Web Hosting Guide – Part 2
Continued from Web Hosting Guide – Part 1
Good Budget Web Hosting Services
There are also some very good web hosting services that offer their service for a very high rate. If you have the budget to meet their rates, then you should always go for their service. This is because, since the rate is high, they will definitely offer you all kinds of features and the necessary web tools that are necessary for designing and developing the website. This kind of web hosting service will definitely be more reliable and more professional, when compared to the low-cost web hosting services.
These high-quality web hosting services are more likely to offer very good customer service too. When you are in any sort of difficulties regarding the working of your website or even any problems arising due to the web server or hosting plan-related problems, it is pretty sure that you will get an instant and top-class help from them. They will provide you high bandwidth, high disk space, guaranteed uptime, attractive add-ons, and all the necessary applications and codes necessary for designing and developing a good website.
You also need to check whether the web hosting service that you have chosen is Windows-based or Linux-based. Linux web hosting is the most popular web hosting service now-a-days. You definitely should go for the Linux web hosting, unless you have a very good reason for choosing the Windows web hosting, which incidentally is also a very good choice depending upon the applications you are going to use for your website.
When you have selected the right kind of web hosting service, it will be a good idea to check, what are the features, web tools, applications, and add-ons that are offered by your web host. Some of the features that you should look for, while choosing web hosting are as listed below:
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is also known as data transfer allowance. It is the rate at which and the amount of data transfers that can be done on your website. You should be very careful with the bandwidth that is offered to you by your web host. If your website is just a personal website consisting of very few web pages, then you will not require a lot of bandwidth. Even the default plan that is offered to you will be sufficient.
However, if your website has pretty big graphics, animations, multimedia files, and expect heavy downloads by your users, then you will definitely need a lot of bandwidth. If you cross the bandwidth limit that has been offered to you, you will have to pay some compensatory fees to your web host. Sometimes the crossing the bandwidth limits may even result in suspension of your website for a while.
So, before checking out how much bandwidth you require, you need to see how your site is going to utilize it. What kind of and how much web traffic you are targeting and whether there could be sudden rush of web traffic within a short duration for any reason. Depending upon those results, you should choose you the bandwidth accordingly.
Web Space
Web space or disk space is very important when you are selecting your web host. All the content that is on your website requires web space to be stored on the web server. If you have just a personal website that has not more than a few web pages, then only a small portion of disk space is sufficiently more than enough.
However, if your website is huge and has lot of web pages, high-quality graphics, videos, audios, animations, and pretty heavy uploads and downloads to and from your website is expected, then you definitely need a lot of disk space.. Also, if your online business is expanding day-by-day, then this will require even more web pages on your website for adding more quality content. For that, you will need to increase the web space for your website to accommodate the additional requirements. So, before purchasing web hosting service, you need to check out what the requirements of your website are, and then accordingly select or add more web space.
PHP
PHP is also known as PHP or Hypertext Preprocessor. It is a type of scripting language which allows you to perform all sorts of advanced website codes like interacting with the databases, create log-in accounts, send and receive e-mails, and much more.
When you create such a page with the PHP code on it, you have to just write the code in plain text-based file, save it as an HTML page, and type in the extension as .php. When this kind of web page is requested by the web server, it performs all the operations that are coded in the hypertext preprocessor (PHP) format.
CGI
CGI refers to Common Gateway Interface. It is one of the oldest programming interfaces, which enabled a lot of features on the internet. Using the CGI, we can perform a large number of tasks like interaction with the database, and sending and receiving the feedback forms. However, it is not a programming language. CGI scripts are one of the most popular scripts which are used all over the web. Some web hosting services even allows you to create and install your own CGI scripts.
ASP
ASP stands for the Active Server Page. It is similar to PHP in many ways. However, it is a Microsoft technology and its development is controlled by Microsoft. ASP is mainly used in a Windows-based web environment, but, now-a-days it is also being used in a Linux/UNIX-based web hosting environment, with some limitations.
There are many web hosting services that offer e-mail features. These features include mail boxes, e-mail forwarders, auto responders, and many more. You can use softwares and applications like Outlook to send and receive e-mails. You will also need an internet connection to use this kind of a e-mail service.
Web Statistics
Almost every websites offer their customers some web tool that shows the statistics of each and every web page on the website. These statistics can include the web traffic count that your web pages receive; the region from where the web traffic is coming, the complete database information, and much more. Some of the web hosting service providers even provides inbuilt statistical application to analyze your website statistics. You can even run some special software’s and download access logs using these features and tools.
MySQL, PostgresSQL, MS SQL Server
These are types of SQL databases. MS SQL (Microsoft SQL) is used on the Windows servers. MS SQL is well-known for its faster functioning, greater security, flexibility, and scalability. PostgresSQL and MySQL are open source, free-to-use, and are comparable to the MS SQL database application. You will often need programs like the PHP to access these databases from a web page. The combination of PHP and MySQL, and ASP and MS SQL will be found to be used in the Linux and Windows environment respectively.
Web Scripts
Web scripts come in many different types. These scripts can be automatically installed into your website or can be uploaded and modified before use. Scripts usually are written using the PHP or CGI programming languages. Through the scripts, you can install forums or bulletin boards, e-mail appl7ications, make a guest-book on your website, install web counters to count the web traffic, and can be used to process many things.
Continued: Web Hosting Guide – Part 3
