Introduction to Web Hosting

If you are reading this article you have probably already registered your domain name and you are facing the next step in getting your site on the World Wide Web. The next step is Web Hosting.

Nowadays, with so many tools available, building a website can be so easy that anybody can do it. Once you have the site, you need a way to publish it on the internet. This is where web hosting services come in.

A web hosting company rents you disk space and provides all the services necessary for others to see your website on the Internet. Barring technical problems, a web host operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so that anybody in the world can access your website at any time.

There are many web hosting companies to choose from so choosing the right host can be a time consuming and uneasy task. The prices range from free to tens or even hundreds of dollars per month. Usually a web hosting company can offer a multitude of services that can be confusing to a newcomer. In this article and the next few articles about web hosting I will try to help you with the basic information and give you more confidence in choosing the right web hosting company.
Free Web Hosting?

There is really a lot of web hosting companies providing free hosting services, so why bother paying for it? The old saying "You get what you pay for" is just as valid in the internet age as it was 100 years ago. In web hosting, when you get the services for free you sometimes get poor customer support, frequent service outages or slow overloaded servers.

Many free web hosting companies offer limited services. Even though they are not charging you to host your website, they still need to make money. They often do this by placing advertising on your website. You probably won't have any control over what kinds of ads are displayed on your site. In addition, free hosts may restrict the content you place on your site.

Finally, your web site could simply disappear overnight. New hosting companies offering free hosting pop up almost everyday, but they also vanish with astonishing regularity. When your web hosting company vanishes, your website goes with it.
Paid web hosting?

If you are serious about having a website you need to use a reliable web hosting company. Prices differ considerably – some companies offer their services for $2 a month while others charge $60 or more. Be careful, though. High rates don't always translate as high quality hosting service. Some of the lower priced hosts offer reliable, stable environments that allow your website to be accessed day in day out for years.

Generally speaking the more you pay the more you get. Higher rates should bring you more storage space, more bandwidth to handle Internet traffic, and more services such as databases, email accounts, more freedom in server configuration etc. Higher rates can also mean better customer support in case you have problems with your website.
Better knowledge of web hosting will make it easier for you to select the right one.

Whichever hosting company you choose, it helps to understand some of the technical details about their service. I have just barely touched the very basics of web hosting services here. If you would like to get more information follow to our next articles where I will introduce you to different types of web hosting services and web hosting companies.