I have had a few clients whose initial contact with me is along the lines of, “I’ve reserved a name with a hosting company, and now I have no idea where to go from here.” Since I’ve been there myself, and have spent a lot of time on the phone with clients answering questions about C-Panels and bandwidth, I thought it would be a good idea to write something like a field guide to hosting companies.

What does a hosting company actually do?

At its core, a hosting company owns space on the physical server where your web site’s files will reside. When you sign up for a hosting plan, you are renting that space. The other basic service that hosting companies provide is reserving the domain name you have decided on for your site. You are renting a stake on your claim to that name through the company. These claims can be held for a designated amount of time, in most cases a year to 2 years, and after that if the claim is not renewed, your claim on the domain name is released. Hosting companies also handle email accounts and a vast majority also offer some variety of shopping cart software and template options for your website.

What will my costs be?

That question can be a tricky one. I have seen hosting companies charge anywhere from $0 to $24 per month to host sites. This is one area where you really have to “kick the tires” to make sure you are getting the best deal. If the hosting company says they can host your site for $0 per month, chances are you are going to get a very basic package with no real options. If you want your site to be more than an online brochure with a simple email link, then expect to pay around $8 a month for hosting. That’s a reasonable rate for hosting a large site with dynamic scripting. (see below for more explanation)

All these companies offer all sorts of “packages”. Which one is right for me?

I know, I know. If there is one thing I wish I could change about the hosting industry, it would be to standardize all the different offerings out there into three categories; Basic, Dynamic and Unlimited. Then again, that would put their marketing staff out of work because there would be no need to come up with plan names like “hatchling” and “ultimate gold”. Take a close look at what is offered in the cheapest plan. Don’t know what all those acronyms and weird names mean? Neither did I when I first started out. Here’s a guide to get you started:

Anonymous FTP: Your site’s users will have the ability to upload and download files without having to sign in with a user name and password.

Apache: An open-source program developed to run web servers. Its popularity with hosting companies is due to the fact that it is reliable, secure and free.

Auto Responder: A service offered by which users receive an automatic response when they email you via your site. If you are planning to offer products on your site, or, you anticipate getting lots of emails that you won’t be answering right away, this is a good thing to have.

Bandwidth: The amount of traffic that your site will be able to handle. Technically, it’s calculated as the range of kilobits your site’s server can process per second. For example, a full page of text is about 16 kilobits. Therefore, a 56k (kilobits per second) modem could process it in less than a second. Most hosting companies offer you more than enough bandwidth so it’s not a real issue unless you are anticipating a large amount of users. Just aim for getting the most bandwidth you can for your dollar.

Blog: A blog is often defined as an online journal or diary. Hosting companies often offer one-click installation of blog software on your site. If your site is for your company and you plan to keep your customers up to date on new products and developments, then consider having a blog section on your site. It’s a low-overhead way to keep users informed about your site.

CGI: This stands for Common Gateway Interface. It’s a small script that can process the data users send to your site via forms. They are stored in a file on your site called a CGI-bin and should be offered as a component for even a basic site set-up.

CHMOD: A UNIX command for changing permission settings on your site’s files. You may encounter this when you try to install third party software on your site. It’s a good thing to ask a potential hosting company how you will be able to make changes to the CHMOD if necessary. Some hosting companies will simply do it for you and others may let you access it yourself.

CMS: A Content Management System is a method of managing your sites files online without having to know HTML code. A site is set up with a shell of template files and a database and you can access a GUI online to control everything and add and change your site’s content yourself. Some hosting companies offer “one-button install” of popular CMS tools like WordPress and Drupal.

C-Panel: This is one option for how you will interact with your site. Some hosting companies use C-Panel to allow their clients access to their account and others use Plesk. Both offer a Graphical User Interface (GUI for short) that lets you check your site’s traffic, manage databases and access your email account. If it’s at all possible (and it should be!) you should ask a potential hosting company if you can take the C-Panel for a “test-drive”.

Data Transfer: Data Transfer is the total amount of outbound traffic from your site (not including email) that is usually measured in Gigabytes. One Gigabyte equals a billion bytes. How is this different than bandwidth? Bandwidth is the rate at which your site’s data is transferred and Data Transfer is thetotal amount of transferred data.

Dedicated Hosting: If you are planning to have a large number of websites, then dedicated hosting may be a cost-effective option. All your sites will be hosted on the same server, which makes maintaining them easier.

Dedicated IP: An IP (Internet Protocol) address dedicated to a single website. If your site will require a high level of security, then this is a good idea.

Dedicated Server: Sites that have a high rate of traffic, such as Amazon.com, take up a lot of the server’s processing power and other resources. Therefore, it’s beneficial for all involved to have a server that is configured to run just that site so nothing crashes.

DNS: Short for Domain Name System, it’s a database system that translates a computer’s IP address into a domain name. So, 123.45.678.90 becomes http://yourdomain.com.

DNS Server: A server that matches up a fully qualified domain with the right IP address.

Domain Name Forwarding: A service by which you can take a reserved domain name and ask the server to redirect a user’s request to another domain. Usually done to prevent competitive, copycat sites, this is also a good tactic to employ when you think potential users will try to find your site with a wide variety of keywords. So, if the site you want to fully develop has the domain name, http://awesomekitchengadgets.com, you could try to reserve domains like kitchengadget.com and mykitchengadget.com and greatkitchengadget.com and set them all to be forwarded to awesomekitchengadgets.com.

Domain Name Locking: A feature that allows you to secure your domain name and keep it from being “hijacked”. If a domain transfer is requested, it will automatically fail unless you unlock it via your site’s control panel.

Domain Parking: When a hosting company temporarily places your domain name on their servers until you purchase a hosting plan or forward the name to another site.

Email Forwarding: When incoming emails addressed to a POP email address on your hosting account are redirected to your own email address. If you are planning to have just an info@yourdomain.com address, it’s probably a good idea to simply forward emails to your “regular” email address so you don’t need to log into your account just to check on one address. Most people would rather keep their site’s email traffic separate though, and it’s simple to set your POP email account’s login page as your browser’s home page so you won’t forget to check.

Encryption: A method of providing security for exchanging data over the web.

File Manager: A tool many hosting companies provide on the control panel that lets you upload HTML or image files to your site.

Front Page Extensions: A set of scripts on the server that allows users of Microsoft’s Front Page program to utilize its special components.

FTP: Short for File Transfer Protocol, FTP is a method of moving files onto a server so they can be accessed via the web. Some programs, like Adobe’s Dreamweaver, have FTP built in. There are also stand-alone applications such as Fetch and CuteFTP. If you are considering a hosting company that doesn’t offer the File Manager feature, then do a little research in the Help section, or via phone, to see if they offer instructions for how to upload files to the server using your particular FTP application. You should also be able to find out what your site’s FTP address is and/or your IP address. You will need one or the other, or both, to upload files to the correct server.

GUI: Stands for Graphical User Interface. Whenever you are doing something on a computer and you are controlling things by clicking on various icons and buttons, you are using a GUI.

ICANN: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers tracks and coordinates the usage of IP addresses and domain names across the web.

IP Address: An Internet Protocol Address is the unique numerical identifier that is used for every device that is connected to the internet. (example: 123.45.678.90)

ISP: Internet Service Provider. This is the company, such as AOL or Comcast, that provides your access to the internet.

Javascript: A simple (more than most anyway) programming language that is used on a web page to perform tasks such as checking over a form you’ve filled out.

LAN: Stands for Local Area Network, meaning a network of devices occupying a small area such as a building.

Linux: An operating system, similar to Unix, which is used by hosting companies.

Log File: A file on your hosting server that contains information about who is accessing the various pages of your web site.

Managed Web Hosting: When a dedicated server is accompanied by full technical support, maintenance and monitoring services.

Masking: A technique where the URL in your browser’s address bar remains the same no matter where you go on the web site.

MySQL: A popular open-source database application that is supported by many UNIX-based hosting companies.

Name Server: A variety of server that translates domain names and IP addresses.

ODBC: Open Database Connectivity, a Microsoft standard that allows database programs access to information regardless the file format.

Optimization: The art of developing your web site with an awareness of how search engines will be able to index it easily.

Page Views: The number of times users view specific pages on your site.

Parked Page: Usually means an “under construction” page that your hosting company provides until you upload your own page.

PERL: An open-source Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programming language.

PHP: Shorthand for Hypertext PreProcessor, PHP is an open-souce server side scripting language.

PhpMyAdmin: A free mySQL administration tool that lets you create a database-driven site without having to learn SQL programming.

PhpNeo and PhpNuke: Two free content management tools that are written in the PHP language.

Ping: 1) Stands for Packet Internet Groper. Not as scary as it sounds, this is a utility that senses when your computer is connected to the Internet. 2) A blogging tool that notifies a server when a blog has been updated.

Platform: In hosting terms, this means the operating system that your server runs on i.e. Linux or Windows.

Plesk: A server admin tool, similar to CPanel that you use to manage your web site.

Plone: A free CMS tool that was developed to run on Zope, an open-source server platform.

Plug-in: A software add-on that extends the software’s features.

POP: Post Office Protocol, how your e-mail program integrates with your hosted site’s webmail server.

PostgreSQL: An object-oriented database management system that lets you interact with a database via queries.

Raw Logs: Real time data about who is requesting what pages on your site.

Reseller: A lot of smaller hosting companies that don’t own the actual servers a site is hosted on, provide the actual administration of the site. This keeps their operating costs down and the company that actually owns the servers is freed up to concentrate on keeping the servers functioning.

Server: A computer connected to a network that handles requests for web pages.

Shared Server: A server that shares computer resources with other servers, which cuts the costs of hosting.

Shared Web Hosting: The cheapest hosting option, where one server handles numerous sites. The downside is that this type of hosting can’t handle large scale, high traffic sites.

SSH: Stands for Secure Shell, a standard for encrypted Internet connections.

SSI: This stands for Server Side Includes, which tell a web page to do something before it is sent to the browser requesting it. One example would be for the page to deliver the results of an online poll. Pages that include SSI should have the file extension .shtml to reduce the parsing load on the server.

SSL: Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol developed to protect sensitive data travelling over the web. Pages with SSL begin with “https”.

Static IP Address: Used for hosting name servers, these types of addresses are used for shared resources such as web servers and webcams.

Subdomain: A web address that is a part of a containing web site.

Support: The range of assistance that a hosting company agrees to provide according to the plan you purchase. This is one area that is worth comparing carefully to other plans to ensure that you are not being excessively charged for things like tech support over the phone.

Tape Backup: A way to back up a site’s content periodically on a cassette-like device.

TCP: This stands for Transmission Control Protocol and it allows host servers and users to connect and exchange data.

Terabyte or TB: One billion kilobytes. The average text email is about 3 or 4 kilobytes.

Third Level Domain: A url that contains three levels of a domain, for example, www.bbc.co.uk

Traffic: The transmission of data packets over the web is called traffic.

Trouble Ticket: A system your hosting company may use to track a troubleshooting request.

Unique Visitor: A way to measure your site’s traffic via recording the IP address of a visitor.

UNIX: A text-based operating system that your hosting company may use to run their servers.

UPS: Stands for Uninterruptible Power Supply, which is a hosting company’s promise that the server will be kept running on battery backup until it can be safely shut down in the event of a power outage. It also protects the server from voltage spikes and drops.

Uptime: The percentage of time that a hosting company’s servers are able to handle requests for pages. The gold industry standard is 99.9%.

URL: Uniform Resource Locater or, a web page’s address. (example: http://jennmearswebdesign.com)

VB Script: Microsoft’s Visual Basic is a language developed perform similar functions to Javascript.

Virtual Server: An inexpensive method for hosting a web site in which the site is hosted on a shared IP address. The two disadvantages are that response time for requested pages may be slower than that of a dedicated server and physical access to the machine will most likely not be allowed.

VPN: Virtual Private Network, a way of securely accessing a private network over the web.

VPS: Virtual Private Server, a way to have the features of a dedicated server on a machine shared by other sites, while maintaining the site’s privacy.

Web Site Builder: A feature some hosting companies provide in which they provide a template for your web site in order to get it up and running quickly.

Web Space: Not to be confused with bandwidth, which is the amount of data transferred, this is the amount of disk storage space you are allowe on your server.

Webalizer: A tool used to display your site’s traffic statistics.

Webmail: The interface you use to check email via the web. Some hosts wil let you access your webmail via the control panel, others use a URL such as http://webmail.yoursite.com.

WHOIS: A central domain name database that tracks all domain name/IP registrations in the world.

Zone Files: The range of your files on a name server including all the subdomains, IP addresses and your mail server.

Zope: An open-source web application server program.

If you don’t see a term you need to decipher, check here.

Some other things to consider

Let’s say that you’ve managed to narrow down your search for the right hosting company to three contestants. Contestant number 1 is that big name hosting company you come across on every web search. Contestant number 2 is the company that your kind-of-geeky friend recommended. Contestant number three is a company you’ve never heard of offering an amazingly low price for a year’s hosting. Here’s what to do:

1) Compare the middle range hosting plans of all three and read the fine print. That plan that boasts the amazingly cheap monthly rate may charge 9 dollars a minute for any phone assistance beyond a minimum amount of minutes.

2) Once you feel like you have a better idea of what your site’s hosting requirements are, cold call each place and ask about their services. If you are kept waiting on hold more than two minutes, reconsider your options. If the person your end up talking to keeps telling you that they’ll need to check with so and so when they get back from their lunch/meeting/trip to Jamaica and get back to you, then you probably will end up getting frustrated when an actual issue comes up and your are left hanging.

3) Check out their reviews on industry web sites. Like this one.

Once you have found a company you feel at ease with, then sign up for a year and see how it goes!