We don’t usually like to show off too much, but some research landed in our inbox the other day which says we’re officially the biggest web host in the UK. We think that’s worth shouting about.

Netcraft (which provides research data on all sorts of online stuff) just released their latest hosting provider switching analysis. 123-reg is part of a group of several brands: 123-reg, WebFusion, Donhost and Supanames. Together, we’re the biggest web host in the UK. By a mile. We reckon that’s quite an achievement.

The research shows that we host over 1.5 million websites. Our nearest UK competitor only hosts a bit over 600,000. That’s quite a gap.

We’ve knocked up a quick graph in Excel to show the difference between us and our nearest UK competitors. Click to see it full-size - the numbers up the side are the percentage of UK websites each of the companies along the bottom hosts.

You may be thinking, well that’s great for you, but what does that mean for me? Well, if you’re a customer, you benefit from this in loads of ways. Here are just a few:

• It means you can trust us with your domains and websites. We’re not some fly-by-night company operating out of a lockup somewhere. We’re here to stay.
• We’ve got a big, powerful infrastructure to support all those websites, with massive capacity - for instance, that’s why we’re able to offer unlimited bandwidth with every dedicated server.
• Economies of scale mean we can buy things in bulk at a discount, and that discount gets passed onto you in the form of our low prices.
• We can innovate and attract partners to produce exciting new products, like Google Analytics Automation and the WebWorx24 custom web design service.

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Web statistics can be strangely compelling. Honestly, they can. Not convinced? What if you could:

• See exactly how many people have been looking at your site
• Drill down to see common paths people took through your site and where they tended to leave
• See which areas of your homepage get clicked on most, which keywords people use to find you, and where the people who visit your website are located

You can get information about what real visitors are doing on your site. You can tell if a page is performing or not, and see exactly what difference a change makes. In short: you can stop guessing, and start making decisions based on facts.

For basic web statistics, you can download your site’s log files. Most web hosting packages (including all of ours) give you access to these. They record all page accesses - the files look very unfriendly, but they contain basic information like which pages were viewed and when. You can use free software like analog to turn what’s in your log files into an easy-to-read format.

If you want more advanced statistics, accessible in an easier, more immediate way, then Google Analytics could be just what you need. It can show you all the information I listed above, and loads more. To see exactly what it can do, take a look at the tour over on Google’s website.

Even though it’s free, Google Analytics compares well with packages costing thousands of pounds. The catch? You have to add tracking code to every page on your website. If the thought of dealing with raw code makes you break out into a cold sweat, this is a daunting prospect. And even if it doesn’t, adding the code to each page can be a laborious process.

That’s why we recently launched a new service called Tagging for Google Analytics. It automates the whole process of putting Google Analytics on your site. When you use it, it adds the tracking code to every page. Automatically. A couple of clicks and you’re done.

The service costs from just £1.49 a month. That gives you easy access to all your stats through a single 123-reg login - and ensures that all your existing and future web pages get tagged up correctly, so you know the statistics about your site are 100% accurate.

Find out more about Tagging for Google Analytics now.

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When we decided to offer Linux on our managed dedicated servers, we thought long and hard about which of the many Linux distributions to use, before finally choosing Ubuntu Linux — in particular Ubuntu 6.06 LTS.

Plaudits are of course always welcome, but particularly so when we learn that the care and thought we put into making a decision such as this has been appreciated. So we were pleased to read Dan Lynch at Adventures in Open Source enthusing over our Ubuntu servers.

An important part of picking a web server is knowing that you can rely on it for the long term. That’s where Ubuntu 6.06 LTS comes in, because, as Dan says:

“the LTS bit stands for Long Term Support and updates are guaranteed till 2011. That’s vital for anyone looking to build a server, the main desktop edition of Ubuntu moves so fast with a new release every 6 months, no sys admin in their right mind wants to be upgrading the OS that often. Server downtime must be kept to an absolute minimum in that game.”

Dan’s spot on here. Installing the latest and greatest cutting-edge Linux releases is great fun, experimenting with the new features … but it’s something best done on a spare computer (or your desktop, if you’re feeling brave), far away from live systems like your web server. In a web server what you want is boring predictability and stability, knowing that you can trust it to keep serving your website for years to come.

And with Ubuntu and 123-reg that’s what you get: we look after your server and apply all the security updates, so that you can concentrate on what it is you do best.

There are lots of other good Linux distributions out there too; Fedora, Suse, Mandriva, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Centos were among those we considered. But overall Ubuntu had the edge, with its winning combination of long-term support and being free to download, so that you can run the same OS on your computers as on your 123-reg dedicated server.

Thanks for the feedback, Dan.

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There’s never been a better time to transfer your domain name to 123-reg. We’re the UK’s largest web host, with over 1.5 million domains under our belts - and for a limited period, we’re also giving customers several exclusive special offers.

All customers who transfer to us today can take advantage of:

• 1 year’s FREE hosting
• £80 of free pay-per-click ads
• Free stock photos from iStockphoto

For further information please visit our domain transfer page.

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123-reg has been voted ‘best hosting company’ at the annual Web User Awards reader’s survey, reinforcing our reputation as the top choice web-hosting provider in the UK.

This year, voters logged-on in their thousands to participate in choosing the awards, with 123-reg winning against stiff competition.

Mark Beyer, sales and marketing director at 123-reg comments, “The fact that it is voted for by our customers makes it all the more important to us as it proves we are continuing to provide excellent services that help our customers get maximum benefit from their personal websites.”

Find out all about 123-reg web hosting.

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