Most web hosting companies have sites with a lot of data in them, describing various aspects of Web site mechanics. If you know what all this stuff means, you can then make intelligent decisions. Let's go over it, in plain English.

So what exactly is hosting anyway? Click a word below for definitions:

hosting | web page | disk space | data transfer | bandwidth
e-mail account | set up fee | monthly fee | domain name
sub-domains |

Hosting (also known as Web hosting, Web site hosting, and Webhosting) is the business of housing, serving, and maintaining files for one or more Web sites. More important than the computer space that is provided for Web site files is the fast connection to the Internet. 

Most hosting services offer connections on massive, high-speed connections costing hundreds of dollars per month. This would be too expensive for most individual business owners. Using a hosting service lets many companies share the cost of a fast Internet connection for serving web based files. 

Web pages have no fixed length. In practice, however, they are limited to a certain amount of content to allow them to load onto a visitor's screen quickly. If you have too much on one page, it slows down the process. For your reference, this page contains a total of 40 KB. Pictures use more bytes than text. Most web sites generally have one category or 'theme' per page.

Disk Space (Data Storage) is the actual amount of hard drive storage space a host is selling you. Most web sites use only a few Megabytes of space. If you figure that the most space a page should use is 100 KB, multiply the number of pages you want time 100 and you have the amount of disk space needed.

Example: 10 pages X 100 KB each = 1000 KB or 1 MB

Having plenty of storage is important as you grow. It is wise to have at least 5 times your initial space needs, to allow for future expansion of your site.

Data Transfer (bandwidth) means traffic coming to your site. This is an allocated amount of data transfer per month for a web site. When people visit your web site, their computer connects to our computers, to view your pages. This causes data to be transferred from one place to another. Someone has to pay for this.

Most web hosting companies limit this traffic which is measured in Megabytes per month. There are usually added fees for exceeding the allotted amount. Of course, this is a good problem as it means you have lots of visitors!

Beware of companies offering extremely cheap or "unlimited bandwidth". Some companies do this to attract customers initially. They know that 95% of all sites get very little actual traffic. Should a site become successful and use large amounts of bandwidth, some of these companies will simply shut the site down and drop you as a customer. In this way, they make high profits on the low-bandwidth customers and get rid of the "liability" of successful customers! This can be disastrous for a business site.

More information about how bandwidth works.

E-mail Accounts or boxes or addresses are usually included with hosting accounts. Many web hosts charge separately for e-mail addresses.

Set Up Fees, found with many hosting companies, are one-time charges to setup your site and begin service. This fee is in addition to the monthly fees for hosting. Profit Gate charges no set up fees.

Monthly Fee is the ongoing "rent" for your web site. Much like paying for office rent. The first month is paid up front along with any set up fees.

Some companies advertise low monthly rates but require you to pay for 3, 6 or even 12 months in advance. Profit Gate Hosting fees start at only $9.99 per month, and you pay for only one month to get started.

Domain Name. A domain name is necessary in order to set up a web site. All domains are registered with Network Solutions, along with a special number called an I.P. Address (Internet Protocol). This serves the same function as a postal mailing address, only this is strictly for the Internet.

Some people confuse a Domain Name with the URL (Universal Resource Locator) of a website. Examples: 

Our domain name is - cheap-web-hosting-site.com

You can see the difference & similarity.

Sub-domains. A sub-domain is a unique web address within a domain name.

Examples:

• john.thejock.net
• bill.thejock.net

Here, "thejock.net" is a domain, john and bill have sub-domains on this.