Web hosting is a type of internet service that allows individuals as well as commercial organizations to make their websites accessible over the World Wide Web. Web hosts function by operating a number of servers on the internet, they can then give out some space on their servers to potential customers where these people can put up their own websites. These may range from individual pages which are very light, to include business profiles and websites of commercial companies that may require vast databases. Personalized webpages are usually uploaded via the File Transfer Protocol which requires minimal processing and the web host’s fee is either free or highly inexpensive. Commercial sites however are a lot more expensive and require copious amount of backup to act as insurance in case the server crashes. There are many kinds of web hosting available in the market today:
- Free Web Hosting: this kind of web hosting offers limited services and is supported by advertisements.
- Shared Web Hosting: this utilizes a server that is shared by other websites as well; numbers may vary from a few to hundreds of thousands.
- Reseller Web Hosting: this allows clients complete control of the servers, so they may act as hosts themselves.
- Virtual Dedicated Server: this kind of web hosting service allows for allocation of server space on a virtual level, regardless of hardware specifications.
- Cloud Hosting: this is the latest hosting platform that utilizes clustered load balanced servers, the decentralization means local power fluctuations and even natural disasters do not hamper a cloud host’s availability.
All this variety in web hosting makes for a tough job in deciding the kind of host you need, small businesses and personalized pages can benefit from Free Web Hosting, while large companies can utilize paid web hosts. There are many tips for selecting an appropriate web host:
- Always select a web host after thorough consultation with their customers, never judge whether a web host is worthy by considering one or two recommendations only, always be thorough before investing money.
- Never hire a web host if they cannot automate or correctly administer billing and payments, meaning you’ll be charged a flat fee without ever getting a chance to see your account balance.
- Never select a web host if he has frequent outages, since this indicates unprofessionalism on the behalf of web host if he does not implement redundancy programs to overcome the outages.
- Lengthy outages (typically exceeding 24 hours) are not normal, unless you were informed prior to it.
- Always keep looking for competitive web hosts that are available in your price range, one should always have alternatives in the event of an emergency.
- If your website goes offline for more than a few days, always be prepared for the worst.
- Always keep a backup of your website, every 48 hours is a safe bet.
- Never register your domain name through a web host, since you will not be able to change the domain name if the host goes permanently offline.
About the Author
Gloria Philips is a regular guest blogger. She is working for web hosting company. She recommends some best web hosting sites at Hoster Talk.
