If you are looking to learn the basic about web hosting then this article is for you, we cover the different types of web hosting and it is ideal if you are not familiar with this topic. We all have to start at some point after all.
Web hosting companies have high performance servers that can store large number of websites and handle mail for several 100 or even 1,000's of sites at a time. They hire out space on these servers so business owners can publish their websites.
Hosting companies make use of datacentres which are large warehouse type centres housing usually located on the main backbone of the internet. Datacentres typically have backup generators, multiple internet connections and around the clock security. So this makes the setup much more secure and reliable than using an office based computer or server to house a website. Normally datacentres will have technical staff that are on hand 24/7 to fix any technical issues that may arise.
As hosting companies make a business out of providing this sort of solution, they will also have a lot of experience with the issues that web sites experience, such as denial of service attacks or unwanted hacker activity.
There are several different types of webhosting in the market, depending on your individual or business needs. These are shared, reseller and dedicated hosting.
Shared hosting - This is the most popular form and involves the allocation of a small amount of space on a web server sufficient for a single website. It is also the most cost effective as a large number of shared hosting accounts can run on a single server.
Reseller hosting - This involves the allocation of a much larger amount of space which allows smaller hosting companies or web designers to host a larger number of websites. It is also cost effective as it means that the cost of a server can be divided between a numbers of resellers.
Dedicated hosting/server - this is the provision of a box for the sole use of a single website or businesses' websites. If you have a very business site with 10,000's plus per day or activity then it's likely that you will need a dedicated server. The specification of the server can vary according to the load it is intended to handle.
When deciding between the various different kinds of web hosting option, there are many considerations to weigh up.
Price - This is likely to be low cost with shared hosting, for example our budget package Copper hosting comes in at £29.99 per year. Whilst a dedicated very high performance server can cost £400 or more per month
Disk space / Storage - Disk space is the amount of storage space allocated to your package, it's often calculated in Megabytes or Gigabytes. Depending on the size of your website and numbers of email users you may need more or less. A tip here is to call and ask, because often flexible companies like Discount Domains can offer extra storage for free or a modest additional cost.
Bandwidth - The more visitors your site has and the larger its files, for example images and videos consume a lot more space than does text, then the more bandwidth it will consume. Most web hosting companies have a fair use policy, which means that once you have used up your allocation; your account will get suspended. Bandwidth is typically allocated and monitored on a monthly usage basis. Reseller and dedicated packages come with far more bandwidth than do shared hosting packages.
If you are technical able yourself then you may not need any support at all, but if you are a beginner its particularly helpful to have UK based support, that can guide you through the process of using and uploading files to your hosting area.
Did you find this article helpful? At Discount Domains we pride ourselves at being helpful and friendly and the majority of our customers are UK based SME's so we know the sort of support that is needed.
Please call us on 01952 288383 if you have any questions about how we can assist you with your webhosting needs.
Adrian Lawrence is the author of this article and is one of the webmasters at Discount Domains https://plus.google.com/u/0/106088322856862782725/posts
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