subject: What are some of the terms I need to know when I choose a web host? [print this page] What are some of the terms I need to know when I choose a web host?
Disk Space or Storage - Because your website is a collection of filesbeing offered on the internet for viewing, they have to be storedsomewhere for retrieval and take up space. Each web server has a finiteamount of hard disk memory to divide up and offer to hosting customers.Typically that space is divided up by different package levels so that themore you pay, the more space you are allowed to store pictures, webpages, videos and whatever other files you like on the web server's harddrive. If your website gets bigger than the space you are given, you willneed to purchase more disk space from the web host.
Bandwidth or Data Transfer - Whenever you visit a website and view apage, you are transfering a copy of the files that make up that page overthe internet from the web server to your computer. If the page you areviewing consists of an HTML file that is 3KB in size and three pictures of47KB, 100KB and 250 KB, then you have just used 400KB of bandwidthor data transfer, because that is the total amount of data you justdownloaded from the web server to view that page. Bandwidth is acommodity like disk space that the web host has to buy from its internetservice provider, so it too is divided up and offered to the customers inspecific amounts. Bandwidth amounts are usually measured in gigabytes(GB), because while only one copy of your files needs to be stored on theserver, thousands or even millions of copies may be downloaded forviewing. If your website is viewed more times than the amount ofbandwidth you are allowed can handle, your website may be turned offuntil the next billing period starts, or you may simply be billed for theexcess amount used, depending on your host's policies. You can alwayspurchase more bandwidth as your site's traffic increases.Uptime - In an ideal world, every web server would be up and running andoffering your web pages to the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a weekforever. However, web servers are computers, and like any other computer,things happen to make them fail, or they get old and out of date andrequire maintenance and repair. When a web host gives you a 99% uptimeguarantee, they are saying that the web server will be up and running for99% of the billing period. If they fail to meet this guarantee, most webhosts will refund a certain portion of your money depending on the amountof excess downtime they experienced.
Traffic Statistics - Website traffic statistics programs try to track visitorsto your website. They can track how many times your site was visited, howmany visitors were unique and how many returned more than once, whichpages were most popular, where the visitors came to your site from, whatsearch terms they used in the search engines, and many other types ofinformation which could be useful to you in marketing your website to atarget audience. These statistics can be displayed in tables, graphs andcharts by hour, day, week, month or year. Some statistics programs arebetter than others and offer more types of data, better displays, easiernavigation or other useful features. Most web hosts today offer some sortof traffic statistics software with their hosting packages.
CGI Scripts - Many web hosts offer a variety of free CGI scripts withtheir packages. These are things like hit counters, guestbooks, form mailprograms, message boards, and other programs that allow your website toperform commonly desired functions. You can use the ones your hostprovides you with or you can upload and run custom CGI scripts writtenby yourself or somebody else to perform different tasks like conducting asurvey or processing customer information to produce an automatic pricequote. Most CGI scripts are written in common programming languageslike Perl, PHP or ASP.You could spend a long time trying to learn everything there is to knowabout web hosting, but if you've read this far then you should be armedwith the basic knowledge you need to understand what different web hostsare offering you. Your next task is to figure out what you need and go outand find a host that wants to give it to you at a great price!
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