Website Hosting

It is fair to say right at the start that web hosting is best left to professionals. While it is possible to host a website yourself, it is cheaper, safer and will likely yield better performance to have a web hosting firm host your website. A web host provides the web server, the data center, a solid connection to the Internet and management.

Considerations

• Hosting Arrangements

  There are three main types of hosting arrangements:

  • Shared

    Many websites share each web server. This is the most common arrangement. There may be 50 websites per server. This option is usually fine for basic websites that are not liable to have very high traffic or high bandwidth needs. Costs are usually less than $10/month.

    A newer flavor of shared hosting called "grid" or "cloud" hosting adds the ability to increase computing power "on the fly" as your website needs increase. Pricing varies.

  • Virtual Private Server (VPS)

    Specialized software ensures that a web server is shared according to predefined rules and each client receives a guaranteed amount of random access memory (RAM) and disk space so they are virtually private. Performance issues from one client should not affect other clients sharing the web server. The cost is usually around $50/month.

  • Dedicated Server

    The entire web server is at your disposal. Costs start around $100/month.

• Support

  Since hosting has become a commodity to some extent, support has become a key distinguishing factor. VPS and dedicated servers usually come with more assistance and may use the term "managed server" to indicate a high level of support. Here are some questions to ask:

  • Is any support included for free?
  • What are the hours?
  • Is support available via phone, email and instant messaging?
  • What are the target response times for high, medium and low priority issues?
  • Is there a customer forum where I can try to solve my own problems?
• Server Software Capabilities

  Web hosts may specialize in certain technologies, operating systems or web applications. If your website uses an application that is critical to your business, you may find hosts that specialize in hosting it which may provide an additional level of support. Microsoft's Application Server Pages (ASP) language is only supported on Windows-based servers. Also keep in mind that certain applications may require specific versions for the server programming language or database.

• Web Design/Development Firm as the Web Host

  Most web design/development firms will also offer hosting. It is good to know whether they are hosting the website directly on their own machines or whether they are using another website hosting company. Choosing a host that the web development firm is familiar with may make future changes easier.

• Uptime

  Most hosts will publish a number like 99.9 percent to indicate the percent of time they guarantee your website will be operational.

• Administration

  Basic web hosting has become a commodity and web hosting control applications are common to provide a user interface around common administration needs for email, security, backups, visitor statistic reporting and anti-SPAM control. cPanel and Plesk are very common web hosting control panels.

• Reporting and Analysis

  What type of reporting do you need to track related to the activities of website visitors? Detail tracking may need to be built into web pages. Web hosts can provide basic statistics like the most popular pages and the number of visitors per day.

Features

• Domain Name

  A domain name is the name visitors type in to access your website. Most of the really cool names, short names and initials have been taken so you may have to get very creative with your domain name. If you plan to create a website that will have national recognition, check first at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Officeto see if a trademark exists for the name to avoid future legal complications.

• Processors and Random Access Memory(RAM)

  The number of processors and amount RAM help to indicate performance but they are usually only specified for VPS and dedicated server options.

• Bandwidth

  Bandwidth is measured as the amount of data that flows in and out from your website. If you anticipate a lot of visitors or plan to host a lot of content like videos you will want to estimate your needs.

• Disk Space

  Most hosting plans have a limit on the amount of storage space you have for applications, email and any other content you may wish to store.

• Security

  If you will be handling sensitive data that needs to be encrypted, secure socket layer (SSL) certificates can be purchased.

• Software

  Most hosts will provide server languages like PHP and MySQL databases. Application software for content management systems, email marketing, blogs and wikis will typically be available for quick installation.

• Reporting

  View statistics on the number of visitors to your website and the most popular pages.

• Backups

  If backups are performed, how often are they performed and how long are backups kept?

Implementation Options