Website Hosting Parameters

Choosing a website hosting company process
Website hosting parameters
Free Website Hosting
Monitoring your website hosting
Conclusion

•    Operating system
•    Site load speed
•    Support
•    Reliability
•    Price
•    Traffic
•    Storage
•    Email
•    Databases – MySQL, Access, MsSQL
•    Software – PHP, ASP, JSP
•    Control panel
•    Website statistics
•    Upgrading

Operating System

There are two main operating systems for internet servers – Windows and Linux. Hosting on Linux servers is more reliable and cheaper. On the other hand, Windows has the advantage of supporting ASP, .NET and also PHP. You can see a survey of servers worldwide at Netcraft – web server survey.

Site Load Speed

Will your visitors wait 10 seconds between pages? I don't think so!
Your site load speed is a very important parameter in marketing your site and in getting the results you expect from the site. Today, internet users don't have the patience to wait. They want a response and fast! A fast response speed shows professionalism and gives your site visitors a pleasant surfing experience.
What does your load speed depend on?
•    The communication lines to the server and the amount of traffic on them. In general it is best to host on a server located as close as possible to your target audience.
•    Server load – how many processes are waiting at any moment to be performed by the processor. This has nothing to do with the number of sites on the server but rather on the load these sites cause. This data can be viewed in some control panels.
•    Size of the page.
•    How the site is designed (use of CSS).

How to check the site load speed?
•    Ask the provider what the average server load value and the maximum server load value were during the past month. A load of more than 2 is too much.
•    Another way is to send a "ping" to different hosting companies' servers and compare the results.
•    Find sites hosted on a company's servers (through a list of recommended sites or by asking customer support) and ask them to load a 10MB test file for you. Download the file and see the rate.
•    Use TraceRt performance test to compare between hosts.

More details can be found in Monitor your website section

Support

Try sending an email. Try the chat. Visit the site on different days and at different times to see if the chat is active. It is also worth your while to try calling to ask questions.

Reliability

Reliability is composed of a couple of factors:
•    Security – protection against hackers and viruses. There are companies that suffer from attacks for numerous reasons, stay away from them. You should ask if the company has been attacked in the past and what were the results.
•    Backup – Make sure there is a backup. Check to see how much it will cost to reconstruct if there is a failure.
•    Good server farm.

Cost

Important:
In order to receive good service, the hosting companies must be able to make a living! This doesn't mean you need to pay exorbitant prices. 90% of websites don't need to pay more than $10 a month for hosting on a Linux server or $13 a month for hosting on a Windows server. On the other hand, beware of companies whose prices are too cheap. Less than $5 a month for more than 500MB of space is too cheap.

When you are checking prices, you need to be wary of hidden costs, a painful subject for all of us in the computer industry. Make sure all your needs are met with the hosting package. Points to pay special attention to are:
•    Shared SSL
•    SSL costs – the price of SSL depends on the company providing the service (Verysign, Thawte, etc). It is important that the SSL supports 128bit of encoding and comes from a recognized company so customers will trust the system.
•    MySQL database
•    MsSQL database – there is almost always an additional fee because of the high license costs. It is worth a while to compare prices.
•    Statistics
•    Locking folders with a password
•    Parked domains

Traffic Volume

Traffic is the amount of data that travels from the server to the surfer and back from the surfer to the server in a month. Most websites don't need more than 1GB of traffic a month and most packages offer more than 10GB. You should find a package that allows you to increase the monthly traffic (for example, during an advertising campaign). Be wary of unlimited traffic – this offer attracts sites that clog the communication lines.
Calculating monthly traffic:
X – Size of the average page in KB
Y – Number of page requests for a month
The monthly traffic in MB = X*Y/1000
Note:
This calculation provides the highest expected amount. In reality, the number will be much lower since internet browsers save in their local cache parts of the website like pictures, CSS files, etc. During the first visit, these parts are downloaded and saved. On later visits, the data is then retrieved from the memory on the internet user's computer and not from the server.

Disk Space

Most companies don't need a lot of disk space for their sites. The average company image site is between 20-50 MB. If the website uses a database, you need to take into account the size of the database. We recommend taking more disk space than you need to last you through the coming years.

Email

Email is a necessity today for every company. Email that ends with the company's domain name shows you are a serious company and helps spread the company name. The number of email accounts isn't the only parameter you have to look at but also the maximum size of the accounts (this detail not usually advertised, you will have to ask). You must be able to create email accounts through the control panel. This prevents you having to ask the hosting company to do it for you, every time a new worker joins. You should also check to see if there is a program for accessing email accounts over the internet, a practical solution for checking email from home. Other email tools are:
•    Forwarders – automatically send emails that arrive at one address to another.
•    Filtering – prevent emails from a specific address or containing a specific text from reaching your inbox.
•    Antivirus program on the server
•    Autoresponders – send a response immediately to let customers know their request is being taken care of.

Databases – MySQL, Access, MsSQL

Databases allow you to save information in organized tables and to then perform fast and secure operations on it. If you want to enhance your site and to add functions, most likely you will need to use a database.
The most popular database used on internet servers is MySQL. This is a very fast database that can be installed for free. Every major control panel lets you build and manage with MySQL .
Additional databases that can be worked with are:
•    Access – recommended only for very small software systems running on Windows. This is a very slow database.
•    MsSQL – A database from Microsoft. This database is very expensive and you will have to pay for it. MsSQL is recommended only for very large sites (save your money).

Here are a couple of points to pay attention to regarding databases:
•    Is there a limit to the size of the database? Make sure you don’t need more space.
•    Is there is limit to the number of databases you can use and what is the cost of adding more?
•    Versions installed on the server – your website designers should check this issue.
•    With MySQL make sure you have the option of managing using PhpMyAdmin or another graphics tool.

Software – PHP, .NET, ASP, JSP, Perl

There are several major languages on the server side for developing internet sites:
•    PHP – the most popular language in the world today. The language is very fast and appears on almost all hosting servers (including those based on Windows operating systems).
•    .NET and ASP – developer languages that run only on Windows based servers.
•    JSP – For Java based development. It is a little difficult to find hosting companies that support this language.
•    Perl - Installed almost on all hosting servers. Old and good software.

What you should pay attention to with regards to software languages:
•    Versions – again, it is very important to check this issue.
•    Can you run automatic scripts at certain times (called Cron Job)?
•    Is there a limit to writing files on the server – important, important, important!!! There are companies that limit the space for writing files to a certain folder. If the software wasn't prepared ahead of time this will cause a lot of additional work and frustration!

The Control Panel

The hosting control panel (administrator interface) lets you perform most of the operations you need without the hosting company needing to do anything. Operations you should be able to perform with the control panel include:
•    Managing email addresses
•    Statistics and monitoring of traffic, volume, etc.
•    Managing databases
•    Performing backups and downloading them (this is not instead of hosting company backup.)
•    Locking folders with password
•    Managing FTP accounts

A control panel is not mandatory but I personally cannot work without one. If there isn't a control panel, check if there are additional costs for performing the operations described above.

Website statistics

Statistics are the site's most important management factor. You need to monitor visits so you can improve them. Fortunately, most control panels provide statistics that include most of the information we need, for example:
•    Most viewed pages
•    Which sites did the users visit to get to yours (very important)
•    What keywords were used in the search engines to find your site
•    How many entries were there in a day/ a month
•    Etc.

Popular statistics programs are Awstats, Webalizer and Analog. You will find some or all of them in most control panels. Out of the three listed, the most recommended and self explanatory in my opinion is Awstats.

Unfortunately, the data provided by these programs is not good enough for a serious analysis of what surfers are doing on your site. For more on this subject, see the article Website Statistics.

Upgrading Hosting Packages

Is it possible to upgrade a package? This isn't so important if you have chosen a package that is a couple sizes too large but it is important if your package is small. You should check how much it costs to add a MB of storage, a GB of traffic, additional email accounts, etc. Oftentimes, it is cheaper to upgrade by adding what you need than to upgrade to a larger package.


Continue to the next chapter: Free Web Hosting

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Relevant links

web server survey - Netscraft server survey.
TraceRt - Very good testing and monitoring tools.
MySql - most used databse.
PhpMyAdmin - Graphical management software for MySql.
Website statistics - Very important article about analyze website statistics.