Hopefully we will add more to this page over time.
Simple File Upload
Your host may have a control panel from which you can perform various functions on your site. Once you have logged into your site’s control panel, look for an item labelled “File Manager” or similar. From there you will be given a list of folders and documents, similar to what you would see on your home computer.
It is important that you find the correct folder to upload to, some folders are not accessable to the general public. On most web hosting services you should upload to the folder called public_html or www. You must also name your home page index.html or default.html. Obviously some hosting providors are different so if these don’t work for you, contact them. From the public_html folder you will be able to make other folders for instance a folder in the public_html folder named images would be accessed by yoursite.com/images
FTP Transfer
Some WYSIWYG editors include a file transfer manager within them so you will need to configure your WYSIWYG client with your login information. This FTP login details may be the same as your control panel account, however if it isn’t make a FTP account within your site’s control panel.
After logging into your site’s FTP server, you need to browse to the same location as you would do in simple file upload, public_html. From there you can drag and drop your files and upload your site’s content.
When signing up to a hosting service, you will have to agree to the hosting provider’s terms of service. These include things such as no illegal content etc. You should be cautious of the fact that many say that they can change the terms at any time.
With shared hosting you are sharing the server with potentially hundreds of other people. Your host may reserve the right to terminate you suspend your account if you use too many resources. Using too many resources could be because of a large amount of visitors or running scripts that require a lot of memory or processing power.
You should also be careful when sending mass emails. Your host does not want to be accused of spamming. Make sure that you have permission to send emails to large amounts of people.
If you have been guaranteed uptime, you may find in the TOS that not everything is classed as downtime. Server upgrades are not classed as downtime to many hosts. They may also class downtime as an outage lasting more than X amount minutes.
Copyright laws can be confusing however below are some facts that debunk some myths about using other people’s work.
Do not copy and paste content from other websites
Even if a website does not have a copyright logo or notice, you still do not have the right to copy. Since 1989 copyright notices are optional.
Copying small amounts of text is not compyright infringement as long as it is not a substantial part of the work copied. Unfortunately it is not black and white to what is a large part and what isn’t.
Giving credit to the original author does not give you the right to copy.
Before you pick a website, make sure that you have everything ready to upload and you have tested your website. You should read our guide on things to do before buying web hosting.
Most people use small hosting packages to host small sites that don’t get many hits. If you expect your site to be small in the beginning, then buy shared hosting package. As your site gets bigger you can increase your hosting needs.
Larger websites use dedicated servers which can handle larger masses of traffic and generally allow for more bandwidth usage. You really don’t need dedicated hosting unless your site is large or you are hosting a lot of domains.
If you are starting out small, you shouldn’t spend anymore than $4-10 a month on hosting. As your site gets bigger, hosting costs will of course increase. Dedicated hosting usually starts at $120+ a month. It’s also important to note that if you are anticipating quick growth for your site, find hosting who offers a 2-6 month contract as opposed to 1-2 years. It will cost a few extra dollars per month, but you won’t be stuck paying $X a month for months you aren’t even using the service.
Find Reviews
Lookup the company on webhosting forums and on webhosting directories. If you find no reviews about the company or people have had bad experiences, you should look for a different company.
Find information about the companies website. You can do this by doing a whois lookup . You should look at the companies namesever. If a hosting company has the name server ns1.cheaphosting.net, they may just be reselling webhosting and not own their own equipment. Also look at when the domain name was registered, this will give you some information as to how long the company has been in operation.
Many web hosting companies offer 2 months free if you pay anually rather than monthly. It may be more expensive, but if you get into problems with the hosting, you can leave the company without sacrificing too much.
Ask the company to send you a link to their phpinfo page. This will tell you what versions of PHP and Apache they are using (assuming the webserver is apache and they support PHP). You can see the latest releases of PHP here
If your web site is down at 3am in the morning, the last thing you want to do is to write an email to your hosting company which probably won’t get replied to for several hours. Before buying check what the methods of support are. We recommend choosing a hosting company that has;
A forum is also a good way of finding out if other people are experiencing problems on the same server. A forum also gives a good indication of how many clients the company has.
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