hosting features you should take care of

2- Web Hosting Features: What is Web Space and How Much is Enough?



Web space or disk space is the total amount of megabytes or gigabytes a web hosting company gives you with your hosting plan. You probably already know that this space is used to hold the HTML and images that will be displayed on your website when your web pages are viewed, but...

What you may not know is that your web space also includes your website log files, FrontPage extensions, PHP files, CGI programs, externally linked CSS and Javascript files, and usually email accounts and emails as well as space for any databases.

Briefly, here's how your web space is used up:

• Log files - a list of all requests made to your hosting company's website server by your website. Your log files tell where visitors are coming from, how often they return, and how they navigate through your site.
• FrontPage extensions - FrontPage is website creation software from Microsoft that allows you to build and maintain web pages via a graphic interface. FrontPage extensions are script files that run on the web server to extend the functionality of FrontPage when your website is viewed. These extensions support features such as counters, data collection, e-mail processing, and database processing.
• PHP files - PHP is a scripting language that can create dynamic web pages. Useful for form processing, data base access or for generating customized website pages.
• CGI programs - stands for Common Gateway Interface and is a standard way for data to be passed between web applications e.g. passing data from an online form.
• Externally linked CSS files - CSS, short for Cascading Style Sheets, is an addition to HTML that gives website developers more control over how pages are displayed. With CSS, designers can create style sheets that define how different elements, such as headers and links, appear. If CSS definitions are shared among pages in a website, they are usually stored on the web hosting server as a file that is then "linked" by the web pages that require them.
• Javascript files - a type of computer code used to perform tasks on Web pages, such as incrementing a "number of visitors" counter or checking the input fields on a form for errors. If Javascripts are shared among pages in a website, they are usually stored on the web hosting server as a file that is then "linked" by the web pages that require them.
• Email accounts and emails - web hosting plans usually include one or even several email accounts so you can create email addresses such as: sales@yourwebsite.com or help@yourwebsite.com. In many cases the emails stored in these accounts are added to your web space quota. Check with your web hosting company for details.
• Database - a collection of data: part numbers, product codes, customer information, etc. Data is organized and stored on a web server that can be searched and retrieved by CGI or PHP programs.

Web space or disk space for your hosting plan is listed in megabytes or gigabytes. A megabyte (mb) is 1,000,000 bytes (1 million bytes) and a gigabyte (gb) is 1,000,000,000 bytes (1 trillion bytes). Even 1 megabyte might sound like a lot of space, but if you add up the size of each of your web pages and include all the files and data mentioned above, you will be surprised at how large the total can become.

And don't forget, you may want to host more than one website on your hosting plan. If that's your plan, you will need many megabytes or even gigabytes of web storage. Fortunately, disk space is cheap and most web hosting companies offer hosting plans that include hundreds of gigabytes of space.

Bottom line: If you are hosting one relatively simple website, you probably won't need more than 50 mb of disk storage. However, if you're planning on hosting a large website or multiple websites on a single hosting plan, then you should look for a plan with several hundred gigabytes of storage capacity.

You can estimate your web space needs by locating your website files on your hard drive and getting a total of the space used. This is easily done in Windows Explorer by selecting the folder or folders that contain your entire website and right-clicking. Select Properties and refer to the "Size:" display. You will get a total of the space used by all the files in the folder(s). Don't forget to add estimated space for emails and databases.

Finally, total the space for all the websites you expect to host on a single hosting account, add at least half of that space back again for growth and you should have a fairly accurate estimate of the space you will need for your websites now and in the future.

hosting features you should take care of

1- Web Hosting Features: What is Bandwidth and Why Should I Care?

So, you want to build a website and you're looking for web hosting. That's great, but what are all those features being offered? For instance, Bandwidth? What's that?

Bandwidth is also called data transfer or traffic. So if you see any of these terms associated with a gigabyte or gb or GB value then that feature is actually bandwidth.

Simply put, bandwidth is the number of gigabytes of data that your website is allocated to transfer from the web hosting server to your users in one month. This number is not an absolute, it's just the number of gigabytes of bandwidth you pay for in the monthly price of your hosting plan.

If your users are so many or your website is so busy that you go over your bandwidth allotment in a month, then you are charged extra for each gigabyte over the amount included in your hosting plan.

The cost per extra gigabyte for the overage is usually around $0.50, depending upon your hosting company. If you are concerned about running over your bandwidth allotment, then you should check with your hosting company about the actual cost for each extra gigabyte.

Bandwidth is now cheaper than ever before, so it would be foolish not to get the most bandwidth you think you'll need right off the bat. Depending upon the hosting company, you may find that for a couple of dollars more each month you can get as much as 4 or 5 times the bandwidth of the cheaper hosting plan!

Generally, here's how bandwidth is computed. It's the amount of information transmitted to and from your website by your visitors. The following are the factors considered in your traffic usage:

1. The amount of traffic you receive (hits to your website)

2. The size of your site.

3. The types of files offered on your site.

4. How much data you upload to your website.

A hit is more than a visit. Every file, picture or any other reference that's made to your hosting server when your web page is loaded is a hit. Each hit consists of a number of bytes of information.

For example, let's say your website is 1 megabyte (MB) including web pages and images. If 100 people visited your website and viewed all the pages, the traffic generated would be approximately 100 MB.

A megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes (1 million bytes) and a gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 bytes (1 trillion bytes). So that makes a megabyte 1/1,000 of a gigabyte. In the example above, 100 MB of data transfer would be 1/10 of a gigabyte.

So, if your website traffic consisted of 100 MB each day, your usage for a 30-day month would be 3,000 MB or 3 GB per month. In this case, you would want a hosting plan that provided at least 3 GB of bandwidth per month.

But that's not ideal. What if you have a burst of traffic during a month (lucky you!) or what if your daily traffic grows beyond 100 visitors per day (luckier you!)? You could easily exceed your monthly bandwidth. If this happened rarely, then no big deal, just pay the few dollars for the bandwidth you used over your monthly allotment.

But, if your site is that successful, it would probably be better to move to an upgraded hosting plan. You'll save money this way and won't be nagged by your hosting company to upgrade your hosting plan every month.

Let's consider an example: If your visitors increased by 50% you would have 150 MB of traffic each day for a total of 4.5 GB of monthly traffic. You would pay about $1.00 for the extra bandwidth.

You would probably find that an upgrade to a better hosting plan would cost you an extra couple of dollars each month, but you would triple or quadruple your bandwidth. That's a better bargain and allows your successful website to grow without further fees or upgrades.

And don't forget, even inexpensive hosting plans allow you to host multiple websites on one hosting plan. This is a real money-saver, but you'll need lots of bandwidth to handle more than one website on your hosting plan. Fortunately, as you've seen in the examples above, you don't pay double to double or even triple your bandwidth.

Basically, the rule of thumb is: Total the size of all your frequently visited website pages, images, external CSS and Javascript files, any downloadable files, MP3s, or video and you will have the expected bandwidth per visit to your website.

Then check your server logs and determine the number of visitors per month. Multiply the two numbers and you should have an idea of your usual website traffic. Next add in the size of uploads you may make. For example, when you change a page or redesign your site, you will upload new web pages to your site. These uploads cut into your bandwidth too. Double the grand total to allow room for growth and you have a pretty good idea of your bandwidth needs for that website.

Next, allow some bandwidth for the addition of new websites on the same hosting plan. Add everything together and purchase a hosting plan that meets your current needs and has room for you to grow as your business succeeds.