It's a service that offers a physical location of your web pages. It's where your site's HTML files, graphics, texts, and animated features ‘reside', so it's parallel to renting an apartment so you'll have a place to stay.
So why ‘rent' when you can buy one?
In order to host your own website, you need to have a web server of your own. A web server is a computer hardware that stores all data, information, and images seen on your web pages. It's a physical space where your website lives - an ‘apartment' if you're just renting it.
You see, it isn't really cost-efficient to set-up your own web server and to have a high-speed connection 24/7 just so you can have a website of your own. A cheaper alternative would be a company that will offer you web hosting services. It's called a web host - the ‘landlord' of the ‘apartment' that you ‘rent'. Web hosts exist because they want to provide pocket-friendly service to those who would like to create their own websites.
Typically, Internet Service Providers offer web hosting services to its subscribers for free or with charge, depending on the volume of web pages that needed to be stored. There are companies whose main job is to provide you with web hosting services.
There's a wide array of hosting services. The most basic is webpage and small-scale file hosting. This involves uploading the files to the Web via File Transfer Protocol (FTP). FTP is a tool or program that allows the transfer of files from one computer to another via the Internet, usually from one personal computer to a web server or vice versa. Webpage hosting and small-scale file hosting are usually provided by ISPs or hosting companies for free or with very little charge. Examples are image and video hosting.
However, there are more complex sites that need to store large amount of information on the web server. In such cases, web hosts provide a comprehensive service package that includes database support, content management, and application development platforms like Java. Examples of such complex websites are online forums or social networking sites where users write or install scripts on the page.
And how do you choose the best web host?
There are several types of web hosts, but we can group them into two main categories – those that will host your site for free or those that charge a monthly or yearly fee for the hosting services they offer.
The most common type is the shared web hosting service, where many sites share one server. The number of sites that share a particular server may vary from a few hundreds to thousands.
A dedicated hosting service provides a site-owner his own web server. The site-owner will have full control over the server, only that he does not own the server itself.
When a user gets his own web server but do not have full control over it, then the service is called managed hosting.
Virtual dedicated servers looks and acts like a dedicated server, but why ‘virtual'? It's because several clients actually share one server, but the resources are allocated in such a way that a user cannot tell if anyone is sharing with his system resources. The servers are usually set up in such a way that each user is allowed to use only an allocated percentage of the entire server.
In co-location web hosting, the user owns the server and has full control over it. A user may purchase a server directly from a computer manufacturing company or its distributors, and then he supplies the server to the web host. The function of the web hosting company is only to provide utilities – the Internet connection, electricity, and physical storage of the server. This type of hosting is expensive yet the most powerful, as it allows the users to have flexibility and choice in handling his own server.
Reseller web hosts allow users to become web hosts themselves. Reseller users provide web hosting services to individual clients through any type of web hosting mentioned above.
Free web hosting is, of course, free of charge. It is usually supported by advertisements. However, unlike the paid services mentioned above, free web hosting has limited space.
If you are to find out the type of web hosting that you need to have, answer these questions: How much volume do you need to put in your website? Do you have sufficient financial resources to pay for someone to host your site efficiently and in peak performance?
If you're up to have someone host your website now, search the Internet for a web hosting company that will suit your needs. Get one that offers complete customer support that's accessible 24/7 via phone, email, or chat support.
Learn more about Hosting.
Review & Recommendations: Top Hosting Reviews
HostGator ReviewSummary - HostGator provides some of the cheapest hosting online with the largest space and bandwidth allowances...so what is the catch? Visit HostGator Website...
GoDaddy Hosting ReviewSummary - Quick and Painless - Use GoDaddy's Economy Hosting package for blogging / Wordpress websites, simple squeeze and landing pages, a simple phpBB forum (they give you 10 MySQL databases in this package!), personal home pages and other smaller, non-secure types of sites. Visit GoDaddy Hosting Website...
ixWebHosting ReviewSummary - Big and Cheap - Use ixWebHosting's Premium service for websites that you think may have a lot of volume or downloads. Video is the new generation of the internet and it is a bit of a space and bandwidth hog. If you plan on having a website with videos, podcasts, lots of downloads, etc., this is probably a good choice for you. Visit ixWebHosting Website...
TVCNet Hosting Review ReviewSummary - Security and Service - TVCNet is a great choice for anyone who has or wants to build a small to medium size website that is secure and reliable. For those of you looking for technical support, you will find no other program that provides customer service as well as Jim Walker and TVCNet. Visit TVCNet Hosting Review Website...
Pair Networks ReviewSummary - Reliable and Expandable - Pair Networks offers one of the most reliable and stable hosting networks in the business. They may cost a little bit more, but for those planning on expansion (and making money online), this hosting company should not be overlooked. Visit Pair Networks Website...
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