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
26/07/2010 Accessorize launches new web site High street retailer Accessorize has launched its own web site independentof its sister company Monsoon.
28/07/2010 I can't believe it's not Flash! Can you tell which ads are in HTML5? Recreating existing Flash ads with HTML5/CSS3 might seem pointless, but for designers and sites looking to beat ad-blocking it might be the future. See how well you can spot the differences... Make the HTML5 ads go away! Photo by Seeds_of_Peace on Flickr. Some rights reserved Cover your eyes, AdBlock users: the future of the web is here, and it includes adverts. Unless of course you reckon that ...
27/07/2010 Google unveils government software Google Inc released a special version of its Web-based productivity software designed to meet stringent US government security requirements, as the Internet search giant seeks to outmanoeuvre rivals in the race to provide federal and state agencies with new technology.
26/07/2010 Peer 1 launches GPU compute cloud Rise of the fluffy ceepie-geepies Peer 1 Hosting, an IT service provider that does traditional hosting as well as selling virtual, cloudy infrastructure, is claiming to be the first to fluff up a CPU-GPU hybrid cloud that supports supercomputing workloads.
26/07/2010 Google unveils government version of software SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc released a special version of its Web-based productivity software designed to meet stringent U.S. government security requirements, as the Internet search giant seeks to outmaneuver rivals in the race to provide federal and state agencies with new technology.