Thursday, July 3, 2008

Choosing a Web Host: About Web Hosting and More

By Matt Hedges

You must have worked very hard in creating your website, so don't let the work go in vain by adopting half-hearted efforts in getting the website online. You have three options to choose from in this regard. First, you can host the site directly on your computer, second is hosting it on a server, and the third option is to get a third-party host it. The first two alternatives are mostly used in practice and are good for people with a fast internet connection, and even for sites that are inclined towards businesses. Monitoring regularly is required for the maintenance of the web server in this case.

So the easiest alternative would be to use a web-hosting company. They are designed to put up your site using their server while you could access it via FTP to upload your files on the site. Web-hosting is of three types- free, paid and dedicated. Dedicated hosting is the costliest option available and is suitable only for sites that entail such attention. Your website is hosted by the company on their own server with their connection.

So the other alternatives are of course, free or paid. And the most common question asked is that why should I pay for something that I can obtain for free?

Then comes the two other options - free web hosting and paid web hosting. It is very normal if a question comes into your mind as to why anyone would pay for a service which he can get for free. There are many advantages which accrue to a paid web hosting.

Paid web hosting provides you with more number of features, like faster internet connection, good customer support, absence of irritating advertisements from the webpage, and also, as you are paying for the services, your needs will be taken care of.

The general features that are offered by web-hosts are listed below, but by no means is the list exhaustive. These are a few terms you need to be acquainted with to get your site hosted-

URL/ Address- If you have a domain name, it's all right. Otherwise, you are in need of having a URL address. This is very important.

Space- As far as the aspect of space is concerned, it needs to be said that usually a space of 5MB is enough for a small site and this much space is perfect for over a hundred pages. Normally, what happens is that the graphics occupy a space of about 35KB. Having said this, one must know that it requires a space of 15-20MB in case of a graphics intensive site or one featuring downloads.

The Aspect of Bandwidth/ transfer- This refers to a monthly account. This monthly account is of the number of files transported from your site in a month. Well, if you are thinking about the best deal of bandwidth, it is to have the facility of unlimited bandwidth because as far as experience goes, 1GB is the minimum requirement even for an ordinary site.

CGI-BIN- This is of paramount significance as far as your dealing with interactive scripts like guest-books, counters is concerned. It provides you with the facility of remote hosting also bearing the banners from the site that live up to the task of presenting them.

SSI: This is a special function which channelizes the server for inclusion of a given thing on your webpage. It could be text, or any other thing.

My SQL/PHP/ASP Support- if you desire to maintain a database on your site you need database formats like these. ASP generates key sites often.

Technical Support- paid hosts provide better technical support than free hosts as is obvious. Web-sites require constant monitoring and in case of any problem you should get support from some quarter or the other. You can opt for e-mail, phone or fax support.

Email: If you have a domain name, then emails will be given to you by most web hosts. If you have a POP3 mail service, then you will be able to get connection to their server and get your messages on your own, instead of them being re-addressed to you.

FrontPage Extensions: These extensions are required only if you use the facility of Microsoft FrontPage for construction of your website. Also, the FrontPage components can be added to your website as well.

SSL/Secure Server: This is needed for ensuring safe facilities for ordering from your website.

The Aspect of Statistics/ Log Files- This is responsible to let you view the usages i.e. the downloaded files and the visited pages.

FTP Accounts- The users are able to download files from an area of your site with the aid of an anonymous FTP. As far as the FTP accounts are concerned, they let you upload files on your website.

Paid web hosting service: most web hosts charge a monthly payment for paid services, and they remove the advertisements present on your site, besides offering you good technical support as well. So if you can do some research work and get hold of a good paid web host, you can get rid of the unwanted advertisements. The costs range from $5 to $75 a month, though the dedicated servers cost about $150 a month.

If you are paying your web-host you must enquire about certain things like, a list of the sites hosted by them. You could get in touch with some of these sites and verify the web-host details from the site-owners. And do ask about the technical support they are willing to provide you with as it the most important service they can render.

Lastly, always read the fine print. Go over the terms and conditions, since it has been seen that some free web-hosts claim ownership of the copyright of YOUR page and bar you from advertising on your own website! Keep in mind the restrictions and stipulations before venturing to put up you website on the internet.

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