Hosting is an important part of your website. A small, well written web page can appear slow and cumbersome to your customers if your hosting company isn't on the ball.

At Blacksnow we can help you decide upon a host for your website as part of our packages. A list of the companies that we regularly use can be found here. Hosting options can vary a lot and it really depends upon your requirements as to which host you choose. Costs can vary from FREE to £19.99 per month or £200 per year. There can be a one off set-up fee and you need to find out if you can get out of the contract if your host isn't performing well.

There are at present 300 + hosts in the UK. The latest performance statistics for these companies can be found every month in 'Internet Magazine'. If you want to know more we have compiled a list of the terms you may come across below.

Hosting Jargon explained

• Server Up-time

  Measured as a percentage, it is the amount of time your website will be avaliable to your customers. Do not except anything lower than 99.5%.

• Web Traffic/Bandwidth

  Each time you view a web page a certain amount of data moves from the host to the requesting browser. On dynamic sites you also get information moving from the browser to the host. Most hosts put a limit on the amount of traffic to and from your site this often ranges from 1000 MB (megabytes) to 3,000 MB per month. Once you go above your inclusive limit you will be charged for excess bandwidth. The following is a rough guide to how much is required.

  Visitors Per Month	Annual Bandwidth Required
  500	550 MB (Monthly - 46MB)
  1000	1100 MB (Monthly - 92MB)
  5000	5500 MB (Monthly - 458MB)
  10,000	11000 MB (Monthly - 917MB)
  50,000	55000 MB (Monthly - 4583MB)

• Webspace

  The space allocated for your website. This will not only include your webpages, which are generally very small, but also images and databases. If you need a database driven site then you will need at least 100 MB.

• Control Panel

  You will need to manage and configure every aspect of your site. Most hosts offer web based control panels.

• Email Accounts

  Create and manage unlimited email accounts and aliases for your domain.

• Web Email

  With Web Email you can access your e-mail account from any browser connected to the internet and conveniently read, send, delete, forward, reply to, and print e-mail directly from your browser.

• Auto-responders

  Used if you are away on holiday or want to confirm that you have received an email or web form.

• Email forwarding

  Used to redirect your email to a more convenient account.

• ASP

  Active Server Pages is Microsoft's web server-scripting environment. This easy to use language allows you quickly to create a dynamic site using various databases.

• ASP.NET

  Microsoft's new technology which allows for quicker development and more dynamic features. ASP.NET has better language support, a large set of new controls and XML based components and better user authentication. ASP.NET provides increased performance by running compiled code.

• FrontPage Extensions

  Another Microsoft technology. Frontpage is a WYSIWYG webpage editor (What You See Is What You Get). It has certain components and controls which are unique and requires these extensions to function.

• CGI

  ActivePerl is ActiveState's port of most of the functionality found in Perl, with the addition of extra Win32 API specific calls that allow you to take advantage of Windows specific functionality.

• SSI

  Server Side Includes utilises non-complex commands that can be easily inserted into HTML pages to execute CGI programs, insert files, insert a date and time stamp and more.

• Components

  ASP Upload
  Facilitates the transfer of files from your local hard disk to your website using a browser. Files can be of any format, such as Word documents, images, HTML or plain text.
  ASP Jpeg
  JPEG image resizing component for creating high-quality thumbnails. Supports sharpening, cropping and flipping.
  ASP Email
  Allow your website visitors to complete online enquiry and order forms which are instantly sent to an email address of your choice. Jmail also supports PGP encryption.

• SSL

  Secure Sockets Layer. Allows your site to make secure transactions. Basically encrypts the information sent to and from your host. Remember to keep your graphics small on SSL pages, as everything on the web page is encrypted in real time as it loads to your web browser. SSI does work within encrypted pages as long as the include page resides in the same directory as your web page e.g.<!--#include virtual="menu" --> All tags must point to the absolute path rather than the relative path e.g.<form method="post" action="https://www.blacksnow.co.uk/secure/complete.html">
  For more details visit Verisign.

• FTP

  You can publish and maintain your web site through unlimited use of FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client software.

• Alternative URL

  If you are moving your website to your host from another provider or just waiting for the DNS to update, you will be able to view and test your website in a browser without having to wait for your domain name to start working.

• Statistics

  Used to keep an eye on your web site traffic and providing information about your visitors.

• Back-Up

  Daily backups should occur. Ask how easy it is to restore your site and whether backups are kept offsite. Do the servers operate mirrored hard disks (RAID Level 1)

• Monitoring

  Your website should be monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to ensure your website is online - and stays online. Hosts should be equipped with UPS systems (Uninteruptable Power Supplies) and, in the event of long-term power failure, back-up generators. Also, many have a number of connections to the internet backbone so if one fails they can switch to another.

• Technical Support

  Required to help you resolve any problems you may have with your website.Telephone support should be local or national rate, watch out for premium rate numbers. Email help should be prompt.