Web Hosting

Just to Post a reply in relation to Web Hosting - should others be looking for similar services on the web. (There is a link to a more in-depth article at the bottom of this post)

Types of Hosting
There are three main types of hosting: free, paid and dedicated.
1) Free Hosting will usually allow a decent amount of webspace but will have few other services and you will rarely be able to allocate a .com address on free web hosting. Also, there may be default adverts on the free host which show up on your site - these cannot be removed.

2) Paid hosting is usually the most popular choice for most websites. Most Paid Hosting is on Virtual Servers, where by your site is placed on the same physical machine as maybe 10 others but the service and speed is fast and reliable.

3) Dedicated hosting is expensive and is only really used for corporate/business websites.


Things to Consider when choosing a Web Host
1) Cost : The average cost of basic web hosting can be between €9 and €12 per month, depending on the package and services you require. You will also usually get 1 month free if you pay for the full year in advance. Some hosting packages for very basic sites can start at €4 per month.

2) Technical Support : You need to know that the technical support is available should your website / server have a problem. Most companies run a 24/7 support service. But check this out before you purchase. You can email the hosting company before you purchase for a list of sites which use their servers - then email the webmaster of those sites to ask how the hosting company performs.
Also, monitor how quickly the hosting company replies to your initial mail. This will be a guide to how long emails are answered.

3) Bandwidth : Most Hosting Companies will have higher costs for packages with higher bandwidth - the bandwidth is how much data can be uploaded or downloaded between server and client in a month. If you only have a small site and you only expect a few hundred visits per month, then paying for 10Gb of Bandwidth is senseless. Therefore, Have a look at the site you are going to upload and pick a few random pages on your site add up the filesizes of all the images, html, javascript and other files for each page. Get the average of the page size and then multiply it by the number of page views you expect in a month. Therefore if the average page size was 10Kb and you expect 15,000 visitors , with each visitor accessing about 6 pages each; then that's 878Mb or 900,000Kb (10*15000*6)- your email will require bandwidth also, so double this for a comfortable amount and for future proofing your site should you get an increase in visitors or you start offering downloads on your site which would eat into your bandwidth quota. Therefore 2Gb minimum would be required in this example.

4) Features : Most web hosting companies will offer a set of hosting packages, ranging from basic to advanced. You need to consider which features you will use and choose a package which suits best. No point in paying for features you will never use. Some features which should be included are ; (you should get all of these from a good hosting company)

* Subdomains : Where your long address www.yourdomain.com/sales becomes sales.yourdomain.com .

* Disk Space : Most websites take up comparatively little space a web page with all its graphics is usually between 25 - 45Kb. You should be getting > 20Mb on your basic package and >100Mb on an advanced package from a competitive hosting company.

* Bandwidth/Transfer : As discussed above, this is quoted monthly. You should analyse your site, its size, its requirements and the size of any downloads you will be offering when considering your bandwidth requirements. Also, check out how much your hosting company charge if you exceed the bandwidth limits - it can be expensive.

* CGI-Bin : If you want to run interactive Perl/CGI scripts (like counters, form-to-mail, guestbooks etc.) you will need a cgi-bin. The hosting company will list this in the package specifications.

* SSI : Server Side Includes, allow you to tell the server to include a file when your page is requested. These are usually as-standard.

* MySQL/PHP/ASP Support : You should (if your site is (small to medium and plans to grow) get one or twp of these included in your package. PHP and ASP are languages which allow you to interact with a database - for example, this Forum is run using php and all the posts are stored in a MySQL database.

* E-mail : You should be offered >5 POP3 email accounts. This will allow you to have any email address @yourdomain.com - you can create personalised email addressed on your domain name. Also, check if they offer email forwarding and auto-responders.

* SSL/Secure Server : You will need this if you want to have secure ordering and secure pages on your website.

* Statistics/Log Files : These will give you statistics and information about your visitors. Such as which files are downloaded most often? What search terms are used to visit your site? How many hits did you have last month? Also ensure you get a program such as Webalizer or Analogue to give a readable summary about the information in the server logs. This information is invaluable if it is a business site and you wish to analyse your advertising or marketing strategy effectiveness.

* FTP Accounts : FTP accounts allow you to access you website to upload and download files. If you have anonymous FTP, users can log into an area of your site to download files.

* File Manager : This function allows you to Upload, Edit and View files on your site without having to use FTP. It is usually a user friendly system which can speed up updates to your site.

* Password Protect Directories : This function allows you to lock certain directories and setup users and passwords. This is excellent for creating Members Only sections on your site. The public cannot access anything without a valid username and password.

* Custom Error pages : If you are building a business site, or just want your site to look good - these allow you to replace the default Error 404 page with a "File Not Found" error in the same style of your website.


I use 2 main hosting companies
Cedant - Reliable servers, fast technical support mainly better for business sites which require large disk space and advanced options.
www.cedant.com

Hostroute - A Good hosting company, with which I have registered over 15 websites on. They provide 99.9% uptime and their packages start as low as €35 per year!
Note however, the UK site is more expensive than USA for the exact same package, as the USA servers have more sites per machine and therefore reliability or speed can sometimes be an issue. Personally, I have not seen much of a difference in the USA servers.
www.hostroute.com (USA)
www.hostroute.co.uk (UK)


In Summary
Basically, do your research, set a budget, analyse your requirements, and make a shortlist of companies.
Once this is done you can search Google for reviews of the hosting company or contact sites which use these hosts. With the competition thats out there and the information/reviews available you should be able to make a decision from your shortlist.


If anyone is looking for advice on which hosting company to choose, feel free to drop me a line at info@zephyr-ireland.com

Also, there is a more indepth article on my business website at
www.zephyr-ireland.com/how-to-select-and...ts.html?-Web-Hosting


Shane

My website ( www.pulsar.co.nr ) which doesn't have very much on it at the moment (I never have the time) costs me noting, not a penny (or cent to a lot of you guys!) I'm hosted with 100webspace.com, which does put a banner add at the top of the page, but comes with php, MySQL, and 100Mb of disk space, as well as 1Gb of traffic. The domain is free to, from www.freedomain.co.nr . I have Mambo installed, which makes everything extremely simple to manage. You can have a look at it, although there isn't very much to see. I'll have to get working over Xmas!