Information - Web Page Hosting

What is Web Hosting?  Web hosting is the essentially the placement of your website onto the Internet through a server. Once your site is on a server, anyone with Internet access can look at your website - from anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day.  In order to have your site hosted on the web, you need to have the following three things:

1)  A website - a page or set of pages that is located under the same domain name.  HostSearch.com is a website.  A web page is a computer document written in a publishing language called HTML.  When an Internet user types in your web address, your web server sends the content of your web page to that user.

2)  A domain name - a unique text-based address used to locate a specific set of web pages.  A domain name is made up of words and/or numbers plus a TLD (top level domain). The TLD for most businesses is ".com", such as www.hostsearch.com; non-profit organizations use ".org"; universities and educational sites use ".edu"; and sites involved with the U.S. government use ".gov". More TLDs are on the way, such as .biz, .pro, .name, .info, etc.

3)  An account with a web hosting company, or a server of your own to host your website A server is replica watches uk a computer that stores information that can be accessed through the network.  Servers can also be used to store website information that can be accessed by any computer with a connection to the Internet - and a browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, the two most popular web browsers.

Web hosting is, in many ways, similar to renting property.  There are plenty of companies that will rent you space on their web servers.  The wide range of services start from free hosting on up to buying a server for your own personal use.  It's possible to spend thousands of dollars a year on web hosting alone, though the average person or small business typically pays $10 - $40 a month, depending on how many features they need.

Non-Virtual Hosting is when you lease or rent space on someone else's server. As the name suggests, this is not even "virtual," which doesn't exactly inspire a great deal of replica watches confidence, legitimation, commitment, or dedication. But this may be fine for your current needs - a cheap room in the back of the house.

There are many sites offering cheap or even free space, and they will allow you to put your site in a sub-directory on their domain. The obvious advantage is price.  This is a great way to experiment or to host a small personal or fun site.

However, for a serious company, it is much better to create a more professional corporate identity on the Internet with a virtual server and your own domain name.  It is definitely worth the small investment necessary to purchase your own domain name - $70 for two years. And, you and your clients need not put up with your free or cheap host's banners, pop-up windows, or intrusive presence.

Virtual Hosting is more like renting your own apartment in a complex or block. You have more privacy and your own space.  And your own domain name; for example, www.hostsearch.com versus www.freewebspace.com/hostsearch.  Which of these domain names would you click on first?

There are additional features with virtual hosting that are also important for your company or even your own more serious site, such as an FTP, telnet, statistical packages, and POP3 email accounts.

Although you have your own apartment or flat, which is nice and the most common way to go, you nevertheless are still sharing a building with others, all of whom are to some extent sharing a number of the same resources.

A Dedicated Server, however, is more like having a house of your own. Your site will be served faster as it will generally only have your site on the server versus 100 or 150 other sites on a server with virtual hosting.  This option may cost thousands of dollars a month instead of the twenty you pay for virtual hosting, but if your traffic and business warrant it, this is surely the way to go.  Let's take a closer look at exactly what dedicated hosting is.

Dedicated web hosting is a service in which the customer leases an entire web server from a web presence provider, including the hardware and the operating system.  Typically, you would receive connectivity to the Internet, redundancy measures, and monitoring.

Dedicated hosting is rolex replica in contrast to shared hosting, in which multiple customers share a single web server. Dedicated server solutions are for large, professional web sites with either: a great deal of traffic, secure e-commerce applications, sensitive content, non-shared web or Internet software applications hosting, or value-added resellers (VARs) and developers providing shared hosting services to their customers.

Dedicated web hosting is a service that provides a high-speed Internet-connected server on an outsourced basis for individuals, organizations and small-to-medium sized businesses.  The dedicated server hardware is owned by the Internet Service Provider (ISP) and leased to the customer.

The hardware, operating system, connectivity, redundancy, and monitoring costs are usually spread out over the duration of the service agreement.  Unlike shared hosting services, dedicated web hosting implies that a given customer has total use of the server; i.e.: it is "dedicated" to a single user - you!

System: your first question should be related to the type of software you prefer and what they, the host, have to offer. OK, here's what out there: Operating System (OS) for a server: There are two platforms that are popular: Unix and Windows NT (2000).  Which is better? It really depends on what you prefer and what applications you plan to use on your site.  On Unix's side is the fact that it is not owned by anybody (you know who); it is reliable, has been around for over twenty years, and supports a wide range of software, development toolkits and utilities.  With respect to the Internet, it is used on almost every hardware platform.  There are several flavors of Unix available, the most popular and robust which web hosts use being Linux.  Windows NT (2000), on the other hand, is monopolized by a single vendor, namely Microsoft (not necessarily a bad thing), and shares the same APIs and system calls.  It also has multithreaded and multiplatform support, standardization allowing easy transfer to another NT version, and strong software support with a large software resource availability. You could say it is a case of scalability (Unix) versus standardization (NT).

And don't forget about the all-important issue of Data Backup and Redundancy.  Ask if they use RAID - not for bugs (although that's always a good idea), but for other kinds of protection.  If you really want to know, RAID, short for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, is a method whereby information is spread across several disks, using techniques such as disk striping (RAID Level 0) and disk mirroring (RAID level 1) to achieve redundancy, lower latency and/or higher bandwidth for reading and/or writing, and recoverability from hard-disk crashes.  The numbers are not hierarchical, which is to say that RAID5 is not necessarily better than RAID0, just different

How Much Space and Bandwidth Will I Need?  For a small site with not so much traffic, not so much.  Your needs in this case can be met with 10 to 100 MB of disk space and 1 to 10 GB of data transfer per month.  (Be aware that movie and sound files will eat up a lot of disk space and bandwidth.)  If your web site is text-based, you needn't worry about this technical stuff - text takes almost no space at all - not even really big font sizes!

If you're planning to sell something online, look for a provider who can provide you with a commercial web solution such as Shopping Cart software or a secure online payment system.  Choosing a large web space with a high bandwidth allowance is a good idea in this case.  In this category, 50 MB of disk space or more is advisable.  Bandwidth allowance really depends on how many visitors you're expecting and how well you promote your web site.  For most sites, 5 to 30 GB should suffice.

A.  I just want some web space for my personal web pages.  If your answer falls into this category, you probably need just a small amount of web space and little bandwidth: 2 to 10 MB should be plenty for your needs; and a personal, unique domain name may not even be necessary.  In fact, you can get web space FREE.  A popular provider of free space is Geocities (www.geocities.com).  However, because it's free, you may find out later that there are many limitations - it all depends how far you want to go.

B.  I want to develop my web design skills.  Maybe I will want to go beyond a personal homepage.  OK! Now that you think you want to go beyond the basics, you may find that a unique, personal domain name is necessary.  It identifies you (or your business) and says what your site is all about, and also that you take doing business on the Web seriously!

You may also want to run a CGI (Custom Gateway Interface) script for a Visitor Counter or a Discussion Board.  Your needs in this case can be met with 10 to 100 MB of disk space and 1 to 10 GB of data transfer per month.  (Please note that movie and sound files will eat up a lot of disk space and bandwidth.)  If your web site is text-based, you shouldn't worry about this stuff - text takes almost no space at all!  Select a provider that supports CGI and other advanced features that you think you might use in the future.  Better safe than sorry! And in this category, we're not talking big money! 

C.  I'm developing a commercial web site for a small business.  If you're developing a web site for a small business or organization, you should carefully evaluate the possibility of further expansion in the future.  It will be a bit of a hassle if you discover later that you need a database for your web site, but your provider doesn't offer it.

If you're planning to sell a product (or products) online, look for a provider who can provide you with a commercial web solution such as Shopping Cart software or a secure online payment system.  Choosing a large web space with a high bandwidth allowance is a good idea in this case.

In this category, 50 MB of disk space or more is advisable.  Bandwidth allowance really depends on how many visitors you're expecting and how well you promote your web site.  For most sites, 5 to 30 GB should suffice.