Web Hosting FAQ 6

How much bandwidth do I need?

Bandwidth is a measurement of how much data (information) can be transferred over a set period of time, for instance every time someone looks at a page / image on your website this increases your bandwidth use. The average hosting company offers between 1Gb (1024 Mb) and 5Gb a month, which should be plenty if the site isn't going to be another Amazon ! So the calculation for the bandwidth would be the size of the pages/images viewed by each visitor times how many visitors per month.
Hosting companies are very flexible with bandwidth and will allow you to increase your quota if necessary.

What is CGI and do I need it?

CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is a standard feature that allows the user to interact with your website. It provides a special directory where you can keep CGI scripts and then call them from the web page, if you intend to have any type of interaction on your web site for instance contact forms or database integration then CGI is essential.

What is PHP and do I need it?

PHP (Pre Hypertext Processor) is a scripting language similar to Perl that allows the developer to create dynamic web pages, the PHP script is embedded within the HTML code enclosed between PHP tags. PHP can be used for many tasks and is a question of personal preference as to whether you use PHP instead of Perl for any scripting applications.

What is SSI and do I need it?

SSI (Server Side Include) is a feature that allows the web developer to pull data from another file and insert it into the web page through use of a tag, a common use is to pull page headers and footers from one file, this enables any changes to be made to the headers and/or footers by updating just one file instead of every page. Another use is to insert the result of a script into a html page.

What is SSL and do I need it?

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) provides a secure connection to your website, this is essential if you intend to store or transfer any information that requires maximum security (for instance credit card numbers). If you intend to use a shopping cart (see below) then it is imperative that you have SSL.

Do I need a shopping cart?

Shopping carts provide ecommerce capabilities; if you intend to sell anything on your web site then having a shopping cart is the best solution. Shopping carts need to be used in conjunction with SSL (see above).

Do I need database support?

This decision will depend on whether you intend to store any information in a database. Most hosts provide this feature so you can always add a database at a later date if your requirements change.

What database platform?

There are two main types of database platform supported by web hosting companies; these are MS Access and MySQL. Your choice will depend on personal preference as they both offer virtually the same features. If you decide you want an Access database then it is advisable to choose a windows hosting plan for compatibility.

What is webmail?

Webmail provides you with the capability of reading and sending your emails via a webpage (much like yahoo or hotmail), you will be provided with a web address where you can logon to read or send email.

What are graphical statistics?

Graphical statistics give you reports on how many visitors there are to your site in any given period. They can also provide you with other reporting information such as the phrases people use to find your site in search engines, the different types of browsers people use and other demographic information.

Do you put adverts on my website?
Vision Internet Limited never place adverts on any hosting packages.

If I buy hosting from you, can I use any ISP to upload my files?
Yes, you can use any ISP of your choice.

Can I use flash animation (.swf files) on my hosting?
Yes, you can use flash animation with any of our hosting packages.

What type of servers are you running?
Our servers are custom built to our own specification. They run Linux operating systems with Apache web server. This makes them very reliable and fast.

How do I get my files to my web site?
You need to use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) package such as Cute FTP or WS_FTP. Internet Exploror can also be used to upload files to your space.

I have uploaded my site but I still see your site reserved page. Why?
There could be one of two reasons. You may have uploaded your site to the wrong directory. Your web site should be uploaded to either the html or mainwebsite.html directory. Alternatively, you may not have overwritten (replaced) the index.html file already in the html directory. If your home page is called index.htm, make sure you delete the index.html file currently there.

I keep getting an error 403 - Forbidden message when I visit my site.
You've removed the index.html file. If you have a file there called index.html, make sure that it's in lower case. Linux based servers use case sensitive characters. Some web servers will list all the contents of folders that don't have an index.html file. This is incredibly bad for security and we don't allow this on any of our servers. Hence the error message.

I wish to sell your hosting on at a profit. Is this allowed?
Certainly, no problem. We only contact the administrator of an account and not the registrant of the domain name.

Can I upgrade my hosting?
Certainly. You can do this at any time. Please contact us as we calculate the time left on your present package and trade that in against the time difference on the new package. We will confirm the price with you, send you information on how to pay for this and upgrade the account.

What is your uptime rate?
We are one of the top hosting companies in the UK for reliability. It would be unusual for us not to have a 100% figure for any given month. Obviously we occasionally need to take the server down for planned maintenance. When this happens, we inform our clients that the service will be down and try to give an indication as to how long for.

How secure is your server?
We take security very seriously and apply patches and new versions of software when available.

My current 'free web space' provider is too slow. Will your hosting be faster?
We're likely to be faster than your free hosting provider due to server location and less over-crowding of hosting accounts.

My website is currently down and my hosting and domain name provider cannot be contacted. Is it possible to move my site to you?
In most cases, yes. You will need to move the domain name over to us. Please see our page on moving a domain name or contact us with more details.

I don't really like trust hit counters. Is there an alternative?
If you have a hosting package with us that include site statistics, then yes. This will give you an indication as to the number of visitors on all your web pages rather than one with a hit counter on it.