Web Hosting Services
Hosting a website may sound easy enough. Just purchase a plan from one of the thousands of Web Hosting Providers currently on the net and viola; with a few simple clicks and the help of an ftp program or some site-builder software, you will have placed your site in a virtual heaven. Unfortunately, for many site owners, a virtual heaven has often times turned into a virtual hell. The Following web hosting advice may possibly save you and your company thousands of dollars and numerous hours in underserved grief. These are the cold hard facts:
A great number of hosting packages are being sold by hosting resellers and not by the hosting providers themselves. That means the site owner will be given less space, less bandwidth, less tools, etc., all at a higher price; even if they make it sound like you’re getting rock bottom prices.
Furthermore, even if you do deal directly with the hosting provider, it does not guarantee that your site will be hosted on a state of the art server with a quality up to date processor, or that the hosting server will be connected to a fast internet pipeline, or that those servers will be connected to redundant UPS systems and will have back generators in the event of power outages, or that you will be given adequate support in case you have difficulties, or that you will have ecommerce options, content management systems, pre-installed scripts, site-builder software, databases, etc., etc., etc...
An excellent hosting service needs not be the most expensive either. Price is indeed a major factor for most people when they choose a hosting company but there are many other things to consider as well. Your online presence is very important nowadays (both for you and your company) and there are indeed quality hosting providers that offer good deals as well as reliable hosting but you have to do your homework before jumping in. Prior to purchasing a hosting plan you need to ask yourself the following questions and only once you are satisfied that either one or more of the hosting companies you have researched satisfactorily meets your desired hosting package can you then consider price:
Types of Hosting
1. What type of hosting is the hosting company offering you?
These are some of the most common types of hosting services available:
a) Shared Web Hosting: Your site may be hosted on the same server as 1 or many other sites; possibly even thousands. You will also be using the same system resources (e.g. CPU, RAM, etc.) as other sites. Most new sites start out on a shared hosting plan and may possibly upgrade later to a virtual dedicated server or a dedicated server depending on site usage, bandwidth needs, purpose of site, etc.
b) Dedicated Hosting Services: You will be given your own server along with full access and control. This means root access if you are on a Linux platform or Administrator Access if you are using a Windows platform.
c) Virtual Dedicated Server: A virtual dedicated server is really just a piece a server. The hosting company will slice up the server into several "virtual" servers and will sell them individually. You will be given root or administrator access to your virtual slice and it will have the look and feel of a dedicated server.
d) Managed Hosting: When you purchase managed hosting you may be purchasing a dedicated server plan but will not have root or administrator access. The hosting company will manage server configuration for you. You will simply be allowed to manage your data via FTP or with any remote management software or tool.
e) Reseller Hosting: Allows you to host other people domains on your same plan. A reseller plan may be any of the above hosting plans. People can resell space on their shared hosting plan, on their virtual dedicated server, on their dedicated server, etc.
2. How many domains will you be allowed to place on the server?
Some hosting companies allow only 1, others multiple domains, and yet others unlimited domains.
3. How disk space will you be given?
This will determine the amount of files (html, images, audio, video, etc.) that you can upload to the server.
4. What is your bandwidth allotment?
Ever since sites began using sound and video, bandwidth has become increasingly important. Bandwidth is particularly important for sites that offer downloads.