Hosting & Bandwidth
What is Hosting?
You probably have a computer and stored on it are some documents, pictures, music etc. You can access this every time that your computer is on and you are sitting in front of it.
A website is similar to these documents. But we want everybody to be able to view your website wherever they are, and not have to come round to your house to see it!
In simple terms, a hosting company has computers which are accessible by everyone wherever they are. You rent a space on their 'servers' (just like your computer but a bit more powerful). By putting your site on these servers, everyone can access your site all the time.
What do I look for in a hosting company?
Web Space - this is the amount of space on their servers that you can use. A typical website (like this one) will be less than 1 Megabyte and most hosting companies will allow you at the very least 500 Megabytes. So, essentially, if you are looking at a typical website, then you don't need to worry about the web space. If you are looking at a content management site with hundreds of pages or videos / pictures, then we will discuss this individually.
Bandwidth (also known as Traffic) - this is the amount of people who can visit your site in a month and how many people can visit your site at one time. Again, unless you are anticipating many hundreds of people going on your site every hour, then most companies are fairly similar.
Think of the your website as a few gallons of water. In rough terms, a 30 minute video file would be the equivalent of 5 gallons of water (40 pints). A photograph may be about four pint. A typical webpage (like this one) would be around 1 tumbler.
The water pipes running the length and breadth of the company is the internet.
The reservoirs are the equivalent of the hosting companies - this is where your water is stored.
People have individual pipes running in to their houses / flats - this is the equivalent of their internet connection.
Bandwidth is the equivalent of the thickness of the pipes.
If you have a lot of content (eg videos) then the thickness of the pipes is more important than if you have small documents (eg this site). Think of trying to fill a tumbler from your normal tap, compared to trying to fill 10 buckets from a normal tap - you can do it but it takes ages!
Also bear in mind how many people you are expecting to view your site. A typical site (like this one) may get a couple of dozen people viewing it every day. The BBC web site will get a few million people viewing it everyday. They need to have some very thick pipes so that everyone can view their site!
Companies I use
http://www.one.com - a cheap and cheerful company - this site as well as http://www.bcan.info is with one.com
http://www.virtualnames.co.uk - Alliance and general finance site is with this company
http://www.easily.co.uk - Just Specs are with this company
http://www.webhosting.uk.com - been recommended to me but I have never used.