Web Hosting

A beginner's guide to web hosting.

Your web host will be the company that stores the files for your web site and gives you bandwidth so your site's users can access your site. Buying a hosting package is one of the first steps you will take to actually create your page. It is one of the most important decisions, because you want to get a host that is reliable and cheap - you don't want to overpay for hosting. You want to look at different hosting packages and decide which ones meet your specific needs and also offer the most value. But because beginners know nothing about being a webmaster these are hard decisions for them to make. In the next few pages I will try to inform you about the different aspects of picking a web host - like what features are important and how much you should pay.

Introduction to bandwidth

What is bandwidth?

Bandwidth, sometimes called "transfer", is the amount of information or data that can be sent over a network connection in a given period of time. Here is an example of how it is measured: Assume you create a single HTML web page with 2 pictures. The web page is an HTML file with a size of 10 KB (Kilobytes) and 2 picture files, which are 30 KB each. When someone on the internet goes to that web page, the HTML file and 2 pictures need to be transferred over the internet to the user's computer in order for them to view that page. So the total sizes of all the files that the user sees (in this case 70 KB) is the amount of bandwidth that is used.

Cost of bandwidth

In the early days of the internet bandwidth used to be pretty expensive Webmasters had to worry about spending a lot of money on bandwidth if their site got popular. But as capacity and competition increased, the cost has dropped considerably. Powweb, for example, gives you plenty of bandwidth for only $7.77 per month. There are still hosting companies that charge higher prices for bandwidth but there is no need to go with any of them. As a beginner, it is best to go with one of the bigger hosts because these companies sign up so many customers that they get to spread their costs out more and offer bandwidth for less.

Dedicated vs. shared

"Shared hosting" means that your web site will be hosted on a server with many other sites. Some shared servers may have as many as 10,000 different sites on them. "Dedicated hosting" means your hosting company will host your site on a server by itself. Shared hosting packages are for beginning webmasters who are running low-volume and medium-volume sites. Shared hosting is way cheaper (around $5-$10 per month) because the hosting company can put many customers on each server. Dedicated hosting is for high-volume sites that need a lot of bandwidth and storage that have outgrown the shared hosting environment. As a beginner you will not even have to worry about getting a dedicated host - your site will not have the traffic and you will not want or need to spend that kind of money now.

Where to go

There are 5 main factors to look for when choosing a hosting company and hosting plan: 1. the amount of storage and bandwidth 2. low price 3. other features - like the number of databases and email accounts 4. good reliability (this means minimal downtime for their servers) and 5. good service (which means they respond to your questions accurately and quickly). Mostly all hosts have these features but different hosts excel in different areas.

As a beginner you'll want to go with one of the big hosting companies like Powweb.com because they offer a lot of bandwidth and storage, have many features wiuth their hosting packages, a low price ($7.77/month), and decent reliability and service. Powweb's hosting package that will meet the needs of almost any beginning and intermediate web site. There are companies out there that offer hosting packages for $2-$4 per month but they offer very limited bandwidth and extra services so these packages definitely won't meet the needs of a site that you plan to grow.

You'll also want to sign up for a 1-year plan instead of going with a monthly contract because they are much better deals. Most web hosts have a "setup fee" which they charge customers to set up the accounts but most hosts will waive the fee if you sign up for a 1-year contract.

Features - What you get

Today most of the big web hosting companies give you many of the basic things you need to run your page - plenty of bandwidth and disk space, email accounts, and a MySQL database. Most hosts will offer you from 5-20 GB in storage and 50-400 GB in bandwidth. Price will be one of the most important factors but as web-hosting products become commoditized the differentiating factor in the future will become service. By service I am referring to reliability (little downtime) as well as customer service (a company that will answer your questions).

How to set up your hosting

Figure out what your needs are and choose the best hosting plan.
Sign up for a 1-year plan and save a copy of the bill for your expense records.
Log onto your domain registrar's admin page and update your DNS settings for your domain name. The DNS settings tell your domain name to point to your hosting package.
Explore the Control Panel of the admin section of your hosting account to see how to manage your account.
Set up an FTP username and password so you can use an FTP program to upload your files.
Set up a MySQL database if you will need it.
Configure your email addresses. You may want one specific one to use, like webmaster@yourdomain.com. You may also want to create a "catch all" address that will receive all the email sent to your domain that isn't sent to any of the addresses you set up.
Configure your web stats. You may need to turn them on because some hosts have web stats off by default.
Bookmark all the pages related to your hosting that you will need. 1. MySQL login 2. Mail login 3. Hosting admin login 4. FTP login 5. A link to your hosts help forums.
Record all your hosting info (usernames and passwords for OPS, MySQL, FTP, and e-mail) in your operations spreadsheet.

Features

Here is a list of features to look at when evaluating a hosting plan.

Bandwidth - Bandwidth will be one of the most important features you will look at. Most average sites usually use anywhere from 1-50 GB per month. Since most hosts give you 50-300 GB per month now bandwidth is becoming less of a concern.
Disk Space - Disk space, like bandwidth, is another important feature you will look at. Most hosts will give you 5-20 GB. This is fine for most web sites.
Uptime - Getting a cheap host is no good if your page is down too often. You will want a host that has a 99.9% uptime guarantee as well as a host that will notify you when there will be any scheduled downtime for server maintenance. It may be good to look at the internet to see what other people are saying about different hosts but keep in mind that every host will have their unhappy customers.
MySQL Databases - Make sure your host gives you MySQL databases. Different hosts will give you different numbers of databases - anywhere from 1 to unlimited. You will also want to see the amount of space you are allowed to use for your database.
Support forums - This is important. When you have problems with your page you will want a company that has a very active forum where you can get help with problems and updates on the plans and company. Many times other users will be able to help you more than the hosting company's customer service.
Free domains - Some hosts give out a free domain with a hosting package. This can lower your overall cost. Some hosts even give out multiple free domains or a free domain for life.
Domains per hosting plan - Some hosts allow you to host multiple domains on one package. This means you can use one hosting package to host multiple sites. This is useful if you have a few low-volume sites but if you have a few high-volume sites you will probably have to, and want to, get separate hosting packages for them.
Subdomains - Most webmasters don't use subdomains but some may want to. Check out what a hosts rules are for subdomains are if you need them.
Email - You will want to see the number of e-mail mailboxes you get and you will want to inquire whether there is a limit to the number of emails you can send per hour or per day. You will probably want access to your mail through the web and have a decent email program with helpful features like spam filters.
Customer Service - You will want a host that has a phone number you can call.
Web stats and logs - You will want a decent web stats package. This is not that important as you can always download a program from the internet as long as you have access to your your log files. But for a beginning webmaster it is nice to not have to bother with that.
Money-back guarantee - Some hosts offer a money-back guarantee with their service - most of the time they are 30 days.
Good Control Panel - You will want a good web interface that give you plenty of options and makes it easy to carry out your administrative tasks.
FTP Access - All hosts give you FTP access but some hosts allow you a larger number of FTP users. For some webmasters this may be important. You may also want Web FTP .
Backups - Everyone prefers a host that regularly backups up their FTP space and databases and allows webmasters easy access to these files.
Scripts and script installers - Some web hosts will give you the ability to easily install popular scripts like phpBB, phpNuke, and blogs.
Latest software - You may or may not want support for Frontpage, etc but you will want a somewhat-recent version of PHP and MySQL. Some webmasters prefer to not have the latest versions of PHP on their servers if the newer versions have been released recently because they want to wait until all the bugs have been worked out of the newer versions.