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Webhosting Services
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Introduction:
There are scores of web hosting services offering free webspace and
hundreds of web hosting services offering webspace at a fee. Each Internet Service Provider (ISP) and web hosting service (sometimes
called a Web Presence Provider or WPP) has the right to establish and enforce their own
acceptable use policy.
In any industry there will always be a few services that feel it is their duty to
overcharge for their services. There is no reason why you should feel singled out by
an unscrupulous web hosting
service that overcharges for their service. There are just too many new individuals
and businesses arriving online to keep the sharks away. It is truly unfortunate that
a large number of individuals and businesses get overcharged for Internet services, but
eventually those new to the Internet learn to seek out better value for their Internet
investment.
Free Webhosting:
A web hosting service that offers free webspace wants the traffic its clients generate to
see their advertising. In exchange for free webspace you are expected to display
advertising provided by the web hosting service. The advertising can take the form
of either a banner at the top (sometimes also the bottom) or each webpage or a popup
console that appears each time one of your webpages loads to a visitor's browser.
|
Feature |
Description/Benefit |
Subdomain
Names |
Each free web hosting
service will provide you with a subdomain name that will become your URL (website
address). This is not a major problem for you when the subdomain name provided is
fairly short and is generic enough to provide you with a web identity that does not
detract from the image you want to establish. It is a real plus when a free web
hosting service offers a subdomain that is both basically generic and short. For
example, a subdomain name of such as flrealtor.vsn.nu would be much easier to live and work with
than a subdomain name such as freehomepage.com/fl/realtor. Some free web hosting
services use even longer names than the "long"
example shown. |
|
Categories |
Some free web hosting
services ask you to select a category for your website from a fairly stock list of
categories. If they do not have a category that closely matches
your product or service, you may be left with a
totally inappropriate choice. If the free web hosting service does
not have a category you can accept, simply look for offerings at another service. |
|
Directories |
You should be sure that
the free web hosting service lets you create subdirectories. The ability to have
subdirectories makes it much easier to organize your content. For example, at most
websites you will find all graphics and photos in an "images" subdirectory. |
| ftp Access |
If the web hosting
service does not provide ftp access, you will be forced to manually upload your files
using your browser in groups of five (5) at a time. Even a small website is going to
have enough files to make such an operation very tedious. Having ftp access is not
an issue in the event your web hosting service provides FrontPage support. |
Traffic and
Transfer |
When someone loads a
webpage from your website they are creating traffic as they transfer the webpage from your
website server to their display. Thus, when a visitor loads 25K of html code for a
webpage and a 75K photo image they have used 100K of traffic and transfer (sometimes
called bandwidth). When your website is hosted on a service that allows you only
500Mb of traffic and transfer per month before the web hosting service begins to charge
you for additional bandwidth that 100K webpage could be viewed 5,000,000 (five million)
times before you exceeded your bandwidth limit. Let's assume that your website
consists of twenty-five (25) webpages each 100K in size. That means that each of
your twenty-five (25) webpages could be viewed two hundred thousand (200,000) times during
the month before your web hosting service would begin charging you an extra fee. In
other words, your website could have a total of two hundred thousand (200,000) viewers
each month taking a look at each of your webpages one time. If the graphics on your
website are large or each viewer takes a look at each webpage multiple times (or presses
the browser reload button), you will not be able to host as many individual visitors.
With virtually all free web hosting services you receive unlimited traffic and
transfer, so theoretically there is no upper limit on the number of visitors that can
visit you website. |
FrontPage
Support |
If your website was
designed using Microsoft FrontPage, your ideal choice for a free web hosting service would
be one that provides FrontPage support. There are a few free web hosting services
that provide FrontPage Support. With FrontPage support you are able to
"publish" your website files using a procedure eases many of the tedium of
website management. Plus you will be able to use the FrontPage Extension extras such
as forms and counters. It is possible to use FrontPage Themes on a website even when
a web hosting service does not offer FrontPage support, but getting the correct files
loaded to your website is slightly more difficult unless you also have a produce called KISSfp. |
| Webspace |
There is quite a lot of
variance in the amount of webspace a free web hosting service will give to its clients.
Some services provide only a few webpages while others will provide up to 20Mb of
webspace to all accounts. There are a few free web hosting services that will afford
either 50Mb or unlimited webspace to high traffic websites. If you receive 10Mb of
webspace, you will have more than enough room to store all of the files necessary for a
successful escort website. Actually, even 5Mb of webspace should be enough room
unless you plan to have a large product or service section. |
File Size
Limits |
Many free web hosting
services impose some restrictions on the size of a file that can be located on a webpage.
In most cases you will not be able to place a file larger than 100K on your
website. This is usually not a problem because you should avoid files larger than
100K in any event. The files most likely approach the limit would be your photo
gallery files. There are ways to shrink image files without creating a sacrifice in
quality. Remember, having an image file with greater than 72dpi is useless on the
web because the best any monitor can do is 72dpi resolution. When you scan a photo
there is a temptation to scan it at the highest possible resolution, but doing so only
produces a larger file. If you are scanning your photos not only for the web but
also for the purpose of printing them on a high resolution color printer, just remember to
also save a copy of the image at 72dpi resolution. |
File Type
Limits |
Some free web hosting
services limit you to certain types of files that can be included on your website.
Virtually all free web hosting services will permit .htm, .html, .gif, and
.jpg file types
to be loaded to their servers. Many free web hosting services will not permit .wav
(sound), .mid (sound), .mpg (movie), .avi (movie), .rm (movie or sound),
.jav (Java), .mp3
(music), .exe (executable), .zip or Perl files to be uploaded to their servers.
Where there are restrictions the web hosting service will usually provide a listing of
permitted and non-permitted file types. |
Access and
Updates |
Many free web hosting
services will delete your website in the event there is either no traffic or updates for
the website over a period of time. With some free web hosting services you must have
both new traffic and updates to at least some of your content every five (5) days.
Read the Terms of Service Agreement carefully to ensure that you know about such any
access or update requirements. If there is no traffic at your website over a five
(5) day period, you will surely know about it anyway. It is always a good idea to
refresh your web content on a regular basis. |
| Frames |
Virtually all free web
hosting services will not permit the use of Frames because it interferes with the display
of their required banners. The use of Frames might be permitted on a free web
hosting service that loads a pop-up console every time a visitor enters or exits one of
your webpages, but the pop-up consoles are almost universally disliked by folks using the
Internet. Frames also make it more difficult to get your website listed well with
search engines. Finally, it is not possible to use a FrontPage Theme and Frames.
You should avoid the use of Frames on your website. |
Free
Virtual
Domain |
This is listed at the
bottom of the information on free web hosting because it is actually a special type of
free web hosting arrangement. There are a few free web hosting services that provide
you with free webspace while letting you have your own domain name. Of course, you
are responsible for securing and paying for your domain name, which means that this type
of situation is not totally free. The main benefit for you is that visitors would go
to your website using your domain name URL rather than the subdomain name that a free web
hosting service would normally provide. Since the web hosting is still providing the
webspace at no charge, they would still demand that you show their banners at the top
and/or bottom of each webpage. If you can stand to have someone else's banners
displayed at the top of each webpage, this can be a very inexpensive way to
establish a web presence using your own domain name. |
| Email |
Some free web hosting
services will afford their clients with a free email account or at least an email
forwarding service. The email forwarding service might be more useful than an actual
email account because you can have all email coming from the website forwarded to your
regular email address. |
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Paid Webhosting:
Opting to establish your own domain name at a web hosting service that charges a monthly
fee provides you with the most control over your web presence development. The cost
of having your own virtual domain can be anywhere from US$6.95 per month to more than
US$100.00 per month depending upon where you locate and how much webspace is included with
the package you select. When you are evaluating paid web hosting services you should
consider the following:
|
Feature |
Description/Benefit |
| Content |
Read the web hosting
service's Acceptable Use Policy very carefully. |
| ftp Access |
With paid web hosting
services you can almost always expect to have at least full ftp access to your website.
If the web hosting service does not provide ftp access, you should simply look
elsewhere regardless of any other features provided by the service. Having ftp
access is not an issue in the event your web hosting service provides FrontPage support. |
Traffic and
Transfer |
When someone loads a
webpage from your website they are creating traffic as they transfer the webpage from your
website server to their display. Thus, when a visitor loads 25K of html code for a
webpage and a 75K photo image they have used 100K of traffic and transfer (sometimes
called bandwidth). When your website is hosted on a service that allows you only
500Mb of traffic and transfer per month before the web hosting service begins to charge
you for additional bandwidth that 100K webpage could be viewed 5,000,000 (five million)
times before you exceeded your bandwidth limit. Let's assume that your website
consists of twenty-five (25) webpages each 100K in size. That means that each of
your twenty-five (25) webpages could be viewed two hundred thousand (200,000) times during
the month before your web hosting service would begin charging you an extra fee. In
other words, your website could have a total of two hundred thousand (200,000) viewers
each month taking a look at each of your webpages one time. If the graphics on your
website are large or each viewer takes a look at each webpage multiple times (or presses
the browser reload button), you will not be able to host as many individual visitors. Ideally, you would want to be with a
web hosting service that afforded you unlimited bandwidth. |
FrontPage
Support |
If your website was
designed using Microsoft FrontPage, your ideal choice for a free web hosting service would
be one that provides FrontPage support. For general audience websites there are
literally hundreds of web hosting options available. With FrontPage support you are able to "publish" your
website files using a procedure eases many of the tedium of website management. Plus
you will be able to use the FrontPage Extension extras such as forms and counters.
It is possible to use FrontPage Themes on a website even when a web hosting service does
not offer FrontPage support, but getting the correct files loaded to your website is
slightly more difficult unless you also have a produce called KISSfp. |
| Webspace |
There is quite a lot of
variance in the amount of webspace packages available from web hosting
services. Actually, unless your website is being hosted by a
service affording you unlimited traffic and transfer having more web space
can become quite expensive without adding any value to the website in terms of generating
quality clients because visitors will simply spend more time browsing regardless of
whether or not they decide to purchase anything from or through your
website. The net effect for you
is that you wind up paying for bandwidth without getting any extra value for the extra dawdle
time at your website. Be sure to read
the bandwidth restrictions very carefully. |
File
Restrictions |
With a paid web hosting
service it would be very unusual to see any restrictions set for either file size or file
type. You should bear in mind that large files, especially image and
software files can
rapidly eat up bandwidth. |
| Email |
Most paid web hosting
services will provide both POP3 email and email forwarding with even their most basic
package. The ideal offer would be for unlimited POP3 email accounts and unlimited
email forwarding, but more often you will receive one (2) or two (2) POP3 email addresses
and unlimited email forwarding. It is important to be with a
webhosting service that gives you a unique mail server designation. |
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