Sunday, July 12, 2009

The Search For Good Web Hosting

By Jeffrey Scott Maughan

Web hosting is a service that allows individuals and businesses to purchase or rent a space on a server and then host their website on that allocated space. Every person and business will have different hosting needs, however, finding the very best web hosting provider is a crucial step in ensuring that you have a quality website that can be accessed by your visitors. It doesn't matter if you are running a blog, a wiki, or a full on ecommerce website. Reliable web hosting is a necessity.

Web hosting companies usually own hundreds of servers that they rent out to their customers. They maintain these servers in a place called a data center. They allow the hosting company to maintain the server in terms of security and in terms of temperature.

For all intents and purposes, you can think of web hosting simply as renting space on the internet. It is a place that you are going to build your new home "online". Because of this, it is vital that you find a good neighborhood that is safe and secure. You also want a good landlord who will live up to his end of the contract that is in place between the two of you.

There are different types of hosting solutions that are appropriate for different circumstances. Options include: free, shared, dedicated, and co-location hosting. Each option will allow you to get a website online but not every option is suited to your individual needs.

If you are planning on launching a very small website or blog, free web hosting just might be the best way to go. The reason the hosting is free is because the hosting companies make money from displaying ads on your website. If that is not for you, shared hosting is a very affordable way to host your website. This is where you will share your server with other people. You will have much less disk space and bandwidth. This is a great choice for smaller websites.

Dedicated servers are a great choice for companies that require a large amount of disk space and bandwidth. Sites that expect high traffic and lots of visitors may need this kind of service to accommodate a large and growing online business. Co-location hosting is the other option for sites of this size, which involves placing the company's own server in a data center. This is an affordable option, but doesn't come with the same level of maintenance and support that a dedicated server will.

So the million dollar question is, what do you look for when trying to choose a great hosting provider? There are some standards that you should hold web hosting companies to. Doing so will definitely help you choose the best provider.

You should always begin by taking a look at the service record of the company. How reliable are they? Do they have a good uptime record? How is their customer support? Each of these things will help you know if you are selecting a good hosting provider. By doing your research, you can save a lot of money and get tremendous value!

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