even the smallest online content and application providers now expect carrier-grade availability, 'five nines' uptime, minimal latency and guaranteed delivery of content. They seek the utmost flexibility in managing traffic based on a variety of factors such as server capacity, availability, response time, current load and geographical location. As it becomes increasingly clear that throwing bandwidth at the problem is not a prudent solution, they are ready to deploy hosted solutions that take advantage of advanced traffic management, server clustering and geographic server load balancing."
About Superb Internet Corp.
Since 1996, Superb Internet has been consistently rated as one of the very best web hosts by all web host rating agencies, such as Web Host Magazine, in all areas, especially customer support and reseller services. Superb Internet recently having celebrated it.s 10-year anniversary (July, 2006), provides a complete range of managed web hosting services, from virtual hosting through to high-volume, mission-critical dedicated service solutions. Superb.s core focus is customer service, and continuous service improvement, as a part of its commitment to staying "Ahead of the Rest.®"
Superb Internet has offices and 24-hour/365-day operations in McLean, VA, Tukwila, WA, and Vancouver, BC, serving customers in over 150 countries worldwide.
About Coyote Point
Coyote Point Systems, Inc. is the industry's leading provider of server load balancing systems with advanced traffic management functionality. Independent tests confirm that Coyote Point's Equalizer Series systems deliver more than twice the performance and throughput at less than half the price of other industry-leading load balancing and traffic management systems. Thousands of customers worldwide deploy Coyote Point solutions to ensure non-stop availability and top performance for their Web applications systems. Coyote Point is headquartered in San Jose, CA and works with leading channel partners in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. The company can be reached at 1-877-367-2696 or
http://www.coyotepoint.com.
(Curtis) R. Curtis, Sr. VP, Sales & Marketing, Superb Internet,
(604) 638-2529,
Curtis@Superb.Net
Coyote Point Systems Inc.:
Kat Marquez,
Director of Marketing,
kat@coyotepoint.com
+1.408.291.5246
Zee Zaballos
ZNA Communications
cp@zna.com
+831.425.1581x201
Superb Internet Appoints New VP of Technology
Washington, DC - May 02, 2007SuperbHosting.Net , a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, a global web hosting leader providing superior managed dedicated servers, shared web hosting and e-commerce hosting solutions, is pleased to announce the expansion of the Company's management team with the appointment of Tom Samplonius as Vice President of Technology.
Tom Samplonius will be responsible for leading all technology development and deployment within the company, as well as, directing the company's technical staff for these purposes. Samplonius will act as the principal architect for the development and improvement of new hosting-related products and services.
"In keeping with our mandate to focus on enriching the hosting experience of our customers, we are constantly seeking to expand our expertise within the industry; adding new people who bring unique skill sets to the company." said Curtis R. Curtis, Sr. VP, Sales & Marketing. "Tom believes that technology needs to be shaped into tangible, user-friendly solutions for the customer, especially in the hosting space. He fervently maintains that value innovation focused on the customer supersedes technology innovation for the sake of technology."
Prior to joining Superb Internet, Tom was VP of Technology Uniserve Communications, where he designed and maintained systems for broad and narrow band internet access as well as development of a variety of application services. He is an accomplished Internet technology professional with 16 years of experience within the Internet access and hosting industry.
About Superb Internet Corp. Since 1996, Superb Internet has been consistently rated as one of the very best web hosts by all web host rating agencies, such as Web Host Magazine, in all areas, especially customer support and reseller services. Superb Internet recently having celebrated it.s 10-year anniversary (July, 2006), provides a complete range of managed web hosting services, from virtual hosting through to high-volume, mission-critical dedicated service solutions. Superb.s core focus is customer service, and continuous service improvement, as a part of its commitment to staying "Ahead of the Rest.®"
Superb Internet has offices and 24-hour/365-day operations in McLean, VA, Tukwila, WA, and Vancouver, BC, serving customers in over 150 countries worldwide.
For further information contact:
Lindsay Boudreau, On-Line Marketing Manager, Superb Internet,
(888) 354-6128 x2110,
lboudreau@Superb.Net
For more information about Superb Internet, visit the website at: http://www.superbhosting.net
Superb Internet Rolls Out New Web Hosting Features
Washington, DC - March 19, 2007SuperbHosting.Net , a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, a global web hosting leader providing superior managed dedicated servers, shared web hosting and e-commerce hosting solutions, is excited to announce the much anticipated new web hosting features consisting of WordPress, Google Sitemaps and Zen Cart in support of their new direction to provide "superior hosting experiences." In addition, Superb Internet has also introduced CentOS 4.4 expanding their operating system options for dedicated servers.
Through implementing these new options, Superb Internet has demonstrated the importance to stay current with market trends for their web hosting customers, provide superior ecommerce solutions and enable customers to take advantage of search engine marketing tools. All of the new features are open source allowing for customers to plug into a larger community network. What customers can expect to benefit from these new features are complete web hosting packages that reflect their needs and enable them to produce top notch SEO friendly web solutions.
"As part of our commitment to our hosting customers, we are continuously seeking newer & better ways to enrich our web hosting services to ensure our customers' needs are being met." states Curtis R. Curtis, Sr. VP, Sales & Marketing. "We want to make sure that our customers have easy access to the latest and the greatest features, that today's technology offers. As part of this commitment, we are constantly upgrading and adding new services. This is a very dynamic industry and it is important that we listen to the needs of our customers."
Superb Internet Unveils New Web 2.0 Web Hosting Site.
Washington, DC - March 15, 2007SuperbHosting.Net , a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, a global web hosting leader providing superior managed dedicated servers, shared web hosting and e-commerce hosting solutions; is pleased to announce the release of their new, consolidated web site, reflecting the latest in Web 2.0 and World Wide Web Consortium standards as part of their new direction to provide "superior hosting experiences".
Reflecting a radical departure away from graphical, image heavy web hosting sites that look pretty; the new SuperbHosting.Net web site instead focuses on the needs of the customer. At the heart of the new site design was the focus on customer usability and accessibility to ensure that the site is first and foremost, user friendly, content-rich and easy to navigate. In addition, they have transformed their web site to ensure the site is searchable and portable. As part of this focus on usability, the ordering process has been simplified while ensuring the customer feels a greater sense of security while completing their transaction.
"Enriching the customer experience has always been our #1 goal here at Superb. Through extensive research in the marketplace and with our customers, we are extremely conscious that web hosting customers today are seeking more than just hosting products and services; they are seeking a complete wrapped around hosting experience from their hosting provider yet most hosting companies are falling visibly short of the bar.. noted Curtis R. Curtis, Sr. VP, Sales & Marketing. .We are committed to providing complete 360 degree hosting experiences to our customers; from the ordering of their hosting solutions, to the setup of their hosting account, the superior support they receive during the process, the ongoing 100% connectivity from our industry-leading global network, continuing on to the ongoing customer service they enjoy while a customer. At the center of this 360o experience, is our new content-rich, user-friendly web site".
Superbservers.Net offers the fastest, newest cpu-based servers in the industry.
McLean, Virginia . September 25, 2006SuperbServers.Net, a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, a world leader of quality managed dedicated, shared hosting and e-commerce solutions; is pleased to announce that it has improved and expanded its dedicated server offerings to now offer the fastest, latest generation CPU based servers in the industry . true to its spirit of always remaining .Ahead of the Rest..®
Superb Servers is now offering the industry.s fastest, newest generation CPUs, including the new, more powerful than any other Intel or AMD single CPU, Intel Conroe CPU based servers, and new Intel Woodcrest based dual CPU servers. Intel Conroe is the undisputed fastest single CPU on the market and the Intel Woodcrest is the fastest dual CPU on the market.
"For over 10 years, our company has always led the industry, while others have followed us. Many of the services that are now common in the hosting industry and are taken for granted were pioneered and invented or first used by us. Us being the first dedicated server provider to offer the new Conroe & Woodcrest CPU based servers, offering the fastest servers in the market, is a continuation in our decade long tradition of being true to our motto, "Ahead of the Rest,.®" states Haralds Jass, Superb Internet's President and CEO. .While others focus on technologies of the past, our R&D department is tirelessly working to always bring the newest, fastest technologies to the market first."
(Curtis) R. Curtis Returns As Sr. Vp, Sales & Marketing
Vancouver, BC - September 25, 2006Superb Internet Corporation, a world leader of quality managed dedicated, shared hosting and e-commerce solutions; is pleased to announce that (Curtis) R. Curtis, an industry veteran, has returned to Superb Internet, in the capacity of Sr. VP, Sales and Marketing.
Curtis has been with Superb Internet since 2000, leading the Company in their sales & marketing efforts. After taking a brief hiatus in 2005, he is now back onboard to help take Superb Internet to the next level of hosting excellence.
As a sixteen-year veteran of the Internet and co-founder of one of the first industry.s first ISPs, Curtis brings a vast array of industry experience to Superb. He is a senior executive with over 20 years of successful technology management experience, whose extensive expertise includes strategic market planning, business & product development, customer service and sales management. It is Curtis.s dedication to the customer; his unwavering, passionate demand that the customer is absolutely No. 1 where he truly excels.
Curtis holds a Bachelor.s degree in Business Administration from the University of Alberta, a Bachelor.s degree in Economics & Computer Programming from the University of Manitoba and did his Post Graduate work in Marketing and Business Law at the University of Calgary.
"We are thrilled to have Curtis back onboard leading our sales and marketing efforts," states Haralds Jass, Superb Internet's President and CEO. "His dedication to our customers and his continued pursuit of excellence in the quality of our service is what has greatly contributed to Superb Internet being always "Ahead of the Rest."® Curtis shares our company ideals to lead the industry, to continue setting the bar higher for others to follow, and to always strive for the very best, for true excellence."
Web Hosting Pioneer, Superb Internet, Celebrates 10th Anniversary
Vancouver, BC - July 27, 2006Imagine being one of the world.s first ever web hosting companies. Imagine the guts it took to offer a product that was years ahead of it.s time. Then imagine keeping that company thriving after the devastation of the dotcom boom and bust cycle. If you can imagine that, then you can begin to appreciate the achievements of Superb Internet Corporation.
Superb Internet Corporation was founded in 1996 by Haralds Jass, who had the vision to create a web hosting company built on service . before anyone called it .web hosting. yet. The company is now celebrating its 10th Anniversary in a business that is as competitive as it gets.
Among its many achievements over the past 10 years, Superb was the very first hosting company to introduce private server technologies, in a partnership with hosting automation company, Ensim. As a pioneer in both the shared dedicated hosting marketplace, Superb was among the first companies to introduce high-bandwidth affordable self-managed dedicated servers.
Superb is structured into four operating divisions providing a wide range of services, each targeted to a specific market segment:
Superb Internet Corporation is also backing up these brands with its recently reorganized 100% in-house customer service and technical support. The new support structure enables industry-leading metrics . including initial and follow-up ticket response time goals of under 30 minutes, with a 1 hour maximum. The target MTR (mean time to resolution) is a mere 2 hours, with 4 hours maximum, for 80%+ of all tickets. Additionally, for all dedicated clients, support is now provided by a technician onsite at the same physical location as their server. This results in near instant diagnosis and resolution to any hardware or other physical issues.
To celebrate its 10th year in business Superb is offering multiple special offers including $30 per month off specific self-managed servers, with an additional 3 free months after one year and an additional 1 year free after 2 years.
The special offers are the first of many planned in Superb.s Customer Loyalty Program, which generously rewards the longevity of customer accounts. Superb is also expressing appreciation to all existing clients, by giving each and every client a gift to thank them for their business over the years. This action is unprecedented in the web hosting industry.
Susan Gillard, Director of Sales and Marketing for Superb commented on the 10th year milestone, "We became a world-class web hosting company by persistently focusing on our customers needs over the past 10 years. As we have grown, our customers continued to receive the personal attention and care associated with small companies. We look forward to our next 10 years, and with the help of our top-notch staff - we will continue to deliver industry leading customer service and solidify our commitment to exceed our client's high expectations."
SUPERBHOSTING.NET OPENS NEW DATA CENTER
Tukwila, Washington. Sep 26, 2005SuperbServers.Net, a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, a world leader of quality managed dedicated, shared hosting and e-commerce solutions, unveils its third Data Center today.
The state of the art facility, located just south of Seattle, Washington will host between 5000 and 7000 customer servers.
Equipped with three 500KVA N+1 redundant UPS.s and a 1.5MW diesel generator power backup system, 180 tons of AC power, with easy expandability up to 540 tons, fibre redundancy through multiple private SONET rings via multiple carriers, and a redundant architecture Gigabit Ethernet-based internal network using Cisco backbone-grade equipment, the SEA2 Data Center is among the very best in the business.
"We're tremendously proud of this new facility", said Haralds Jass, President & CEO, "Everything is top of the line and designed to provide the very highest level of service to our customers."
SuperbServers.net is committed to providing flexible, customizable dedicated server solutions at affordable prices. "The Seattle Data Center allows us to offer an even wider range of services and support a broader range of customers. We are planning for significant growth in 2006 and Seattle is a critical component of that plan," said Sasha Wilson, VP Sales and Marketing.
To celebrate the opening of the date center SuperbServers.net is running a variety of promotional offers starting today and running through to October 31st. To see the current special offer visit www.SuperbServers.net.
SUPERBSERVERS.NET OFFERS NEW BASIC DEDICATED SERVER
McLean, Virginia - February 1st, 2005SuperbServers.Net, a subsidiary of Superb Internet Corporation, a world leader of quality managed dedicated, shared hosting and e-commerce solutions; is pleased to announce that it has expanded its dedicated server offerings to include an extremely affordable entry level server.
Starting at just $79/month, the Basic SuperbServer package includes a Celeron 2.4 GHz dedicated server with 512MB of RAM, 80GB IDE hard drive, complete with 1000GBs per month traffic and connections to over 100 major networks. The Basic SuperbServer package is supported by Superb.s industry leading 100% Network Uptime SLA.
"We have always been committed to delivering to the marketplace the broadest array of hosting solutions," states Haralds Jass, Superb Internet's President and CEO. "Our new Basic SuperbServer ensures that every customer finds the right product for their needs at the price point they are seeking."
"Superb is dedicated to serving our customers throughout their business life cycle. From an initial managed web hosting account, to large server clusters mirrored across multiple locations, we are able to meet our customers' changing needs as their businesses evolve. The Basic SuperbServer is a great next step for a growing company whose needs now exceed shared hosting," notes Sasha Wilson, VP Sales & Marketing.
SUPERB INTERNET GIVES FREE HOSTING GIFT CERTIFICATES
Washington, DC - December 8, 2004"Are you planning on spending $50? $100? $200? $500? (or more?) buying a gift for a friend or an associate? In the spirit of the season, we'd like to offer customers the opportunity to save their hard-earned money and give a gift they can actually use - the gift of free Superb web hosting - valued up to $10,000!.'' announced Haralds Jass, Superb Internet's President and CEO. "Until January 5, 2005, all our customers will have five (5) Gift Certificates that they can send to their friends and associates, at absolutely NO COST TO THEM (FREE!), with a value of up to $1000 in free, no-obligation, hosting. Best of all, we are including all of our Superb Internet hosting services -- even our high-end fully-managed, custom-built dedicated servers and clusters!"
Until January 5, 2005 Superb Internet will be rewarding both existing loyal customers and any new customer with the gift of web hosting for friends and associates. Recipients of the Gift Certificates will get to choose between:
FREE set-up & 6 months FREE of any of our award-winning, shared hosting service of their choosing - the best solution for individuals or businesses needing a reliable and powerful online presence - up to a $1,000 value!
-OR-
FREE set-up and 1st month FREE on all our dedicated hosting options - up to a $10,000 value!
The recipient will be under no obligation whatsoever to Superb Internet and can discontinue or change the service after the free period provided by the Gift Certificate.
"We wanted to come up with a special way of thanking our customer for their loyalty and for supporting Superb Internet since 1996," states Curtis R. Curtis, VP Sales & Marketing. "We believe that many of our customers have friends or associates who are not fully happy with their current provider or alternatively they are thinking of building their own web site or even getting their own dedicated server. This is our way of making it easy for everyone to have Superb hosting."
Superb Internet Increases Service Levels Up To 1000%
McLean, Virginia - September 21, 2004Superb Internet Corporation (www.superb.net), a world leader of quality managed dedicated and shared hosting and e-commerce solutions, is pleased to announce that the company increased the level of its shared services, especially traffic, disk space and email account . in some cases as much as ten fold (1000%)!
Effective immediately, all existing shared web hosting accounts come with up to 200GB per month premium Internet traffic, 6GB of web/disk space and 250 email accounts included . without any change in price! In the case of even the most affordable account, the Virtual shared account, this means a 1000% increase in the monthly traffic.
"We have always focused our efforts to put our loyal customers first, which is why many of our new services are the direct result of customer feedback and regular customer surveys... states Haralds Jass, Superb Internet's President and CEO. "We have been very successful by focusing on improving the quality and quantity of service we deliver to our customers. For that reason we have decided to reward our existing customers for their loyalty by dramatically increasing the level of services our shared customers receive."
"An increased demand from our customers for multi-media rich content, which requires more disk space and traffic usage, plus the customers. longevity with Superb Internet, meant that the customers required more resources overall." notes Curtis R. Curtis, VP Sales & Marketing. "We have made extensive upgrades to our infrastructure, including a new data centre, which allows us to provide more and higher level of service overall to our customers. This is just a small token of our appreciation to those who helped us grow over the last 8 years to become one of the most respected companies in the web hosting industry."
Superb Internet Acquires Covesoft Hosting Operations
Washington, DC - July 13, 2004Superb Internet Corporation, a world leader of quality managed dedicated and shared hosting solutions, announced today the company has acquired Cove Software Systems hosting business, http://www.covesoft.net. CoveSoft's network is home to hundreds of dedicated servers, housing mid to large-size hosting clients.
Superb Internet currently operates state-of-the-art data centers in Washington, DC and McLean, VA, and will be migrating all of CoveSoft's dedicated servers from their current location in Annapolis, MD to Superb's DCA2 data center in McLean, VA.
"As an industry leader, we are constantly looking to acquire quality hosting clientele who are seeking the quality of service and network connectivity which has made Superb Internet "Ahead of the Rest"?in the hosting marketplace. "states Haralds Jass, Superb Internet's President and CEO. "Acquiring CoveSoft and thus adding over 150 Mb/s of traffic to our network and nearly 200 more client servers to our DCA2 Data Centre is a move that we are happy to make as a part of our continued rapid expansion. We are confident that CoveSoft clients will further grow their business with us, thus furthering our growth, given the high level of service that we provide."
"We are extremely pleased to have found a company like Superb Internet to provide the stability and focus of quality of service we were seeking for our customers. "agrees Mike Shevenell, CFO and owner of CoveSoft.Net. "We know that our customers will find the level of service that Superb offers not only meet, but exceed the high quality of service and superior network connectivity they require."
- 2010
- August 23 - 2010
Superb Introduces cPanel's Enkompass - Unrivaled Control Panel Now Available for Windows - July 16 - 2010
Superb's Network: Now Even More Performance, Reliability - July 12 - 2010
Superb Adds Parallel's Unrivaled SMB Tool - July 1 - 2010
Superb Internet Introduces Price Matching for Premium Hosting, Server Solutions - June 24 - 2010
Introductory Rate on New Westmere Servers Offers Optimum Performance, Efficiency
- August 23 - 2010
- 2009
- October 21 - 2009
Superb Internet Launches New Lease to Own Programs for All Dedicated Servers - September 1 - 2009
Superb Internet Now Offers Extended Validation SSL Certificates - August 19 - 2009
Superb Launches Managed Hosting - July 22 - 2009
Superb Internet Rolls Out Managed Dedicated Server Offering Featuring R1Soft's High-Performance CDP Backups - July 8 - 2009
Superb Internet Launches New Datacenter in Virginia - May 1 - 2009
Superb Internet Offers Fully Customized Hosting Services through New Professional Services Division
- October 21 - 2009
- 2008
- 2007
- December 4 - 2007
SuperbHosting To Give Away the Hottest Christmas Gift - November 28 - 2007
SuperbHosting.net Joins RatePoint Partner Program - September 20 - 2007
SSuperbHosting.net helps your site get Ahead of the Rest®! - August 16 - 2007
SuperbHosting Receives Multiple Awards for Best E-commerce Hosting - July 11 - 2007
Superb Internet to Giveaway $25,000 High Availability Solution at Hostingcon 2007 - May 02 - 2007
Superb Internet Appoints New VP of Technology - March 19 - 2007
Superb Internet Rolls Out New Web Hosting Features - March 15 - 2007
Superb Internet Unveils New Web 2.0 Web Hosting Site
- December 4 - 2007
- 2006
- 2005
- 2004
