Cheap Web Hosting
There are many great deals around on web hosting
starting at very affordable prices, and cheap web hosting doesn't
always mean unreliable uptime and poor service. Firstly decide
what you need? Do you want windows hosting or Linux hosting?
Dedicated server? virtual dedicated server? Reseller account?.
How much disk space do you need? What sort of bandwidth do you
estimate? Do you need a database? Load balancing?
If your just planning a small simple personal
site then most basic packages offered by web hosting companies
will suffice. You should still take into account the web hosts
means of contact for support issues and that they support the
language you will be using, i.e. php, asp etc.... You may also
want to take into account the location of the server that your
site will be on as this can affect search engine ranking.
What Type of Hosting are there?
Free Web Hosting
Free web hosting Is often offered by ISPs but
will have limitations. Most free web hosting will also come
with advertising on your website, or ads in the form of pop
ups. You will not be able to remove these which is why the hosting
is free!
There are however web hosting companies out there that offer
free hosting services without advertisements, they will normally
offer the service for a limited period (say 6 months) then ask
that you upgrade to a paid service.
Free web hosting won't offer the same resources as paid hosting
either. You will probably find that diskspace is very limited
along with a very small amount of bandwidth. Free Web hosting
is normally only suitable for a basic html home page or blog.
Shared Web Hosting
Shared hosting is the most popular type of hosting
package around. There are many many hosting companies offering
this service making it very competitive. This means there are
some great deals around.
With a Shared web hosting service your web site will be located
on a server with many other web sites and as a result you will
also be sharing that servers resources such as Memory and CPU.
This is normally the only downside with shared web hosting,
you may be sharing the server with hundreds of others websites.
This isn't normally a problem as long as the hosting company
isn't greedy and over packs the server. Make sure you monitor
your site speed!.
A shared hosting package could also be hosted by a reseller.
Reseller Web Hosting
Reseller hosting allows clients to
become web hosts themselves. A reseller buys a chunk of Web
space from a hosting service provider and then sells it on in
smaller amounts. For example a reseller may buy a package whereby
he can host upto 25 domains and has a set amount of diskspace
and bandwidth. He might then offer single site hosting to businesses
and individuals with a set allocation of space just like in
shared web hosting.
VPS (Virtual Private Server)
A Virtual Private Server is a step up from shared
web hosting or reseller hosting. A VPS is basically a server
but instead of having an entire server to utilize a server is
broken up into, normally, four parts and each part is setup
as its own virtual private server.You will have access to root
and all the functions of a real server and anyone on the server
will think they are on a fully dedicated server, but in reality
they are only using part of the server and around four or so
other people are using the rest.
Virtual Private Servers are offered on a managed or unmanaged
basis. Unmanaged is as it says. The Host will be responsible
for the hardware and connection but You will be responsible
for everything else such as software and errors. Managed is
the opposite whereby the Host will keep it up and running, monitor
it incase anything happens to it and will resolve anything with
it if it does go down. They also keep it updated with the latest
software patches and fixes and will install any software.
Dedicated Servers
Dedicated hosting is Self-Managed, the user has
full administrative access to the box, which means the client
is responsible for the security and maintenance of his own dedicated
box. Dedicated severs range in specifications of the hardware
and those specs are what determines the price. Dedicated servers
are normally quite expensive and are really for very large web
sites, or for sites that need a lot of processing power that
only a dedicated server can provide.
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