Finding a Home for Your Blog
After you register your domain, you need to find a place for it to live — a Web host. Web hosting is the second piece of the puzzle that you need to complete before you begin working with WordPress.org.
A Web host is a business, a group, or an individual that provides Web server space and bandwidth for file transfer to Web site owners who don't have it. Usually, Web hosting services charge a monthly or annual fee — unless you're fortunate enough to know someone who's willing to give you server space and bandwidth free. The cost varies from host to host, but you can obtain quality Web hosting services for $3 to $10 per month to start.
When discussing Web hosting considerations, it is important to understand where your hosting account ends and WordPress begins. Support for the WordPress software may or may not be included in your hosting package.
Some Web hosts consider WordPress to be a third-party application. This means that the host typically won't provide technical support on the use of WordPress (or any other software application) because software support generally isn't included in your hosting package. The Web host supports your hosting account but, typically, doesn't support the software you choose to install.
On the other hand, if your Web host supports the software on your account, it comes at a cost: You have to pay for that extra support. To find whether your chosen host supports WordPress, ask first. If your host doesn't offer software support, you can still find WordPress support in the support forums at http://wordpress.org/support, as shown in Figure 1-1.
Several Web hosting providers also have WordPress-related services available for additional fees. These services can include technical support, plugin installation and configuration, and theme design.
Generally, hosting services provide (at least) these services with your account:
- Hard drive space
- Bandwidth (transfer)
- Domain e-mail with Web mail access
- File Transfer Protocol (FTP) access
- Comprehensive Web site statistics
- MySQL database(s)
- PHP
Figure 1-1: The WordPress support forums.
Because you intend to run WordPress on your Web server, you need to look for a host that provides the minimum requirements needed to run the software on your hosting account, which are
- PHP version 4.3 (or greater)
- MySQL version 4.0 (or greater)
The easiest way to find whether a host meets the minimum requirement is to check the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section of the host's Web site, if it has one. If not, find the contact information for the hosting company, and fire off an e-mail requesting information on exactly what it supports. Any Web host worth dealing with will answer your e-mail within a reasonable amount of time (12–24 hours is a good barometer).
If the technojargon confuses you — specifically, all that talk about PHP, MySQL and FTP in this section — don't worry! Chapter 2 of this minibook gives you an in-depth look into what FTP is and how you will use it on your Web server; Book II, Chapter 3 introduces you to the basics of PHP and MySQL. Become more comfortable with these topics because we discuss them frequently.
Getting help with hosting WordPress
The popularity of WordPress has given birth to Web services — including WordPress designers, WordPress consultants, and (yes) Web hosts — that specialize in using WordPress.
Many of these hosts offer a full array of WordPress features, such as an automatic WordPress installation included with your account, a library of WordPress themes, and a staff of support technicians who are very experienced in using WordPress.
Here is a list of some of those providers:
- Blogs About Hosting: http://blogs-about.com (shown in Figure 1-2)
- Laughing Squid: http://laughingsquid.net
- BlueHost: http://bluehost.com
- DreamHost: http://dreamhost.com
A few Web hosting providers offer free domain name registration when you sign up for hosting services. Research this topic and read their terms of service because that free domain name may come with conditions. Many of our clients have gone this route, only to find out a few months later that the Web hosting provider has full control of the domain name, and the client can't move that domain off the host's servers, either for a set period (usually, a year or two) or for infinity. It's always best to have the control in your hands, not someone else's, so try to stick with an independent domain registrar, such as Network Solutions.
Dealing with disk space and bandwidth
Web hosting services provide two very important things with your account:
- Disk space: The amount of space you can access on the Web servers' hard drive; generally measured in megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB).
- Bandwidth transfer: The amount of transfer your site can do per month; typically, traffic is measured in gigabytes (GB).
Figure 1-2: Blogs About Hosting run by your author, Lisa Sabin-Wilson.
Think of your Web host as a garage that you pay to park your car in. The garage gives you the place to store your car (disk space). It even gives you the driveway so that you, and others, can get to and from your car (bandwidth). It won't, however, fix your rockin' stereo system (WordPress or any other third-party software application) that you've installed — unless you're willing to pay a few extra bucks for that service.
Most Web hosting providers give you access to a hosting account manager that allows you to log in to your Web hosting account to manage services. cPanel is perhaps the most popular management interface, but Plesk and NetAdmin are still widely used. These management interfaces give you access to your server logs where you can view such things as bandwidth and hard disk usage. Get into a habit of checking those things occasionally to make sure that you stay informed about how much usage your site is using. Typically, I check monthly.
Managing disk space
Disk space is nothing more complicated than the hard drive on your own computer. Each hard drive has the capacity, or space, for a certain amount of files. An 80GB (gigabyte) hard drive can hold 80GB of data — no more. Your hosting account provides you a limited amount of disk space, and the same concept applies. If your Web host provides you 10GB of disk space, that's the absolute limit you have. If you want more disk space, you need to upgrade your space limitations. Most Web hosts have a mechanism in place for you to upgrade your allotment.
Starting with a self-hosted WordPress blog doesn't take much disk space at all. A good starting point for disk space is between 3–5GB of storage space. If you find that you need additional space, contact your hosting provider for an upgrade in space.
Choosing the size of your bandwidth pipe
Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that is carried from point A to point B within a specific period (usually, only a second or two). I live out in the country — pretty much the middle of nowhere. The water that comes to my house is provided by a private well that lies buried in the backyard somewhere. Between my house and the well are pipes that bring the water to my house. The pipes provide a free flow of water to our home so that everyone can enjoy their long, hot showers while I labor over dishes and laundry, all at the same time. Lucky me!
The very same concept applies to the bandwidth available with your hosting account. Every Web hosting provider offers a variety of bandwidth limits on the accounts it offers. When I want to view your Web site in my browser window, the bandwidth is essentially the pipe that lets your data flow from your “well” to my computer. The bandwidth limit is similar to the pipe connected to my well: It can hold only a certain amount of water before it reaches maximum capacity and won't bring the water from the well any longer. Your bandwidth pipe size is determined by how much bandwidth your Web host allows for your account — the larger the number, the bigger the pipe. A 50MB bandwidth limit makes for a smaller pipe than a 100MB limit.
Web hosts are pretty generous with the amount of bandwidth they provide in their packages. Like disk space, bandwidth is measured in gigabytes (GB). Bandwidth provision of 10–50GB is generally a respectable amount to run a Web site with a blog.
Web sites that run large files — such as video, audio, or photo files — generally benefit from higher disk space compared with sites that don't involve large files. Keep this point in mind when you're signing up for your hosting account. Planning now will save you a few headaches down the road.
Be wary of hosting providers that offer things like unlimited bandwidth, domains, and disk space. That is a great selling point, but what they don't tell you outright (you may have to look into the fine print of their agreement) is that although they may not put those kinds of limits on you, they will limit your site's CPU usage.
CPU stands for central processing unit and is the part of a computer (or Web server in this case) that handles all the data-processing requests sent to your Web servers whenever anyone visits your site. Although you may have unlimited bandwidth to handle a large amount of traffic, if a high spike in traffic increases your site's CPU usage, your host will throttle your site because they limit the CPU use.
What do I mean by throttle? I mean they shut it down — they turn it off. Not permanently, though; maybe for only a few minutes to an hour. They do this to kill any connections to your Web server causing the spike in CPU use. They eventually turn your site back on — but the inconvenience happens regularly with many clients across various hosting environments.
When looking into different Web hosting providers, ask about their policy on CPU use and what they do to manage a spike in processing. It's better to know about it upfront, than to find out about it after your site's been throttled.