Woes of a Big Site: And How to Prepare Your Site for Growth
by Christopher Heng, thesitewizard.com
I often read posts in forums and discussion lists by newcomers asking how their site can become big and well-known. Well, naturally this is every webmaster's dream - who ever creates a site hoping it will become obscure? However, what many newcomers fail to appreciate is that big and well-known sites face a number of problems. Problems which my other site, thefreecountry.com , has begun to face as a result of its rising popularity and size. This article mentions a few of those problems and some things that can be done to pre-empt them (which alas I did not do).
1. Traffic (Bandwidth) Problems
It's interesting how everyone faces traffic problems. The small site faces traffic problems - few people visit them. When the site increases in popularity, it too faces traffic problems, albeit a different kind: the expensive kind.
When a site is starting out, the typical data transfer (sometimes loosely, and incorrectly, called "bandwidth") allocation of (say) 5GB seems generous and a distant target that looks impossible to hit. But wait till it becomes popular. Suddenly that 5GB looks very skimpy, and you'll be frantically searching your web host's documentation for how they charge for "overages" (the amount by which you exceed your allocation).
One of thefreecountry.com's previous web hosts had a rather pathetic traffic "overage" policy. If the site exceeded its traffic allocation, it would be shut-down for a month. (Gee, how did I miss that in the fine print?) To prevent that, the owner has to pre-pay for additional blocks of data transfer. The trouble is, the host had no system of warning you in advance when you were nearing your limit, which meant that the webmaster had to monitor the traffic of the site closely. To add insult to injury, the additional data transfer you had to pre-pay for came only in blocks of 10GB. Let's face it: when you initially exceed the "bandwidth" limit, it is unlikely that you'll exceed by 10GB. The initial "overage" is likely to be at most 1 to 2GB (unless of course you had just embarked on an aggressive advertising campaign).
My recommendation: when scouting for web hosts - think ahead. Check out the "bandwidth" or data transfer policy. It should bill you according to the amount you actually exceed and you should not be required to have to pre-pay it. And read the fine print in all their policy statements carefully. Oh yes. For reasons mentioned in my article on " How to Choose a Web Host", it is probably best to stay clear of hosts that advertise "unlimited bandwidth".
2. Too Many Pages to Update
When I first designed thefreecountry.com , I did not plan for it to be the large site it is today. As such, I made no provision for keeping certain common features found on every page in a single location. Instead, things like the navigation menu, logo, etc, were inserted into every single page.
This was fine when thefreecountry.com was small. But it became a nightmare to maintain as the site grew. Just imagine - each time I wanted to change the design of the site, I had to manually go through the two hundred odd pages to modify them. I could not even use the search and replace feature of my editor to simplify my task - the changes often span multiple lines and are interspersed with page-specific information.
My suggestion is that even if you think your site is a small site in terms of number of pages, plan for its eventual growth. Put common design elements of your pages in a central location. There are many ways to do this: using Server Side Includes (SSI), using frames, dynamically generating it from a template, etc.
Don't think this will not happen to you. When I started the predecessor of thefreecountry.com in 1996, I only had 3 pages. Today it's a monster. True it is not as big as those sites with thousands of pages (shudder) - but I can tell you from experience that once you hit a three digit number for the number of pages, updating the design of the site isn't quite so enjoyable anymore.
3. Reliability
Usually when a site is new, the owners consider it little more than a hobby horse. As such they tend to simply find a cheap web host to dump it on, since in its infancy, the site is unlikely to generate much income anyway. This is what I did originally with thefreecountry.com.
It would have been fine except that I kept thefreecountry.com on the cheap web host far longer than I should have.
Cheap web hosts seldom have the margin they need to hire good, competent help. Now I don't mean technical support that responds to you fast. Anyone can do that - even that cheap host I was on. Their responses each time however display their ignorance. When I say competent help, I mean the kind that knows the server hardware, the various software that run on it, security issues, and how to fix software and hardware problems. You need that kind of competent help so that they can pre-empt (as far as possible) potential problems as well as handle any true crisis that arise (eg fixing new security holes in BIND or Sendmail, etc, or troubleshooting hardware problems).
When your site grows and gains more visitors, the "uptime" of the site becomes increasingly important. If the server goes "down" for a couple of hours when your site is new, you have lost at most a few visitors. But when your site is well established, every hour that your site is down loses you thousands of visitors (and the income associated with them).
If, like me, you placed your site on a cheap host when you started out, you should keep an eye out for good, reputable web hosts so that when your site grows, you'll know where to move it to. Such hosts may cost slightly more than a budget web host, but the stability you get is well worth the extra expense, especially when your site has a lot of traffic.
Unfortunately though, keeping up to date with the web hosting scene is not a one-time affair. If you have been following the changes in my " Which Web Hosts Do You Recommend?" FAQ page, found at http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/webhosting.shtml you would have seen that good hosts do turn bad over time. This usually happens when they get too big, and have to hire additional help that do not have the commitment and competence of the original owner.
The verdict: budget hosts are fine when your site is small. But always be prepared to move. And you definitely should move when your site grows bigger and becomes a viable commercial venture.
(For the curious, thefreecountry.com is no longer hosted at the cheap web host I mentioned.)
Planning for Growth
This article is really about planning for growth. The best time to do that is when your site is young. The changes that you need to make to prepare for the future will be smaller when it is young. Don't wait till your site is too big. I had to learn the hard way from hindsight. You don't have to.
Why web hosts and ISPs need web site monitoring
By David Leonhardt
If you have spent much time earning a living on the Internet, few things will surprise you. However, I am always amazed with how many companies and individuals make astounding claims without backing them up.
Web hosts and ISPs make such claims all the time: 99% uptime. Some web hosts post on their site live results of their uptime from a third-party web site monitoring company. However, those hosts are very few.
Here are four reasons why every web host and ISP (Internet service provider) should post uptime and connectivity statistics from an independent, third-party web site monitoring firm, with an external monitoring network.
Monitoring reports are excellent marketing tools
This is the most obvious reason a web host or ISP should post monitoring reports on their site. Don't tell me you have 99% uptime. Even the worst hosting companies and ISPs can make that claim, but it does not make it true. Prove it to me. Posting a report right on your home page, or posting a link to the report up front on the home page tells me you not only can make claims, but you can deliver!
Make sure to post your uptime statistics for the last day, week, month and year, so the customers know you are in it for the tong haul.
Web site monitoring reduces technical support work-load A recent review by Dotcom-Monitor reveals that accessibility calls to a web host's technical support can be reduced by 30% just by posting the current status of the web site as reported by an independent monitoring service.
Often a user will call technical support if he encounters a slow Internet connection or download times, dial-up problems, web site accessibility or various computer issues. Users assume the problem is with their web host or their ISP, and call technical support to fix the problem, even if the problem is on their computer.
Real time independent connectivity reports eliminate the need for such calls in many cases, by showing what the status of the site is. A sample web site monitoring report gives an idea of how this works.
Web site monitoring is good customer relations
If it costs up to ten times more to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one, independent web site monitoring can help you keep those precious customers.
Nothing is more frustrating for the end-user than to have her site down and nothing is more embarrassing for an ISP to receive a call from customer about a downtime, especially if it is related to a connectivity issue the hosting company or ISP is not even aware of.
An external monitoring network can alert an ISP or web host immediately to problems that often cannot be detected by internal monitoring, allowing the company to address the issue immediately.and hopefully before a customer even notices that a problem exists.
Monitoring cuts the burden of dispute resolution
Corporate hosting clients and Internet access customers often expect certain levels of service and enter into an SLA (service level agreement). Often, SLA contracts impose fines on ISPs and web hosts who do not meet the targets. Determining how those levels are measured can be difficult, but an independent, third- party monitoring service can easily resolve disputes before they begin.
Dotcom-Monitor is among those services that provides an added SLA reporting function . Both the host or ISP and the client can view the reports, and reporting intervals can be set based on the terms of the SLA contract.
While every web site can benefit from some form of monitoring, no class of business needs more the credibility of an independent monitoring service as much as those who provide access to the Internet for their clients: ISPs and web hosting companies.
About the Author
David Leonhardt is a Canadian freelance writer and SEO consultant . He wrote this article for Dotcom-Monitor Web Site and Network Monitoring . Read more information on web site monitoring or on network monitoring.
Help Me Choose: Linux vs. Windows Web Hosting
By Paras Shah
To help you choose the best operating system (OS) for your Web site to reside on, I have developed the following guidelines:
First let's start with a definition of an operating system, which is the software platform on which a web server runs.
Red Hat Linux:
Linux is an excellent operating system that is well suited to meet your web hosting needs. It handles the functions of mailing, and serving up Web sites and files especially well. Additionally, there are a huge amount of free applications available on the Internet for Linux and it uses less hardware resources than Windows 2003. Whether you are a fairly experienced webmaster or new to web hosting, we recommend that you choose Red Hat Linux as your hosting platform.
Red Hat Linux is most widely used hosting platform in the world.
Microsoft Windows 2003:
Microsoft Windows 20003 server provides a suitable platform for serving up Web sites, files, and streaming media. Additionally, it integrates well with other Microsoft applications and there are a large amount of commercial applications available for this OS. We recommend you choose Windows 2003 as your hosting platform only if you are using specific applications that require Microsoft Windows to run such as Access, Cold Fusion, ASP, .Net, and Microsoft SQL.
Note : Microsoft FrontPage may be used on both the Linux and Windows platforms.
Please Note:
One of the biggest misconceptions is that you have to select the same operating system for your hosting account that you use on your own computer. That is simply not true. This means you can select Linux for your hosting account if you currently use Windows 95, 98, NT/200, or XP on your own computer. We suggest that everyone who chooses a shared hosting plan, host their Web site on Linux if they are not utilizing ASP, Cold Fusion, or MSSQL 2000.
I hope this article help you choose right hosting type.
Please refer following web sites for useful resources related to web site hosting:
http://www.vipwh.com
http://www.vippowernet.com
http://www.thehostingguide.com
About the Author
Paras Shah
Chief Technology Officer
VIP PowerNet, Inc.
Phone: (713)787-6501
Email: paras@vippowernet.com
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