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A Web hosting company provides everything you need to put up a Web site,
including the computer space and all the Web site software. You just create
the files for your Web pages and move them to a location specified by the
Web hosting company.

About a gazillion companies offer Web hosting services. Most charge a monthly
fee, which is often quite small, and some are even free. Most of the free ones
require you to display advertising. Usually, the monthly fee varies, depending
on the resources provided for your Web site. For instance, a Web site with
2MB (megabytes) of disk space for your Web page files costs less than a Web
site with 10MB of disk space.

When looking for a place to host your Web site, make sure that the Web hosting
company offers PHP. Some do not. Also, make sure the company offers a
recent version of PHP. Web hosting companies may not offer a version that
has just been released, but they should upgrade their PHP fairly soon after a
new version is released.

Don’t consider a Web hosting company that offers only PHP 3. PHP 4.3.1 was
released in February 2003, so no Web hosting company should still be providing
PHP older than 4.3.1, especially because a security issue was discovered
in earlier versions and was fixed in PHP 4.3.1. Ideally, by the time you read
this, most Web hosting companies will be offering PHP 5.

Other considerations when choosing a Web hosting company include the
following:

• Reliability: You need a Web hosting company that you can depend on —
  one that won’t go broke and disappear tomorrow. And you want one
  that has enough computer power and other resources to keep your Web
  site up. A Web site with more down time than up time is pretty useless.
  Hopefully, some research on the Web or among colleagues will identify
  Web hosting companies whose reliability is not up to snuff.
• Speed: Web pages that download slowly are a problem because users
  will get impatient and go elsewhere. Slow pages may be a result of a Web
  hosting company that started its business on a shoestring and has a
  shortage of good equipment, or the problem may be a Web hosting company
  that is so successful that its equipment is overwhelmed by new
  customers. Either way, Web hosting companies that deliver Web pages
  too slowly are unacceptable. In some cases, you can find sites that are
  hosted at the Web hosting company and see the download speed for
  these sites. Sometimes the Web hosting company’s Web site provides
  some customer links, or the company’s salespeople may provide you
  with this information.
• Technical support: Some Web hosting companies have no one available
  to answer questions or troubleshoot problems. Technical support is
  22 Part I: Say Hello to the PHP Scripting Language
  often provided through e-mail only, which can be acceptable if the
  response time is short. Sometimes you can test the quality of the company’s
  support by calling the tech support number, or test the e-mail
  response time by sending an e-mail.
• Domain name: Each Web site has a domain name that Web browsers use
  to find the site on the Web. Each domain name is registered, for a small
  yearly fee, so that only one Web site can use it. Some Web hosting companies
  allow you to use a domain name that you have registered independently
  of the Web hosting company, some assist you in registering
  and using a new domain name, and some require you to use their domain
  name. For instance, suppose your company’s name is Good Stuff and you
  want your Web site to be named JanetsGoodStuff. Some companies allow
  your Web site to be JanetsGoodStuff.com, but some require that your
  Web site be named JanetsGoodStuff.webhostingcompanyname.com,
  or webhostingcompanyname.com/~GoodStuff, or something similar. In
  general, your Web site will look more professional if you can use your
  own domain name.
• Backups: Backups are copies of your Web page files and your database
  that are stored in case your files or database are lost or damaged. You
  want to be sure that the company makes regular, frequent backup copies
  of your application. You also want to know how long it would take for
  backups to be put in place to restore your Web site to working order
  after a problem.

It’s difficult to research Web hosting companies from a standing start — a
search at Google for Web hosting results in over 4 million hits. The best way
to research Web hosting companies is to ask for recommendations from
people who have experience with those companies. People who have used a
hosting company can warn you that the service is slow or that the computers
are frequently down. After you have gathered a few names of Web hosting
companies from satisfied customers, you can narrow the list to the one that
is best suited and most cost-effective for your purposes.

You can ask for names from colleagues and friends. Also, people often ask for
recommendations for hosting companies on the PHP discussion lists. Many
people on the lists have experience using PHP with Web hosting companies
and are glad to provide recommendations or warnings. Because people often
ask this question, you may get all the information you need from the list
archives, which you can search at marc.theaimsgroup.com/.