| After you have determined that your future web | | | | 12 months or a 24 months contract. |
| host is a reliable, well established company, let's look | | | | * CGI-BIN support. This is more of a legacy |
| at their offer's technical details and understand what | | | | programming language but there are still around quite |
| they stand for. Here is a list of some of the standard | | | | a few CGI scripts and websites running them. |
| features that all hosting packages have in common: | | | | * PHP, Perl, Phyton support. Some of the most |
| * Storage capacity. It is the amount of disk space | | | | popular technologies used in website development. |
| that you can use. For 95% of the websites, the size | | | | * Databases. MySQL and postgreSQL are two reliable |
| of any hosting package is more than enough. | | | | databases types. Normally if you have a simple site |
| Because with the new hard drives getting bigger and | | | | you will not need them, but think big! |
| bigger, web hosts can now offer large amounts of | | | | * SSI support. Server Side Includes (SSI) is a set of |
| disk space. | | | | HTML tags that allow dynamic content on a web |
| * Bandwidth. As explained before bandwidth is very | | | | page. SSI is most typically used to "include" the same |
| important because once you reach the limit, you're | | | | file on numerous pages, thus simplifying updates. Ask |
| site becomes either inaccessible or you are being | | | | your programmers if they need it. |
| charged very high rates for the extra bandwidth. For | | | | * Content Management. You will need a way to |
| example, you can pay $7.99 to get 400 GB of data | | | | access and modify website settings, to see traffic |
| transfer and be charged $3-4 for any additional 1 GB | | | | results, reports, logs, etc. cPanel and Joomla! are two |
| over that limit. | | | | popular and user friendly CMS' (Content Management |
| * 24/7 Customer Support. Let's hope this is a feature | | | | Systems). |
| that you will not use, but when bad luck strikes, you | | | | * FTP Access. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is used, as |
| will want someone to talk to and quick. Look for toll | | | | the name suggests, for transferring files. You will use |
| free telephone numbers. | | | | this to upload your website files to the web host |
| * Uptime. 99.9% uptime is good, 99.999% is perfect. | | | | server. |
| The web hosts should also monitor the servers 24/7 | | | | * Add-on domains and sub-domains. Add-on domains |
| and provide protection from DDOS attacks. | | | | make it possible for you to have an additional |
| * Email features. If you have an email client like | | | | website (with email) on the same hosting account. |
| Outlook for example, you can use it to get your | | | | This is great if you decide to build another website |
| emails from the server (POP3, IMAP) as well as send | | | | and you're not using all your bandwidth and storage |
| them via the server (SMTP). See if you can get | | | | space. As for sub-domains, you should be able to |
| unlimited Email Accounts and Email Forwarding, Spam | | | | create unlimited sub-domains. Sub-domain example: if |
| Protection and a web mail option (a web based client | | | | the website is called a sub-domain can be the |
| like: Horde, Squirrel Mail) in case you don't use an | | | | following address: |
| email client software or you just want to check your | | | | * Shopping cart(s). A useful feature for e-commerce |
| email from an Internet Café. | | | | websites. |
| * Free domain. What was in the past considered a | | | | I hope you have now an idea about the content of |
| bonus has now become a standard feature. You | | | | the "Learn More..." page of a hosting plan, and I hope |
| should get a free domain name when signing up for a | | | | you can decide if you need or not a specific feature. |