Web Hosting Guide"How do I get my site on the Internet?" The simple answer to that question is that someone has to host your web site, be it your company, your Internet Service Provider, your online service or a Web hosting service. If your site uses PHP or ASP (active server pages) you need to bear this in mind when choosing a web host. Your choice of web host is important because it must be able to serve up your web pages fast. Some web hosting providers try and host too many sites with the result that all the websites on a server compete for the same bandwidth and the sites slow down. Of course there are other reasons for slow-loading pages such as images that have not been optimised. Click here for a list of web hosting providers. There are basically 2 types of web hosting, virtual (shared) and dedicated. With a virtual hosting solution your site is hosted on the same directory as other web sites. With dedicated web site hosting you have your own physical web site server (machine) and so do not share the bandwidth, the memory (RAM) and the speed of the processor with other web sites. You don't actually own the server but you get the dedicated use of it and your own bandwidth allocation. Virtual web hosting solutions are ideal for the individual or small business that does not want the expense of their own dedicated server but does want the reliability, service and features that a free web hosting service cannot provide. Dedicated web hosting solutions are ideal for larger businesses that want to run their own software or database applications. This would not normally be possible on a shared hosting platform. You can also choose which operating system to host your applications on. There is also colocated hosting where you actually own the physical server but keep it in a data center which manages a number of other servers. This would only be important if you wanted to have control of the type of hardware your site or applications are hosted on and the hosting provider does not offer these. Data centers are usually buildings dedicated to providing services to ISPs and hosting services. Their focus is on managing the hosting environment and providing the connectivity to the internet. WINDOWS vs LINUX vs FreeBSDOne more very important factor to consider when choosing a website host is what platform you need. Web site hosting on a LINUX platform is different from hosting a web site using a Windows platform. The major difference is the type of applications you can use on each platform. For example, if you want to host an Access database on a Windows platform, you would probably be using ASP (Active Server Pages) - a scripting language designed for a Windows platform but if you were hosting the database on a Linux or FreeBSD server, Perl or PHP would probably be your choice. The choice is important if you are transferring your web site from one hosting provider to another or if you want to run a web application that requires a specified operating system. If you don't have a solution yet I would recommend LINUX Hosting because since it is open-source, there is a lot of free software available you can use on your site. Free website hostingThere are a number of free hosting services that will host your site for free. Most however have their limitations but are fine for fun sites or personal sites. For a business or marketing site we would recommend that you host on a full service web hosting service. Basically with hosting you get what you pay for. If you are running just a personal website then a free host is fine - however if you have a business I recommended that you choose a good hosting service for 2 main reasons:
The paid hosting solutions also offer a number of features not usually offered on free web hosts, such as multiple email aliases, autoresponders, the ability to manage your website yourself without knowing how to design a webpage, shopping cart software, etc.. Click here for a list of web hosting providers. |
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