This means how much actual or 'physical' space you need to store your web pages and images. If your site is going to be relatively small - for example fewer than two hundred pages then web space of 50Mb will be adequate. An average web page is only about 2Kb to 50 Kb in size and if you want to add additional images there should be plenty of space left (200 x 50Kb equals around 10Mb).
If your database is likely to be fairly large with many pages and images you will need much more space. If you start out small and later find that you need more space an affordable web hosting company will be happy to provide it for you at a nominal fee.
Question 5: How Much Bandwidth Will You Need?
'Bandwidth' is simply a measurement of the amount of data or information that is able to be transferred over a pre-determined time period. Imagine that each time somebody looks at a page or image on your site your bandwidth usage will increase.
An average web hosting company will offer a bandwidth of 1Gb (or 1024 Mb) and 5Gb a month. This should be more than ample for most needs. To calculate the bandwidth, multiply the size of the pages or images viewed by each visitor by the number of visitors per month.
Question 6: What Is CGI and Do You Need It?
Common Gateway Interface or 'CGI' is a standard feature that lets your visitors interact with the pages on your web site. One of its features is that it offers a special directory in which you will be able to retain CGI scripts and call them up from the web page. This is a useful feature if you intend having contact forms or other kinds of similar information submitted by your visitors.
Question 7: What Is PHP and Do You Need It?
PHP is the abbreviation for Pre Hypertext Processor and is a scripting language very much like Perl. It offers the web site developer the feature of creating dynamic web pages. The PHP script is embedded in the HTML code and enclosed between PHP tags. It can be used to execute many tasks. Whether you need it or not is a matter of your own preference as you can always use Perl for your scripting instead. Don't let an affordable web hosting company sell it to you if you don't want or need it.
Question 8: What Is SSI and Do You Need It?
Server Side Include will allow you to pull data from a file and insert it into the web page through the use of a tag. This is commonly used to pull page headers and footers from one file and change them by updating one file instead of each page. It can also be used to insert the result of a script into an HTML page.
