ASP Hosting

What Is ASP Hosting?

 

ASP stands for Active Server Pages. It is a technology that enables users to design and create interactive pages for their websites, using something called “server-side scripting”. What do we mean by interactive? Forms, in-site search engines, blogs, user forums, newsletters, calendars, WhoIs searches, web-based email, polls, surveys, hit counters and more. (you may want to read our web hosting reviews as well)

Best of all, with ASP, no longer do webmasters have to concern themselves with what browser a visitor to their site is using. With ASP hosting, your website will appear identically on all computers, on all browsers, a claim that HTML simply cannot make.

Anytime a browser requests a webpage that has the .asp extension where the more familiar .htm or .html would be, the hosting provider’s web server interprets any ASP scripts in the program first and foremost, before delivering any HTML info to the browser. This is why you cannot simply run ASP websites with just any hosting company. The hosting company you choose must have servers that support ASP, or else the ASP scripts you use will be rendered useless.

When examining web hosting companies to find one that supports ASP, you must look specifically for ASP support. Do not simply assume that because a hosting company supports “most web-based scripts, from CGI to Perl”  that it supports ASP. If it doesn’t say so in an obvious place on the sales site, go to the hosting company’s FAQ and look for ASP. And since most FAQs are searchable, this shouldn’t be difficult to do. If you’re really enamored with a particular hosting company (or their current promotion) but can find no information on ASP support, consider contacting them via email, telephone, or web chat to find out. It’s possible that they do support ASP and just have a lousy sales site (which may be an indicator of an altogether different sort).

Microsoft brought ASP to the world, and as such provides the platform – Windows – on which ASP generally works best. In order to play around with ASP scripts on your web pages, you’ll have to download and install onto your system an ASP server, like Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) or Microsoft’s Personal Web Server (PWS) — one or both of which is included with most Windows packages for no extra charge. If you use Windows on your machine and have never encountered IIS or PWS, chances are it’s because you have to “Add” the program to your hard drive using the Windows software CD-ROM or through your control panel, since it’s often not included as part of the “Basic Install”.

Incidentally, Windows ME and Windows XP Home Edition are lacking in support for ASP scripts. But we’re willing to bet the forthcoming Windows Vista probably does.

For those webmasters on a PC that isn’t Windows-based, all hope is not lost. Sun Microsystems has developed a program called Chili!Soft ASP that allows other servers — such as Red Hat, Apache, and Secure Server — and other operating systems — such as Linux, Solaris, and AIX — to support ASP hosting.

 Writing and using ASP scripts is easy too — at least it’s no harder than HTML, with all commands occurring between “<%” and “%>;” instead of “<” and “>”. Not so big a difference, is there? And you can find an abundance of software tools all over the web (many for free) that helps even the greenest novice create interactive web pages rife with ASP.

ASP is such a versatile language that more and more hosting companies are finding themselves compelled to add ASP support to their hosting packages just to remain competitive. This, of course, is only to your advantage as you can comparison shop around for the best ASP hosting offerings right alongside all the other features you’re looking for.

Is ASP hosting for your web site right for you? 

Quite simply, there is a relatively cheap web hosting that is provided by many companies today. Various companies offer ASP at various price points and with different features. (see Best ASP Hosting Company review here)
 
When you get free ASP hosting, the company you are getting at with will provide you with a control panel in which you can upload your files to the Internet. However, and I’ve discussed this before, just because a hosting provider is cheap doesn’t necessarily make them the best one for you. 

In fact, the cheaper they are, sometimes the worst their customer service can be. Many people have reported unsecure servers and extremely poor customer service from these companies, so definitely think twice before getting free web hosting. Here are some helpful tips to help you decide whether not ASP cheap hosting is the right option for your web site.

First of all, doing a quick Google search online will immediately give you a list of companies that offer ASP hosting.  Keep in mind, when you look at the free ASP hosting compared to paid ASP hosting, you’ll discover that you get a lot less features with the free variety.  Of course, these limitations will change depending on which hosting company you decide to go.

Here’s a list of some of the limitations that free ASP and sometimes cheap hosting will offer you.  First of all, the bandwidth you are allowed on your server with a free ASP hosting is very limited. 

Therefore, if you have an Internet marketing business where you either have a lot of different websites, or one large website, this can be a serious problem.  Therefore, if you simply a hobby website, ASP cheap hosting for your web site might be an option for you; however, if you are a serious Internet marketer, you definitely should not get in free ASP hosting.

Another disadvantage of free ASP hosting and even cheap ASP hosting is that you cannot get a separate server for your web site; you have to share the server with a lot of different web site owners.  Therefore, if someone is having trouble with their website and does something to crash the server, your website will be affected as well.  Often times, when this is the case, simply one wrongdoing by somebody can affect every website on the server.
 
Of course, as I said before, if you simply have a hobby type website, this really will not be a problem; however, if your income depends on your website, you want to make absolute sure that you can trust the server that your website is on, because you want your site to be up and running all the time. 

Remember, when you focus on cheap web hosting, you not only risk the server crashing from other users, but from outsiders hacking into it as well, and getting your site information.

You need to decide for yourself whether or not this is worth the risk. Hopefully these ASP hosting tips will be to find out whether not ASP cheap hosting for your web site is the right option for you.