:bawling: Grrrrrr! Please help me, I'm sooooo confused. Just when I think I'm all sorted and I've decided upon which host to go with, I read the horror stories which you guys have had with them! Only today I was all set to go with www.fasthosts.com, I did a search on them here and what I read was enough to give me nightmares :( As you can probably tell I'm all new to this :dunce: and if you want to know the truth it is all scaring me a bit. What is all this about bandwidth? I'm sure my site won't attract hoards of people, but I do have a forum and what if it really takes off and I exceed my bandwidth or whatever and my host wipes my bank balance? :eek: Could this happen? Is bandwidth to do with how many hits you get? I really want a UK based webhost. Any thoughts? Does anyone have anything good to say about Fasthosts? It seems all those horror stories were written a good year ago. Have they cleaned up their act? When I go to their website I get a good vibe and they seem to be offering a few new goodies so mabe so. Grrrrrrrrr! I feel so naive! Help! What do you guys think? Maybe a should just row back to shore 'cos I feel I'm riding on shark infested waters here! If anyone could give me some no-jargon advise and explanations I'd really appreciate it! I wanna look like this :D not like this :confused:

Originally posted by TomTom
What is all this about bandwidth? I'm sure my site won't attract hoards of people, but I do have a forum and what if it really takes off and I exceed my bandwidth or whatever and my host wipes my bank balance? :eek: Could this happen? Is bandwidth to do with how many hits you get?
Well, first you have to realize that a forum does have the potential of using up lots of bandwidth (chances are you mean data transfer, but could be both). Since it is dynamic, your best bet is tho make sure you have regular backups of the forum db in case anything happens.

Your last backup will enable you to restore the forum back to where it was, no matter what happens.

Hits and bandwidth aren't exactly related, but indirectly I suppose they are. Hits are usually the number of files requested (everything on the page, plus the page itself would be a hit -so a simple page with 3 graphic images would be 4 hits if one person visited the page and let the page load fully).

More people at a forum = more hits = more data transfer.

More people at a forum = more hits = more data transfer.

It's true!

Have all you clever computer people forgotten what it was like when you first started out? Thanks for the reply but I didn't really understand it (despite reading it 12 times!) :dunce: You need to explain things to me as though I were a 4 year old! Sorry! Sor let me get this straight... If I exceed my bandwidth can my host just charge me with my knowing or do they suspend the site and contact me before taking further action? Because my site isn't a business I'd prefer the latter. In addition, what have people heard about Alentia? Good, Bad? I'm in the UK so does it matter if I want to use a US web host?

Why are all my "My"s in red in my first message? I'm not really self obsessed! Honest!

I have the same problem... I was planning on a specific host, but theyre beginning to slack off and I've heard many recent horror stories about them. Finding a good host *should not* be this difficult or nerve wrecking.

The host that offered me a 10 day trial recently, will most likely be my next host (you know who you are ;)).

Here is a few suggestions to get an idea of their support and pre-sales practices... Email them in the early hours of the morning asking a simple pre-sales question. See how long it takes to get a reply, and the tone of the reply. After that, send off another email, about something technical. That way you get both support and sales :). Also find out who is hosting with them, and keep tabs on their site along with the hosts site.

If you like them, sign-up with them and hope you dont get burned after they got your money...

*tosses 2 pennies into the box*

Most hosts will contact you before you exceed your bandwidth to explain possible work-arounds. For example, upgrading to a higher plan or if you are already at the highest plan the amount they will charge per GB once you go over. Charging a clients card/account without notice is not good practice so this hopefully will not happen to you (I say hopefully because there are some hosts that might do this unfortunately).

I think you meant Aletia (www.aletia.com), if you search them on these boards you will find they are a very good host, many people here have recommended them. Also, it usually won't matter if you are in the UK and using a US based host (it's actually more cost effective I've heard).. if the host has a good network your UK visitors should not notice a difference. If you would feel more comfortable dealing with a host that has staff in the UK and servers in the US, I'd recommend checking out kdawebservices.com (http://www.kdawebservices.com) since that is the setup they currently have and also come highly recommended.

Sor let me get this straight... If I exceed my bandwidth can my host just charge me with my knowing or do they suspend the site and contact me before taking further action? Because my site isn't a business I'd prefer the latter.

Most hosts will contact you first before taking any further action. But if your site comsumes more than 50% of allowed bandwidth of the plan in a very short period, say, a few days, your site might be suspended automatically by the hosting system.

Different hosts may have different rules and practices in this regard, so it's better to contact your host first to find out a more accurate answer.

99% of websites won't use too much bandwidth to be charged extra GB fee. Why? There are too many websites out there. With seven million web pages are being added to the sea of internet each single day, it's hard to get lots of traffic unless you know internet marketing or run an adult sex website.

Anyway, don't worry about it, and it's unecessary to feel hurt before you get even started!