When you first visit a hosting company's website, you will probably be confronted by a whole lot of jargon - such as web-server types (Linux, Windows IIS etc) and things like "CGI scripts". It is as well you understand these from the beginning. Otherwise you might be sold something far in excess of what you really need, or entirely unsuitable!
For simplicity we shall consider the two most popular web server software systems:
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A Server using a Unix-based Operating System (such as Linux), running Apache web server software.
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A Server using the Microsoft Windows Operating System running Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) software.
The reason why it is so important to know what sort of web server system is provided by your web hosting company is that on this decision will depend how you can set up your site. You should not start creating anything other than a very simple basic website without first considering this issue, because Linux- Apache servers and Windows-IIS servers are usually set up to recognise cer tain specific kinds of scripting and programming languages which will be in volved in your website enquiry form(s), your online database of information which you may wish to deploy, and possibly the way in which you manage reg ular updating to your site, etc, etc.
For example, if you need to make regular updates to your site, and you have a lot of pages on your site, it can be tedious. However, this can be made much easier by initially setting your site up to use what are called "Server Side In cludes" or SSI for short. They are one of the most valuable time-saving devices in website management you can ever come across! If, however, you are using Microsoft Front Page to build your website, it has its own proprietary system of Server Side Includes which will only work on servers which recognise Front Page Server Extensions, typically (though not necessarily), you might have guessed, Microsoft Windows Servers. The "standard" Server Side In cludes are those which work with Apache web server software. A Microsoft Windows IIS Server can be configured to recognise "standard" Server Side In cludes, but only in a limited way, and only by special request to your web host. If you are using Dreamweaver or hand-coding your site, the odds are that you will want to deploy "standard" Server Side Includes.
To use either SSI system, it is important to set up your site from the very be ginning to recognise one or other system. Setting your site up this way will save you hours of time in the long run, and does not take long to do in the first place, but it will affect the kind of server you need. Ask your web designer to do this for you.
This is not the place to get into debates about which system is better, but as a general rule, Linux-Apache systems are cheaper, and more secure, robust and reliable. However, with Microsoft exercising it's power in the computer world, and their increasing exploitation of proprietary coding etc., it may become increasingly difficult for Microsoft users to work easily with non-Microsoft sys tems. Certainly, the technically-minded and security-conscious tend to favour Linux-Apache, but this does not necessarily mean they are harder to use. Much depends on what you are doing. Moreover, one only has to look at the "help" sections on the Microsoft website to see how far from Bill Gates' dream of "computers for everyone", Microsoft is - the amount of technical jargon that one has to wade through here is enough to make anyone run!
Here are some of the things you might add to your website which you will need to take into account in choosing web-server software systems:
These are often controlled by what are called "CGI" (Common Gateway Inter face) scripts. You MUST check what sorts of CGI scripts your web hosting com pany provide for you so that you don't have to do the programming yourself, or, if you have someone who knows what they are doing, whether they will al low you to use your own scripts if your web host does not provide them. In many cases the answer to the latter question will be none because of security and web server overload implications! You may then have to resort to third party solutions, which can result in a messy website structure and poor control over its appearance.
If you plan to have an e-commerce site, i.e. one which has a shopping cart and takes payments in some form or other, you may need access to a SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) server which encrypts information passing over the internet so that the user's credit card details, for example, cannot be "snatched" as they are being transmitted. However, there are other simpler solutions which we discuss on the payments processing section.
If you plan to build and / or update your site using a Content Management System (CMS), you must make sure that your web server supports the CMS you are planning to use. (A CMS is the simplest method of keeping your web site up to date, but gives you relatively limited control - more later). You may need to consider how many website visitors you anticipate and how big your website is going to be. In the case of most SME's this is not usually a major issue, because huge amounts of traffic are unlikely, at least to start with, and the website will probably be fairly small. Most good web hosts offer quite generous amounts of space for your files, and a good traffic allowance - normally far more than you are ever likely to need. However, you should still check before you buy! Problems may arise if you have a website with lots of large image or sound files, for example, and here you may need to do some calculations. Web pages themselves are small; it is the images and sound files etc., that are placed "on" (associated with) them that take up the space. If you had thousands of web pages of pure text, this would probably use less web space than a single sound file!
There are security considerations too - for example, does your web host pro tect your site with a good firewall, does it back it up onto independent servers which are in another location, do they have some means of recovering an earli er version of your website for you if it gets damaged in some way (e.g. be cause you have made a mess of it while updating it!), etc? You should also ask for server downtime figures, and if there are "mirror" serv ers which "kick in" and continue to keep your website up and running while the main web server is being rebooted or repaired. Related to this are backups of your website. This issue is often covered under the term "redundancy". There is also the issue of 24/7 round-the-clock monitoring. A good web host should be able to provide this. Bear in mind that a company which offers web hosting as part of a range of services they offer, is likely to be a reseller for a dedicated web hosting company so even if you are using a local web designer who cannot monitor your site around the clock, it may still be possible to re quest 24/7 server monitoring.
Then there are the added features such as mailboxes, control panels etc. A control panel is useful because it will enable you to manage your site more easily yourself - such as adding email addresses, changing various website configurations, etc. POP3 mailboxes allow you to view your emails on your own computer via programmes such as Outlook Express, and webmail allows you to access your emails on any internet-connected computer. You may already have an email address such as one at Hotmail or Yahoo but it is advisable to have an email address with the domain name of your site. It looks much more professional! Usually there is a facility for redirecting mail so you can still ac cess all your email in the same place that you usually do.
All this may sound bewildering and overwhelming if you are not very com puter-literate! These are things you will need to discuss with a potential web host. Do not let them overwhelm you with technical jargon. Insist that they ex plain everything in plain language and go elsewhere if they refuse to do so! You could simply work through the last several paragraphs with them, asking them the relevant questions. A local web hosting company is often better in this respect as you have more opportunity for personal contact with those who run it, and the capacity to be flexible. Tell them what you want your website to do, and what level of security and reliability you need.
Your web hosting package needs to be able to support what you want to place on your website, and how you are going to update it. Because it is fairly standard these days to register your domain name via a web hosting company and take out web hosting at the same time, you are advised to choose a web hosting company who are flexible and will not charge you excessively if you wish to transfer your domain name to another web hosting company at some stage that more closely matches your requirements. However, as soon as you have chosen the right web hosting package you should place some basic text content on your home page for the search engines, and submit it. This is something we will discuss further on.