Web Hosting
Web Hosting explained: What it is, how it works, how to do it, hints & tips, advice, useful resources.
What is web hosting?
Web hosting is a service that publishes your web site on the internet. Although a web hosting computer is in principle no different from any other computer, it needs a constant, high-speed connection to the internet. Although your computer may have a high-speed connection through broadband (ADSL), this is only high-speed in one direction (incoming) and would not be fast enough in the other direction to give good performance in serving your web pages to other users. In addition to this, there are some complex technical issues involved in operating and managing a server, that make it something best left to specialists.
A web hosting company will rent you space on one of their servers and manage it for you so you don't have to worry about any of the technical issues, or maintain the expensive internet infrastructure required to give good performance.
What are the different types of web hosting available?
There are generally two types of web hosting available, shared and dedicated. With a shared web hosting service, your site will be hosted on a computer that hosts many other websites also. If there are too many sites being hosted on a computer then the performance will suffer, but generally the hosting companies manage this so that everybody receives an acceptable service. If the performance was not acceptable, nobody would use them so this is generally self-limiting.
If you require the best possible performance, or special facilities on the server, you may need a dedicated server. This is a computer located at the hosting company using their high speed connections but running only your web site. This gives you total control, but is obviously considerably more expensive. You will usually be able to configure your server to suit your requirements in terms of operating system (Windows, UNIX, Linux, Max OS X), hardware specification and the software that is installed upon it (e.g. MySQL, PHP, Access etc.)
Where is the best place to buy web hosting?
There are literally thousands of web hosting companies offering different types of plans at different prices. Look around on the internet and check some of the adverts on this page to see what is on offer.
There are two that we recommend as usually having particularly good deals
and that are big enough to get it right. These are GoDaddy.com (don't
worry about the unusual name, they are one of the biggest in the US and
Globat.com who
usually have some amazing deals.
Don't be concerned that you're paying in Dollars if you're outside the US - take advantage of the weak Dollar! The web is global so it doesn't matter where your hosting company is based.
Most hosting companies also offer domain registration and vice-versa so you sould be able to find everything you need in one place.
Latest News articles on Web Hosting
10/03/2010 Web Host SingleHop Plans Cascade Cloud Hosting Services (TopHosts.com) Chicago Web host plans to roll out new cloud hosting services this spring.
08/03/2010 ARIN to Host IPv6 Web Hosting Session at 25th Public Policy Meeting Next Month in Toronto (Web Host Industry Review) March 8, 2010 -- The American Registry for Internet Numbers will be holding IPv6 web hosting session at its public policy meeting, ARIN XXV, next month in Toronto, designed to bring together industry professionals, government representatives, and Internet community leaders together in an open and productive forum.
09/03/2010 Steadfast Networks Launches Carbon Neutral Web Hosting Services (TopHosts.com) Leading dedicated server hosting provider, now certified carbon neutral, offers customers carbon neutral hosting services.
09/03/2010 Web Host Steadfast Purchases Carbon Offset Credits (Web Host Industry Review) March 10, 2010 -- Web hosting provider Steadfast Networks announced on Tuesday it has purchased enough carbon offset credits to offer a 100 percent carbon offset for its staff commuting, office usage, core infrastructure, networking equipment, shared web hosting, VPS hosting, and backup services.
10/03/2010 HostGator Wins About.com Reader's Choice Best in Web Hosting Awards (PRWeb) The votes are in and HostGator.com has won three out of four 2010 Reader’s Choice Awards from About.com. (PRWeb Mar 10, 2010) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/03/prweb3706754.htm