Freqently Asked Questions......
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What is Web Hosting?
What is virtual hosting?
What is a domain name?
How do I register a domain name?
My host offers unlimited bandwidth/space/transfer
What exactly is space and bandwidth/data transfer?
What do I need to do to put Flash on my website?
How do I track how many hits my website gets?
What are PHP, ASP, perl, etc?
What is MySQL, MS SQL, etc?
Do I have to change my domain if I get a new host?
Will there be forced advertising on my site - things like banner ads or popup ads?
What is Domain Parking?
How can I pay for web hosting?
What is PayPal?
What are subdomains?
How do I upload my site online?
What is uptime?
What is the difference between UNIX hosting and Windows hosting?
I have a fast internet connection (DSL/cable) - can I just host my own site?
Why would I need a dedicated IP?
Why don't I just go with the cheapest hosting?
Question:
What is Web Hosting?
Answer:
Web hosting is the act of renting space and bandwidth through a company so that you may publish your web site online.
You can either opt for free hosting that is usually supported with banners and pop ups, or you may opt to get paid web hosting, which gives you complete control over your site contents and also offers technical support.
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Question:
What is Virtual Hosting?
Answer:
Virtual Hosting is also known as shared hosting and form of web hosting should suffice for most everyone.
Virtual hosting simplly refers to the fact that your site is on one server, and that this server hosts mulitple sites. You are virtually shared - your site will not be the only one on this specific server.
FACT : Very few sites would actually need the power of a dedicated server, so this option provides to be a reliable and cheap solution.
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Question:
What is a Domain Name?
Answer:
A domain is your identity online. It separates you from everyone else - once yours, as long as you keep renewing it, no one else may have it.
There are two parts to a domain - the domain name itself, and the TLD (top level domain) extension.
The most popular TLD is the .com extension - it is synonymous with online business. But due to its popularity, getting a good domain name with '.com' is hard - most have been bought and are not available.
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Question:
How Do I Register a Domain Name?
Answer:
Registering a domain name is very easy.
First you will have to make sure that the domain you want is available - using something called a WHOIS you can lookup domain names from sites like Godaddy.com or Easily.co.uk and make sure the domain you want is available for registration.
Afterwards, you simply need to register your chosen domain nameration site such as DirectNIC or Register.com to purchase your domain name.
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Question:
My host offers unlimited bandwidth/space/transfer
Answer:
It is not possible for a web host to offer 'unlimited' bandwidth or diskspace. Such hosting plans always come with clauses that restrict how much bandwidth you can transfer at a given moment, how much CPU usage you can use (which is arbitrarily decided), and so forth.
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Question:
What exactly is space and bandwidth/data transfer?
Answer:
Diskspace is the amount of space you can use for your website. Every single letter of text on your website has to be stored somewhere on your web host's server. Each single letter is one byte, and a megabyte is roughly one million bytes. HTML pages are usually very small, but it is the extra images, scripts, and even databases that can take up large amounts of disk space.
Bandwidth/Transfer is the amount of data the server will allow your site to send in a month. Transfer is usually measured in gigabytes - billions of bytes. Once you go over your monthly limit, a host may either shut your site down for the remainder of the month or it can charge you 'overage.'
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Question:
What do I need to do to put Flash on my website?
Answer:
Flash is a client side feature - it runs on the user's computer, not on your web host. As long as the user's browser has the correct plugin installed, it will run on their computer.
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Question:
How do I track how many hits my website gets?
Answer:
There are a few terms that need to be clear on :
Hits - simply refers to the number of 'elements' loaded on your site. If one page has five images in it, viewing that page once adds 6 hits (one page + five images).
Impressions - the number of times all the pages on your site are seen (also simply called pageviews). Impressions are sometimes referred to as 'hits' which can cause confusion
Uniques/Visits - the number of people that visited your site
So to clarify, if I visit your website, look at two pages, and each page has 5 images on it, then your stats increase by one unique, two page views, and 12 hits.
Tracking on your site can be either done server-side or remotely. With server-side statistics, log files are used to generate visitor information. This is usually much more accurate than remotely hosted solutions. In such cases, you usually have to add some javascript to your site. This javascript is then used to track visitor data.
If your host provides it (and many do), server-side statistics are a good solution. Otherwise, you can go to companies like Site Meter, who will let you use a counter remotely to track your visitors.
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Question:
What are PHP, ASP, perl, etc?
Answer:
These are all programming languages which are referred to by their acronyms.
PHP - PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
ASP - Active Server Pages
Perl - not an acronym
Each programming language has its own benefits and uses. It is best that you research on your own to find one that best fits your needs.
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Question:
What is MySQL, MS SQL, etc?
Answer:
MySQL and MS SQL are both database systems and depending on what your host provides, you can use a database to organize your website data.
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Question:
Do I have to change my domain if I get a new host?
Answer:
No. Provided that the domain is registered in your name (as it should be), you can simply update your namservers (from where you manage your domain names) to that of your new host.
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Question:
Will there be forced advertising on my site - things like banner ads or popup ads?
Answer:
No, not at all. You are paying for the webspace - no one may put ads on your site except you.
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Question:
What is Domain Parking?
Answer:
Domain parking lets you buy a domain and then have a 'coming soon' page on it. This is not needed - if a domain is not parked it will simply be iinaccessible to anyone.
Most domain registrars provide this by default as a free service.
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Question:
How can I pay for web hosting?
Answer:
This all depends on which hosting company you decide to go with. Most web hosts will accept credit cards, some will accept PayPal/World Check/StormPay etc. and/or a Money Order / Check.
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Question:
What is PayPal?
Answer:
PayPal simply put, lets anyone with an email address send money to anyone else with an email address.
Each user signs up with PayPal and then enters their necessary banking and credit card information. Once registration is completed, your email address is all you need to send and receive money.
The PayPal company/system is owned by eBay.
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Question:
What are subdomains?
Answer:
Consider subdomains as an extension of your domain. For example, your site is www.example.com. A subdomain would be test.example.com, and another would be webhosting.example.com.
Subdomains are usually treated as separate sites from the main domain site.
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Question:
How do I upload my site online?
Answer:
Uploading your site can be done in many ways, but the most popular is FTP.
When your hosting account is created, you will have been provided with an FTP account ( username,password etc. ). Using software such as CuteFTP or WS_FTP, you can log into your host and using the program like a normal windows program, you can drag and drop files onto the server at your web host. These files normally become live online instantaneously.
There are other ways to upload your site such as using SSH or uploading files through your browser
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Question:
What is uptime?
Answer:
Uptime is literally what it means - it is the amount of time your site is up online throughout the entire month.
The best uptime would be 100%, but because things can break, many hosts offer 99.9% uptime guarantees. This means that if your site is not accessible for more than 43 minutes in a single month, they will reimburse you, depending of course on their terms of service.
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Question:
What is the difference between UNIX hosting and Windows hosting?
Answer:
Depending on which operating system to go with depends on your needs.
If you need to support Microsoft products such as ASP, MS Access, or VBScript, then Windows hosting would be better. Furthermore, if you are comfortable with IIS and do not have the time to understand how UNIX works, Windows hosting would again be a better choice.
There are some things to remember.
First of all, just because you use Windows at home does not mean you should use Windows hosting. The two are completely different, and having a Windows system at home will not affect your ability to communicate with a UNIX server.
Secondly, Linux is much more common with web hosts due to its superior stability and because it is free. Since it is free, Linux hosting is usually cheaper than Windows. Just because it's free does not mean it's not as good - Linux is an excellent product too.
In order to help you, we have created a list of web hosts using Unix and a list of web hosts that use Windows.
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Question:
I have a fast internet connection (DSL/cable) - can I just host my own site?
Answer:
You could, but that's definitely not recommended.
First of all, most ISPs have clauses that do not let you use your internet connection for web hosting - doing so will result in termination of your account.
Second of all, think of the headaches it can provide: making sure your system is secure so that no one can hack into it, having your computer on 24/7, and other such problems.
Lastly, think of the performance. Most good web hosts use powerful servers with lots of RAM and high performance hard disks. Furthermore, they have multiple internet connections at speeds far higher than what residential DSL or cable service can provide.
And as a parting, there are all the issues of support. If something goes wrong, it will be your job to fix it - you will not have a professional to correct the problem.
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Question:
Why would I need a dedicated IP?
Answer:
For most people, a dedicated IP is not required. But for people that want to provide anonymous FTP or a website using SSL, a dedicated IP can make that easier.
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Question:
Why don't I just go with the cheapest hosting?
Answer:
A host has to make a profit to continue operating. Some hosts do not properly understand the market, and may be pricing themselves too cheap.
We provide a more detailed explanation here
At times you will come across deals that are almost too good to be true - cheap web hosting with amazing features!
There are hosts that while offering cheap prices do back that up with excellent performance and service, but there are things to be noted:
- Look very closely to what is written in their terms of service (TOS) and acceptable use policy (AUP) documents. Some hosts try to limit the activity of the customer through these two.
- Unlimited bandwidth or space. Offering either of those two as unlimited is not possible.
- The quality of bandwidth and the overall performance. Some hosts scrimp on these to give you cheaper prices. Do a self test - visit the host's website multiple times in a day to see that it remains fast loading.
- In general, Windows Hosting is more expensive than Unix hosting.
- Test out the support, and take a look over the online documentation. If you are paying less than $10 a month (which is roughly 30 cents a day), do not expect to receive an answer right after email the host. Many hosts now offer flash tutorials online which can be an excellent way to learn how a feature works.
- Do some research - visit google.com and WebHostingTalk and look up feedback on a host.
Just because a host is cheap does not mean that you will receive 'cheap' service, but you must be careful.
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