What To Do With Your New Web Hosting Plan
Every day millions of people register for domain names and they have a brand new web hosting plan. You may be one of them, you’ve finally taken the plunge and are a proud owner of a new website. If you find yourself overcome with joy, and not sure what to do, it’s ok. There are a lot of people that spend a great deal of time wondering what to do next. As long as you start today, with a good site, you are ready to move forward. When you finally settle down, remember these 5 things that come with your web hosting ownership. No matter what your plan of action is, these are 5 common things that all users of web hosting should remember. Forget these, and you could end up with diminished results, to say the least.
Mind Your Space
First and foremost, there are plans that have limits. Some cloud web hosting plans will not let you just throw up massive amounts of gigs onto the server. You need to be careful as to what you’re uploading and how much of it you’re throwing up online at any given time. This doesn’t mean you’re going to be hindered if you purchase web hosting, but if you have a limited plan, be mindful of what you’re doing. If you have purchased a dedicated server or an unlimited plan, there are still elements that you should regard. For instance, some companies that sell web hosting will tell you that they have unlimited storage, but if you abuse the notion, you could end up getting thrown off the server. There’s a lot of fine print when it comes to purchasing web hosting, make sure that you read it, and you fully understand what the limits are, even if they say “unlimited”.
Bandwidth Abuse Is Possible
As mentioned above, you should not abuse anything. That includes bandwidth. For those that are looking at web hosting as a way to throw a podcast up, or have a full gaming server live, you’ll need more than just a basic option. Basic web hosting, even with unlimited bandwidth is traditionally shared. You’re going to be causing issues with other sites, including your own, if you are pulling too much data from your server at any given time. When you have the popularity of a large scale website, and you are getting hit from all sides, it’s time to look into getting a dedicated server. Even though a lot of web hosting companies promise you will get unlimited bandwidth, if you abuse it, and you are extremely popular, you may end up needing to step up to a dedicated server. Otherwise the user experience that you have, assuming the web hosting company allows you to stay on the basic plans, will become a hindrance.
Back Up Your Site Often
Perhaps one of the most important things that you can do as a web hosting owner is this one, back things up a lot. Do not go several months without this. There are some networks that will back up things for you. However, you should have a hard digital copy of things on your computer. Do not just host your files and leave them on the web hosting servers. You should have updated backups that are fresh, within a few days if you can. This may be a bit arduous at first, but if you schedule things out, this shouldn’t be a big problem. Even though there are a lot of security measures in place, it’s not uncommon to lose a file or even have a problem with the web hosting plan you choose.
Lock Up Your Database
Here is one of the most important things that you are going to want to remember, and that’s in regards to all web hosting plans, lock your database. When you install MYSQL or any sort of database to connect with your scripting, make sure that you change the password on the database. Do not just have a generic one, and don’t make it so easy to pull. Many web hosting accounts right now are vulnerable because they don’t have these elements in place. Your passwords have to be strong here, especially if you’re going to post updates to your site dynamically.
Experiment With Code
After you’ve purchased a web hosting, you need to experiment with code. You can learn a lot by having a hosting plan in place. Just use it to learn simple HTML and CSS. This can help you in any job, and will give you a sense of accomplishment when you can code and even troubleshoot problems with your website.
