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CONSIDERATIONS IN SELECTING
A WEB HOSTING SERVICE

URLs and Domain Names
Virtual vs Non-Virtual Hosting Services
Technically Evaluating a Web Hosting Service

A local church has many issues to consider when it comes to selecting a web hosting service:
URLs and Domain Names
	Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) define how the Internet is navigated and utilized. Both of the following examples are URLs:
		my.domainname.com/name_like_your_name/ www.domain_names.com/
	However, the initial portion of any URL (in our examples, "my.domainname.com" and "www.domain_names.com") represents a special part of the URL known as a Domain Name. Domain names must be registered, for a price, for use on the Internet through one of several registration services set up for this purpose. These services work through an organization known as InterNIC which oversees Internet domains. Registering a domain name has traditionally not been a very expensive endeavor. Traditional costs were $35/year, but in recent years competition has made this minimal cost even less. Several discount registration services now make securing a domain name as cheap as $15 to $20/year depending upon the number of years that the name is registered. The choice made in terms of whether or not to register and secure a domain name has a direct impact upon they type of web hosting service you may employ in terms of your local church web site. If a local United Methodist church chooses to use the free web hosting services provided by the UMC's General Board of Global inistries (GBGM), its URL will utilize the GBGM's domain name in a Non-Virtual Hosting environment. That is, that church's web identity will something like "www.gbgm-umc.org/its_church_name/". Likewise, if a local UMC registers its own domain name, it won't utilize that domain name through the GBGM. That requires either a Virtual Hosting service, something the GBGM is not set up to perform, or the ability of that church to Locally Host its own web site. Note: Many large corporations do host their own web sites through direct connections to one (or more) Internet Service Providers (ISPs), or they act as their their own ISP with direct high-speed connections to the Internet backbone. Local hosting is an investment in technical infrastructure and expertise that even the largest of local churches will generally (and wisely) not consider. Given the value in the quality of services provided by the top tier of commercial virtual hosting services, it is difficult to imagine how a local church could possibly provide cheaper hosting on its own. For purposes of this document, we will limit discussion to the pros and cons of Virtual versus Non-Virtual web hosting services. Which does your church need? That is dependant upon the type of functionality you wish to provide on your local church site. That issue is the basis of [ click ].

Virtual versus Non-Virtual Hosting Services
	To review, Non-Virtual Hosting is where web server disk space is leased or, as in the case of the GBGM, given away. The sites on this disk space are served to the Internet through the hosting service's domain name, such as
		www.hostcompany.com/yourname/
	Many local United Methodist churches utilize this type of service through the GBGM. Golden First UMC's web site was initially served in this fashion. Our web identity was once
		www.gbgm-umc.org/fumcgolden/
	Virtual Hosting- also sometimes called Domain Hosting- allows an organization or company to utilize a registered 'domain name' which is then served up by the web hosting service. For example, the domain name for Golden First UMC web site is now
		goldenfirstumc.org
	This domain ( goldenfirstumc.org ) and the web site behind it are served to the Internet by a web hosting company called CI Hosts ( cihosts.com ).
	Advantages of Virtual over Non-Virtual Hosting One advantage of virtual hosting is that a church may make use of the primary 'naming' characteristics on which its identity resides -- if it can secure the appropriate domain name. Another advantage of virtual hosting is flexibility. Virtual hosting services invariably provide a greater range of services to the sites they host than do non-virtual services. For example, suppose you have the desire and technical expertise within your church to add interactive components to your web site. Doing so requires a hosting service that provides the programming, scripting, database, and additional services that you need.
	Advantages of Non-Virtual over Virtual Hosting There is really only one argument here, and that is a lack of technical expertise within your local church. Of course, if you have the technical talent, that talent must also have a desire -- and time available -- to invest in the project. Some may also site cost as a reason to pursue a non-virtual web hosting solution. True, it is impossible to beat a 'free' service such as that offered by the GBGM on a pure cost basis. Yet, when for only $0.66 per day one may expand your available disk from 5 Mb to 2 Gb as well as add programming, database, email, and an amazing number of additional services to a church site- then the call isn't so simple. The comparison is not one of apples to apples; the value of the one far outweighs the value of the other. If discipleship is the driving force behind a local church web presence, the issue really gets back to one of technical expertise: can the local church implement what it desires of its web presence?
	Why Golden First UMC choose a Virtual Hosting Service At Golden First UMC we had a desire to pursue discipleship through our web site. We also had a measure of proficiency in web technologies available in-house. We felt it was important to secure an Internet domain name and to implement our site through a virtual hosting service for several reasons: A domain name would be more intuitive -- and would be more easily searched for and found by the browsing community -- than would a non-virtual domain such as that provided by the GBGM. Hosting services offered us greater flexibility and potential in terms of what we could do technically in terms of web ministries versus that which was offered by the GBGM. We had the technical skills to implement the web ministries we sought, and With some effort, we found that excellent virtual web hosting services are readily affordable! We are simply amazed at how much one may get for a mere $0.66 per day!
	Why Golden First UMC choose GOLDENFIRSTUMC.ORG as its Domain Name That a domain name is the key on which a church's web identity resides means that the selection of such should not be taken lightly. In our case, the domain name goldenfirstumc.org was chosen because of the following reasons: While there are many "First" United Methodist Churches, there is only one in Golden, Colorado. it makes sense to preface "first" with "golden" since the latter is the primary identifier. Secondly, since UMC is the acronym widely understood to mean United Methodist Church, "umc" is a logical extention to "goldenfirst" in the domain name. Lastly, .org" is the Internet standard for organizations versus commercial entities (and ".com").

Technically Evaluating a Web Hosting Service
	There are a vast number of technical considerations in evaluating a web hosting service. The following are in no particualr order:
	A) Amount of Available Disk Storage While files may 'live' in a computer's memory, as a rule all files served to the Internet reside somewhere on the server's hard drives. These files require some amount of physical space on a hard drive. This space is measured in terms of kilo-, mega-, or giga- bytes. Generally, file sizes vary by content. Files containing imagery -- for example, files ending with extensions such as '.jpg' (JPEG format) or '.gif' (GIF format) -- are generally larger than files containing simple text. The Internet files interpreted and displayed by your browser are generally ASCII text files formatted in an appropriate manner to meet the specifications of HyperText Markup Language (HTML). HTML is understood by the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP). HTTP is a means by which the Internet works (Ever notice that "http://" in a URL in your browser's "Location" field?). HTML files often contain calls to other files through the use of certain HTML tags. For example, if one HTML file contains tags requesting six other files which are JPEG or GIF image files, seven files are actually downloaded- the HTML file and the six image files specified- and rendered on by the requester's browser. Because all seven files requested must be moved over the bandwidth of the Internet, it makes sense that the more files requested- and the larger the individual files are- the longer the time for download. Consequently, HTML written for the Internet and JPEG and GIF image files are streamlined (hopefully) for performance and efficiency. Given knowledge of the average size of HTML and image files, one may calculate the maximum size of a web site given the amount of disk space made available through the web hosting service. For example, the GBGM's non-virtual hosting service currently provides 5 Mb, free of charge, to individual UMC web sites. While indivudual UMC sites may manage this disk space better or worse, on average, than others, the fact is all are constrained in their abilities to "grow" their local church sites. After all, there's only so much you can do with 5 Mb. Virtual hosting services will provide much more physical disk space. For example, it should be quite easy to secure 100 - 350 Mb disk space for as little as $20 to $25 per month, and perhaps much more.
	B) Amount of Data Transfer (Bandwidth) Utilized. Data transfer refers to the total amount bytes that must be moved across the 'net due to the traffic that a web site generates. The more pages or documents that are requested from a site the more of a strain there is to the hosting service providing bandwidth. Data transfer is generally measured in terms of gigabytes (Gb). Given that file sizes may be averaged, there is also a correlation between the number of 'hits' a web site receives- ie, the number of pages or documents that are requested- and data transfer in terms of the bytes of data moved. Virtual web hosting services may have restrictions in terms of the bandwidth utilization, but the top tier of virtual hosting services will likely offer 'unlimited' bandwidth. For large church agencies like the UMC's General Board of Discipleship (GBOD), General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), and General Board of Global Missions (GBGM), this is likely a concern. For most local church web sites this is not, as the site will likely not generate nearly enough traffic to be a problem (unfortunately).
	C) Support for Programming / Scripting Tools and Environments If the local church has the desire to provide interactive components -- and has the technical expertise to implement such -- then its hosting service must support the programming and/or scripting tools and environments that the interactive components require. We'll use our own Hymn Quiz ( http://goldenfirstumc.org/education/quiz/hymnal/ ) on the United Methodist Hymnal as an example. This quiz contains 25 questions about the Methodist Hymnal and a 'GRADE ME!' button which, when pressed, grades the user's answers real-time online. Provided the user passes and provides a name, it also will generate a 'Certificate of Knowledge' which is (almost) suitable for framing! We think its cool! But, the question here is, how does one build such a tool? Such a tool requires some server-side application that delivers this functionality. That requires an underlying programming or scripting environment on your web server. Programming possibilities are numerous, and include languages such as Java, Perl/CGI, etc. Scripting environments include the likes of PHP, ColdFusion, Java Server Pages (JSP), or Active Server Pages (ASP). Obviously, the web server operating system (OS) environment plays a role -- for example, Microsoft's ASP will not be implemented on a Linux/UNIX web server. Technical expertise is the other consideration. Whomever is building such an application will likely choose to implement a solution using their programming langauge / scripting tool of choice. For a local church web site, the types of interactive components we're talking about might include any of the following: Bulletin board or discussion group Calendar Chat room Form processing Polls, quizzes, and surveys Random text generators ('Bible Verse for Today', for example) Search engines and more. Both virtual and non-virtual web hosting services may provide and support varied programming languages and scripting tools. At this time, the non-virtual hosting provided by the GBGM does not, however.
	D) Support for Database Connectivity Some of the functionality mentioned above would be difficult to implement if the web hosting service does not provide connectivity to some Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). In particular, many search engines utilize databases in their search functions. Without such, the options available to the local site in terms of document searches is narrowed. Most virtual web hosting services will provide database connnectivity- often MySQL, the most popular "open source" RDBMS. Non-virtual hosting service may also provide database connectivity. At this time, the UMC's GBGM does not.
	E) Support for Multimedia Plug-ins are freeware components which, upon download and installation, readily communicate with a browser and extend the browser's capabilities in some way. Many browser plug-ins are available for support of transmission of multimedia- audio and video- over the Internet. Streaming, for example, is a mechanism for transferring bits and bytes over the Internet not as a single file requiring download, but as a steady transmission of data so that- once local cache' has been built up- the start of the data transmission may be viewed or heard long before the end of the data transmission is sent. RealAudio is one example of this technology. Macromedia Flash is another multimedia extention of the ability to incorporate interactive components into a web site -- as well as to flashy graphics. The top-tier of virual hosting services will likely include some level of support for multimedia. Non-virtual hosting services may include this functionality. At present, the GBGM does not.
	F) Access, and Number of Access Accounts Access is used here in terms of 'the ability to get into the web site, and subsequently edit and/or update the site.' This means that some secure mechanism must be provided for the local churches' web master- and designated others- to gain entrance onto the server on which the web site resides. One mechanism by which this is usually done is through File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Where Linux/UNIX web servers are being utilized (versus Windows NT), telnet is also sometimes provided. Virtual / non virtual hosts will generally provide at least one FTP account for access, and often will provide many more. The top-tier of virtual hosting services will provide one-to-many telnet accounts. At present, the GBGM provides one FTP account for local churches to use in updating their web site.
	G) Email Capabilities Email capabilities constitute one of the most important technical considerations in evaluating web hosting services. Virtual / non-virtual hosting services usually provide, at no additional cost, some number of custom email accounts and options for those accounts. Examples of custom email accounts would be pastor@your_church_domain.org education@your_church_domain.org office@your_church_domain.org webmaster@your_church_domain.org etc. Options typically include: Auto-forwarding, where, for example, a message sent to "prayer@your_church_domain.org" automatically gets redirected to one or more email accounts (as appropriate). Auto-Responding, which as you would suspect, automatically replies to one message with some default message. Both virtual and non-virtual hosting services should provide some measure of support for these functions. Top virtual hosting packages may allow an unlimited number of email accounts to be established. The GBGM's non-virtual hosting, at this time, does not allow for any email services. Local UM churches using the GBGM's services will have to manage email through use of HTML's "A HREF mailto" tag. That at least allows messages to be sent to non-web site related email addresses.
	H) Platform Options This last item refers to the fact that there are essentially two platforms, or Operating Systems (OSs), on which web serving occurs. One is the Linux (UNIX) environment, and the other is Windows NT. Many virtual web hosting services will provide access to both, but the Linux/UNIX solution will always be cheaper. Non-virtual hosting services may or may not provide both. Interestingly, while Windows (98, NT, 2000, XP) rules the desktop, Linux/UNIX continues to rule the Internet when it comes to serving files and data to the world. Besides cost, Linux/UNIX is more secure and more stable.
	I) Other Hosting Service Infrastructure Issues There are other issues you should be aware of when it comes to selecting a web hosting service: How good is the server on which your site will reside? Single or dual CPUs? How fast is the CPU? How much memory (RAM)? How many web sites will 'share' (ie, be served from) a server? How large is the data center from which their sites are served? How good is the hosting service's connection(s) to the Internet backbone? What guarantee will the hosting service make in terms of downtime? How often will the hosting service perform site backups? What technical support will the hosting service provide? How quickly will the hosting service implement changes and enhancements to their accounts?

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Golden Colorado's First United Methodist Church.
Last Revised: March 30, 2005.