Web Hosting

You should already have a domain name before you set up a hosting account. The hosting account will be associated with the domain name you specify when setting up the account.

When you choose a web hosting plan you are basically renting a space on a web server for your web site. This is called Shared hosting. The hosting company assigns an address DNS for your files to your domain so that anyone can find your web site on the Internet by typing in your domain name.

Choosing the right hosting plan

Before choosing a hosting plan there are a few terms that you need to know.

The first term you should be familiar with is hosting platform. Different hosting platforms support different scripting technologies.

For example the Windows platform allows you to use ASP (Active Server Page). ASP is a script created by Microsoft (Windows) and must be used on a windows server.

If you plan to use PHP you need to use the Linux platform.

The hosting platform can be changed at anytime simply by logging in to your hosting account and making the change.

Bandwidth: The reason you created a web site was to attract visitors. The more visitors or traffic you get on your site, the higher the bandwidth you will need. According to statistics a small or medium web site will use between 1 and 5GB of data transfer per month.

Disk space: Html and other text files use small amounts of disk space. Images, graphics, sound files, movies etc. use large amounts of disk space. The more media that you use the more disk space you will need. Large graphic files also slow down your web sites load time. An average web site will need between 10 and 100MB of disk space.

Email Make sure your hosting plan supplies the email accounts that you need. You should have several email accounts for your domain.

Front Page If you plan to use Front Page to create your site make sure that your hosting company supports Front Page Extensions.

Dedicated and virtual dedicated servers

If you want to really be in control of your web site you can choose a dedicated server or a virtual dedicated server. ( What is the difference in a dedicated and a virtual dedicated server? Virtual dedicated servers offer many of the capabilities and features of dedicated servers, including admin (root) access and dedicated IP addresses but shares the server space with a small number of other customers. A dedicated server is reserved exclusively for the account and usage of a single customer. Find out more about dedicated and virtual dedicated servers.