SurfScranton On The Web: Web Hosting

SurfScranton
On The Web

Putting It All Together

Web Hosting

A web site is just a collection of files on a disk on a computer somewhere on the Internet. The computer, known as a "web server", is special because it is accessible from the outside world, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Serious servers are high performance machines with redundant ultra-fast data lines, redundant electrical lines, uninterruptible power supplies and diesel generators for power backup.

This is not something you should try on a spare PC at home.

So you hire a service to "host" your site on their machines. Your hosting provider does not have to be local. You can shop for the best prices and features anywhere in the world but you should stick to your continent for best speed. Look for somebody with lots of bandwidth and redundancy and great customer service. Call and ask some basic questions, see how they treat you.

Prices vary widely, depending on the services you need. For basic sites you should pay $10.00 to $20.00 a month, maybe plus $20.00-$75.00 for a one-time setup. Remember that they should handle the InterNIC registration of your URL for no charge.

For fancy stuff like shopping carts, credit card purchases, chat rooms, mail lists, bulletin boards or your own private, dedicated server you may pay more. If the company you hire for web design also arranges your hosting, they probably get a nice discount. Give them a decent profit margin, but don't make it too easy! If all the extras add up to $30.00 a month or more, shop around!

Free Hosting

You can find free hosting any number of places, but it usually involves an ugly URL (see the Catchy Address section) and advertising stuck somewhere around your site, or the ultimate evil, pop-up ads. It's rather tacky and probably won't impress your customers.

An interesting new alternative has sprung up ... free e-commerce sites. Visit BigStep where they promise to have your catalog online, taking credit card sales in three days. Their goal is to help people with no computer experience from start to finish with easy online tools. You may have to put up with a BigStep logo on screen, but it looks like a very easy solution.

<-Address Hosting Promote->