F a Q
Answer:
Web space is the act of hiring space and bandwidth through a provider in order that you may upload your web site on the internet.
You may perhaps also prefer totally free web space which can be usually supported with advertising advertising banners and pop ups, or may opt to get paid web hosting, which gives you complete control over your site contents.
Question:
What exactly is Virtual Web hosting?
Answer:
Also well-known as shared web space, this type of web space probably will be sufficient for the majority of people.
Virtual hosting (blank) refers to the fact that your site is on a single server, and that this specific web server hosts mulitple websites. You are essentially shared – your site will not be the only one on this particular machine.
Very few sites might actually need the power of a dedicated server, which means this choice gives you a reliable and cheap solution.
Question:
What exactly is space and bandwidth/data transfer?
Answer:
Webspace is the size your website can be. Every single letter on your website has to be stored somewhere on your web host’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 extra images, scripts, and even 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. Everytime a visitor access your website, html pages, images and other content like video is send to that person’s computer. Transfer is usually measured in gigabytes – billions of bytes. The moment you actually exceed your per month limit, a host may either shut down your site for the remainder of the month or it can charge you ‘overage.’ This overcharge is usually about $2.00-$5.00 per extra gigabyte of transfer.
Question:
Do I have to change my domain if I get a new host?
Answer:
No. Provided that the domain is registered in your name (as it should be), you can simply update your namservers (from where you manage your domain names) to that of your new host.
Question:
What is uptime?
Answer:
Uptime is literally what it means – it is the amount of time your site is online throughout the entire month.
The best uptime would be 100%, but because things can break, many hosts offer 99.9% uptime guarantees. 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 of service.
Question:
What is the difference between UNIX hosting and Windows hosting?
Answer:
You have to decide one based on your requirements.
If you need support for Microsoft products such as ASP, MS Access, or VBScript, then Windows hosting would be better. Furthermore, if you are comfortable with IIS and do not have the time to understand how UNIX works, Windows hosting would again be a better choice.
There are some things to remember.
First of all, just because you use Windows at home does not mean you should use Windows hosting. The two are completely different, and having a Windows system at home will not affect your ability to communicate with a UNIX server.
Secondly, 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 – Linux is an excellent product too.
Question:
I have a fast internet connection (DSL/cable) – can I just host my own site?
Answer:
You could, but that’s definitely not recommended.
First of all, most ISPs have clauses that do not let you use your internet connection for web hosting – doing so will result in termination of your account.
Second of all, think of the headaches it can provide: making sure your system is secure so that no one can hack into it, having your computer on 24/7, and other such problems.
Third of all, think of the performance. Most good web hosts use powerful servers with lots of RAM and high performance hard disks. Furthermore, they have multiple internet connections at speeds far higher than what residential DSL or cable service can provide.
Lastly there are all the issues of support. If something goes wrong, it will be your job to fix it – you will not have a professional to correct the problem.