What Exactly is Hosting?

You have a concept that you want to convert into a site? Your very first step should be to uphold your inspiration and find a spot for your page online so that it will be constantly available for the whole world to see.

Where should you host your web site?

Since the number of web pages on the web has grown rapidly over the last couple of years, the demand for website hosting services has also lead to the emergence of innumerable hosting firms. These are firms that offer you disk space for your own site on their web hosting servers.

Sorts of hosting services

The ambit of hosting services varies immensely, so do the demands of the web site possessors. The most basic hosting type is the small-size file hosting solution, where files can be uploaded using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a web interface. Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) deliver this service free of charge. Personal website proprietors and corporations can also obtain website hosting services from various web hosting service providers. Personal website hosting services are typically either free, advertisement-sponsored, or inexpensive. Business website hosting services typically cost more, but owing to the enormous rivalry on the web hosting marketplace, a growing number of hosting companies, like us at Website Hosting, distribute business website hosting services at moderate prices and with flexible invoicing periods.

Kinds of sites and their requirements

The free-of-charge hosting platform is normally sufficient for personal web sites like portfolios or online journals. A bigger web site, like a community site or a corporate portal, requires a more powerful web hosting platform that offers database support and web application development platforms (e.g. PHP). If you desire to host an e-store, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) must be supported by the web hosting services provider of your choice. These days, Secure Sockets Layer certificates are furnished by most hosting companies.

The hosting Control Panel

The web hosting accounts provider usually also offers a Control Panel GUI for managing your files, mail accounts, mailbox aliases, domains, DNS records, and so on.

Service stability

When choosing a hosting service, network uptime is a very important aspect. The accessibility of a website is calculated on an annual basis by taking into account the time when the web site is publicly available and visible on the web. Network and service uptime guarantees, therefore, should be attentively taken into consideration when ordering a hosting plan. You should double-check the service-level agreements and the Terms of Use of the hosting vendor of your choice in advance. Finding reviews from existing clients is also a rather relevant move before you decide to register.

The shared web hosting solution

The most popular and affordably priced type of web hosting service is the shared web hosting solution. It offers 24x7 client support, which is a great advantage for clients who do not wish to deal with server maintenance tasks, but could also obstruct users who would like to have more authority over the web server. For such customers, a VPSs or a dedicated servers would be more suitable. Most popular apps and scripts work fine on a shared web hosting server. Additionally, the shared web hosting solution is more affordably priced than other types of hosting solutions, such as the dedicated hosting, because the hosting packages provider divides the shared server among plenty of clients. The shared web hosting solution normally includes usage limits that ensure that the separate customers do not meddle with each other and that the shared hosting server remains stable.

Handling your shared hosting account

Shared website hosting plans typically include a web-based web hosting Control Panel interface, like cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, and so on. The majority of the large-sized web hosting distributors, again like us at Website Hosting, avail of their very own personal custom-built Control Panel user interface.

Server maintenance

With the shared web hosting solution, the web hosting plans provider is responsible for managing the web and email servers, for installing server software, security updates and patches, and for providing technical support to its customers. The majority of servers are based on the Linux OS. The web hosting service provider's system administrators are responsible for keeping the OS up to date, unless you have a dedicated web server and complete root access.