Learn About The Hosting Provider

A hosting provider sells space on their computer's hard disk for your web site.

They are not the same as an Internet Service Provider (ISP). In fact, you may not want a hosting provider to also be an ISP. If they have not purchased enough bandwidth and modems then the resources might be used by people to dial out to the Internet, with few resources available for people to dial in to your site.

For most companies, whether or not to host a site in-house or with an outside hosting provider is an easy decision. A hosting provider costs very little compared to thousands of dollars for equipment, phone lines, and personnel to host your site in-house.

However, there are reasons to host the site on a computer in-house. The web site:

• Takes a lot of bandwidth. Streaming audio or video uses a lot of resources and is very expensive.
• Is very large. Host in-house on a computer dedicated to meet your needs. Otherwise, your customer will see a slow response.
• Is tied in to an in-house database and is constantly changing.
• Has many people working on it, and is constantly being updated. You need the control of having it in-house.

Starting at $40 per month we think we have the best hosting solution for our business customers -fast, reliable, and low-cost with the features a business will need.

But you decide for yourself. These are questions you will want to ask:

• Do I have my own domain name?
• Do I receive CGI examples to do such things as process forms?
• What is the cost per month?
• Do I have to pay extra for every visitor?
• Do I have sufficient space, how much extra do I have to pay per Meg of hard disk space?
• Does the provider have a fast connection?
• Do they have a local call for technical support?
• Is support 24 hours a day 365 days a week?
• How long do I have to wait to get my answer?
• Do I get access reports for free?
• Will they stay in business?
• At what point will they add extra capacity?
• Do they support mailing lists?
• Can I move the site up to the server by myself, or do they have to do it?
• Do they provide extra software - like Shockwave, Java support, Front Page, Real Audio, etc.
• Can they interface to a database?
• Do they offer a secure transactions server if I need one?
• Do they provide e-mail with automatic responses to my customers?
• Do I have to pay extra for additional mailboxes?

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