Important Hosting Concepts Explained
These are important concepts to understand. There are two "size" components to a hosting plan: Disk Storage and Data Transfer (Bandwidth). Also see the Glossary.

Disk Storage (web space)
Space on the serer to store everything related to your website such as your regular html files, images, multimedia files, anonymous ftp files, POP mail messages, cgi-scripts, configuration files and any other files that make up your website.

This is like the square footage of your house. You can't fit a mansion full of furniture in a one bedroom apartment.

Handy Byte Conversion Chart

1KB = 1024 bytes 1MB = 1,048,576 bytes (1000 KB) 1gig = 1,073,741,824 bytes,               or (1000 MG) This little blue 6x6 pixel square is about 50 bytes.

Data Transfer (Bandwidth)
You are charged according to the "Transfer" or "Bandwidth" you use in a month. Your total traffic is the sum of outward-bound, inward-bound, email and anonymous FTP traffic.

Think of bandwidth as you would the capacity of a restaurant. If 500 people showed up for dinner at a quaint cafe with eight tables... most will not be served. You need a bigger restaurant if you want to serve more dinners.

Pay attention to your traffic! If you exceed your prepaid bandwidth limit, your site could become unexpectedly inaccessible, or you could run up unexpected charges. If you are promoting your website, make sure you are prepared for success with enough bandwidth.

Each time a web page, image, audio, video, and other elements of your website is accessed by your visitor, traffic is generated. If there is a 50Kb image on a page... it is counted EACH time it is called from the server.

"Page weight" is the size of a page... the total size of all the images, text, code, etc. If your page weight is high, and your traffic increases, your bandwidth can add up very quickly. Watch your image sizes. Optimize your images, your code, your databases.

What happens if you exceed your bandwidth quota?

You can monitor your usage from your control panel. We will ATTEMPT to send you email if we see a sudden spike, but it is possible that your site will be suspended without notice if it exceeds the bandwidth quota. Open a ticket at the helpdesk and we will restore it after making arrangements to address the overage. Overage charges for traffic are $5 per gig per month. We recommend upgrading your hosting plan.... it's a better deal.

How much storage and bandwidth do you need?