Site hosting explained!

If we arrange hosting for our clients, we would spend some time finding out what's required now, and importantly, what the site will need in 6 months time. For those who wish to set up hosting and e-mail themselves, there are many companies that offer standard hosting packages that you can choose from.

The questions below are those you should ask if you're not sure yet how the site will develop but wish to get your domain name registered, e-mail running and web space available.

The questions you should ask a hosting company!

What server space is included in the package?

10 Megabyte would easily cope with a typical small site, but if a photographers wanted to put their image bank online, they would need much more server space. Aim for a minimum of 50 Megabytes.

What is the cost for additional space if required?

This can normally be added in blocks of 10MB or more, with a fixed charge per block.

Are server logs (weblogs) included in the cost?

Server logs are extremely important to you. They can tell you how many visitors the site has had, how long they stayed, where they went on the site, where they didn't go, which browser they used and many other statistics about your visitors habits. These can help you to refine your site, and if you plan on generating advertising revenue from your site, your weblogs provide valuable information to advertisers, affiliates and banner ad companies who may be willing to pay to use your space.

Does the package include access to a CGI Bin?

CGI - 'Common Gateway Interface' a means using a scripting language like Perl, for sending info in useful format to people, programs etc. This is used for form feedback, surveys, forums, mail-lists, shopping carts etc, and allows a high level of interactivity between you and your visitors. Check what restrictions apply to the scripts you want to use, and if the host supplies free scripts for you. Some do!

Can we run banner ads on the site?

You should be ok, but make sure there are no restrictions like having to run ads for the hosting company! You should be paid for this service, and the more hits your site generates, the more you can charge. Just remember that banner ads are designed to take your visitors away!

What are the availability statistics for your servers?

If the server is down, your visitors can't visit your site. If your site is e-commerce enabled, you are now losing business and looking unreliable. Very few servers are 100% reliable, but you should host with someone who has 24 hour in-house technical support if possible.

What are the bandwidth restrictions

Every time someone downloads one of your web pages to their browser, they are eating into your bandwidth allocation. If your page is 10kb with 20kb of graphics they have used 30kb of bandwidth. No problems yet. Suppose your site is so popular that you have 10,000 visitors hitting 5 pages each per week X 4 weeks X 30kb. That's 6 Gigabytes of bandwidth used in that month.

You are typically allowed 1 or 2 Gigabytes of bandwidth per month. If your site uses more than allocated, you will be charged for it, or your site will be taken down. Bandwidth restrictions are rarely exceeded, but worth remembering if your site becomes very popular.

What level of customer support do you provide?

Obviously very important. When you and your customers can't visit your own site at 7pm on Friday evening, you want someone intelligent and courteous on the phone, telling you why, and fixing it! One more thing, you don't want to be paying 50p per minute for the call if you can help it. Check if charges apply!

What are your hosting charges?

Expect to pay around £10 to £15 per month for site hosting. A typical business hosting package would include 50MB web space, domain name registration (not naming authority fees), unlimited e-mail forwarding, 10 POP e-mail boxes, CGI bin, full graphical server logs and some site management 'interface' so you can manipulate your account to suit yourself.

Beware the companies that offer hosting for much less than this, there is always something important missing.

What are the costs for additional services?

You will have to pay extra for more advanced features, for example Frontpage extensions, ASP, Access and SQL facilities on Windows NT servers. Additionally further charges will be added if you want the host to provide e-commerce shopping carts, Secure Socket Layers (SSL) , and real time payment services. That's why it's a good idea to works out what you want the site to do first, then let them advise you on what you need to achieve that.

As in all things, compare a few prices first, or, hire us to do the dirty work for you as part of our web design package.