Before considering a hosting package, you should
think about your website needs. You'll likely never need enormous
amounts of webspace and data transfer. No need paying extra for
nothing.
 What
is Storage Space?
How many megabytes is your website? If you're using Windows, right
click on the folder that contains the elements of your website
stored on your computer and click "properties" to find
out. That is how much web storage space you will need right now.
It is suggested to get a package with more space than that number.
This will ensure you will have room to grow in the future. If
you do grow beyond the initial package you signed up for, you
can upgrade to a larger package later. The average website uses
less than 20 megabytes, unless it is graphic intensive. Galleries
can grow quickly in size.
Cafe Only is
less than 5MB while DeluxeBanners.com
is over 150MB
What
is Data Transfer?
This is the amount of data that you are allowed to transfer with
your account. Data is this case usually referrs to images, text,
or anthing else that the web server must transfer to the user's
web browser. This is a bit more important than webspace, because
it's harder to determine how much you need. If your average page
size is 25kb the 500 MB of data transfer is equivilant to about
20,000 page views. The more popular your website is, the more data
transfer you will need. The above formula is not 100% accurate.
Think about it each visitor will not see every single file in your
website, and please no not forget FTP and email usage is also counted,
but it at least gives you an idea.
DeluxeBanners does not offer "unlimited" or "unmetered"
data transfer and warns you to be wary of those that do. In the
event that your website exceeds its monthly limit of data transfer
your site will be shut down, but a quick email will get it back
up in 24 hours or less. It WILL NOT be deleted, but it should be
time to evaluate whether or not you should upgrade your account.
What
is Server Side Scripting?
This includes (but is not limited to) CGI, ASP, PHP and SSI. Of
these, CGI and PHP are the most useful. You will likely want to
use one or the other at some point. With CGI and PHP you can set
up guestbooks, mail forms, forums, chat rooms, counters and lots
of other cool stuff for your website. SSI is handy, but usually
not as necessary as the others. DeluxeBanners offers them all, just
in case you ever want to broaden your horizons!
What
is the Operating System (OS) on the server?
DeluxeBanners uses Unix.
Just to be clear, the OS of the server has no relation at all to
the OS you use on your computer. Generally, CGI and PHP work best
on a Unix/Linux server, while ASP works on Windows 2000/NT servers.
As for databases, MySQL is better on Unix, and MSSQL/MS Access is
better on Windows. Unix is the most widely used, and generally speaking
more secure (less susceptible to bugs, hackers or viruses).
What
are Subdomains?
Subdomains have the form of http://sub.domain.com, and come with
their own FTP account. They're also useful for sectioning off your
website into orderly parts. Similar to subdomains are seperate directories,
or user directories, that also come with their own FTP accounts,
which are just as good for hosting your friends.
What
are my Email Capabilities? Auto responders, aliases, catch-alls,
forwarders what's all that?
- An auto-responder is exactly what it sounds like. When someone
sends a message to an account you have an auto-responder set up
on, they will get an immediate automatic reply. You can set that
reply to be anything you wish, such as "Thanks for your mail!
I'm on vacation at the moment, so I'll get back to you in a few
weeks."
- An alias is another name for the same email account. If Joey@domain.com
is the POP3 account, and JoeyCool@domain.com is an alias for it,
then any email sent to JoeyCool will go straight to Joey.
-A catch-all account can be very handy or very bad. If someone ever
mis-types your email address, or sends an email to an address at
your domain that doesn't exist, it will go to your catch-all account
instead. But spammers have all but made this feature useless.
- Forwarders are like URL redirects. Any email sent to a forwarded
account name will be "forwarded" to the email account
you specify. This works even if it is at another domain. Say you
have Tim@comcast.com as your outlook email on your computer. You
can have JoeyCool@domain.com mail forwarded to that account.
What
are Site Stats?
Site Stats is short for Web Site Statistics or Raw Access Logs.
These will let you know who is visiting your site, when, what browser,
OS and screen resolution they were using, how they got to your site
and exactly what files they accessed while they were there. This
can be invaluable for finding out which parts of your site are most
popular, and how to improve upon things like navigation and loading
times.
DeluxeBanners offers Awstates, Webalizer, Subdomain Stats, Latest
Vistors, Bandwidth, and Error Log Stats.
Do
I have a Control Panel?
A web-based control panel can save you a lot of time and money.
Instead of emailing DeluxeBanners and asking to set up things like
email accounts, subdomains, databases and FTP accounts, you can
do it all yourself. DeluxeBanners uses cPanel control panel. Theme
X v2.3.0 Visit Cpanel
for youself to find out more.
Do
I need Database options?
If you're going to have a forum, or any other script that needs
to store a lot of data, then you will need a MySQL database or two.
MySQL is not necessary, but it runs faster than text scripts, and
doesn't overload the servers processor like some CGI scripts do,
and that is appreciated.
What
about "Other Stuff"?
Most of the other things, like mailing lists or Frontpage extensions
are self explanatory. Things like SSL/secure servers, shopping carts
and other merchant capabilities you will only need to worry about
if you're running a commercial business website. Please do your
research about what you need before signing up with any hosting
package, here or elsewhere.
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