Web Hosting Clarified

You have a notion that you would like to transform into a website? Your very first move should be to keep your inspiration and find a spot for your page on the Internet so that it will be constantly accessible to the whole world.

Where should you host your website?

Because the number of sites on the World Wide Web has increased exponentially over the last few years, the demand for web hosting services has also lead to the birth of incalculable web hosting suppliers. These are firms that offer you disk storage space for your own web page on their web hosting servers.

Sorts of hosting services

The ambit of web hosting services fluctuates tremendously, so do the necessities of the web site possessors. The most basic type of web hosting is the small-size file hosting solution, where files can be uploaded using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a web-based web hosting Control Panel. A lot of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) deliver this service for free. Personal web page owners and corporations can also obtain web hosting services from different hosting vendors. Personal web hosting services are usually either free, advertisement-financed, or low-priced. Business website hosting services typically cost more, but owing to the gigantic rivalry on the hosting marketplace, an increasing number of hosting companies, like us at GreatHosts.biz, distribute business web hosting services at low prices and with flexible invoicing periods.

Sorts of sites and their prerequisites

The free-of-cost website hosting solution is usually sufficient for personal websites such as portfolios or weblogs. A more resource-devouring website, like a social network or a corporate portal, necessitates a more powerful website hosting solution that offers database support and web application development platforms (e.g. PHP). If you want to create an e-shop, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) must be supported by the hosting accounts provider of your choosing. Nowadays, SSL certificates are offered by the majority of hosting companies.

The web hosting Control Panel

The hosting packages provider usually also offers a Control Panel tool for administering your files, mail addresses, mailbox aliases, domains, DNS records, and so on.

Service dependability

When picking a hosting plans provider, network uptime is a very important factor. The availability of a website is calculated on an annual basis by taking into account the time when the web site is publicly available and visible online. Network and service uptime guarantees, therefore, should be meticulously taken into account when signing up for a web hosting service. The best thing to do is re-examine the SLAs and the Terms & Conditions of the hosting plans provider of your choice in advance. Finding online reviews from current clients is also a rather intelligent step before you make up your mind to register.

The shared hosting platform

The most popular and affordable type of web hosting service is the shared web hosting solution. It offers 24x7 customer support, which is an enormous plus for customers who do not want to deal with server maintenance procedures, but could also obstruct customers who wish to exercise more control over the web hosting server. For such users, a virtual private servers or a dedicated web hosting would be more appropriate. Most popular applications and scripts work okay on a shared hosting server. Furthermore, the shared hosting solution is more affordable than other kinds of web hosting solutions, such as the dedicated web hosting, since the web hosting supplier divides the shared web server among plenty of customers. The shared web hosting platform typically includes usage limitations that guarantee that the different users do not interfere with each other and that the shared web server remains stable.

Administering your shared web hosting account

Shared website hosting plans normally include a web-based web hosting Control Panel interface, such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, and so on. Most of the large-sized web hosting corporations, again like us at GreatHosts.biz, utilize their very own custom-developed web hosting Control Panel.

Web server maintenance

With the shared web hosting platform, the hosting accounts provider is responsible for administering the web and e-mail servers, for installing web server software, software updates and patches, and for offering tech support to its clients. Most web servers are based on the Linux Operating System. The hosting provider's system administrators are responsible for keeping the Operating System up to date, unless you have a dedicated hosting web server and complete root-level access.