What Do You Need to Know About Hosting?
One day I had a gentleman ask me why people couldn’t get to his web site. He explained that it was on his computer and the computer was currently online, but his friends couldn’t see it. This person made me realize that he must not be the only one who lacked the education needed to get their web sites online. So here is the low-down on hosting.
What is a host provider?
The easiest way to describe it is that a host provider or hosting service is a company that has several computers, called servers that act as a library for web sites. These systems use special operating systems designed for sharing information over the Internet. Your domain name (discussed in a minute) acts like the code in the library that tells you what isle and shelf you can find the book (web site) you want is on. Hosting providers vary by price, software features, operating system and database types, and quality of support.
Domain names
So how does the domain name work and where do you get one? A domain name is connected to your site by association. A domain name, (yourwebsite.com) helps people remember your site, but it doesn’t do computers any good. You see computers speak to each other through a sequence of numbers called an IP address (example: 123.654.987.210), and each domain name is linked to an IP address. Now stay with me here; every request for a web site is sent to a Domain Name Server (DNS), which stores all the IP addresses and their associated info related to your domain name, exchanges your domain name with its corresponding IP address, and sends it off to the server where your web site is stored. Your site is then pushed back to the browser that called your site in the first place.
Now there are several companies that offer domain names, and most host providers offer the service as well. So who do you go with? You can do a search online for domain names, or you can go to GoDaddy.com. They have good prices, a nice admin system and several add-on services with your purchase. They also offer hosting if you want to keep your services all under one roof. I use them and recommend them to my clients.
How to pick a host
Well you already know who I would recommend, but just to cover the base I will talk about hosting options. Who ever you pick, you need to make sure they can accommodate your needs. Have a complete list of what you want your site to do (Blog, e-Commerce, content management system, etc.), what type of programming language you want your site to be coded with(PHP or ASP), anticipate how large your site will be (storage space needed) and how many visitors you expect to get on a monthly basis (data transfer rates); then find a provider based upon your needs. If you have someone designing a site for you, you might want to ask them who they recommend.
Some things to avoid include:
Free hosting
Nothing is ever free. All free hosts require the placement of advertisements, usually banners at the top of every page. This is fine for a personal site that is not representing a company, but if you are looking at building a company site you want to look as professional as possible; and free hosting is not the way to go.
Cheap hosting
Cheap hosting is not much better than free hosting. While you may not be forced to place banners on your site, you also wont get a database for your site, or 24/7 support, or a guarantee of up-time (Up-time is how long your site is up in a years time). Most cheap host providers have a very low up-time. Which means your site could go down without notice and there is no guarantee anyone will be aware of it at the host for hours if not days. Not a good thing if you are hoping to make a living off your web site and people can’t find you cause the hosting server is down.
On average a decent host provider will run you between 7.95 – 24.95 a month, and will offer you multiple email accounts, multiple databases, free applications such as blogs, shopping carts, photo galleries, etc., decent storage and data transfer rates.
Some of the service agency I recommend would be GoDaddy.com, 1&1.com, crystaltech.com, and ipower.com.
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
