Web Hosting FAQs

What is web hosting?

Web hosting refers to the process of publishing a web site so that it is available to the world on the Web. Paid web hosting also involves getting a domain name and not having forced ads displayed on your site.

What is a domain name?

A domain name is a sequence of letters and numbers which determine the address of your site. This site's domain name is "WebHostingRatings.com." You need to register a domain name before your web site becomes accessible at this address.

What are PHP, SQL, Java, IP, etc.?

Those acronyms refer to various features such as programming languages, databases, etc. that might be available with a hosting plan. Please check out our Glossary for definitions.

What is shared (virtual) web hosting?

Shared (or virtual) web hosting is the most fitting way of hosting for 99% of web sites. It means that a web hosting company will have one or more servers (computers constantly connected to the Internet that run a web server software such as Apache or IIS) that will be running multiple web sites (it will be shared). Unless a web site is exceptionally busy or requires a lot of bandwidth, this is the least expensive way to get a real web site. You can still have your own IP address with virtual hosting and the site won't look any different to users. Other options are dedicated, co-location, or doing it yourself web hosting. In those options you have the whole computer to yourself and you can do things like install your own software.

What is domain parking?

Domain parking lets you cheaply reserve a domain name for future use and display an "under construction" default page on it. You can register a domain and not park it anywhere but then your site will simply be inaccessible until you get a web host. Some registrar let you park your domain for free.

What is full-service web hosting?

"Full-service" can refer to a variety of services offered in addition to providing web space, transfer, and emails for a web site. For example, it could be 24/7 toll free phone support, web design services, or web site content maintenance services.

What are the numbers listed under "space" and "transfer"?

Space is the amount of "stuff" you can put on your web site. Available space is usually listed in megabytes (MB, millions of bytes). Single letter takes up one byte. HTML files are usually rather small (this file is about 25,000 bytes) but pictures and programs can get quite big. Your scripts, emails and stats will also take up space on your host.

Transfer is the amount of "stuff" that visitors to your site can download before you reach your monthly limit. Transfer is usually listed in gigabytes (billions of bytes). After the transfer limit is reached for the month, you will need to pay extra for additional transfer at higher rates. For example, if an average visitor to your site views 3 HTML pages of 20 KB (thousands of bytes) each and 8 small embedded pictures of 10 KB each, and you get 500 visitors per day, you will require at least (3 * 20 + 8 * 10) * 500 * 30 = 2,100,000 KB = 2.1 GB of transfer per month.

How do I upload my site?

The main method of uploading files to your site's account is by using FTP. When you sign up with a host, you will probably get an FTP account that lets you access files in your account (usually ftp.yoursitename.com, your main account name and password). Then you can use a built-in Windows or Internet Explorer FTP client, or some other software that supports FTP such as CuteFTP, WS_FTP, or Total Commander, to transfer files from your hard drive to your account. If you don't get an FTP account or if you prefer a Web interface, you can use your account control panel's File Manager instead. Yet another method is to use an SSH or telnet client software, such as SecureCRT, to upload using Zmodem protocol (sz and rz commands).

All these methods will work fine, but we recommend using dedicated FTP programs as the preferred solution because these programs have the best user interfaces and support advanced options like setting file permissions and resuming aborted file transfers.

What is uptime?

Uptime is the percentage of time that a web site is working. For example, if some host has an uptime average of 99.86%, this means that your site will be down for a total about 1 hour each month. We monitor uptime of customer websites of many web hosts and we display this data on the host's details page. Some hosts also offer "uptime guarantees" but this is not as valuable as it might appear (see our gotchas page for more details).

Do I need a static IP address for my site?

Maybe. There are some advantages to having a unique IP for your site. When you change servers, you can point your users to a new IP, so they don't have to wait for the domain name change to propagate. With a static IP, it can also be simpler to upload and test your site before transferring the domain name to a new server. Setting up SSL is also much simpler. You may also not want to share your IP with some sites that could lead to your site being banned by search engines or spam lists.

24 x 7 support - 365 days a year by phone, Live Chat & email

Our support staff are ready to assist you in any enquiry that you have, whether it is a simple email configuration question or a complex scripting or database issue. Our fully trained team of friendly & experienced technicians are available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week & can be contacted by phone, Live Chat or email directly to our support helpdesk. Whatever your level of experience we guarantee that we will be able to resolve any support issues that you will encounter whatever the time of day it is.

Can I keep my domain name when I change a host?

Yes, if you own a domain name, then, when you need to move to another host, you just need to point your domain's nameservers to this new host. If you registered your domain name with a host and you now want to move, you should find your registration records or contact this host and ask them how to control your domain name. If you have a problem, you can usually see the name of the Registrar by performing a "WHOIS" query on your domain name and contact them.

Can I point multiple domain names to my web site?

We can point multiple domains to your web site (after receiving your request), but these must point to the main site, not a sub-folder. We do offer generous multi-site discounts if you need multiple websites.

Can I access my domain without the "www" in front?

Yes, you will be able to access the domain address with or without the "www" in front of the domain name. Example: [http://www.your-name.com] or [http://your-name.com] is acceptable, whichever you prefer.

What is a datacenter?

A datacenter is building, or part of a building, which offers a professional environment for running computer servers. A datacenter will generally have high speed connections to the Internet and other networks, as well as good security to protect against natural hazards, such as fire, and other hazards, such as intruders and hackers.

What is a dynamic web page?

A dynamic web page is a web page that uses some scripting language, such as PHP or ASP, to allow the web server to adapt the content of the web page to a particular situation. Dynamic web pages can also be used to upload information from the browser to store it on the web server. Examples of web based applications that use dynamic web pages are guest books, chat rooms, web logs, and forums.

The information content that is displayed on the web page in your browser, will normally not be stored in the file containing that web page on the web server, but in a separate database. When the page is requested from the server, the web server will retrieve such a dynamic web page, process it to retrieve the relevant information from the database, and then puts that information in the HTML of the web page.

With dynamic web pages, the same information can be displayed on many different web pages, but only needs to be managed in one place: in the database. At the same time, we can create another web page to manage the information in the database (change it, update it, etc), as well as upload new information to enable users to create new web pages on the fly.

what is SSI or Server Side Includes?
SSI or Server Side Includes are directives in your web pages HTML that are evaluated on your web server just before the web page is served. SSIs are often used to include small files with common text for all your web pages, such as menu's or footers. This allows you to maintain this text in a single file to prevent having to edit all your web pages if you want to add a menu item or change the footer text.

SSI's can also be used to create simple dynamic web pages, for instance by putting the time or date on your pages, but for larger dynamic applications you are better of using CGI scripts or PHP / ASP pages.