Web Economics

[winton50]

I have been asked to get involved in a high volume website project and as I only have small business website experience I thought I'd beg for help!

can anyone enlighten me as to the value of website advertising? I'm assuming that the more hits the site gets the higher you can charge for banners etc. but how much?

how does one go about selling banners and email addresses or targeted e-mail? Presumably you wouldn't phone up O2 and ask if they wanted to advertise?

Suppose it's a site that gets a load of hits but uses maybe 40meg of space on a server do you get charged more for having a site that gets so many impressions?


Sorry if they are obvious questions but it's not my area :cry:

[autolycus]

Suppose it's a site that gets a load of hits but uses maybe 40meg of space on a server do you get charged more for having a site that gets so many impressions?

Most hosting packages are sold and priced according to two factors:

1. The amount of space required (40Mb in your example)
2. The bandwidth usage per month

Bandwidth is basically the colume of data sent to/from the web server each month. So a site with lots of visitors or lot sof big files such as videos, will consume more bandwidth than a site with few visitors and no big graphic/video files.

So, to answer your question, you could end up finding that 40Mb of space is sufficient but that the amount of traffic you get forces you to upgrade to a larger hosting package that allows a higher bandwidth limit.

HTH,
Dave.

[winton50]

Very interesting Dave thanks.

I currently have a low volume site with SSL which costs me £120 pa (I think) but some friends that run a football website are always complaining about how expensive their webhosting is.

so the question is at what level of hits does it start to get expensive and what exactly is expensive?

[Alpha]

<<moved to IT>>

[autolycus]

£120 sounds like a lot to me. I've got a number of sites (all attracting several thousand visitors per month) and which only cost £30 per year each to host.

I'm sure the chap I use - Robert at KCC Hosting (www.kcchosting.co.uk) - would give you some advice on what level of hosting you would need.

There are also a number of web hosting companies represented on UKBF.

[winton50]

Nice one thanks

I'll contact him and see what he says

Stu

[mattk]

As for the value of Web advertising...

I think you might be able to cover the running costs of the site through advertising, but it is unlikely you will every make a decent profit. Have a search as I can't remember the exact figures, but it's something like the top 10% of Web sites attract 90% of all advertising revenues spent online. The top 10% of sites being Google, Yahoo, MSN etc.

Your best bet would be to approach local businesses (if it;s a local site) or topic specific businesses, as the likes of o2 are likely to have their online advertising managed by an advertising company that has deals in place with the big players.

[autolycus]

Google AdSense can work quite well if done properly.

See: http://www.advice4businesses.co.uk/google_adsense.shtml for more info.

[crus]

I think the hosting you are paying is currently good value, maybe a little high.

However if you are talking about building real, large-small to medium large websites you need to look at two dedicated machines with ip failover.

More than anything I have found shared hosting OK for standard, low traffic sites, however when you start talking higher numbers, heavy content, comp;lex scripting, complex dbs, customised apache any saving by using rock bottom hosting disappears aagianst the cost of fudging things in a hostile hosting environment.

It depends on budget, but to me you should be looking at 5 to 10% of you expenses being hosting related as you need to be looking to acheive fast accessable sites for business. A compnmay that gives you loads of bandwidth is great but if theyre in the virtual sticks your customers will experience 'lag' getting to them

In the UK its Telehouse, if you want to serve content to users in the UK, host in the UK its simple as that. I can offer bargin US packages 1GB data transfer per month email, storage for your site for nigh on 10$ a year; but if your spending to develop a business I would suggest that you look at what your inital needs are and your forecast needs are.

Too many times I have seen successfull websites loose a lot of cash in bad transitions from host to host throughout their early lifespan. you need to select a host that will provide what you need when you hit your mark, not what you need when you haven't even launched!

D

[Rob Holmes]

I currently have a low volume site with SSL which costs me £120 pa (I think) but some friends that run a football website are always complaining about how expensive their webhosting is.

so the question is at what level of hits does it start to get expensive and what exactly is expensive?

I think £120 pa isn't bad if it includes a ssl cert - but if you're not happy for some reason feel free to give me a call - our basic hosting is £35 pa (beginner) and secure certs are £60 (including insured install) so maybe able to save you a few quid but my honest opinion is that if you consider your host is good, you're happy with speed of your website and they sort any problems quickly then it's risky and pointless moving - better the devil you know! - theres always cheaper around - but squeeze on money squeeze on service - thats what I tell people!

Rob

[winton50]

Sorry guys I think I have confused the issue a little.

I was using my current host as an example of what I know. I am happy with them as they never seem to fail and yes I am getting SSL and stuff I don't use much as well. (Actually it was £120 last year and £99 this)

My point was when does it get really expensive?

I don't have any point of reference for what things at the high volume end costs.

so for example someone says to me 'if you've got a high traffic site it costs a lot of money'

OK what exactly is high volume and what is a lot of money?

Geddit?

I understand the concept it's the detail that is escaping me!

[MinuWeb]

there are so many variables, it is very difficult to specify a point.

It can depend alot on the scripts used on the site in question and how they use the server resources, as well as the amount of bandwidth the site uses.

A bit like saying "when does a walk become a long walk" it depends alot on the people that are walking.

The best person to ask is your host, they should be able to check logs and see exactly what you are using and if they do this over 2 - 3 months can see the site growth pattern and then estimate a time when you might need to be on your own dedicated server.

[winton50]

It's for a new site so I don't have any data on hits. Bit difficult really!

[MinuWeb]

start on shared hosting, and if you work the site well it should be making enough to pay for a dedicated server a long time before you actually need one.

If it helps, one of my clients has a site that is forum based and also contains alot of images, they moved to a dedicated server at about 50,000 unique visitors per month and about 300gb bandwidth usage