What is ASP? ASP stands for Active Server Pages. Active Server Pages are HTML pages with embedded ASP scripts that are processed on server before page is sent to user. ASP allows you to create dynamic database driven pages, a user can access data in a database, and interact with page objects such as Active X or Java components.

No more speeches about importance of your own domain, no more talks about necessity of having paid hosting. If you think your brand domain name and stable hosting with a number of features and absence of ads are not worth, at least, $50-$150 per year, then you probably want to play games, rather than build online business.

Choosing hosting provider is something similar to choosing place of your off-line office. Despite fact that it is as easy to enter URL and go to web-site that is physically located in Sidney as in Oslo, final role here plays speed of connection and stability of hosting itself.

The problem with hosting comes down to old statute of running ebusiness - that is RESEARCH before ACT! The easiest thing to do online is to pay money, hardest is to THINK OVER what I'm paying for! That statement is true with hosting also because you can pay, let's say, $35 monthly for some particular hosting service, without notice that in two mouse clicks there is an hosting offer providing two times better services all for $15 per month only, so you will keep on losing services as well as $20 monthly that accumulates up to $240 annually losses as a Fee for not doing hosting research! Besides you should keep your eyes open for very good discounted offers that could save you 30-50% for first year of payments.

Phase I - Determining NEEDS

1. Estimate your ebusiness basic requirements: total web-space needed, monthly bandwidth (approximate traffic volume multiplied by most visited web-pages' total size) and ability to run CGI scripts as a must for every ebusiness.

If it is content rich web-site and example of your first year of hosting may look like this: · 30-50Mb of disc space; · 500Mb-1Gb of monthly bandwidth; · cgi-bin to be able to run your own scripts an offer additional services;

If it is sales web-site, your first year of hosting should be something similar to these requirements: · 50-300Mb of disc space depending on how much info products you are going to sell and therefore upload on your server; · 1-3Gb of monthly bandwidth; · cgi-bin to be able to run your own scripts an offer additional services;

In particular case with one-two ebooks and three-four pages sales web-site, 10Mb of storage space with 500Mb of monthly bandwidth, in general, is more than enough, if you are not going to expand it, so look closely and examine your potential but remember: you ALWAYS have a chance to expand, but you will NOT be able to get your money back if you overpay for services or web-space you don't need. That is called efficient ebusiness running.

2. Determine additional services that are necessary or preferably to have. Consider among them following: - Email aliases - URL Redirects - Web Mail - FTP access/ FTP Accounts - Web control panel - Graphic statistics - Custom error pages - POP3 Accounts - Sub-domains - Autoresponders - Mailing List(s) - Password protected directories - MYSQL database(s) - Perl - PHP - SSI and - marketing info & support - promotional help (SE submissions, free banner impressions) - shopping cart - chat - forum

3. Plan your hosting expenses beforehand. Usually amount you pay depends on amount of services you choose, but not always as there are hosting providers, which offer identical services for totally different money. The saying that "You get what you paid for" is not necessarily true, especially what concerns high profit margins internet business. Although hosting service is not pure online as it involves some physical computer systems to be installed, nevertheless paying more for less is extremely possible. In other words, know your budget.

Phase II. Selecting ONLY ONE!

1. Those who start looking for proper place or business web-site should have one or several possible costs in view that you knew or met positive feedback about. For now just make a note of them and put aside, we will come back for them in step 3.

2. Now it is time to search among hundreds of offers. Accomplish your search by filling online forms at:

http://www.google.com http://www.hostcompare.com http://www.findmyhosting.com http://www.findwebspace.com http://www.hostsearch.com/search_main.asp

Click on advanced/enhanced search option if available, input all your approximate criteria that we determined at first phase and here we go! Tens if not hundreds of wannabe your host providers at your computer screen in less than a minute.