CHOOSING A HOST FOR YOUR SITE   -    My Hosts

Choosing a host may seem a bit daunting, but you can always change your host when you have more knowledge and experience, so don't get too hung up about it. If its your first site don't tie yourself in for too long and you can always move the site if you need more features or if it proves unreliable.

What is a server?

A server is not a machine but a piece of software, running on a machine, which delivers web pages in response to requests from browsers. The server is capable of more than sending out pages, it may for example pre-process them adding HTML to them before sending them to the browser.

The Issues

Server type

There are basically two types Windows and Unix/Linux based servers. Apache running on UNIX/Linux is reliable and the most common arrangement. A good host will run both Windows and UNIX/Linux servers and give you the choice. If you have no experience other than Windows, don't be put off by UNIX/Linux you will not find it any more difficult and it is generally cheaper. I personally have only ever used Windows myself, but have always used UNIX based servers with no problems at all. This site runs on UNIX

Bandwidth

Each time a server sends out a web page that data is sent along telephone or dedicated lines. The amount the host pays for the connection to the net depends on how much data is sent each month i.e. bandwidth. Most hosts either charge you according to the amount of bandwidth you use or place a monthly limit on your bandwidth. Do not believe claims of "unlimited bandwidth". Deep inside their terms and conditions they either reserve the right to charge more for high volume sites or to suspend you for the rest of the month or even kick you off if your site becomes too popular. Note they just delete you - often without warning. So, keep back-up of your site.

1 Gb per month is enough for the average new site, unless you plan to deliver a lot of video or sound files via your site.

Speed

Closely connected to bandwidth is speed. The faster the host's connection to the net the faster your site will go. T1, T3 or faster (any of the OC connections) are fast enough. Remember that a further factor affecting speed is the number of sites hosted on the same server and how many visitors they are getting.

Reliability

100% up time is what you want, but being realistic 99.5+% is good if you are not a web dependant business. Remember that 98% uptime actually that your total downtime in a year adds up to 7 days!! A few seconds here and there may be no problem but in large blocks your business is not doing business!!

Web Space

The amount of hard drive space you will need. A 20meg website is big, unless you have lots of audio, video or graphics you will not need any more. 50meg is likely to be as much as you need even with multimedia intensive pages. If you need room to expand pick a host who can increase your space as you grow or select one giving you oodles of space to start with. After all hard disk space is cheap.

Facilities

This goes on forever but you do not need every facility. Just keep in mind how your needs might grow. The following are a minimum and what you expect from any host.

FTP Accounts
E-mail boxes/names
CGI/SSI/PHP/ASP
Front Page Extensions
Real Audio/Video

Domain Names

If you need to host your own domain you need to consider the cost of this as part of the package. Cheap hosting may be made much more expensive by domain registration and renewal especially if want multiple domains. With some hosts multiple domains are part of the package, with other they are costly add on. Remember you may have to pay for the domain registration and for them to host the domain.

Service

Do they have sufficient staff to deal with your problems 24/7? And are their staff able to deal with your problems? Do they have chat room based support or e-mail or telephone. How fast is response time and how costly is it? Always try their support before signing up, even if you don't really have any questions.

Free or Commercial

There is no such thing as a free ride. Free hosts will expect your pages to carry their advertising and they will not allow you to advertise as this competes with theirs. They will often have a scheme to share their advertising profits with you but you might not want to sell stuff for them. Free hosts will kick your site if you get too popular (whatever their publicity says). You will not have access to many facilities. Make sure they have FTP or you will soon get sick of them.

Commercial hosting is available as a one off lifetime charge (although hard to find), monthly fee, or combination of set-up fee and monthly fee. It can be had for as little as $7.99 with all the features you might expect or £1.99 + VAT per year for a domain name with a few web pages thrown in. Remember the tie in period might be a very important decision. If you want to move your site how long is your commitment to your current host? Monthly cancellation is ideal but it will always bee more expensive then paying up front for a year or six months.

Choosing A Host

Decide what you need and are likely to need. Don't be swayed by claims of huge amounts of webspace and bandwidth - there is usually a catch. You get what you pay for so free is not always best.

Select a few hosts which look good on paper or are recommended.

Check out the hosts. Visit it's sites often over a period and get an idea of how fast and reliable the service is. E-mail (phone) them with some questions to test quality and speed of support and collect any information missing from their web pages. Check out some user pages and monitor them for a while before committing yourself. If you know people who have site ask them for recommendations. Read their Terms and AUP carefully.

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