Hello! Newbie here, asking a couple of newbie questions. I am currently searching for a webhost and have found this forum EXTREMELY enlightening (thank you all). I am putting together a smallish non-commercial community site to launch in a month or two. I'm not very hip on the technical side of hosting, though I have built several websites. What sort of questions should I ask a potential webhost? I look at all the claims made by the various webhosts as far as backbones, etc. and they all look very nice but mean very little to me. What sort of hardware, etc. should I be looking for? I do know I am looking for Unix or Linux servers, but beyond that I'm at a loss. I have been depending on free webhosts up till now and I'm tired of the downtime and the lack of customer service.

Also, could someone give me a rough estimate of how much bandwidth an HTML chatroom would use? I would love to put one on the site. I have a free remotely-hosted java applet chat on my current site and some people cannot use it (mostly AOL users). I would love to have a chatroom that everyone can access without changing ISPs. Right now the chat is rarely used, mainly because so many people have technical problems with it, but if I had a more user-friendly application I would estimate that it would be used nearly every evening, for anywhere from an hour to six hours, by three to thirty users...hope I'm not scaring anybody. ;) (Friday night would be the big chat night.) I am hoping not to spend more than $10-15 a month for my hosting plan, which will NOT include the forums (they are remotely hosted, for now anyway). Other than the chatroom, the site will contain images to be used on the remotely-hosted forums and some static HTML pages...maybe 15-20 altogether, perhaps a simple guestbook, that sort of thing.

Thanks for any input you can give me.

Maggie

Not everything you should ask, by any means, but some important questions to ask are:

1. Where is the server located (at an NOC, basement, bedroom, etc.)

2. What connections are there to the Internet?

3. What are the hosting facilities like? (do they contain battery backups, diesel generators, etc.)

4. Is the principal of legal age (an adult)?

Duster has some really great questions there...I cant think of any more!

Maybe also:

- How much they charge for extra bandwidth if it's not stated on the site

- How much sites per server


Also, if you don't know alot about hosting, make sure you read this forum about unlimited bandwidth :)

Cheers!

Deb has a good list of questions at http://www.forumhosts.com/hosts.htm that you might want to browse. As with any list, not every question on that list will apply to any particular individual's needs.

Originally posted by MaggieScratch
Also, could someone give me a rough estimate of how much bandwidth an HTML chatroom would use? I would love to put one on the site. I have a free remotely-hosted java applet chat on my current site and some people cannot use it (mostly AOL users). I would love to have a chatroom that everyone can access without changing ISPs. Right now the chat is rarely used, mainly because so many people have technical problems with it, but if I had a more user-friendly application I would estimate that it would be used nearly every evening, for anywhere from an hour to six hours, by three to thirty users...hope I'm not scaring anybody. ;) (Friday night would be the big chat night.) I am hoping not to spend more than $10-15 a month for my hosting plan, which will NOT include the forums (they are remotely hosted, for now anyway). Other than the chatroom, the site will contain images to be used on the remotely-hosted forums and some static HTML pages...maybe 15-20 altogether, perhaps a simple guestbook, that sort of thing.

Thanks for any input you can give me.

Maggie

maggie, I'll give you my experience with html type chat rooms. I had a decent one on my site phpmychat, which you can find at http://www.phpheaven.net/projects/phpMyChat/ but it was on a dedicated server (pretty much alone for all practical purposes), and with 23 uses server loads were way too high (over 7.5). It should be more in the 0.5-ish area.

Now, one of our members (technics) runs a cgi-chat, and you can search for his name usig the SEARCH function (top right-ish of your screen) and contact him about it.

You may want to explore IRC options, as many of my users would rather have it over what I have now.

IRC rocks!!

You should also ask:

- what kind of support provided (24x7 / tollfree ... etc)

- money back guarantee ?

- server features, besides how many user hosted per server.


Just sharing some extra info, There is a simple html chat program comes with CPanel.


:)

I would ask a potential host to supply you with a list of references that you could contact, and perhaps some sample websites that they host. You could then directly ask their customers what their service is like, and you could test the speed of the websites.

Of course, the hosting company will likely only provide you with satisfied customers, so keep that in mind!

How about asking the company for a recent list of departed customers, and reasons why they left? Anyone tried that before? I wonder if they would give you THEIR email addresses so you could ask them yourself why they left!

Cheers!
Rob.