Additional Questions on Hosting

Before our clients sign up with a hosting company they need to ask themselves a few basic questions.

1. How big will your site be? How much space will you need? Can you upgrade and get more space if you need it?

   If you have a small site with less than 15-20 pages with only a few graphic files you could manage of 10 mgs of space. It could get tight if you try to expand down the road. If you have more than 20 pages and are adding sound files and graphics you should get at least 25-50 mgs. If you are planning an extensive shopping cart with images for each product you would need over 50mgs.

2. What will it's purpose be? Personal Home page or Business Site?

   If you are planning on building a business site that includes the use of an on-line data base be sure to find a provider that offers advanced services such as CGI scripting and be sure that they allow the use of full domain names.

3. Should you get your own domain name or can you manage with sub-domain hosting? Which does your chosen host offer?

   A domain name is your unique identity on the internet, it should be simple and easy to remember and reflect you company name or services if possible. Sub-domain hosting can give you a very long file path string that you would need to include. For business it is preferable to have your own domain name. Some domain registraras also offer domain redirection services. These can be quite helpful if you are using a free host company or if you are planning on to "piggy-back" other sites on one hosting account. They work by automatically redirecting visitors to a predefined file on another host server. This can be a very cost effective and handy feature.

4. Will you have a lot of graphics or will it be informational text?

   Graphics and sound files take up a lot of space on your server. Informational sites do not require large amounts of space. If you are planning on having graphics, do you have the images in digital format? If not then we will need to scan in your images for use on the internet. If you currently have photos or product catalogs they can be mailed to us for scanning.

5. Will you be selling any products or services? If so, how will you collect payments?

   If you are planning on selling services over the internet you need to find out the best method of collecting payments for your type of products or services. If you have a well established company you will probably be able to get an internet merchant account set up for you company with out any problems. If you are a small start up company selling products or services getting a merchant account set up could be difficult and costly, in that case you should check out the no-merchant account alternatives.

6. Will you want email services? If so, how many will you need or want? Can you upgrade to get more down the road?

   Many hosting companies offer Pop emails, the amounts vary form host to host. You will need to configure your computers e-mail program. Some companies offer a limited amount andd will charge you for additional emails, check the service offerings if it is important for you to have multiple emails. Most Free hosting providers do not offer full services in this regard, however they many times offer web baised email systems which will allow you options to forward mail to another account.

7. How will you up load up your site? What services does your host provide for this?

   Most traditional hosting companies offer FTP uploading. This is the preferred method of transferring files to the host servers. However, some free or low cost host providers only offer "browser uploading". This method can have a lot of draw backs and limitations.

8. Will you want guest books and counters or other interactive scripting? Should you use Java or CGI scripts?

   There are several forms of scripting that web sites can use for guestbooks, form fields, counters and other add ons. Generally, Java scripts do not require any additional files to be added to you server and run independently through your browser and there are a lot of interesting scripts that can be added to you site. CGI scripts need to run off of your server and the hosting provider needs to support CGI & Pearl scripting. Many of the low cost providers may not offer CGI scripting or limit you to a collection that they have on file. If you absolute want and need CGI services to run a particular script then check the hosting providers services to make sure that they support CGI. CGI support might be very necessary for certain shopping cart programs.

We are currently offering an introductory special on our custom web design packages starting at $350.00 for small sites up to $1,500.00 for larger sites. For more information see our design packages!

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