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At Link On Us, we give you a place to set up your web site and offer you
a full range of services that can grow with you and your business. To help you
understand features that you should consider when selecting a hosting plan, we
have provided the following descriptions.
- Storage
Space: Most plans limit the amount of disk storage space your web
site can consume. To better understand your space requirements, a typical
web page
that would
load in 8 seconds from a dial up account would be 30k in size. This equates
to a 100mb account would allow for approximately 30 x 100 = 3000
average sized pages. Other providers impose limits such as only so
many files of a certain type or services such as email or databases
have individual limits. We provide a single limit that you can share for
any of your needs.
- Transfers: Every time someone visits your site, information
is transferred back and forth between the server and that visitor's browser.
If you have
a busy site, the transfers can quickly add up. Because you are consuming
precious
connection bandwidth, and quality bandwidth cost money, hosts want you to
pay extra if your site exceeds certain limitations. To understand bandwidth
usage we can use a formula similar to the disk storage example above. Using
our same 30k page size, and a 1gb (1000mb) transfer account, approximately
30 x 1000 = 30,000 page views would be possible. Some providers impose daily
or hourly limits which you might exceed. At Link On Uswe calculated your usage on a monthly bases which allows for
busier times of the day.
- Web Statistics: Most hosts will make your log files available
to you. You can then acquire and use one of the popular Web statistics programs
to
analyze
the logs. We actually provide several different online graphical programs
that will provide excellent reports. These reports are stored within your
site allowing you to compare different time periods and truly refine your
marketing efforts.
- E-Mail Accounts: Most basic plans give you several accounts to
start with, and more if you pay for them. The host should provide you with
a way to use
your browser to process your email, in addition to letting your e-mail program
access it. Other things you may be interested in are aliases, which let you
create multiple names for a single account, and auto-responders, which automatically
reply to received messages with a predefined response.
- E-Mail Lists: If you plan to create an E-Zine, discussion list, or e-mail
newsletter, you will need an e-mail list service. The
best solution is one you can manage yourself over the Internet. Under some
plans e-mail lists are part of your e-mail service, while
others require
you
to pay separately for it.
- Domain Registration and Hosting: Some hosts will register your domain
name for free, others will charge a fee, typically $10 to $50 per year on
top of the registration price. Just make
sure that the domain name is registered to your company and that you are
the contact for it. We will gladly register your domain name for you with you
as the contact giving you the control.
- Chat Room: Most businesses don't have much use for a chat room because
the telephone is a much more efficient way to provide customer service. However,
you may want to provide your visitors with a chat room so they can chat amongst
themselves. This service may be valuable for businesses that cater to hobbyists
and collectors. Chat is only one of the many services that can be installed
for free from the control panel.
- Database Support: If your Web site will use a database, you will need
to know whether or not the host supports your database of choice. On Windows
servers,
support for Access is frequently provided at no extra charge, but support
for SQL Server will almost certainly cost extra. Additionally,
your host
may charge extra for larger SQL Server databases.
Shopping Cart: Some hosts make shopping cart software available to you. The
features of that software can be critical if your site will involve a large
Web storefront. Make sure the shopping cart software includes the features
you need and supports the payment processor you choose.
- Bulletin
Board: Many hosts offer access to bulletin board software, so you can offer
on-line support and special interest forums to your customers.
A bulletin board is like a combination between a chat room and e-mail. Related
messages are "threaded" into discussions so you can follow an entire
conversation between two participants. A Bulletin
Board is only one of the many services that can be installed
for free from the control panel.
- Mail Automation: If you plan to create on-line forms
that collect information and send it to your e-mail account, you will need
some kind of e-mail utility.
Hosts often provide a script that does this, or they give you access to
a software program for which you can write custom scripts yourself. The Control
Panel has many features to manage your email accounts, including spam and
virus protection, mailing lists, auto responders and aliases.
- Backup: What happens if the host's power goes out? What
happens if the server's drive crashes? Is your Web site backed up so it can
be restored?
Your host
should back your site up on a regular basis, but you or your developer
should also have a copy of all the files that make up your site. This
issue is critical
if you have a database or use a shopping cart. You don't want to lose
orders. We have probably one of the most advanced backup solutions in use
today. Each day modified files from our servers are backed up to large raid
systems and automatic tape drives. The backup software then tracks changes
to the files and
allows us to quickly restore a single file or a complete hard drive at any
time in the past.
- Contract Term: When possible, avoid signing a long-term
contract. The hosting market changes rapidly, and you don't want to be
locked-in to
a service
that you could quickly grow out of. Also, you don't want to pay in
advance for
service you may never get, should the host go out of business. If you
ever want to change plans any monies paid can be rolled over to a different
plan.
- Operating System: Your host may offer a choice of server operating systems,
like Windows, or Linux. For most people, the operating system
won't matter, but if you want to run specific software or scripts on
your site, you'll
need to make sure the software works on the host operating system.
- Cost: Considering what you get, hosting is inexpensive. Particularly when
you compare it to the cost of setting up and maintaining a Web server
and
high-speed Internet connection yourself. For small and medium-sized
businesses, the
decision to
outsource Web services to a hosting company is a no-brainer.
- Support: Companies support plans vary from self help,
email or telephone. When choosing a provider this area is worth some investigation.
We provide
all three - vast online knowledge base and documentation's, email trouble
ticket system that logs your requests and answers and telephone support from
trained
personnel.
Free hosting services are rarely truly free, and they rarely offer the services
a business Web site requires. Providing hosting services costs money, so if
it isn't obvious how they make that money back, you should be suspicious. Also,
most of these so-called free sites severely limit your disk space utilization,
bandwidth (which affects the performance of your site), transfers (which affects
how many visitors you can have), or they require you to display their advertisements
on your Web pages.
You may have seen articles on how to select a hosting service based on their
statistics, but realistically, the best statistics possible won't make it any
easier to deal with them when you need support. Ultimately, the way you are
treated when you call to ask about their service will be a good indicator of
how they will respond to you once you hand over
your money.
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