Understanding Web Hosting

You've got your new business all established now and you're ready to take the next step and set up a website to tell the online world that you're here and you've got something to offer. You've found a catchy domain name to call your own and now... what next? Well, the answer is that you need to find web hosting for the website you're going to build. So what does that mean and how do you figure out what kind of web hosting you need? First let's start with the basics.

Just what is web hosting anyway?

In simple terms, web hosting is renting space on a web server. A website is not simply a domain name, it is a collection of files linked together by HTML code to display text and graphics on a computer. In order for anybody to see this collection of files you've created, it has to be housed on a computer somewhere that has access to the internet. Not just any computer will do, of course. A web server is a computer set up with special software that allows it to receive requests from the internet for the website files it has stored on it and to send those files out over the internet so that the requesting computer can display them. It is very much like a waiter in a restaurant taking your order and bringing the food that you ask for from the kitchen, hence the name "server."

Along with making sure your files can be seen by internet users around the world, a web server provides other important services as well. First and foremost is the ability to create email addresses based on your domain name and to send and receive email with them. The web server also has various types of software installed on it that allow your website to run programs, create and manage databases, display video, and many other functions you might find useful. Almost any type of computer can function as a web server, but it's the software that's on it that makes it a server.

When you buy webhosting, the monthly fee you pay goes to the continued maintenance and upgrading of the server's hardware and software, the cost of keeping it online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a secure data center with a fast and powerful internet connection, and to pay for the expertise of the people who do all that work. It is completely possible to turn your own home or office computer into a web server if you really want to, but in most cases it is far more economical to pay someone else who is dedicated to providing this service in a properly reliable manner than it is to try and do it yourself.

What kinds of web hosting are there?

Shared Hosting - Most websites are not huge affairs with hundreds of pages and thousands of files and graphics, and they are targeted toward a particular audience, so they will not get as many visitors as the large general sites like Yahoo! that are targeted at everybody who uses the internet. As such, the average website therefore is not going to require the full resources of an entire web server to run it. Web servers are designed to be able to handle dozens, even hundreds of websites at once because they are powerful machines.

Shared hosting is simply the concept of hosting more than one website on a particular server. Over 95% of all websites on the internet are being run in a shared hosting environment. Since the resources of the server can be split among the clients hosted on it, so can the costs of operating the server, so shared hosting is universally cheaper than any other type. Shared hosting packages are generally designed so that each client is allotted a certain amount of each resource, with different payment levels representing different amounts of resources such as disk space, bandwidth, email addresses, and so on. Shared hosting is also known as virtual hosting.

Dedicated Hosting - If you do have a big, powerful website that gets lots of visitors and has a tendency to hog resources, then you might want to have a web server all to yourself. Some companies also prefer the extra security of not having to share the server with anyone else who could do something accidentally or on purpose to crash it. Renting the use of an entire server is known as dedicated hosting. The web hosting company still owns the machine and takes responsibility for maintaining the hardware and the web hosting software, but you have greater control over the configuration and use of the server. There is also such a thing as semi-dedicated hosting, in which a web server is only split between a very small number of clients, such as 2 to 4, with strong partitions between each to prevent them from interfering with one another. Since the hosting company is still responsible for the upkeep of the server, this type of hosting is also known as managed hosting. For obvious reasons, dedicated hosting always costs significantly more than shared hosting.

Server Co-Location - If you really want complete control over every aspect of your web server, you might very well choose to buy one and maintain it yourself if you have sufficient knowledge. However, chances are that you still don't have the resources to keep your server completely safe from power outages, roof leaks, thieves, unwary employees and other hazards and keep it on the internet on a fast, high-bandwidth connection at all times. You need a data center to provide those services for you. Co-location is the rental of physical security, continuous electrical power and a fast, reliable internet connection for a server that you own. The data center is not responsible for any of the hardware or software maintenance of a co-located server, you are. This can be a cheaper alternative to dedicated hosting if you have the necessary expertise and time to run a web server yourself.

Some web hosts are offering UNIX hosting and Windows hosting. What's the difference?

The terms UNIX hosting and Windows hosting refer to the operating system (OS) that is running on the server. The operating system, of course, is the software that allows the computer to function and manage all of the other hardware and software that is installed on it. Chances are good that you are reading this on a computer running a version of the Windows operating system, the most popular operating system in the world for personal and business computers. Other operating systems that are growing in popularity are Macintosh and various versions of Linux. However, the operating system you use on your computer is irrelevant to which type of hosting you choose. Here are some of the main features of UNIX and Windows:

UNIX Hosting

Most of the web servers in the world today run on one of the many variants of UNIX. The UNIX operating system was originally developed by universities for servers and networking, and many different versions have been written by programmers around the world under the open-source protocol, which means that the code for the operating system is openly available for programmers to customize and make improvements. Linux and BSD are the most popular forms of UNIX and come in many varieties, such as Red Hat Linux, Debian, SuSE, and FreeBSD. Most of these different versions (and much of the software that runs on them) can be obtained for free, which makes UNIX hosting cheaper for a web host than other operating systems and allows them to offer lower prices. UNIX hosting platforms are generally considered to be stable, secure, powerful and fast. Most web programming applications can be performed by software that is available for a UNIX platform. "UNIX hosting" has become a generic term to refer to any platform that is derived from the original UNIX.

Windows Hosting

Microsoft has developed its own operating system for servers as a special version of its Windows operating system, Windows Server 2003. It is a commercial product which requires the operator to purchase a license, which increases the cost of operation for the web host and usually results in higher hosting prices. Windows is designed to be user friendly, but it is generally considered to be less powerful and secure than UNIX for operating in a network environment. ASP, ASP.NET, and ColdFusion are scripting languages which will only run on a Windows server, as will the Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access database programs. These are popular for certain web programming applications, and if you are planning on using them to build your website, you will need to find a Windows host.

What are some of the terms I need to know when I choose a web host?

Disk Space or Storage - Because your website is a collection of files being offered on the internet for viewing, they have to be stored somewhere for retrieval and take up space. Each web server has a finite amount of hard disk memory to divide up and offer to hosting customers. Typically that space is divided up by different package levels so that the more you pay, the more space you are allowed to store pictures, web pages, videos and whatever other files you like on the web server's hard drive. If your website gets bigger than the space you are given, you will need to purchase more disk space from the web host.

Bandwidth or Data Transfer - Whenever you visit a website and view a page, you are transfering a copy of the files that make up that page over the internet from the web server to your computer. If the page you are viewing consists of an HTML file that is 3KB in size and three pictures of 47KB, 100KB and 250 KB, then you have just used 400KB of bandwidth or data transfer, because that is the total amount of data you just downloaded from the web server to view that page. Bandwidth is a commodity like disk space that the web host has to buy from its internet service provider, so it too is divided up and offered to the customers in specific amounts. Bandwidth amounts are usually measured in gigabytes (GB), because while only one copy of your files needs to be stored on the server, thousands or even millions of copies may be downloaded for viewing. If your website is viewed more times than the amount of bandwidth you are allowed can handle, your website may be turned off until the next billing period starts, or you may simply be billed for the excess amount used, depending on your host's policies. You can always purchase more bandwidth as your site's traffic increases.

Uptime - In an ideal world, every web server would be up and running and offering your web pages to the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week forever. However, web servers are computers, and like any other computer, things happen to make them fail, or they get old and out of date and require maintenance and repair. When a web host gives you a 99% uptime guarantee, they are saying that the web server will be up and running for 99% of the billing period. If they fail to meet this guarantee, most web hosts will refund a certain portion of your money depending on the amount of excess downtime they experienced.

Traffic Statistics - Website traffic statistics programs try to track visitors to your website. They can track how many times your site was visited, how many visitors were unique and how many returned more than once, which pages were most popular, where the visitors came to your site from, what search terms they used in the search engines, and many other types of information which could be useful to you in marketing your website to a target audience. These statistics can be displayed in tables, graphs and charts by hour, day, week, month or year. Some statistics programs are better than others and offer more types of data, better displays, easier navigation or other useful features. Most web hosts today offer some sort of traffic statistics software with their hosting packages.

CGI Scripts - Many web hosts offer a variety of free CGI scripts with their packages. These are things like hit counters, guestbooks, form mail programs, message boards, and other programs that allow your website to perform commonly desired functions. You can use the ones your host provides you with or you can upload and run custom CGI scripts written by yourself or somebody else to perform different tasks like conducting a survey or processing customer information to produce an automatic price quote. Most CGI scripts are written in common programming languages like Perl, PHP or ASP.

You could spend a long time trying to learn everything there is to know about web hosting, but if you've read this far then you should be armed with the basic knowledge you need to understand what different web hosts are offering you. Your next task is to figure out what you need and go out and find a host that wants to give it to you at a great price!

© Copyright 2005-2008 by Stacy Clifford
Stacy Clifford is the founder of ChiliPepperWeb.net and has been assisting customers in understanding how their web services work since 2001.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Stacy_Clifford

What is Website Hosting? - The Basics

For the purpose of this article I will assume that your searching for the answer to the following question: "What is website hosting"

Well, website hosting is required to have a web page displayed on the internet, a place where your files are kept and are translated from code to a display of images and text on a certain web address.

You see, every website file is made up of code, or language that is translated by the browser into a viewable and navigatable website. There are many languages that are used such as HTML and PHP.

To make use of website hosting you would first need to register a domain name which would then be connected to a hosting account. In most instances, you would register a domain name with the same company as you use hosting as the domain will automatically connect to the hosting account once you have setup an account.

You can however register a domain name from a separate company if you find a better deal and change the name servers to point to the second company that you choose for hosting.

Nameservers are provided by the company who provides your hosting account in which you use within your domain account.

If you don't know much about website hosting then I would recommend you register your domain name with the same provider as your hosting as the company will offer any support if you have troubles.

Been new to the world of web hosting can be very frustrating at first but if you choose the right website hosting company you are sure to get somewhere as these days, web hosting companies support is so competitive that you will find that your questions will be answered before you ask.

Choosing the right host can also be difficult if you don't know what to look for. As a few pointers just look out for the following things:

1- Make sure the website hosting company has phone and email support.
2- Make sure the sites uptime is as close to 100% as possible.
3- Find a host with features such as a free domain name, unlimited diskspace, unlimited bandwidth, and a website builder.
4- If a website offers Unlimited Bandwidth and Diskspace you will need to read terms and conditions before hand.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article and hope you can find the best host.

Top 10 Things to Look For From a Website Hosting Company

Image via Wikipedia

I know trying to find a website hosting company that you can rely on can be difficult, so I put together a certain criteria that you should look for when shopping around. Here is my top 10 things to look for from a website hosting company:

10) cPanel - Although, not critical, it certainly helps. Cpanel offers a ton of different tools that can help your website. You can analyze the kind of traffic you're getting, create email accounts, setup auto responders, but most importantly it has Fantastico. With Fantastico, you can load scripts for forums, blogs, and most importantly Wordpress. With Wordpress, you get one of the best blog/website building software you can find. And its absolutely free.

9) Bandwith - If you are just starting out, chances are you don't have to worry about this for a while, but its obviously better to have more bandwith as your sites will be able to handle the traffic better. When you are first starting out you are not going to come close to the bandwith limit most hosting companies provide so it will be a non-issue, but once you start becoming an expert webmaster it is something to look at and consider.

8) No contracts! - Most hosting companies nowadays let you pay month to month. If they force you to sign a contract, I would definitely think twice about opening an account. If they truly offer a great service, then they don't have to worry about a customer leaving. I only wish cell phone companies thought this way.

7) Able to host unlimited domains - They must be able to offer some kind of shared hosting for multiple domains. This is perfect for a newbie who doesn't want to pay the big bucks of getting a dedicated server. With shared hosting you can constantly add websites as an add-on domain to your first domain, but as far as the internet world is concerned they are separate websites.

6) Price - I'd be lying if I said price isn't important. But most importantly remember what you're getting for that price. The payment you make every month should be for good, quality service. Don't think because you are getting it cheaper, you are getting a better deal. You'll be paying for it in the long run with all the issues you might get from a poor hosting company.

5) Money Back Guarantee - It's not entirely critical but a good hosting company should be able to stand behind the service they provide, with a money back guarantee. Most offer a minimum of 15 days so you get some time to try out the service risk free.

4) Disk Space - If you are just planning on building simple personal blogs then it may not be critical. But if you have your heart set on being the next YouTube, then yes, disk space is very critical. It all depends on what you are trying to build.

3) Fast Servers - I know this may seem pretty obvious but your pages have to load quickly. In the current lighting quick information age that we live in, people are not going to wait around for website to load. They'll just hit the back button and go on with their day.

2) Customer Service - You will eventually run into some kind of problem, whether it be your fault or the hosting company. I don't care who your hosting company is, it's going to happen. So whenever you do have to make that call, you want to know that it won't take you an hour before you reach a live person. And when you do, you want to know that they are professional and can help you with any issues you may be having.

1) Uptime - Your website has to be available for the world to see. If the page just shows an internal server error, chances are you have lost a potential sale or subscriber. Their servers have to be reliable. You'd be amazed how many horror stories you hear from webmasters who chose poor web hosting companies. They'd go through days with their websites being down. That is completely unacceptable and shouldn't be tolerated.

Unlimited website hosting

Whilst looking for an affordable website hosting plan there are several mistakes which the large majority of people make, all of which are avoidable. In this article I will show you what mistakes you should avoid.

Failing To Research.

Many people looking for a web host fall for the lure of a low price or extra bonuses, like a free domain name, without actually checking the most important thing - reliability. Without a reliable host your site stands a far bigger chance of failure so whatever you do find out about the reliability of a company before you sign up with them. Either do it yourself using forums and discussion groups or find a good review site that has already done all the work for you.

Not Getting The Features They Need.

If you want unlimited domain names hosted on the one account, unlimited My SQL databases, cPanel etc. then make sure you get it. It is now easier than ever to find an affordable website hosting plan that includes the tools you want so again don't be drawn by price and bonuses but what you actually need.

Believing Size Is Important.

Unless you are going to have a massive site that attracts thousands upon thousands of visitors a day then don't pay too much attention to bandwidth limits or disk space as the chances are that your site won't come anywhere near reaching the limits set. If it isn't costing you any extra for the space then by all means get it for peace of mind but if it is effecting the price then look around elsewhere.

These may seem like common sense and the truth is that they are but quite often people ignore using common sense and get lured in by a great sales pitch. As long as you don't do this and look for an affordable website hosting plan sensibly and avoid making the mistakes listed above you should find an hosting service you are happy with.