BRIO HOSTING - FAQ
Web hosting is the act of renting space and bandwidth through a company so that you may publish your web site online. You can either opt for free hosting that is usually supported with banners and pop ups, or may opt to get paid web hosting, which gives you complete control over your site contents.
Also known as shared hosting, this form of web hosting should suffice for most everyone. Virtual hosting simple refers to the fact that your site is on one server, and that this server hosts mulitple sites. You are virtually shared - your site will not be the only one on this specific server. Very few sites would actually need the power of a dedicated server, so this option provides to be a reliable and cheap solution.
A domain name is a word along with a TLD that uniquely identifies your website. Please visit our domains page for more information.
Registering a domain name is very easy. First you will have to make sure that the domain you want is available - using something called a WHOIS lookup at sites like Register.com or Whois Source you can make sure the domain you want is available for registration. Afterwards, you simply need to visit a registration site such as DirectNIC or Register.com to purchase your domain name.
As we explained on our scams page, it is not possible for a web host to offer 'unlimited' bandwidth or diskspace. Such hosting plans always come with clauses that restrict how much bandwidth you can transfer at a given moment, how much CPU usage you can use (which is arbitrarily decided), and so forth. We recommend you visit UnlimBand for more details.
Diskspace is the size your website can be. Every single letter on your website has to be stored somewhere on your web host's server. Each letter is one byte, and a megabyte is roughly one million bytes. HTML pages are usually very small, but it is the extra images, scripts, and even databases that can take up large amounts of disk space. Bandwidth/Transfer is the amount of data the server will allow your site to send in a month. Transfer is usually measured in gigabytes - billions of bytes. Once you go over your monthly limit, a host may either shut your site down for the remainder of the month or it can charge you 'overage.' This overcharge is usually about $2.00-$5.00 per extra gigabyte of transfer.
Flash is a client side feature - it runs on the user's computer, not on your web host. As long as the user's browser has the correct plugin installed, it will run on their computer.
There are a few things that need to be cleared in terms of terminology:
Hits - this simply refers to the number of 'elements' loaded on your site. If one page has five images in it, viewing that page once adds 6 hits (one page + five images). Impressions - the number of times all the pages on your site are seen (also simply called pageviews). Impressions are sometimes referred to as 'hits' which can cause confusion Uniques - the number of people that visited your site.
So to clarify, if I visit your website, look at two pages, and each page has 5 images on it, then your stats increase by one unique, two page views, and 12 hits. Tracking on your site can be either done server-side or remotely. With server-side statistics, log files are used to generate visitor information. This is usually much more accurate than remotely hosted solutions. In such cases, you usually have to add some javascript to your site. This javascript is then used to track visitor data. If your host provides it (and many do), server-side statistics are a good solution. Otherwise, companies like Site Meter can be used to remotely track your visitors.
WThese are all programming languages which are referred to by their acronyms.PHP - PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor ASP - Active Server Pages Perl - not an acronym Each programming language has its own benefits and uses. It is best that you research on your own to find one that best fits your needs.
MySQL and MS SQL are database systems. Depending on what your host provides, you can use a database to organize your data. To help you out, we have lists on hosts that provide MySQL and hosts that provide MS SQL.
No. Provided that the domain is registered in your name (as it should be), you can simply update your namservers (from where you manage your domain names) to that of your new host.
Not at all. You are paying for webspace that is only yours - no one may put ads on your site except you.
This depends on which host you decide to go with. Most web hosts will accept credit cards, and some will accept PayPal and/or a Money Order / Check.
This depends on which host you decide to go with. Most web hosts will accept credit cards, and some will accept PayPal and/or a Money Order / Check.
Simply put, PayPal lets anyone with an email address send money to anyone else with an email address. Each user signs up with PayPal and then enters their necessary banking and credit card information. Once registration is completed, your email address is all you need to send and receive money. PayPal is owned by eBay.
Consider subdomains as an extension of your domain. For example, your site is www.example.com. A subdomain would be test.example.com, and another would be webhosting.example.com. Subdomains are usually treated as separate sites from the main domain site.
Uploading your site can be done in many ways, but the most popular is FTP. When your hosting account was created, you should have been provided with an FTP account. Using software such as CuteFTP or WS_FTP, you can log into your host. Then, using the program like a normal windows program, you can drag and drop files onto your web host. These files become live online instantaneously. There are other ways to upload your site such as using SSH or uploading files through your browser
Uptime is literally what it means - it is the amount of time your site is online throughout the entire month. The best uptime would be 100%, but because things can break, many hosts offer 99.9% uptime guarantees. This means that if your site is not accessible for more than 43 minutes in a single month, they will reimburse you, depending on their terms of service.
Depending on which operating system to go with depends on your needs.
If you need to support Microsoft products such as ASP, MS Access, or VBScript, then Windows hosting would be better. Furthermore, if you are comfortable with IIS and do not have the time to understand how UNIX works, Windows hosting would again be a better choice.
There are some things to remember.
First of all, just because you use Windows at home does not mean you should use Windows hosting. The two are completely different, and having a Windows system at home will not affect your ability to communicate with a UNIX server.
Secondly, Linux is much more common with web hosts due to its superior stability and because it is free. Since it is free, Linux hosting is usually cheaper than Windows. Just because it's free does not mean it's not as good - Linux is an excellent product too.
In order to help you, we have created a list of web hosts using Unix and a list of web hosts that use Windows.
You could, but that's definitely not recommended.
First of all, most ISPs have clauses that do not let you use your internet connection for web hosting - doing so will result in termination of your account.
Second of all, think of the headaches it can provide: making sure your system is secure so that no one can hack into it, having your computer on 24/7, and other such problems.
Third of all, think of the performance. Most good web hosts use powerful servers with lots of RAM and high performance hard disks. Furthermore, they have multiple internet connections at speeds far higher than what residential DSL or cable service can provide.
Lastly there are all the issues of support. If something goes wrong, it will be your job to fix it - you will not have a professional to correct the problem.
For most people, a dedicated IP is not required. But for people that want to provide anonymous FTP or a website using SSL, a dedicated IP can make that easier.
A host has to make a profit to continue operating. Some hosts do not properly understand the market, and may be pricing themselves too cheap.
In most cases, yes.
You should first try to optimize the graphics on your website. Many GIFs look just as good with fewer colors, and many JPEGs look just as good with a higher compression level. NetMechanic offers an image optimizer program online.
You should also analyze the HTML of your site. Make sure you use relative paths, so that images are not downloaded more than one time. Remove any extra spacing and when linking to other pages, use relative paths and not absolute links.
While many hosts already have it, you could also see if your host has mod_gzip installed. This can save you a lot of bandwidth.
Best of all, optimizing your page like this makes the user experience better as your site will load faster for them!
SEO is abbreviated for Search Engine Optimization, which is the practice of optimizing a website in order to acheive traffic from search engines.
Our state-of-the-art web servers are in various data centers in USA that have premium connectivity to the Internet. This ensures some of the highest uptime possible for your web sites and mail communication systems.
Since we began hosting, our uptime record has exceeded 99.9%. However, if you wish to host applications / sites with even more exceptional / mission-critical high bandwidth, availability or support requirements we suggest use of dedicated servers.
Yes, we provide all technical support to our customers through email and telephone.
Please visit our Services Section for "Total Solutions" that include domain registration, hosting, designing and publicity of your web site in the Internet search engines.
Yes, we do support Country specific Top Level Domains.
One of our representatives will help you complete the ordering process. Your site is normally configured and ready for use the same day that your payment is credited to our bank account.. You can transfer your files and configure your mail accounts immediately thereafter. Domains take 24-48 hours to begin resolving. If you need to transfer a domain to us, you should request the transfer immediately after signing up.
Yes. Please visit our Website Designing section for design services OR Complete Websites section for a "Total Package" that includes domain registration, hosting, designing and publicity of your web site.
Yes, you are free to upload/change your web pages, add/delete Email ID's etc as often as you want. Once we have allotted the web space and pointed your domain, you can manage your website easily on your own using the login information of your Website control panel.
First login to the manage your domain section of your current domain registrar and transfer the domain to the nameservers provided to you while taking a hosting package from us. If you need any assistance, click here to let us know.
If your domain name linked to your hosting package is available/propagated and we've received your payment, your account will be activated same day. Your username and password will be mailed to you along with the control panel link to access and maintain your own website.
Same day your payment is credited to our bank account.
You have unlimited access via FTP / File Manager, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Yes, if you own a domain name, then, when you need to move to another host, you just need to point your domain's nameservers to this new host. If you registered your domain name with a host and you now want to move, you should find your registration records or contact this host and ask them how to control your domain name. If you have a problem, you can usually see the name of the Registrar by performing a "WHOIS" query on your domain name and contact them.
We can point multiple domains to your web site (after receiving your request), but these must point to the main site, not a sub-folder. We do offer generous multi-site discounts if you need multiple websites.
Yes, you will be able to access the domain address with or without the "www" in front of the domain name. Example: [http://www.your-name.com] or [http://your-name.com] is acceptable, whichever you prefer.
Since dedicated IP addresses are limited, they are generally reserved for users needing SSL certificates. Many users think they need a dedicated IP, when in reality most do not.
Most plans will allow running scripts in languages such as Perl or PHP. They will also allow you to run "Cron" which enables you to automatically execute programs or scripts at a specific time and date. However for total custom application hosting, you will need a dedicated or co-located server instead of a shared plan.
All POP clients can be used such as Outlook Express, Outlook, Netscape mail etc. You can use any program which downloads the files from our Servers onto your computers.
No, we consider bulk Email of any kind to be spam. Please read the "terms of service" for more information
No, we do not provide Telnet/SSH access. Instead we provide a control panel to manage the site.
Yes, the space occupied by the database will be a part of the overall space that you purchase
Yes, you will need a digital certificate from a Certificate Authority like Verisign, Thawte, etc.
Testimonials
I'd like to thank you for a long partnership with outstanding customer service every time I deal with you - this is why I continue to recommend you guys and don't use anyone else for any of my websites or domain names! Keep up the excellent work!
Srinivas Reddy
Reddy Generators
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