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Web Site Hosting

Web hosting as the name suggests is an internet service that allows individuals and companies to create a presence on the web. The business of web hosting has stormed the internet scene since the year 1991. Since then there has been no looking back, as the internet came to become every individual’s favorite domain. Over the years, the business of web hosting has greatly revolutionized and many commercial restrictions have been eliminated from this zone. It provides a perfect platform for almost anyone to own a domain amidst the vast World Wide Web and with the advances in electronic commerce; it has furthered the progress of the web hosting industry.

Earlier, there were a fair amount of complexities involved but today the features offered are much more user-friendly and offers advanced functionality. When web hosting was first introduced in the market, not everyone could use the services. It was very expensive and also very complex in nature. Over a period of time, the services have become very affordable and in fact some companies offer this service completely free of cost. While earlier several large computer companies used to rent out the space from their servers, today web hosting has become an entire industry by itself. Today, most net-savvy individuals or the omni-present corporate houses or organizations view it as a necessity to own a quality website, that’s exactly where the web hosting offer their major chunk of services. Today, the hosting companies get to wield a total grasp on the internet and this service is almost viewed as indispensable.

This is primarily accomplished through data centers which are equipped with servers. The client’s files are then stored in the data centers and anyone on the internet can have an access to these files if they visit this individual’s or company’s website. Web hosting services can be divided into two categories: paid web hosting and free web hosting. Free web hosting is ideal choice for those who are just starting out as an online entrepreneur or something similar and want to get the feel of the entire process. Paid hosting is a paid service especially suitable for those who want to extend their reach, enhance their web site functionality and wish to have access to more utilizable features; thereby enriching both their and their customers’ experience. Although free web hosting may come with a few limitations, if used with the correct marketing techniques, it surely would not turn out to be a damp squib. Geocities or AngelFire is great to experiment with. However, a thorough research, knowledge and examining one’s requirements is the key to accomplish one’s desired goals with web site hosting. With an astronomical number of web hosting companies out there, it can be a daunting task to winnow the reliable web hosting companies and then zero down on “the” one.

There are many different paid web hosting companies that can be found online. The prices will depend on what type of services they offer. One can choose from a dedicated server, where one server will be dedicated to only that person’s file, or from a shared server. It is often best to start with a shared server to see if the web hosting company offers what is needed. If the client is satisfied with the company’s services they can always switch to a dedicated server as and when needed.

Web hosting is almost an indispensable service available today as the company or individual get their own web space and get to create a presence on the internet. The service allows enough storage to keep all files data to be published online. These files include web pages, images, audio, and videos. These are just a few of the files that may be kept by web hosting. The average amount of space that is provided by web hosting is 200MB. The more expensive packages can reach anywhere up to 500MB. Furthermore, clients get an access to free email accounts which are mostly exclusive to the individual’s or company’s web site. This gives an identity and a professional feel to the company. Moreover, these addresses are easy to remember and convey an impression of credible repute. Another plus that comes with web hosting is the bandwidth. This is essentially the amount of information that is transferred over the Internet. When appropriate bandwidth is offered, it is easier for the users to access the pages and allows an optimum traffic inflow, without having to worry about the inaccessibility of the website. This is especially true when there are many images, audio, or videos on one page.
If it is not free web hosting that you looking for; and would rather opt for something more customized, shared hosting may be a good option. This means that many websites are on one server. Although this is an affordable option or alternative, it may pose a few issues or limitations for the web master. To explain this, let take the example of a fellow web master who may get involved in something illegal, chances are that in the process your website gets shut down as well, because all web masters share the same IP. Therefore, it is advisable to choose the right people to share the host with.

If you rather not go in for a shared hosting; another alternative is dedicated hosting, which is a favorite among web masters. This type of hosting entails minimal complications as the website uses only one server. Not only does dedicated hosting gives the web master the freedom and complete control but also offers an array of features to enhance web site functionality and can be easily customized o suit individual needs. Some of these features include added or extra bandwidth, visitor trackers, and your own I.P.

Reseller hosting is another option for web masters who looking to male some extra money. With this package, the webmaster purchases a web hosting package from a company and divides the space into several sections. These sections can easily be purchased by fellow webmasters, who are in need of space. This gives them an opportunity to make extra cash while fulfilling their own web hosting needs. The idea is to be innovative, adopt the right marketing techniques in attempt to stand out of the crowd and web hosting gives the platform to do so. Once you have lapped up on the basics, it is time to choose a reliable and credible web hosting company.

Furthermore, enough resources and features should be made available to you to successfully meet your web site requirements. This of course would also depend on the budget that you have in mind and your long-term plans. Stability and reliability are two main things to look for when looking for a web hosting company, especially for starters or for the inexperienced web masters. A thorough knowledge of the technicalities involved can help a long way in your association with the web hosting company. The other key property to look at is the security provided by the hosting company. Advanced security features will help keep hackers away from your website. To do this, make sure that they have back up servers and that the customer is given access to the root menu. A reliable and credible hosting company should have good technical assistance available whenever needed by the customer. The skilled technicians should be able to maintain the servers where all the information is stored and fix any minor issues which may pose future complications. 24 hour support is what is needed and should be offered by responsible companies because this would reflect that they are serving a global audience at different time-zones and that they are well equipped to handle any issues and give immense preference to their customers. Therefore, customer service is something that any good company would not compromise on, if they intend to stay in the industry and establish themselves as reliable. A customer who needs quality services should make sure that his/her website is up 24/7/365. So, it is advisable to go in for a hosting company which has invested enough resources in the latest technology to ensure that your web site benefits from maximum uptime and minimum downtime. This would further enhance the visibility of the web site. A web hosting company which can offer good scalability and flexibility in terms of packages and features should be considered. Good storage space and plenty of bandwidth are the two most important features to look at, especially if your web site is dynamic in nature and has the potential to grow.

The best method to choose a reliable hosting company is either through word of mouth publicity or through chat forums. Many people leave messages on these forums explaining in detail their experience with a specific company. These comments can be either negative or positive. By looking around on these forums, it will give the individual a better idea of what kind of companies are out there and will help them determine which company is best for them. It is not just looking at the price tag that goes into the research. The level of services, features and the company’s experience per se also needs to be taken into account. There are different types of web hosting services available today, each unique in its own way in an attempt to suit various requirements and budgets. While it is good to familiarize oneself with different types of web hosting services, it is equally important to first ascertain what type would suit your needs.

Shared Hosting:
This type of hosting service is the cheapest type available primarily because various clients get to share the same server; hence it is aptly called shared hosting. The hosting company is responsible for managing and monitoring the server and the client just needs to sign up with the web host. Although shared hosting is the most affordable kind of hosting, customers need to make sure that the web host provides the features that may be needed by them which include scripting languages, applications, control panel etc.

Dedicated Web Hosting
This kind of hosting service gives the customer more flexibility and control and is by far more sophisticated than shared web hosting. In dedicated hosting you are allowed to rent an entire server and use it all by yourself. The customer is given access to all the key resources further enhancing their website’s functionality as well as enabling them to host more than one web site.

Windows Web Hosting
The other important factor that the client needs to take into account is the kind of platform, the web hosting package is offering you supports. The common ones are Windows and Linux. Windows web hosting will support features the windows platform while Linux web hosting will support the Linux platform.

Ecommerce Web Hosting
It is important to determine in advance the purpose of building and hosting a website. Is it for personal or business use? If it is for business, Ecommerce enabled features are vital as this enables the webmaster to do business more efficiently, professionally and easily. A fair amount of effort and research is required for this and more commonly experts are hired to provide a good and meaningful content to a site. Good and quality content will attract more visitors to the website and various other techniques are also applied to keep the consistency of the website traffic. The other kinds of web hosting services include:

• E-mail hosting
• Clustered hosting
• File hosting
• Game server hosting
• Video hosting
• Blog hosting
• Image hosting
• Wiki hosting
• Guild hosting
• DNS hosting

Sometimes the information offered by the hosting companies can sometimes be a bit too overwhelming. For this reason, it is advisable to keep a few points in mind. Consider the following factors before subscribing for a web hosting provider:
Reputation, reliability, server space, control panel, bandwidth, script access and support.

However the additional features may vary from one service provider from the other. One can also visit their site and read the FAQ’s, since they add to the knowledge of a person. The control panel provided by the service providers should be a simple version as will be easy to use. Make sure that the web hosting service providers facilitate you with script access. It may not be required at that moment but, may be useful for future purposes. The client also needs to make sure that their web sites are uploaded through secure servers using the latest Operating System. Most web hosts run on a UNIX based operating system, usually Linux or BSD. For the running of various web applications you would require ASP, .NET, MS SQL, SBS and for these you need a Window based host. A thorough comparison of prices, features, packages, support, control panels, security, back up and uptime of various hosting companies will help you distinguish and thereby determine the company and package that best suits your needs.

Security and backups are two very important aspects that you need to consider. An ecommerce enabled website in particular, requires advance security features as well. Consider your website like a personal owned property on the internet, and therefore you need to take all measures to guard it against intruders or hackers.

In the event, that the user wishes to switch or change the web host, a few things need to be taken into consideration. Firstly, it is advisable to start hunting for a reliable web hosting a few days in advance before running out on the credit for the existing web hosting account. This will enable maximum and extended visibility of your website without it getting disappeared from the web galaxy. Before switching to the new web host, first make a backup copy of the website in the same tree structure in which you want to upload it later, only the cgi-bin’s location can vary. Also look for any chmod permissions that you might have set on any folder or file. This is so as these permissions need to be reset when files are uploaded to the new web server. Copy of the database/databases has to be made too. Secondly, if our website is build on technologies like JSP, ASP etc and require other Microsoft add like MSACCESS or MS SQL database the one should go for windows hosting. On the other hand if the user is using technologies like Cold Fusion then it can run on Linux as well as Windows platform. Many web hosts are providing 1GB – 3GB of disk space but if your site require more space and/or receives lot of traffic then one should consider other web host as this will then just not be enough. Parked domain are advantageous for high traffic websites as they can handle them better whereas dub domain helps in improving reputation of your website on the search engine. It is important to take note of the fact that most of the web host charge extra money for them. Moreover, most of the hosting companies offer a guarantee of 99.99% uptime and this feature also needs to be looked at when looking for a new hosting company. It would be however futile to get lured into over-priced packages offering fancy features as sometimes the webmaster really does not even need those features or respective packages. For instance, an individual shouldn’t be purchasing two hundred megabytes when twenty will fulfill their needs. Today, there are three major companies that are most popular when it comes to web hosting. They are Hostgator, Bluehost, and HostRocket. Although, there are many other reliable companies out there as well; these three have been around for a longer time, hence a higher reliability and credibility quotient attached. HostGator provides four different web hosting packages as well as 30 day money back guarantee so customers can ensure that the service provides everything they need before making a full commitment. Similarly, Bluehost offers some enhanced multimedia enabled features and great packages to cater to individual and diverse requirements. Bluehost also provides customers with extra storage and site transfer capabilities all for a very low monthly price.

The web hosting industry today, has been instrumental in the development and expansion of various companies which includes gaming, and web site designing and several other common industries too. Due to its constant evolution, the industry has also become a cheap option and is made accessible even to the common man. The world indeed has become a smaller place as everyone gets to own their personal domain, be it for personal or business purposes.

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