Why do I need a Commercial Web site?

If you have a business, you should have a Web site. A Web site can be used to provide information on your products and services, answers to frequently asked questions about your business, and it can even be set up to sell your products on-line to anyone in the world. In short, Web hosting is an inexpensive way to provide product and customer service information, as well as a great way to expand your sales territory.

How do I design my site?

Building a professional website today means moving beyond obsolete desktop programs like Microsoft FrontPage and utilizing modern, feature-rich web development platforms such as WordPress, Squarespace, and Webflow. Businesses can either employ in-house staff proficient in these contemporary tools or contract a web designer for custom work. If you prefer a simple, self-service approach without the need for specialized programming expertise, we offer an easy, browser-based solution, EZsite Web Builder, which is included free with our EZ Starter and EZ Basic web hosting packages.

I am not sure what questions to ask. Where do I begin?

It is a good idea to think first about what you want to accomplish with your Web site, which will help you determine the best plan to fit your needs. For example, do you only want to display company and product information, or do you also want to sell your products on-line (ecommerce)? Do you expect to store a lot of data on the site, or only a few pages? Do you expect to have a lot of visitors, or just a few?

Which type of site should I get?

First, you should consider what the site will require in terms of disk space, data transfer and ecommerce functionality. We have six levels of Web Hosting available on Unix-based servers: EZ Starter, EZ Basic, Value Pro, Enhanced Pro, Premium Pro, and Corporate Pro. The EZ packages include EZsite Web Builder, a web editing tool that is designed to help you create professional-looking web sites without any knowledge of web programming. The Premium and Corporate Pro packages include shopping carts and ecommerce capabilities. For a complete listing of packages and features, please refer to the Feature Chart

What is disk space, and how much do I need?

The disk space included with a Web Hosting Package determines how much information can be stored on the site. This information can be in the form of Web pages and other files, as well as email, since the email sent to a your domain is usually stored on the Web server (the exception being if you plan on directing your email to another mail server). How much space you need depends on the amount and type of content you place on the site and the amount of email stored and not yet deleted. You will have the ability to assign an independent storage quota for each email account through the Control Panel. This way you will know the total amount of disk space that might be used for email.

How many Web pages can I store in a particular amount of space?

The number of web pages you can store depends entirely on the size of your content, which has grown significantly on the modern web. Today, the average fully loaded web page is approximately 2.0 to 2.5 megabytes, primarily due to high-resolution images, videos, and complex interactive scripts, though a minimalist text page remains very small. To roughly estimate capacity, you can divide your total storage by this average size. For example, a hosting plan with 5 GB (5,000 MB) of storage would hold approximately 2,500 average-sized pages (5,000 MB / 2 MB per page). This is only a simple estimate, however, as your actual usage will be determined by the volume of large media files (photos, videos, or downloadable content), databases, server logs, and any space allocated for email storage.

What is Data Transfer, and how much do I need?
Data transfer is related to the number of page downloads that a Web site receives. Every time someone visits your Web site, the data is transferred from our server out to the Internet. Each Web hosting plan includes a specific amount of data transfer in the base price. Any number of visitors can go to the site, but if the amount of data transfer included in the plan is exceeded, there will be extra charges.

Just as we were able to estimate the number of pages that could be stored in a given amount of space, we can estimate the number of “page views” that a Web plan might support. If, as we estimated above, the average Web page is a tenth of a megabyte or less, then we can multiply the amount of data transfer by ten to get an estimate of the number of page views.

For example, if a plan includes 20 Gigabytes of data transfer per month (which is 20,000 MBs), it might then allow up to 200,000 page views in a month. However, like the amount of pages a site can hold, this is only a estimate. If the site contains larger image files, audio, video, etc., then each time one of those files is downloaded, it will count towards data transfer. For example, if there is a 2 MB video file on the site, each time that file is downloaded there will be 2 MBs of data transfer.

One other point to understand is that a page view is defined as the download of a single page, and does not equate to the number of visitors to a Web site. It is harder to estimate the number of visitors a Web site can support, since we cannot know how many pages an average visitor might download. The number of pages someone might download will depend on factors such as ease of navigation, the type of content, and how interesting your site is.

Unlike disk space, you have much less control over the amount of data transfer that you will have in a month. Factors that determine how much data transfer a site experiences include how well the site is publicized, and the type and amount of content available. The more popular your Web site, the more visitors you will get, and thus the more data transfer you will have. In addition, if other Web sites link to your site, that will drive additional traffic. However, in general, most small to medium business sites do not receive a large amount data transfer unless the site is entertainment oriented.

Is Secure File Access (SFTP/FTPS) Enabled on All Web Sites?

Yes. Secure file access is the industry standard for safely managing your website files, and it is enabled on virtually all modern hosting accounts. As the standard, SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) or FTPS (FTP Secure) ensure that your login credentials and data are always encrypted during file transfers.

This feature is available immediately when your account is set up, and you can easily manage all of your file access credentials and create dedicated accounts for developers or staff directly through the File Transfer Manager in your hosting control panel.

What about e-commerce capability?

There are several factors to consider when selling products and services via your website. See our eCommerce page for more information.

What if I have a Web site with another ISP and want to transfer it to your service?

You will let us know that the domain needs to be transferred, and we will take care of that. You should have a login and password to manage your domain at your current registrar, which you can provide to us. This is usually required to initiate a domain transfer. You should also verify that the administrative contact on your domain is correct. If not, this should be modified before the domain transfer is requested, since a confirmation email will be sent to the administrative contact, and that must be acknowledged before the transfer is approved.

Will there be any downtime on my site when it transfers to your service?

There does not need to be any downtime if handled properly. First, you should upload a copy of your Web files to our server before the domain transfer is confirmed, so that when the transfer does take place, the site will be accessible from our server. Also, because of the way Domain Name Service (DNS) works, you should leave a copy of your site up with the old provider for at least three days after the transfer is complete. While the domain transfer is propagating on the Internet, it may be a few hours to a few days where the site may be reached on either server when someone types your domain name. The bottom line is that you should have your new site up and ready on our server, including setting up any email accounts, before you approve the domain transfer.