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We Reviewed The Best Web Hosting Providers For You |
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Web Hosting FAQ -
Frequently Asked
Questions |
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 Web hosting questions
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| Detailed Questions & Answers |
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What is web hosting? |
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In order for a web
site to be available
on the World Wide
Web, it must be
hosted on a server.
This is referred to
as web hosting.
There are several
different methods by
which this is done.
Your Internet
Service Provider
(ISP), for example
AOL, may make
limited web space
available as part of
your subscription.
There are also free
web hosting
services, although
in order for the
service to be free
they will place
advertisements and
pop-ups on your
page. For full
control, including
the ability to
choose your own
domain name, the
only option is to
pay a company to
host your web site. |
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How does paid web hosting work? |
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Paid web hosting is
available in three
different ways. The
most common, and
cheapest, is shared
or virtual hosting.
This means that your
web site is one of
many that are all
hosted on the same
server. For the vast
majority of sites
this is more than
sufficient for their
needs, and a visitor
will never know that
your site is not
held on its own
server. If you
expect your site to
be very busy, or to
use a lot of
bandwidth, then you
may need to consider
a dedicated server.
This means that your
site will be hosted
on its own server,
and that all of
those servers’
resources, such as
CPU time and
hard-drive space,
will be used for
your web site.
However, a dedicated
server is still
owned by the hosting
company – you are
only renting it for
a period of time.
Finally, you may
consider a
co-located server.
In this case you own
the server, and are
paying the hosting
company for housing
it and for
connecting it to the
Internet. |
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Can’t I host my site from home? |
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In theory, it is
possible to do this
from home. However,
there are many
potential problems
involved in this.
Most ISPs will not
allow a public
server to be run
from a home – they
will insist you
upgrade to a more
expensive business
plan, typically
costing a minimum of
3 or 4 times your
normal monthly fees,
making this costlier
than most
web-hosting plans.
Bandwidth is an
issue too – upload
speeds from home are
much slower than
download speeds –
remember, your
upload speed is your
visitors download
speed. As more
people visit, your
site will slow down
dramatically. Then,
the average home
computer will not
have the hardware
resources to handle
multiple visitors,
all wanting to see a
different page on
your site. What
about security? Are
you prepared to have
total strangers
wandering through
your computer files?
Finally, what do you
do when the system
goes down? If you go
the do-it-yourself
route, then you have
to fix the problem.
All-in-all, it’s far
better to let a
company that
specializes in web
hosting take care of
these issues for
you. |
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How much is web hosting going to cost? |
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Prices vary enormously, depending on the levels of service you will need. You can find plans offering 50Mb disk space, with 2 Gb/month bandwidth, for less than $5/month. As space and bandwidth go up, the price will rise. There are some amazing web hosting deals at affordable prices at the top 10 list |
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How can I decide which web hosting company to use? |
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Let’s take a look at some of the different factors involved – maybe that will give you a better idea of which companies would better suit your needs. The two most important factors involved are how much disk space you will have available (often referred to simply as “space”), and the monthly bandwidth you will be able to use. These two factors play the biggest part in how expensive a plan or company will be. To put it in simple terms, as the price rises, so do the space and bandwidth available for your use. Other things to look for are support for SSL, needed if you are planning to sell from the site, support for various programming languages, if needed, and whether the host company uses a Windows-based or Unix/Linux-based server – this may be important if you need to use scripts or databases, for example. Then, there are the intangibles that may or may not be important to you. |
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I’ve made my choice for a web hosting provider, now what? |
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The next thing to do is to open an account with your choice of web hosting company. Typically payment is made by credit card on a monthly basis, but some will offer a lower rate if you offer to pay for a year in advance. Other forms of payment may also be available, depending on the company and the plan you chose. Once you have an account set up, they will tell you how to upload your files, normally through an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server. There are several ways of doing this. Some web-development software contains modules to do this, or you can use programs such as Cute FTP or WS_FTP. The company will also tell what their nameservers are called. These are servers that hold the addresses of the web sites hosted with that company. You will need to go back to the company with who you registered your domain name, and change the nameserver information there to that of your new host. The change will not happen immediately, as it needs time to spread around the Internet, but within 48 – 72 hours you will be able to open your browser, type in the name of your site, and see it open. With HostMonster chances are that you will get it done much faster, usually within hours or less. |
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How much disk space will I need? |
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That depends on the type of web site you intend to design. All of your web pages will use space on the servers’ hard disk. A page that uses a lot of graphics, or maybe has video or audio embedded within it, will use more space than a simpler page. Similarly, if you intend to have some form of database available for your visitors that too will take up disk space. Email also takes up space, as do any files you may have available for download by visitors. Don’t try and limit yourself too much – the space that is just enough now may be too restrictive in just a few months. Always leave some space available for expansion – you may not need it right now but it will be a comfort to know that it is there if needed in a hurry. |
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What is bandwidth? |
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Bandwidth is the amount of traffic that a site may use per month. As with the above section on space, the amount of bandwidth you need depends on the type of site you will be running. A simple web site, for example for a club with just few members, would not need the amount of bandwidth a commercial site would use. You can estimate the amount of bandwidth needed from the size of your site and the number of expected visitors. Again, don’t limit yourself here, as exceeding your monthly bandwidth allocation will mean you will be charged for the extra usage, typically at a much higher rate, or even shut down for the remainder of the month. |
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What is a domain name? |
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A domain name is the method by which your site is identified on the Internet – the name that a visitor types to get to a web site. A domain name consists of two parts. The first part is normally the name of the business, institution, club etcetera. The second part, the “.com” for example, is called the top-level domain, and is normally used to identify the type of site. There are a number of top-level domains - we already mentioned “.com”. Others in common use are “.gov” for U.S. government web sites, “.edu” for universities, colleges and schools, and “.org” for charities. Other countries have their own top level domains, for example “.co.uk” would be a business operating in Great Britain, whereas a company in Brazil may be “.com.br”. Some web hosting providers (HostMonster) offer a free domain registration forever with your hosting plan. |
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What is SSL? |
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SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, and is used to ensure the security of financial transactions on the Internet. If you’ve ever shopped online then you will have used SSL when you checked out and used a credit card to pay for what you bought. If you plan to sell using your web site then you will need to be able to offer SSL. You will also need to purchase your own SSL certificate from a company like VeriSign, at a cost of around $100/year. Also, check to see if the web host offers a static IP address – setting up SSL will be much easier in that case. |
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Java? Perl? What are these? |
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There are many programming languages that may be used within a web site, if the host supports them. They can be split into two types, client-side and server-side. Java, JavaScript and Flash are examples of client-side programs. Although some web hosting companies claim them as featuring in plans this is misleading as in reality they run entirely on the visitors’ own computer. Perl and PHP are examples of server-side programming languages. Whether you need the support for these will depend on the type of web site that you will be running. |
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I use a Window PC – should I choose a Windows-based server? |
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Not necessarily. The type of computer you use to design your web-site has nothing to do with the type of software that the server uses. Unix/Linux based servers will run web sites developed using Windows software without any problems. Having said that, you may need to run scripts on your web site, and it will be easier to write the scripts on a computer using the same software as the server uses. If you need to use databases, that too can affect your choice of server software. |
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You mentioned “intangibles”. What do you mean? |
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Intangibles cover several things. Look carefully at the web hosting company web site. Is it easy to navigate, and quick to load? Good-looking? Answer all the questions you may have? After all, if their own web site is poorly designed and maintained, and slow to load, do you really trust them to host your site? Read their terms and conditions carefully, too, as there may be hidden surprises. Try emailing a question to their support and see how quickly they reply. There are also web sites that host forums for discussion. Check these out and see what other users think of a particular company. How much does it cost? Does that seem very cheap compared to other companies offering similar plans? Remember, if a deal seems too good to be true, it usually is! |
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How do I know how many people visit the site? |
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Most web hosting companies offer a variety of reports that show a number of things. Apart from the actual number of visitors to the site, you will also be able to see how many different pages they looked at and how long they spent looking at a particular page. This can help you “fine-tune” the site to increase the length of stay. The reports should also show from where the visitor arrived, which may help you to see how you rank in various search engines. It can also show you where dead links are within your site, making site-maintenance easier for you. |
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