When looking for a web hosting solution the first choice the user often has to make is whether to choose one of the varieties of free hosting available, or to pay a web hosting company. The biggest advantage of free web hosting is that it’s, well, free.
What are these disadvantages? Firstly, by choosing a free web host, your name may be, for example “www.geocities.com/yourname”. This would be fine for some users, for instance if all that was needed was a page for a small club, but for most companies seeking to establish a Web presence the ability to be able to use a domain name in the style of “yourname.com” is essential.
Free web hosting will also limit the amount of hard disk space you will be able to use. Again, not necessarily a problem for a small site, but for the user that needs more space, maybe for a large number of pages, or pages with high graphics content, the amount of space available may not be sufficient.
Also restricted will be the amount of bandwidth, or transfer, that your visitors will be able to use. It’s no use trying to run a business on the Web if all your customers see towards the end of the month is a page saying that “This site has exceeded its bandwidth allowance, please try again next month”. That is not something that would inspire your customers to have faith in your products.
You may find that some of the more sophisticated services, such as Perl, CGI or PHP that are being used more and more nowadays on the Internet are not available if you choose to use a free service. You may also find that shopping carts are not available, or that the service is not set up to allow the secure use of credit card transactions to make purchases.
Finally, advertising revenue. A free web hosting service is paid for by the advertisements and pop-ups which appear on the pages hosted by them. Not only will you have no control over which advertisements appear on your site, but also you will receive no revenue from them. So, think carefully before you opt for a free service.
In theory, it is possible to do this from your own home. The average home computer will not have the hardware resources to handle multiple visitors wanting to see a different pages on your site and bandwidth is an issue, too. As more people visit, your site will slow down dramatically. And what about security to keep visitors from hacking into your computer files? Finally, what do you do when the system goes down? You have to fix the problem yourself.
Open an account with your choice of web hosting company. Typically payment is made by credit card on a monthly basis, but some will offer a lower rate if you offer to pay for a year in advance.
Once you have an account set up, they will tell you how to upload your files, normally through an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server. There are several ways of doing this. You can use programs such as Cute FTP or Fetch. The company will also tell what their nameservers are called. These are servers that hold the addresses of the web sites hosted with that company. You will need to go back to the company with who you registered your domain name, and change the nameserver information there to that of your new host. The change will not happen immediately, as it needs time to spread around the Internet, but within 48 – 72 hours you will be able to open your browser and see your site live.
Every website needs a domain name. If you are a business, you ideally need your own domain name. If you are working on a personal homepage, a domain name isn't as important. Some people judge the quality of a website by it's domain name. Read more about domain names >>
What is Disk Space?
Disk space is simply the total amount of data that you can store upon your web hosts’ server. This amount will include all of your web pages, any graphic or audiovisual content you may use on those pages, any files that are available for downloading by visitors and also any space that you may use for emails. You will also need to allow a small amount of space for the various log files that are generated by the server recording such things as site visits. The amount of disk space available will vary depending on your choice of plan. For a low-cost plan it may be as little as 10 Mb, with more expensive plans you may have many gigabytes for your use.
A simple web site using HTML-based pages will not need a lot of disk space. An HTML file is really just a plain text file – a screen-full of text may only need a file that is 10 kb in size. Most simple web pages average about 40 kb in size. Thumbnail images will probably be about 2 -3 kb in size and full-size images can be kept to as low as 150 – 200 kb without sacrificing too much in the way of quality.
More complex web sites will need correspondingly more disk space. An 8-second video clip will be about 1 MB in size. Audio files are normally smaller, but even a short low-quality clip may be 200 kb in size. Any site that is graphic-intensive will need a large amount of disk space for storage. Making files available for download by users will also use a lot of space.
What is Bandwidth?
The terms bandwidth and data transfer are often used interchangeably by web hosting companies. Although closely related, the two terms do in fact mean different things. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can potentially be transferred at one time, whereas data transfer is how much data is actually being transferred. However, as I said, you’ll find a lot of web hosting companies using the term bandwidth as a measure of how much data you can transfer per month.
The various plans offered by web hosting companies will include some measure of the amount of bandwidth that your site will be able to use. This figure is normally given in gigabytes (Gb) per month, for example a plan may offer 5Gb/month. This means that the total amount of data transfer used by your site for any purpose should not exceed 5 GB.
I must mention here the myth of “unlimited bandwidth”. Some web hosting companies will offer this as a lure to the unwary customer. There is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth. Although some companies may seem to offer this, in practice a careful reading of their terms and conditions will reveal all sorts of rules and restrictions that limit the bandwidth. One such rule may be that “the offer of unlimited bandwidth is subject to acceptable use”, where acceptable use is defined as using less than an arbitrary amount of bandwidth per month.
What is Uptime?
Often you will see that a web hosting company offers, for example, “99.5% guaranteed uptime”. What does this mean, and why is it important?
Put simply, uptime is the amount of time that your web site is up and running, and available to the world. In contrast, downtime means that your web site will be inaccessible. Uptime is normally given as a percentage, as above. Let’s do some math, and see exactly what is meant by 99.5% uptime. A calendar month contains 43,200 minutes, so an uptime figure of 99.5% means that your site should be down for a maximum of 216 minutes during any one month. If the uptime figure was 99.7%, then the downtime drops to 130 minutes a month, or a little over two hours.
That all sounds very impressive, however it’s not quite as simple as that. An uptime guarantee is not a promise that your web site will be available for that amount of time. Rather, it is the target uptime that the web hosting company is aiming for, normally with some form of compensation offered for those times that the company fails to meet that target.
What is Fantastico?
Fantastico is a commercial script library that automates these installations, making such installations simple and easy even for inexperienced web server administrators. Fantastico is accessible through the cPanel web site control panel, and as such will only be found on web servers that offer this control panel.
There are many different types of applications that can be installed using Fantastico. The most common uses are for applications for web content management systems, shopping carts, blogs and photo-sharing applications.
There are other ways in which applications can be installed on a web server. Most applications can be installed using a command-line interface, similar in style to using DOS. There are also add-on scripts available for cPanel that will help with application installation. However, both of these methods have limitations, as the installation of the application software is typically all that these methods can accomplish.
What is a Control Panel?
A control panel allows the web site owner to administer a web site. There are many different control panels available, among the more common are cPanel, xPanel, vDeck and Plesk. All use a graphical user interface, which makes administration simple, even for inexperienced users. The control panel is accessed through the users’ web browser of choice. The various forms of control panels that are available differ in some ways, but all will allow the web site host to perform the basic tasks needed to set up and administer the web site.
During set-up, a control panel will help the host in establishing the various email accounts that are needed and setting up any FTP accounts that may be needed. When setting up email you will often be given the chance to set up any auto-responders or email forwarding that you may require. If the site will be using any server-side scripting, such as PHP or Perl, then this too can be done at this time using the control panel.
For on-going administration of the web site, the control panel will allow the host to do many things. Most control panels will show details of disk space and bandwidth used; allowing the host to ensure the site is not exceeding the limits of the web hosting plan currently used. There will also be access to statistics that show the number of visitors to the site, the pages they visited, and the time they spent on the site. This helps to identify which parts of the site are more popular, allowing the host to modify any pages if desired. The host will also be able to see how the visitor came to the site, making it easier to target any search engine optimization that may be needed. Any errors encountered by the visitor will also be logged, enabling the host to fix any broken links that may exist.
Other tasks that the control panel may offer are database management, the ability to create or manage sub-domains, to set-up redirections for URLs, or to set different levels of security for different parts of the site. One important task that the control panel should allow is the ability to back-up the site.
Windows-based or Unix/Linux-based Server?
One of the choices to be made when selecting a web hosting company will be whether the hosting companies’ servers run on the Windows or Unix/Linux operating systems. There are several factors involved in this choice - the type of site you will be running, how it was developed, any database used, and what, if any, extra features you need to use.
The first thing to say is that the type of computer you are using at home or in the office, whether it be a Windows-based PC, a Mac or a Linux-based computer, has no bearing on the choice you make. All of the above operating systems will allow you to upload files using an FTP program and to access the control panel that is used for basic site maintenance, such as setting up email boxes, or for accessing the various reports that are available on such things as bandwidth usage and number of visitors to the site.
For a simple HTML-based web site it will not matter which server operating system is chosen. Both Windows-based and Unix/Linux-based servers will give identical results for the end user. However, if you are planning to have any interactive content on your site then you will need to choose which way to go.
Interactive content relies on certain features being available on the server – called server-side programs. The most common ones are ASP, PHP and Perl. These are programming languages which allow the visitor to the web site to interact with the site, for example by entering a user name and password to enter a private area. Unix/Linux-base servers offer PHP and Perl, whereas ASP runs on Windows-based servers. It is possible to run PHP on a Windows-based server, or vice versa, but the results may not be what you expect. For the most compatibility it is best to use the operating system for which the language was designed.
What is Linux?
Linux was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991, while studying at the University of Helsinki, Finland, as a hobby. Although originally intended as nothing more than a way for Torvalds to use his new Intel 80386-based computer, he decided to release the source code under an open license, allowing anyone that wished to contribute to its development. This freedom allowed many developers to extend the capabilities of Linux. Version 0.01 was the first version released, and the latest current version is 2.6.23.16.
However, by far the most common use of Linux has been as a server operating system. Typically Linux is used as part of the so-called LAMP software bundle. LAMP comes from the initials of the software making up the bundle, i.e. Linux, Apache (web server software), MySQL (database software) and PHP (a programming language). One thing that all of these programs have in common is that they are all available as open-source software. This means that they are available at a relatively low cost, or even at no charge, making the combination very attractive to web hosting companies.
Linux is seen as a stable low-cost alternative to using either Windows or UNIX. It is also considered to be more secure than Windows, although that is arguable. Because of this, Linux is the operating system of choice for most web hosting companies, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
What is SSL and why do I need it?
SSL stands for secure sockets layer, and is the standard means of exchanging encrypted data across the Internet. The most common use of SSL is for securing credit card data. If you’ve ever bought something on the Internet and used a credit card to pay for it, then you were using SSL to complete the transaction. When SSL is being used, the address in the browser will change from “http:” to “https:” Additionally many browsers use some sort of icon to indicate that the site is secure, for example a closed padlock in Netscape.
SSL works by the use of encryption keys. When a browser requests a secure connection, it will send a list of supported ciphers. The server will choose the strongest cipher available, and return this to the browser. The server will then send a digital certificate. This certificate contains the name of the server, the name of the certificate authority and a public encryption key. The browser will then generate a random number with the public encryption key, and return this to the server. The server will decode this using its private key – since the server is the only one with this private key; this is what ensures the security of the transaction. The server and browser can then establish a secure connection, and private information can then be exchanged.
What Does Server Overselling Mean?
Server overselling means that the web hosting company sells more disk space or bandwidth, or both, than the server can actually accommodate.
The reasoning behind this is quite simple. Most web sites hosted on shared servers do not use their entire allocation of either disk space or bandwidth. This can leave a lot of unused capacity. Web hosting companies see this, and try to add extra web sites to under-utilized servers in order to use up this excess space. It is very similar to the practice of airlines’ over-booking flights, in the expectation that not all passengers that book seats will actually take the flight.
What is ASP?
Active Server Pages, or ASP, is a server-side scripting engine that allows web site developers to add interactive functions to web pages. Such dynamically-generated pages use input from the user to determine how a web page is presented. An example of its use would be to enable a web site visitor to log into a message board, or to give access to a secure database. When ASP is used within a page, then the usual “.html” suffix is replaced with “.asp”.
Setting Up a New Email Account
When starting a new web site, one task that needs to be accomplished is the set-up of any email accounts that will be needed. This will allow a user to receive email addressed to, for example, user@yourdomain.com. This looks a lot more professional than using an existing email address with no connection to the new web site. A typical web hosting plan will allow a user to set up a number of different accounts, as well as setting options like email-forwarding or auto-responders for those accounts. Let’s take a look at what needs to be done.
A new email account is normally created using the control panel software that helps a user administer the website. In order to create an email address all that is needed is the name which is to be used, and the password that is to be associated with that email account. Once this is done a new email address is created in the form of newuser@yourdomain.com.
The newly-created email account can normally be accessed in two different ways. One method is by using browser software, similar to the way in which a Yahoo or Hotmail email account is accessed. The user would go to a web address where he will be able to log in to his email account by using a username and password. Once logged in the user will be able to read and respond to email messages, and delete or save them as needed. Although this method works well, it has the disadvantage of being slow. Also, unless some care is taken, messages will remain on the server taking up disk space, which counts against the amount of disk space allowed under the web hosting plan.
The other method is by using email software, such as Thunderbird, Outlook or Eudora. There are two things here that the user will need to watch for. In order to receive email using such software, the email must be accessible through what is known as a POP3 server. In order to send email using such software, the user will need to have access to an SMTP server. Although virtually all web hosting plans include access to a POP3 server, there may still be a small number that don’t. Support for SMTP is a lot more uneven – many budget hosting plans don’t offer SMTP support even though they do offer POP3 facilities. There is a work-round for this, but it has the disadvantage of using the SMTP server from an existing email account, for example from an ISP, to send mail. This means that any mail sent will actually appear to come from the ISP email account rather than from the new email account associated with the web site. This not only looks unprofessional but also may be unwelcome for the user, who may not want a personal email account to be associated with his business. If this is the case then the only option will be to use the web-based method of accessing the email account.
Setting up the email software so that it can access the new account is fairly straightforward. What the user will need is the email address, the password, and the names of the POP3 and SMTP servers, which can be obtained through the web hosting company. Once these settings are entered in to the email software then the user will be able to receive and send email using the new email address.
One final task that remains for the new web site owner is to set up a default email address, normally using the address of newdomain@yourdomain.com. This address, also known as the catch-all address, receives all of the email that is not addressed to an existing email account. These emails could simply have a wrong address, or more commonly they are just spam. The user will be able to choose what happens to these emails. One option is simply to delete them, commonly known as the “blackhole” option. Another option is to bounce them, in other words, to return the email to the sender marked address unknown. This is the preferred choice as not only do any spammers have to deal with all of the returned messages, but also any genuine email message that was badly addressed will be returned, allowing the sender to correct the error.
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