Bob Willis asked:




Every web hosting account comes equipped with a control panel which help the webmaster manage and control various aspects of their website including email accounts, managing their domains, viewing and analyzing their website statistics, access to marketing tools, data bases, design templates and much more.

Consider your control panel as a cockpit of an aircraft and perhaps much more. A control panel offers an ultimate solutions to conveniently manage various aspects of your web hosting account and website with easy to use tools and features. Most of he control panels are designed with a use friendly interface and just requires a tad common sense thereby eliminating the need of related technical knowledge.

The primary purpose of a control panel is to enrich the web hosting experience by allowing the customer to control almost every aspect of their hosting account within a user-friendly interface. The most commonly used control panels include the cPanel and WHM which makes control and management o your website a breeze through an easy to use GUI. The control panel features various tools and features to control various aspects of your domains as well as storage space and access highly useful applications and tools that are required to optimize your website.

Over the years, the traditional features have received various upgrades in a bid to enrich web-hosting experience. Most of the control panels offered by the hosting providers include features and tools like site builders, ftp connection, video tutorials, backup wizards, advance statistics, MySQL management, image managers and much more. Some additional applications may however include additional costs.

When choosing a hosting plan, it is important to take into account the type of control panel offered and determine which control panel would best suit your website requirements. Consider the following aspects when choosing a control panel:

1. Interface Graphics: The structure and design of the control must be considered as it be highly user friendly and include all the essentials offered within an advanced control panel. This is because, it is from the control that you have manage various aspects of your website and hosting account.

2. Supported Operative Systems: You need to ensure that the operative system you’re using is supported and optimized for.

3. Features, applications and tools: The web master needs to ensure that the control is an all-inclusive gadget and includes everything that is required by the webmaster to efficiently and conveniently manage their web hosting account and website.

So before you select a web hosting company, it is important to lap up on all information and deals offered and study and analyze the various control panels offered by each company. Most of the hosting providers feature a tutorial of their control panels on their websites that you can view. This will help you get a better idea about the type of control panel offered and how each differs in terms of features, tools and applications. You can also go through the FAQ section or get involved in discussion forums so you can learn more about control panels and which would be best suited to fulfill your requirements.

Cassandra Ingraham asked:




Airfare Consolidators have been saving Travelers hundreds of dollars on airline tickets for years. The big question for most consumers is: “Where do you find these Consolidated Airfares?”

You guessed it, your Travel Agent. More and more travel agencies are developing a relationship with Consolidators. It is up to you to locate a trusting Agency that will purchase these tickets for you without adding a huge markup. These fares are called “unpublished airfares” and not all travel agencies provide these types of tickets to their clients.

The Consolidated airfares change from minute to minute and are based upon demand. It’s like an “Airfare Stock Market”

Very few companies take the time to up date the Consolidated Airfares online through out the day. It’s just too time consuming. So when clients need a ticket, the Travel Agency calls the Consolidators, gets the rate directly from the wholesaler (in many cases they are the wholesaler) and relay the information to the Travel Agent. The Travel Agent then relays the information to the consumer. Any delay in the purchase results in a lost of the airfare at the quoted price.
This process can take a half a day to complete. Most consumers want their Tickets NOW. When dealing with Consolidated Airfares, patients is a virtue.

Of course you want to locate a Travel Agent that you can trust. The credentials that you would look for when searching for a reputable Travel Agent are:

1) Does the Agent have an ARC Number? ARC stands for the Airlines Reporting Corporation – This is an airline-owned company offering travel products and services, ticket distribution and settlement through a variety of channels in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

2) Or, Is your Agent a member of THE INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES TRAVEL AGENT NETWORK? IATAN’s mission is to promote professionalism, administer meaningful and impartial business standards, and to provide cost-effective products, services and educational programs that benefit the travel industry

3) Or, does your Agent have a “TRUE” Identification? TRUE (Travel Retailer Universal Enumeration) System’s sole purpose is to help provide sellers of travel with the assignment of travel industry numeric codes that are recognized by the travel supplier community, including cruise lines, tour operators, hoteliers, and car rental companies.

4) As of the date of this article, if you live in California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia or Washington, your Agent would need to be registered with the State’s Attorney General’s office as a Seller of Travel.

5) And/Or is a member of OSSN, (Outside Sales Support Network) The International Association for Independent contractors and Home Based Travel Agents

The highest standards in the Industry for consolidators are set by the United States Air Consolidators Association. (USACA) However, many of the Consolidators only sale to Certified Travel Agents with any of the qualifications listed above.

Bernardus Geurts asked:




If there is one world in which “web designer hopping” is almost a hobby, not to say the national hymn, than that is the hotel world.

And in general the problem is always the same: there was no pilot in the plane

And that is not likely to change anytime soon. Many hotels, if not most, will go on dragging their website from company to company, caught in the web of spending money, loosing search engine rankings on the way, and forever jump on outdated tips.

What is the problem?

The Internet is still too new. The reputation of a hotel website designer is still miles away of that of a lawyer, surgeon or pilot.

So what happens is this: the hotel itself takes over the whole marketing strategy.

But… the hotel is managed by a professional in hospitality, not by a marketing specialist!.

That is as much as knocking at the door of the cockpit and saying: Could you fly a bit more to the right? And avoid that cloud? And over Paris please. Because I have read an article about being a pilot, and in the pub they have explained me how to do it, so now please follow all my directions.

Obviously, this plane is going nowhere. If it does not crash.

But in the majority of cases it is just forever lost in a cloud.

Many a hotel web designer hates this too. He or she knows that the hotel will get dissatisfied within 6 months… and cancel within 12. And also for him that means a terrible amount of lost energy, money and time… because he will not even be able to use this hotel website as a referral.

But he does not have a choice. In most cases companies have to produce, if only to keep their staff busy, and if he can do so by providing instant gratification, then that is what he will do.

In order to at least at the start have a satisfied customer.

So there the hotel goes. Armed with a website according to his personal taste, and the love for orange of the cleaning lady, and built on a vague mixture of tips found in the over 10 million online pages telling about search engine optimization.

How can a hotel know he is dealing with a good, serious, reliable web designer with marketing background?

If the hotel is told: “NO, I will NOT do this, this is NOT good”.

That is the short version. In the long version it will probably sound more like: “I understand your concerns, but will have to advise you that, from a marketing point of view, this will not increase the potential, and I will explain this more clearly by informing you that…”.

Anyone can make a beautiful design. That is what designers love doing. They are creative.

But in 2009 that is no longer the issue. In a massive universe of 400.000 hotel websites, and 10 million IDS and online hotel guides… a hotel website needs to be smart.