What is Web Hosting?
Web hosting is the act of renting space and bandwidth through a company so that you are able to publish your web site online.
You can either choose free hosting that is usually supported with banners and pop ups from paid advertisers, or you may opt to get paid web hosting, which gives you complete control over your site contents.
What is virtual hosting?
This is also known as shared hosting, this form of web hosting should be acceptable for most web projects.
Virtual hosting simple means that your site is on one server, and this server hosts mulitple sites. You are virtually shared - your site will not be the only one on this specific server.
This is a reliable and cheap solution since very few sites would actually need the power of a dedicated server.
What is Diskspace and bandwidth/data transfer?
Diskspace is the size your website can be. Every page, graphic, image, database and multimedia item on your website has to be stored on your web host's server. HTML pages are usually very small, the other items listed above can take up large amounts of disk space.
Bandwidth/Transfer is the amount of data the server will allow your site to send in a month. Transfer is usually measured in gigabytes - billions of bytes. Once you go over your monthly limit, a host may either shut your site down for the remainder of the month or it can charge you 'overage.' Overcharge can range from $2.00-$5.00 per extra gigabyte of transfer.
How do I track how many hits my website gets?
- Hits - this simply refers to the number of 'elements' loaded on your site. If one page has five images in it, viewing that page once adds 6 hits (one page + five images).
- Impressions - the number of times all the pages on your site are seen (also simply called pageviews). Impressions are sometimes referred to as 'hits' which can cause confusion
- Uniques - the number of people that visited your site
So, if a visitor clicks on your website, and looks at two pages, and each page has 5 images on it, then your stats increase by one unique, two page views, and 12 hits.
Tracking on your site can be either done server-side or remotely. With server-side statistics, log files are used to generate visitor information. This is usually much more accurate than remotely hosted solutions. In such cases, you usually have to add some javascript to your site. This javascript is then used to track visitor data.
If your host provides it (and many do), server-side statistics are a good solution.
What are PHP, ASP, perl, etc?
These are all programming languages which are referred to by their acronyms.
PHP - PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
ASP - Active Server Pages
Perl - not an acronym
Each programming language has its own benefits and uses. It is best that you research on your own to find one that best fits your needs.
What is MySQL, MS SQL, etc?
MySQL and MS SQL are database systems. Depending on what your host provides, you can use a database to organize your data.
Do I have to change my domain if I get a new host?
No. Provided that the domain is registered in your name (as it should be), you can simply update your namservers (from where you manage your domain names) to that of your new host.
What is Domain Parking?
Domain parking lets you buy a domain and then have a 'coming soon' page on it. This is not needed - if a domain is not parked it will simply be inaccessible to anyone.
Most domain registrars provide this by default.
How can I pay for web hosting?
This depends on which host you decide to go with. Most web hosts will accept credit cards, and some will accept Pay Pal and/or a Money Order / Check.
What are subdomains?
Consider subdomains as an extension of your domain. For example, your site is www.example.com. A subdomain would be test.example.com, and another would be webhosting.example.com.
Subdomains are usually treated as separate sites from the main domain site
What is uptime?
Uptime is literally what it means - it is the amount of time your site is online throughout the entire month.
The best uptime would be 100%, but because things can break, many hosts offer 99.9% uptime guarantees. This means that if your site is not accessible for more than 43 minutes in a single month, they may reimburse you, depending on their terms of service.
What is the difference between UNIX hosting and Windows hosting?
Depending on which operating system to go with depends on your needs.
If you need to support Microsoft products such as ASP, MS Access, or VBScript, then Windows hosting would be better. Furthermore, if you are comfortable with IIS and do not have the time to understand how UNIX works, Windows hosting would again be a better choice.
There are some things to remember.
First of all, just because you use Windows at home does not mean you should use Windows hosting. The two are completely different, and having a Windows system at home will not affect your ability to communicate with a UNIX server.
Secondly, Linux is much more common with web hosts due to its superior stability and because it is free. Since it is free, Linux hosting is usually cheaper than Windows. Just because it's free does not mean it's not as good - Linux is an excellent product too.
I have a fast internet connection (DSL/cable) - can I just host my own site?
You could, but that's definitely not recommended.
First of all, most ISPs have clauses that do not let you use your internet connection for web hosting - doing so will result in termination of your account.
Second of all, think of the headaches it can provide: making sure your system is secure so that no one can hack into it, having your computer on 24/7, and other such problems.
Third of all, think of the performance. Most good web hosts use powerful servers with lots of RAM and high performance hard disks. Furthermore, they have multiple internet connections at speeds far higher than what residential DSL or cable service can provide.
Lastly there are all the issues of support. If something goes wrong, it will be your job to fix it - you will not have a professional to correct the problem.
Why would I need a dedicated IP?
For most people, a dedicated IP is not required. But for people that want to provide anonymous FTP or a website using SSL, a dedicated IP can make that easier.
Why don't I just go with the cheapest hosting?
A host has to make a profit to continue operating. Some hosts do not properly understand the market, and may be pricing themselves too cheap.
At times you will come across deals that are almost too good to be true - cheap web hosting with amazing features!
There are hosts that while offering cheap prices do back that up with excellent performance and service, but there are things to be noted:
- Look very closely to what is written in their terms of service (TOS) and acceptable use policy (AUP) documents. Some hosts try to limit the activity of the customer through these two.
- Unlimited bandwidth or space. Offering either of those two as unlimited is not possible.
- The quality of bandwidth and the overall performance. Some hosts scrimp on these to give you cheaper prices. Do a self test - visit the host's website multiple times in a day to see that it remains fast loading.
- In general, Windows Hosting is more expensive than Unix hosting.
- Test out the support, and take a look over the online documentation. If you are paying less than $10 a month (which is roughly 30 cents a day), do not expect to receive an answer right after you email the host. Many hosts now offer flash tutorials online which can be an excellent way to learn how a feature works.
- Do some research - visit google.com and WebHostingTalk and look up feedback on a host.
Just because a host is cheap does not mean that you will receive 'cheap' service, but you must be careful.
I am using too much bandwidth! Is there anyway for me to make it less?
In most cases, yes.
You should first try to optimize the graphics on your website. Many GIFs look just as good with fewer colors, and many JPEGs look just as good with a higher compression level. NetMechanic offers an image optimizer program online.
You should also analyze the HTML of your site. Make sure you use relative paths, so that images are not downloaded more than one time. Remove any extra spacing and when linking to other pages, use relative paths and not absolute links.
While many hosts already have it, you could also see if your host has mod_gzip installed. This can save you a lot of bandwidth.
Best of all, optimizing your page like this makes the user experience better as your site will load faster for them!
