Choosing a Host
Often a web hosting package will include other features such as e-mail accounts with the address of [email protected], web traffic statistics, subdomain access, and database and forms management. Before deciding on a host and a hosting package, it is a good idea to determine what services you will need as the web site grows in popularity. Christopher Heng (2004), in his article "How to Choose a Web Host," listed the following criteria as important:
1. Advertising. Most free hosts impose advertising to offset their costs. It is not advisable to go with a site that is advertising competing or other products. The distractions are not attractive to the visitor.
2. Amount of web space. The popular services such as GoDaddy.com offer reasonably priced packages with 5 GB of space for less than $5 per month.
3. FTP access, or file transfer protocol. This is the ability to easily move files between the server and your hard drive. It is important that the software used to create the web site has the ability to "talk" to the server and engage in uploading and managing the site. If you use Microsoft FrontPage to create the web site, it is important that the host provide FrontPage server extensions. According to Kevin Spenser (1998), "The FrontPage Server Extensions are a group of programs which run on a server and allow for interaction with FrontPage Explorer when you do file/folder maintenance functions, such as moving, deleting, and renaming files and/or folders in your FrontPage webs. For example, if you move a file from one folder to another, the Server Extensions will edit all hyperlinks to and from that file to point to the correct (new) locations."
4. Data transfer, including traffic and bandwidth. The amount of bandwidth you are allowed to use to both upload materials and provide access for web site visitors is usually restricted by the web hosting package. Heng stated that a new site is likely to use less than 3 GB of bandwidth per month. Go Daddy's economy hosting plan allows for 250 GB of monthly traffic.
5. Technical support. This will allow your web site to provide reliable, consistent accessibility to visitors and prevents downtime caused by technical difficulties.
6. SSL, MySQL, and the shopping cart. If you plan to conduct transactions through your site, SSL (secure socket layer) guarantees encryption for credit card numbers and other sensitive information; it will be discussed in the section on e-commerce. MySQL is an open source relational database management system that allows information from online forms to be processed through a database. According to Webopedia, "A shopping cart is a piece of software that acts as an online store's catalog and ordering process." Services like PayPal offer this feature, so it may not be necessary for an artist to provide it on the artist's web site.
7. Control panel. This allows the webmaster to easily manage aspects of the web account features. The control panel for the Go Daddy economy hosting service is featured in Figure 4.5.
figure 4.5
Economy hosting features offered by GoDaddy.com. Copyright © GoDaddy.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
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