Web hosting is the space where files & contents of a site are kept to make it accessible on the internet. There are some important terms related to web hosting, which you should know clearly before buying any hosting. These are briefly described below.
1. Server PC: The PC where websites are kept is called server PC. Server PC's are usually high-performance PC connected to high speed & reliable internet & are kept running all the time to keep hosted sites up.
2. Disk Space: Disk space is the space on the server PC which is allocated for an account to store web files. Any file you want to publish on the internet should be kept on this space. The required space for a website is same as the total volume of the files, databases, emails etc.
Suppose, You want to host a website which has 200 files, which are 270MB, in volume. The site has a database of 10MB & You want to store up to 30MB's of email then the required space is 270+10+30 = 310MB.
A lot of hosting providers claim to provide unlimited disk space, but practically no one provides unlimited space. If you use too much space on the server, they'll close your account for lame excuses.
3. Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the measurement of data transfer between the web server and visitors' PC or other data source. When a visitor visits a web page, the browser actually downloads the whole webpage including rich media files like image, video, audio, flash animation etc & show it on PC screen. The measurement of this data transfer is called bandwidth.
Bandwidth includes all type of data transfer like website visit, upload/download files, server to server data transfer etc.
The calculation of required bandwidth is quite simple. Suppose, the average size of your web pages are 520KB & you are expecting 100 daily visits on your site.
You have a product manual on the site for downloading which is of 3MB & the estimated download is 10 times per month.
You have a comment section on your company blog where visitors can upload avatar of max. 512KB while commenting on blog posts. You are expecting 50 people will upload avatars per month.
So, the monthly required bandwidth is -
For web pages: (520*100*30)KB = 1,560,000KB = 1523.4MB
For product manual: (3*10)MB = 30MB
For users' avatar: (512*50)KB = 25,600KB = 25MB
Total: (1524+30+25)MB = 1579MB = 1.54GB
If you perform any server to server file transfer, then that'll also be counted on bandwidth.
Like disk space, no one provides unlimited bandwidth though a lot of providers claim it. If your site consumes a lot of bandwidths, then they'll close your account.
4. Uptime: The time when the server remains accessible on the internet is called server uptime. To keep a site accessible, it is required to keep the server run & connected to the internet.
Keeping server PC up all time is quite impossible as it requires regular hardware & network maintenance as well as server updates. Also, accidental technical problem may occur anytime. This is why most providers guarantee 99.99% uptime. So the maximum downtime is 0.01%, which means the maximum downtime per month is:
(30*24*60*0.01)/100 = 43.2 Minutes
This is what providers claim, but the reality is different. Good providers usually provide 99.90-99.99% uptime but for bad providers, sometimes it's below 90%.
5. Addon domain: Addon domain is the domain which is added to a hosting account to publish different website under that domain.
While purchasing a hosting, everyone needs to register a new domain or use existing domain to sign up. This domain becomes primary domain or main domain for the hosting. All other domains added to the account to publish different websites are addon domains.
Consider, you used the domain example.com for purchasing a hosting. Then example.com is the main or primary domain for that hosting account. Then you wanted to host a blog on that web hosting account whose domain will be example-blog.com. In that case, you'll have to add the domain as addon domain on that account. After that, you'll be able to host the blog under example-blog.com without affecting the main site hosted under main domain.
With addon domain, you can host more than one websites on the same hosting account.
6. Subdomain: Subdomain is the extension of a domain which is mainly used to organize the site properly. Subdomain works as a directory on the server.
Suppose, you have a business site whose domain is http://www.mybusiness.com You have 3 sections on your site. Main section - containing your company & service information, Clients section & support section. Then you can host the main section on root domain & clients & support sections under clients & support subdomains respectively. So the address for clients section will be clients.mybusiness.com & support section will be support.mybusiness.com.
As an example, the URL of google plus is plus.google.com
Here, plus is the subdomain of google.com
If we split the URL based on domain level, then
.com = 1st or top level domain
Google = 2nd level domain
Plus = 3rd level domain
So, have a clear idea on these terms & choose the best hosting for your site.
