The internet has exploded over the last ten years with many people doing more and more tasks online everyday. As the internet continues to grow, the amount of space available for web sites to expand will shrink. Another very important fact that needs to be considered when creating a web site is how you are going to host the web site.

Large companies can afford to have a dedicated web server or servers, but smaller companies and individuals usually can not afford to have a dedicated server for their web site. For these individuals there are a few alternatives available. They can either use a web hosting service to host their web sites, or they can use a virtual web server to host their web site. Both of these alternatives have strengths and weaknesses.

A web hosting plan usually allows you to upload your web files to their server and then they configure everything so that anyone on the internet can access it. These plans are usually fairly inexpensive, but they are also limited in the amount of options that you can configure on your own.

However since the configuration of these plans are very easy, you do not need to have a large internal I.T. department to implement your plans. Web hosting plans are also a very good fit for your web site if you do not need to have access to a database.

Virtual web servers are a great way to maximize the use of a single server to service many web sites across several domains. The virtual web server uses one server and one operating system to host many different web sites. The difference between virtual web servers and hosting plans is that you have access to mail, FTP, and all of the configuration files on the virtual server.

This gives you quite a bit more control over all of the functions that a normal web server would allow you to do. However you need to know more about configuring a web site if you use a virtual web server. The best thing about a virtual web server is that you have much more control and the ability to do many different things that you can not do with a web hosting plan.

Usually it takes a person with quite a bit of experience to be able to successfully setup, maintain, and configure a web server. The problem with this is that there are not enough of these experienced people to prepare a web server for all of the individual web sites on the internet today.

One way to help fix this problem is to use virtual web servers. A virtual web server allows one very experienced person to setup a single server that will be able to host many different web sites across many domains. This also allows different web sites to be configured individually and be able to use more resources than they would be able to use if they were not hosted on a virtual web server.

Since each web site can be fully configured, you will have quite a bit of control over all of the different features of your web site.

A virtual web server allows each web site to have its email, FTP access, and many other configuration files to be configured exactly the way you want them to be. Also a virtual web server allows access to different types of databases which can make your web site more dynamic.

Many virtual web server plans allow unlimited email addresses and built-in spam filters and virus protection. They also allow unlimited anonymous and non-anonymous FTP sites, so that you can offer file upload and downloads to your clients.

However the best feature of a virtual web server is that you have complete control over how your web site is configured to run, so you can do almost anything that you want to do. You do not have to be an expert, because many of these services offer a management tool, so that you can do all of the configurations without knowing exactly how to do it by hand.



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Bandwidth is the measurement of the amount of data transmitted over an internet connection in a given time. Most web hosts measure bandwidth by the month and set limits accordingly. You have to know how many bandwidth you need while choosing hosting plans.

You can’t really know the bandwidth or monthly transfer you need before your web site has been up and running for a while. But how do you choose a proper hosting plan if you don’t know your bandwidth requirement?

Let me tell you honestly first. Be careful when someone claims they provide unlimited bandwidth or monthly transfer.

Anyone claiming “Unlimited Bandwidth” is simply lying. There’s no such thing as “Unlimited Bandwidth”.

In the real world, we’ve never seen any broadband company offering an internet connection as “Unlimited Megabytes per Second.” So, how could a web hosting company, which normally doesn’t even own its own access lines, claims to customers that it will give them “Unlimited Bandwidth”?

These web hosting companies are lying to the public to attract customers. Most of the time, high bandwidth sites on these “Unlimited” plans will be disconnected, and no refund given. Normally, the web hosting company will say that the site violated its Acceptable Use Policy or Terms of Service.

Whenever you visit a site promoting “Unlimited Bandwidth” as one of the account features, be sure to visit the Acceptable Use Policy, or the Terms of Service. Read the fine text about the so-called “Unlimited” disclaimer, you will be surprised! It’s solely up to them to decide whether you violate their policy.

Choose wisely.

When you first look for web hosting services (those who state clearly bandwidth offered), you have to make your best estimation and watch your usage carefully in the first few months. Before signing up, make sure the hosting company won’t charge your legs if you upgrade.

Take these factors into consideration while estimating.

*How many users will access your web site?

*How many pages to be access?

*How big are the graphic and HTML files?

To estimate bandwidth usage multiply the size of an average HTML page, plus the combined size of images included in the page, by the number of pages in your web site. Multiply that number by the number of visitors you will have in a month.

Take our site at http://www.singaporewebhosting.com as an example.

The HTML file of the home page (average page) is 10.9k. There’re 4 images at the top, 5k total. Currently there’re 90 pages in this site, but we expect to add in more contents soon so lets make it 150. Based on experience, we’ll have 6,000 visitors per month. However, nobody except me will ever read all the pages. It’s rather safe to assume that about 10% of all the pages will be viewed per visitor. (That depends on the nature of your site.)

So we need 15.9×150x6000×10%=1.43GB

That sounds reasonable for a service and information site with mainly text. As you can see, we seldom use images except the top logo, because we intend to provide service and information, not beautiful graphics or games or music download.

For safety, we’d rather choose a plan with at least 3GB bandwidth.

This number is not accurate, to say the least. It’s just a rough estimate. For example, the images on each page don’t have to be reloaded every time the visitor views a new page because the browser will cache them. We’re also not very sure how many visitors will come since this site is online for just a couple of days.

And think of your own situation. If you’re going to set up a forum, the page views will be far more than our number. You know how sticky a forum can be, don’t you ;-)?

Large audio/video files, computer programs, and file downloads require more bandwidth. Flash web sites use tons of bandwidth. Virtual Reality (VR) and full-length three-dimensional audio/visual presentations require the most bandwidth of all.

Though it is not accurate, but still gives you something to work with until your site has been online for a while and actual traffic statistics have been generated.

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