Determine Your Needs Before Choosing A Hosting ServiceWritten by Nancy Casseur
Determine your needs BEFORE choosing a hosting serviceChoosing a hosting company for your web site can be very confusing given multitude of companies available on Internet today. Do not choose a service by price alone. The very cheapest is not necessarily best. You can get a good hosting service for under $10.00, but first determine your requirements. Before going into any more detail, let’s look at some definitions: Hosting service - A hosting service or company is an Internet company that provides hundreds or even thousands of computers like yours with service by “renting” you space. With this service your web site is now on Internet and can be viewed by millions of others. Sure you could be your own host, but it would be very expensive because you would need to buy a server, house it in proper environment, maintain it 24 hours a day, and put up with all other headaches that come with hosting. Wouldn’t you rather concentrate on selling your product? Server A server is a large computer, which can service many other computers. Sometimes a large software package on a host’s server (like a mail software package) is also referred to as a server. Have you seen scenes on TV which show rooms wall-to-wall with big computers busily working and flashing their lights? These are servers. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. If you started your web site from scratch, you will need to upload your web pages to host you selected. To do this you use a FTP software package. There are some excellent tutorials on FTP at http://www.pageresource.com/putweb/ftptut1.htm CGI CGI means Common Gateway Interface. While CGI primarily refers to way a server communicates with other software on server, CGI scripts are a popular way programmers install counters, forms, and other interactive items on a web site. If you see cgi-bin, “bin” refers to binary from a time long ago when most programs were referred to as binary. Now cgi-bin refers to location in server where cgi scripts are stored. Now, let’s go back to hosting service. When you surf net and “go” to a particular site, you are not actually going to that site. The hosting company’s server (in this case your ISP) receives your request, searches web, finds your requested site, and downloads it to your computer. So you see, you don’t go to a site, site comes to you, courtesy of a server. How do you go about choosing a hosting service? It is pretty much up to you based on size of your website, number of visitors you expect, and, of course, state of your wallet. If you are just starting out, a free or low cost service is all you will need, but as your business grows you might want to consider a service that gives you more storage and more transfer room. Storage is amount of room your web site takes up on hosting company’s server, “Transfer” refers to network transfer space. If you have a large web site and a lot of visitors you will need more storage or disc space and more network transfer space. The more people accessing your site; higher volume of data being transferred. How to calculate your disk space:
| | Is your web site hosting cost effective?Written by Paras Shah
Choosing right web hosting company is an important aspect in cutting your web hosting costs down. The web hosting industry, boosting several thousand web hosts, is still young and growing at a remarkable pace; hence finding right host is not only difficult, but very time consuming; fortunately though it is worth time and effort. There are a few things to keep in mind when exploring; when deciding to form a partnership with host. Below are just a few things to consider, which directly attribute to final cost. Bandwidth — Figure out approximately how much bandwidth (data transfer) your web site requires. As above, ensure you get more bandwidth than your site uses. For example, if your website uses 8GB bandwidth per month, then choose a plan, which offers at least 8 or 10GB bandwidth per month. This again will prevent 'spikes' of over usage, leading to higher extra costs. As a reference, an average web site should pay no more than $3 per GB for bandwidth usage. Disk Space — Knowing how much web space your web site needs and compensating for a bit extra, for growth. For example, if your web site needs 200 MB of disk space, look for plan which offers at least 250 to 300 MB of web space; this will prevent a large unexpected bill at end of month when high priced costs, charged by most web hosts for extra disk space usage, are added on to your bill. As a rule of thumb, an average web site should cost you no more than $1 per 10 MB Add On — Ask web host if they have "Add-ons" facilities for purchasing projected extra disk space or bandwidth. But, be careful, if your web site needs only 2 GB extra bandwidth, you may have to buy an extra package in blocks of 5GB bandwidth; in this case, look for host which will allow you to purchase extra disk space and bandwidth allowance as per your needs, this is crucial to cost savings Caution: Ensure that you know over-usage allowance rules; you need to know what happens if your web site uses more disk space or bandwidth than you have been allocated. The web host who informs you of possible over-usage well in advance, allowing you to take measures to reduce or budget for extra usage, is 'worth their weight in gold'. No. of Web Sites — If you have more than one web site, sign up an account with a web host who provides multiple domains hosted on one account; this will work out a lot cheaper than an account per website.
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