Posted by on Thursday, June 24th, 2010 at 9:32 am.
If you’re considering about investing and taking control of your websites hosting for the first time, you’ll need to think about a wide variety of factors that are dependent on the nature and size of your website.
For example, a dynamic eCommerce store selling World Cup merchandise will require far more resources than a static 3-page website that represents a Plumber in Bristol.
In this two-part post, our aim is provide you with sound advice on how to pick the correct web hosting package that meets the requirements of your businesses website design.
Firstly, we’ll cover some of the basic terminology that you’ll find is commonly associated with Web Hosting and then look further in-depth into the type of hosting we’d usually recommend for both static and dynamic websites.
Web Hosting 101 – Basic Glossary
Disk Space
Disk Space is essentially the amount of media that your web hosting package allows you to store at any given time. For a real-life example, disk-space can be thought of in comparison to a suitcase. Dependent on the size of your disk space, you will be able to ‘pack’ more data which can then be used and referenced to on your website.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is a representation of the amount of data that your website will transfer or be downloaded by users. For example, if your website hosts a video of 10mb in size and it is downloaded by 10 people, you will have transferred roughly 100mb’s worth of bandwidth.
Most hosting packages come with a cap on bandwidth, in a similar fashion to how phone line rental works where you’re provided with a certain amount of ‘data transfer’ and anything over that allotment may be subject to additional charges.
Databases
If you’re looking to host a Blog, Forum or any type of dynamic website which requires structured to be recalled, edited or published on the fly, you’ll need to consider purchasing Databases. Most hosting packages these days come with a few MySQL databases as part of the package, which should function just fine.
Examples of web software that require MySQL databases include WordPress, Magento, Joomla and Forum Systems such as IBP and vBulletin. For a very basic comparison, think of Excel spreadsheets.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
In order to publish and upload your website data on to the web, you’ll need to find out and work with your web hosting’s FTP information. To help understand what exactly FTP Information represents, think of it as the name, address and postcode of your website.
By using FTP software such as FileZilla, you’ll be able visit the address of your website and drop-off the files to your website, which, if all goes well, will bring your website online.
Next Time
So now that you’ve got some basic information on the world of web hosting under your belt, next time, we’ll advise you on what sort of web hosting packages you will need if you’re a small to large business, e-commerce store, community blog or anything inbetween.
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