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By Barbara Bouton Summary They say you can't go home again, but they're wrong. Finding
a home for your site is kind of like finding your first apartment. Remember the excitement you felt? How you scoured the classifieds, asked friends for leads, and carefully examined all the pros and cons of each potential abode? How you conducted your search for the perfect (and affordable) place you could call all your own? The place you could decorate anyway you liked? The place where you could entertain your friends, where you could start a family or launch a new career? You
can recapture that delicious (and sometimes frustrating) moment in time, or experience it for the first time when you search for the perfect plot of cyberground for your site—your home page. Finding the Perfect Home The methods you use to find a suitable location that meets your budget and that has the amenities you require are
almost identical to those used to find a real-world home. Your biggest hurdle will be understanding the techno-babble so you can make sense of cyber-real-estate "classifieds." But don't worry; I'll translate for you. You'll be talking like a geek in no time flat. Before you begin your search for a place for your Web site, you need to ask yourself a few basic questions. By starting with these questions, you'll be able to narrow the field
considerably because you'll only be looking at those providers who meet your most basic and important criteria. Just as in the real world, cyberspace zoning laws restrict what you can do on your site. These rules are found in your provider's acceptable use policies and contracts that correspond to the different kinds of accounts (leases) that Web hosting ISPs (landlords) offer. Will your Web site offer personal (residential) content, commercial (commercial) content, or some combination (mixed use)? How Much Rent Can You Pay? The monthly cost of Web hosting services ranges from free to hundreds of thousands of dollars. There do seem to be some common price points: free, $10 to $35, around $50, around $100, $150, and $200 and up. Don't get too hung up on prices just yet though. As I'll describe later, if you shop carefully, you can find a great host ISP that meets your needs for very little money. Are you a "do-it-yourselfer" or are you more comfortable calling in the contractors or the building superintendent to install or fix stuff? On the Internet, you have your choice among three levels of service: virtual Web hosting, virtual server hosting, and co-location. Virtual Web hosting is the cheapest but you have the least
control over the kinds of tools you can use, the services you can offer, and usually the Internet address your site uses. Virtual Web hosting is a lot like living in an apartment. Your site resides along with several hundred others on one machine that is using one copy of server software. Everyone has the same access to—and competes for—the use of system features and resources. This is the easiest kind of service to use because the only
thing you have to do is post your pages; the administration and configuration of the server is up to the ISP. The downside is that the service is much less flexible. If you want to use some cutting-edge technology on your site or make extensive use of the cgi-bin (for pages that require programming), you probably won't be able to. Also, your site's address is likely to look less professional and harder for visitors to find because it will be something like
http://www.hostispname/users/~boutons, instead of Virtual server (virtual domain hosting) is the next step up in cost and flexibility, but it allows more hands-on tweaking and
configuring on your part. Virtual Server differs from Virtual Web hosting in that only 30 to 50 sites are housed on one machine, and each customer is provided their own copy of server software. When you have your own server software, you can modify its settings anyway you like—use any kind of cgi or other script, add MIME types so users can download or see different types of files, or open up your account so more than one person can maintain it.
Virtual Server hosting is sort of like living in a planned community where you share a clubhouse and someone comes around and mows everyone's lawn. But what you do inside your own home is your responsibility. This kind of real estate is more costly for two reasons: It costs the ISP more to offer, because fewer clients can fit on one computer, and it requires more copies of server software. In addition, you will have to Want to build a mansion or an industrial complex? Then you want to look for co-location hosting services
. Co-location means you buy a computer, purchase all the software you need, set up the server, and then physically take the bundle to the ISP. The ISP then hooks your machine up to the Internet. Cybermansions are expensive to build, just like real ones are. Co-location usually starts at $500 a month, plus hefty setup fees and the cost of the computer. Only the largest businesses (think Fortune 1000) and sites (Yahoo! or The Motley Fool) usually require this level of service.
When you co-locate, the ISP monitors and maintains your equipment. If the computer breaks, your site goes off-line until it is fixed, unless you've made arrangements with the ISP to provide a temporary replacement. Sometimes, you can buy or lease a computer from the ISP, or have them buy one for you. You still have to pay for the software and pay the ISP for setup and configuration. The advantage to co-location arrangements is that you are the only user of that physical
machine, which means that your pages should be served faster and that your site should be more secure. You also will need to register your own domain name. How Much Space Internet "acreage" is measured two ways: the amount of hard disk space you have to use and the amount of bandwidth your site consumes. The first one is easy to understand; the second one is not so obvious. Hard Disk Space This refers to the amount of hard disk space the ISP sets aside for your exclusive use. You'll use this space to store your pages and the content they contain: text, graphics,
movies, sound, and so on. This is also where your tools will reside: cgi-bin, scripts, and databases. If you offer files for download, the files will take up some of this space, even if they are accessed via FTP instead of HTTP. Hard disk space is cheap these days. Even free accounts routinely offer 10 or 12 megabytes of space. If you need more space than is allotted to you, you can rent more for anywhere from fifty cents to a dollar a megabyte. So how much do you
need? Most Webmasters only use two to three megabytes of space if they are not offering files for download. Bandwidth & Traffic Bandwidth, traffic, data transfer fees, usage, and hits: In "ISP-speak," the first four refer to the same thing. Hits cause usage. A hit happens whenever a request is made by a
visitor's browser for some element of a page, whether it be the HTML code, a button graphic, or streaming media. Even simple pages generate multiple hits. Each hit consumes bandwidth equivalent to the size of the element. A 50K graphic is 50K of usage each time it is downloaded for display in a visitor's browser. A one megabyte file offered for download from your site counts as one megabyte of usage every time someone downloads it. When you upload pages
and their components to your site, you also consume bandwidth. Hosting ISPs have to pay their ISP hefty fees for those nice big communication lines they hook you up to. Therefore, many of them want you to pay based on how much usage of those lines your site generates. These ISPs offer you a set amount of usage per month as part of your package (1,000- 6,000 megabytes is common) and then charge anywhere from two to ten cents a megabyte for any traffic over your
limit. Other ISPs offer unlimited usage as part of your package. So What's the Deal? Why, you may ask, do some ISPs charge you like a long distance phone company does for usage while others offer a flat, all-you-can-eat service? The unlimited usage ISPs are thinking like an insurance company. They know that most
sites are not all that large and don't generate much traffic. The vast majority (some estimates are as high as 99%) of the sites on the Web never come close to generating 2,000 megabytes a month of traffic. These ISPs figure the odd site, one that is the exception to the rule, will be more than balanced by all their other customers. If, however, your site becomes extremely popular and generates enormous traffic that swamps the ISP's resources, it may not-so-politely force
you to move or pay more by invoking an escape clause found in all contracts. The clause says that if you do something that "threatens" their operations, they can yank your service. In the "you should be so lucky" department: if your site becomes too popular, it can be shut down, at least temporarily. Even the editor of this publication had this happen to him. It's a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that your site is getting over 50,000 hits in a single
day. The bad news is that your ISP (in this case, In some cases, ISP's charge a lot more for a little more service. In this case they wanted four times the normal rate in order to double the number of hits they'd provide. If your site gets so popular that it consistently gets a large number of hits, you'll need to look for a web host that can handle this, at a reasonable price. Our editor would have been happy to pay a little more for a
few days of high hits, since his site always fell within the limit in the past. But this wasn't available. Then again, had it been, he could have incurred unexpected charges, which could have been high because of the unusually high traffic at his site. On the positive side, some web hosts are understanding about short-term traffic jams. In the case of Then there are ISPs that impose limits and additional charges for overages. They're taking the attitude that everyone is better served if they pay for what they use. These ISPs don't
worry about running out of resources if your site generates tons of traffic, because when usage increases, revenue increases, which allows the ISPs to pay their bills and even order more service from their ISP. So What's the Best Deal? As with most things in life, it depends on what's important to
you. Selecting an ISP that offers unlimited traffic means your monthly bill will be predictable and there won't be any rude surprises unless your site offers a lot of very high bandwidth (big files) and or becomes enormously successful. Another point to consider is that ISPs that offer unlimited usage may actually attract more high bandwidth sites than the statistical norm. This could result in network congestion that will make your pages harder to reach or slow to load.
Choosing an ISP that monitors and charges for usage can be a good choice for many users because the ISP is in a better financial position to maintain excellent service levels by buying additional bandwidth from its ISP when it is needed. Just try to choose one that offers at least 2,000 megabytes a month usage and charges less than five cents a megabyte for anything over that amount. And by the way, be wary of an ISP that charges you by the
hit or touts that it offers unlimited hits. If it offers unlimited hits and doesn't mention usage, ask what it means by its claim. Unlimited hits doesn't mean much unless it also means unlimited bandwidth, traffic, transfer, or usage!
There are thousands of folks who are anxious to rent you some land to build your site on. The fastest and easiest way to separate the wheat from the chaff is to use specialized Web hosting search sites. Most of them offer Top 10 or Top 25 lists and helpful articles, news, and glossaries. Skim several recommended lists and you're bound to see some of the same names coming up. Take a serious look at these sites. If you prefer a more direct approach, use customized
searches available on these sites to bring up listings of only those ISPs that meet your list of must-have requirements. You can set more than 20 restrictions on your search. For example, you could limit your search to ISPs that offer toll-free support lines, UNIX servers, support for Cold Fusion, unlimited traffic, and inexpensive (or free) services. My favorite search sites for finding UNIX or Windows NT based services are:
Finding MacOS based hosting services is easy if you consult Location on the Net Is a State of Mind As long as your hosting ISP offers good Web-based tech support and/or a toll-free sales and support line, there's usually no particular advantage to finding a host in your own geographic location. You're never going to have to drop in to see your provider—and even if you did, you probably wouldn't get much past the receptionist, let alone anywhere near the server your pages are on.
If the visitors to your pages are clustered in one area, you may want to put your site near them, not near you. For example, if you are building a site primarily so the grandfolks can see pictures of you and yours and you are in New York and they are in Florida, host your site in Florida. And if your patrons are outside of the United States and Canada, put your site in their country, or at least on their continent. When your visitors are scattered from one end of the Earth to the
other, pick a U.S. provider. I put the word free inside quotation marks because a lot of sites that offer free hosting really don't. You may not have to pay in hard currency, but one way or another you do pay. The most common way you reimburse the ISP for its services
is by providing eyeballs (yours and your visitors) for the advertisements they surround or superimpose on your pages. The other way you pay is by providing demographic information about yourself and agreeing to receive e-mail from whomever they sell your information to. These free accounts also come with a lot of restrictions, the most common being that the site is strictly for personal use and you must accept the ISP's advertising and can't post any
advertisements of your own. Other restrictions vary from place to place, so be sure to read the service agreements and the FAQs before you share your demographic data. If you don't mind the terms and conditions, you can build a nice site without any monthly outlay. Geo-cities, tripod, ZOOM are among the most popular places that offer free space. Hypermart offers "free" sites for businesses only, and FreeServers.com allows you to use its "free" space for
personal, commercial, or nonprofit use. Dial-In Accounts If you're reading this article, you most likely already have a free Web space account. Dial-in Internet access providers routinely offer Web space as part of your dial-in service package. Check out your ISP's home page, or give it a call for details on how to access your space and ask about any restrictions on the use of the space. Small ISPs usually limit you to personal use; larger ISPs, such as AOL, allow personal and commercial use (but no adult content). The advantage to using the space provided by your dial-in ISP is that it is ad-free, and you may be allowed to post personal ad banners on your site. Hosting Services for Nonprofit Organizations If you are recognized by the IRS as a nonprofit organization, you can find full-featured, commercial hosting sites that offer services for free, or for a very low monthly fee. The Ultimate Host List or
HostIndex both allow you to search for ISPs that offer nonprofit discounts. Be aware, however, that most of the ISPs that come up in the search may not mention the discount on their pages. You have to write or call them to inquire. You may have a harder time finding space if your
organization or worthy cause isn't recognized by the IRS, but don't give up. If yours is a local cause, contact local dial-in and hosting ISPs and tell them who you are and what you want to do. If that doesn't pan out, try contacting local businesses and organizations that have Web sites they might be willing to share with you. Newspapers, radio, and TV stations, grocery stores, and other community-supported businesses are particularly good to contact for special events Web pages or
education-related sites. If you need help finding or building the site, contact a local computer user group or Freenet organization and see if they can help. Surprise! You can get excellent or lousy service for the same price. It is a buyer's market, and for the time being, what you pay for hosting services bears little relationship to the features and services offered, the size of the ISP, or the quality of service it offers. There are more than 5,600 ISPs out there, and every one of them wants your business. That said, how do you choose among them? By comparing cost, features offered, who their ISP(s) are, what guarantees they offer, and how good their technical support is.
Watch Out for the Fine Print There are more than 5,600 ISPs out there and each one seems to have done its level best to price its services in a way that makes easy comparison between ISPs difficult, at best. Some ISPs wow you with their low rates, and others take your breath away with their high cost. But finding value is not as simple as going with the cheapest package. Not all packages are made the same, and some of those low rates get very pricey when you add not-so-optional services such as access to log files, password protection, or security. Conversely, some of those expensive packages might actually be cheap because they truly do provide all the services and features you need now, or will need soon. Get Out the Magnifying Glass Finding value demands that you read (and maybe even print out) everything on the prospective host's site. Use the worksheet I've provided to find out the real cost of the
hosting service. Enter all the prices for each service and then total the services you'll want. Don't forget to include all of the various setup fees (these can really add up) along with monthly fees. Also find out what the ISP will charge you to upgrade or downgrade your service package in the future. Don't assume anything and be sure not to overlook the fine print, the *'s, the FAQs, and of course the contract. When you've narrowed your choice, write them a nice long e-mail
confirming what you think you will get with the package you've chosen. This is good because it puts it all down in writing, and it gives you a chance to test the ISP's responsiveness. With the following bare-bones, basic features, you can build
an attractive and useful site composed of straightforward HTML, and GIF and JPG graphics. A basic site such as this definitely shouldn't cost more than $10 a month and probably comes free with the dial-in account you use to get on the Internet. Here's a list of what I consider, rock bottom, basic services: ISPs offer an astounding array of features that go beyond the basic features I've outlined. Some of the features offered you may never use, and some will be must-haves. Which are which depends on your level of technical skill, the amount of time you have to devote to site building and maintenance, what your particular audience expects from your site, and
what kind of site you want to build. For example, if you're building a store, you probably will need database services to update your catalog, secure pages(SSL) and digital certificates, a shopping basket program, and the ability to accept CyberCash or credit cards (there are sites that will handle these things for you, But if you're building a technical support site, what may be most important to you is chat or forum software, the ability to post how-to movies for download or to stream them to your visitors, mailing lists to send to users notifying them of updates, lots of e-mail addresses (sales@, info@, support@, beta@), and password protected FTP transfers. The list of technologies supported by ISPs and demanded by
users changes daily, it seems. Check out at least a dozen ISPs to get a feel for what is available, and then try to figure out what you will want to use. If you have the faintest inkling that you might want to use a service, be sure to pick an ISP that offers that service. You don't necessarily have to buy that service now, but it is a lot better to have it available to you should you need it, than to have to pick up and move to an ISP that does provide the service.
An important feature for everyone to look for is a 30 (60 or 90 is even better) day money-back guarantee. A number of ISPs offer them; if you're not satisfied with their service, you get back your setup fees and rent. And if it is vitally important that your site is never, ever down, even for a few minutes—look for an ISP that offers a 99.5% (15 minutes a month) or a 99.9% (5 minutes a month) on-line guarantee. Connections, Connections are always important. When you connect to your local dial-up Internet provider, you don't want to wait around, so you buy the fastest modem your phone lines will support, and you dream of the day you can get ISDN or cable modem service. Similarly, you want to be assured that your
hosting ISP has fast connections, so visitors can connect quickly to your site and receive your pages before they get bored and move on. Remember, when you pick your hosting ISP, you're also picking their ISP. Somewhere on the ISP's home page, it will tell you what kind of connections it has and how many ISPs it uses. If it hides this information or doesn't mention it at all, move on because it probably has terrible connections. What you are looking for
is a provider that has lots of high-capacity lines provided by multiple backbone providers. Lines come in many sizes and the more your provider has and the bigger they are, the better. A T1 line used to be thought of as a big line and fast. It isn't that big anymore. Make sure your provider has at least a bunch of T1s. Better yet, look for a provider that has T3 or OC3 lines. These lines are 27 times faster. If you see the word SONET anywhere in
the discussion, that's even better. SONET rings are extremely fast, high-capacity fiber-optic connections. Additionally, if the ISP says it offers ATM-based services, this is better than if it mentions frame-relay. (By the way, you can get really good, short explanations of these terms (SONET, T3, ATM, frame relay) and other networking terms by looking them up in the Multiple providers are important because if an ISP only connects to the Internet backbone through one provider, Sprint, MCI, or WorldCom for example, and if that provider has an outage, your site is dead in the water. On the other hand, if your ISP has redundant connections to two or more backbone providers, your traffic can be re-routed to avoid the outage. Moving from house to house in the real world takes effort, time, and money, and so does moving your site from ISP to ISP. Before you put a down payment on a plot of cyberland, take the time to do your homework. Use the search engines
to narrow your choices, check out your candidates on on-line forums or newsgroups. Start with the links I've provided in this article and in the Hosting Resource list. You also can ask other Webmasters who their ISP is, and if they recommend it. There's never been a better time to invest in a little Web real estate. Its a buyer's market, and you don't have to settle for less than the site of your dreams. Now if only the real world was so accommodating! |
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