Web Hosting FAQs
What is Web Hosting? Web hosting is the act of renting space and bandwidth through a web hosting company so that you can publish your web site on the Internet. You can design your own website but you will always need someone to Host it – to provide you with the space that you will put your website on the Internet for the world to view. Every web hosting account with a web hosting company comes with a certain amount of web space and storage, and you save your web site to this space – it is then available on the Internet. Hosting accounts also have a banndwidth limit – the amount of web traffic to and from your web space that your Host will allow.
What is Virtual Hosting? Virtual hosting refers to the fact that your site is on one server, and that this server hosts a number of sites. You are virtually shared – your site will not be the only one on this specific server. Very few sites would need the power of a dedicated server (a server dedicated to one user or one web site), so virtual hosting provides a reliable and cheap solution.
What is Web Space and Bandwidth? Web Space is the amount of storage space available for your website within a chosen Hosting package. To host a website that has 200MB of images, you need at least 200MB of Web Space. Web space is your online hard drive where your web site is housed. If you outgrow the Web Space provided by your Hosting provider can upgrade your web hosting package to provide you with more Web Space.
How long will it take for my Web Hosting account to be set up? Usuallly your Web Hosting account can be activated within 24 hours.
Do I need to change my domain if I get a new host? No. Provided that the domain is registered in your name you can simply update your nameservers, from where you manage your domain names, to that of your new hosting provider.
Is it possible to buy Hosting without a Domain Name? Yes. You can usually either point an existing Domain name at your new Hosting account, register a domain with your Hosting company or transfer your Domain name to your Hosting provider.
What is space and bandwidth data transfer? Every single letter or page on your website has to be stored on your web hosts’s server. Each letter is one byte, and a megabyte is roughly one million bytes. HTML pages are usually very small, but it is the pictures, graphics, scripts and databases that can take up large amounts of disk space. Bandwidth/Transfer is the amount of data the server will allow your site to send in a month. Transfer is usually measured in gigabytes – billions of bytes. If you go over your monthly limit, your web hosting company can either shut your down or it can charge you an “overage”.
What is uptime? Uptime is the amount of time your site is online throughout the enire month. The best uptime is 100%, but because things can break, many osts offer 99.9% uptime gurantees. This means that if your site is not accessible for more than 43 minutes in a single month, they will reimburse you, depending on their terms and conditions.
How can I pay for web hosting? Most web hosts will accept credit cards and some will accept PayPal and/or Cheque.
What is the difference between UNIX hosting and Windows hosting? Depending on which operating system defines your needs. If you need to support Microsoft products such as ASP or VBScript, then Windows hosting would be better. If you are comfortable with IIS and do not have the time to understand how UNIX works, Windows hosting would be a better choice. Linux is much more common with web hosts due to its superior stability and because it is free. Since it is free, Linux hosting is usually cheaper than Windows. Just because it’s free does not mean it’s not as good.
Can I host my own site? Yes wou could, but its’ definitely not recommended. Most Internet Service Providers have clauses that do not allow you to use your Internet connection for web hosting – doing so could result in the termination of your account with your Internet provider. Make sure your system is secure so that no one can hack into it 24/7 can be a major problem. Most good web hosts use powerful servers with lots of RAM and high performance hard disks. They have multiple Internet connections at speeds far higher than the Broadband connection to your premises. There is also the issues of support if something goes wrong it will be your job to fix it.
Why don’t I just go with the cheapest hosting package? Some hosts do not properly understand the market and may be pricing themselves too cheap. So if they are too cheap now will they be in business in 6 months? Look closely at what is written in their terms of service (TOS) and acceptable use policy (AUP) documents. Some hosts try to limit the activity of their customer through these two documents. So understand what you are paying for, it has to be cheap for a reason.
What if the web hosts server is down – what do I do? The vast majority of web host providers offer support options with the web hosting packages they offer. In some cases support staff are already working on the problem before you realise there is a problem. A number of web hosting packages provide 24 x 7 onsite support staff maintaining servers. Where as soon as there is a problem with a server, message alerts are immediately sent to the appropriate staff.
