Determine Requirements

To start with, please note that a single keyboard character (such as A) = 1 byte
- One character = 1 byte
- One KB (kilobyte) = 1,024 bytes
- One MB (megabyte) = 1,024 KB
- One GB (gigabyte) - 1,024 MB

When you purchase a program from a web hosting company like Georgetown Hosting you are actually leasing space from us on our very large servers. Every server we have contains a specific amount of space (bytes) to be allocated among our clients. To simplify the process we lease space based on MB's and offer four (4) different programs that consist of packets of preset amounts of MB's. We identify these packets as programs titled Email Only, Leased, Enhanced, Special, and Super. Each contains a specific amount of available MB's for purchase to lease.

We sell space in regards to 2 areas: disk space, and bandwidth. Disk space is the amount of space your web site will use when it is living on our server. Bandwidth is a name given to how much space is "looked at" by the people visiting your site and is determined over a one-month period. Let's look at disk space first because that is the more critical requirement.

If you have an existing web site that you are going to setup on our hosting site you can simply look at how "big" the site is now. Check "properties" and it will tell you how many KB or MB the site contains. Then you can purchase any program from us that is bigger than that. Then you will know you will have enough room for some expansion if needed.

If you have not yet created a web site you can estimate how many MB's you need by reading the following information:

Text does not take up much space but everything else does. So if your site will have a lot of graphics, video, music files, banners, and such, you will need more space than if you are just going to write a lot of words. Color graphics take up more space than black and white.

A typical web page can be thought of as containing information equivalent to 1-1/2 pages in a regular book.

An average web page with ONLY TEXT will require 3-1/2 KB's of space. That means you could have approximately 290 pages on a 1MB web site.

But, an average web page that contains average graphics will require 50 KB's of space. That means if you have graphics on all your pages you could only get 20-1/2 pages on a 1 MB site.

The page you are now reading is approximately 10KB. It has a few optimized graphics and mostly text.

Go ahead now and estimate the KB requirements of your web site. Take a single web page at 3-1/2 KB's and add 15 KB's for each graphic you will have on it. Remember to include banners, pictures, photos, drawings, logos, etc. Then determine a reasonable number of pages that you think you will have and multiply that number by the total KB's you came up with for your typical page. Convert that number to MB's by dividing it by 1,024.

You may be surprised to see how little space you will actually need. For example, the average personal web site is only 5 or 6 pages. That would equate to 250 or 300 KB's (50 KB to a page). That would be only 0.3 total MB's. You could buy a 1MB package and have plenty of room left over.

The only problem is that hosting services like Georgetown Hosting cannot economically offer 1 MB packages. About the smallest you might find is 50MB. but those are not usually offered with any support or site management tools included so you have to be careful what you choose. At Georgetown Hosting we offer a 100MB package as the starting package and sell it at what others are charging for their 50MB package. And, we load it up with management tools to make you and your site more productive.

If you plan on having a commercial site where you need plenty of graphics, or advertising banners, or hundreds (even thousands) of pages, or online catalogs, or maybe a shopping cart, you might wish to consider our SUPER package of 1,000 MB's. This will allow plenty of room for expansion without the need for upgrading to more expensive programs.

If you're still not sure what you need, you can always start with the Leased or Enhanced package and begin your web site creation. If you find you need to upgrade to more space it is a simple process to add some more disk space to your existing package, or upgrade all the way to a higher level package. Our support group will be happy to help you with that decision and give you some advice on how to keep your site manageable so it isn't too big but is still effective.

Bandwidth Space is usually calculated in GB (gigabytes). Remember a GB is equivalent to approximately 1,000 MB's. Bandwidth is the accumulation of the amount of space a visitor to your web site looks at or downloads during that visit. If the visitor clicks on your Home Page for instance, he will look at an average of 50KB's. If he looks at another page of 50KB's he will have accumulated 100KB's during his visit.

Our four hosting program packages each contain a specific amount of bandwidth. For instance the Special package, which has 500 MB of disk space, contains a bandwidth allowance of 50,000 MB's. By the way, This is not deducted from your disk space. It has nothing to do with it.

For most sites, 2,000 MB (2 GB) is enough. For every 1,000 MB you are able to get up to 4,000 page hits daily. But if you truly believe you will have thousands of visitors coming to your site every month, and that they will stay and look around for a while, you may wish to consider purchase of a larger hosting package even if you don't need all of the disk space that comes with it. Or, you can purchase additional bandwidth as an upgrade to your existing package. This is usually a less expensive way to go.