Comment spam attacks on Movable Type weblogs are straining servers at web hosting companies, leading some providers to disable comments on the popular blogging tool. The issues are caused by bugs in MT, forcing publisher Six Apart to recommend configuration changes while it prepares fixes.

The server load issues have affected "a number of web hosts," according to Six Apart's Jay Allen, and are "especially evident in shared hosting environments." Allen said the problems are tied to two bugs that cause Movable Type to rebuild posts even when no pages are being changed, allowing comment spam attacks to tie up server resources. Six Apart is promising a fix within 48 hours.

Comment spam, also known as link spam, is believed to boost a site's ranking in Google, which uses inbound links as a measure of a site's popularity. Spammers are using automated scripts to bombard weblogs with comments that include links to sites offering prescription drugs or porn. While weblogs on all platforms have been affected, Movable Type and its mt-comments.cgi script have become a particular target.

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It's been a dynamic year for the web hosting industry, as the Internet has added more than 10.9 million hostnames in 2004. The list of the year's most successful hosting companies is populated with familiar names.

Notably, the five hosting providers that gained more than 100K active sites during 2004 did so entirely through organic growth, rather than acquisitions. Leading the pack was German giant 1&1 Internet, which expanded into the American market even as it continued to gain customers in Europe. Next is The Planet, which experienced a huge year as it found a product positioning sweet spot with its customizable menus of managed services atop dedicated servers.

Top Hosting Providers By Active Site Growth, Dec 03 to Dec 04 Hosting Company Dec 03 Dec 04 Growth % Growth Primary Country 1&1 Internet 1,818,753 2,216,469 397,716 21.9% Europe The Planet 67,426 398,325 330,899 490.8% Americas Go Daddy 120,175 326,524 206,349 171.7% Americas EV1Servers 393,082 556,721 163,369 41.6% Americas Yahoo 241,022 343,336 102,314 42.6% Americas

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Germany's Freenet is buying the hosting business of Teles AG, one of the world's largest with more than 1 million active sites. Freenet will pay 132 million Euros ($175.7 million) to acquire the Tect, Strato and Cronon hosting brands, continuing an active consolidation of Europe's hosting industry.

The Teles hosting brands, which we group under Tect AG for measurement purposes, house more than 1.1 million active sites and 2.2 million hostnames. Freenet said it was particularly interested in Tect's success in dedicated hosting, one of the fastest-growing and most profitable sectors of the hosting business. Tect added 1,383 servers in the six-month period between April and October, growing 45 percent in that period, according to our Hosting Provider Server Count.

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Yahoo has slashed its domain name pricing to $4.98 a year through Dec. 31, continuing a pricing war among major hosting companies. The aggressive move comes just just four months after Yahoo dropped its price to $9.95 a year as part of a major push to expand its share of the shared hosting market.

The new pricing undercuts previous leader 1&1 Internet by nearly a dollar. While 1&1 operates its own ICANN-accredited registry, Yahoo continues to operate as a reseller for Melbourne IT, the Australian domain name registry that focuses on the wholesale market. While it's not known precisely what Yahoo is paying per domain, few registrars offer domains to resellers at prices below $6.50 per domain. Since it is likely selling at a loss, Yahoo has limited the offer to one domain per customer, preventing arbitrage-related bulk purchases by owners of large domain portfolios.

Yahoo's move may be a response to Interland, a major competitor in the small business hosting market, which last month lowered its domain name pricing to $7.95 a year, and was immediately rewarded with a one-month gain of 132K hostnames.

Retail Domain Name Prices, December 2004 Company One-year .com price &nbspPrimary Business&nbsp Primary Region Yahoo $4.98 Shared Hosting America 1&1 Internet AG $5.99 Mixed Hosting Europe EV1Servers $6.49 Dedicated Hosting America Hostway $6.95 Shared Hosting America Sipence (eNom) $6.95 Domain Registrar America AIT Domains $6.95 Mixed Hosting America Interland $7.95 Mixed Hosting America Web.com $7.95 Mixed Hosting America Go Daddy Inc $8.95 Domain Registrar America Netcetera $9.89 Mixed Hosting Europe RegisterFly $9.99 Domain Registrar America Dotster $14.95 Domain Registrar America FastHosts/UKReg $17.00 Mixed Hosting Europe Pipex/123Reg $17.21 Mixed Hosting Europe Network Solutions $34.99 Domain Registrar America Register.com $35.00 Domain Registrar America

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A decision by MacDailyNews to shift its web site from Mac OS X to Linux has highlighted the fact that many prominent sites for Macintosh users are hosted on either Linux or FreeBSD.

Mac enthusiast sites hosted on Linux include MacDailyNews, MacWorld and MacCentral. Running on FreeBSD are MacintoshOS, MacMinute and the entire Mac News Network group of sites, including MacSurfer, Apple Insider, Mac Observer and the MacNN main site.

Only about 60K hostnames worldwide are currently hosted on the Mac OS, and just eight hosting firms house more than 1,000 Mac-based hostnames. The largest, with 4K hostnames, is Natel.net, an ISP in Fairfield, Iowa.

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