Web Hosting: Getting Started

Today absolutely anyone can own some space on the Internet. Constructing a web site can be as easy as making use of a word processor, but once your site is ready, you will need to find a way to get it published on the World Wide Web. This is when web-hosting companies are required.

A web host will rent you some disk space, whilst providing all the necessary services that will enable others to see your web site on the Internet. Unless there are some technical problems, a web host will operate for 24 hours a day, and for 7 days a week so that anyone in the world can access their web site at any time.

There are more than thousands of web hosts to select, so choosing an appropriate host can be quite a difficult step. The average prices range from completely free to hundreds of dollars per year. Hosting companies can also offer you a multitude of services which can be a bit confusing for newcomers. So my aim here will be to help you sort out all the information you get and give you the sufficient confidence to make the proper and best decision about selecting a web host.

Free or Paid Web Hosting?

There are so many hosting companies that can provide you with free web hosting, so why should you bother paying for it? The old idea that 'You get quality for money' is still very much valid in the electronic age as it was a century ago. Indeed, with web hosting, when you pay nothing you sometimes end up with very little.

Most free web hosts will offer you limited services. Despite the fact that they won’t be charging you to host your website, they still need to make some type of profit. They will often do this by displaying some advertisements on your website. You must know however, that you probably won't have any control over what type of ads show up – it’s a ‘take it or leave it’ situation.

Additionally, free hosts might restrict the content that you choose to put up on your site. You might not be allowed to sell things or have certain content such as videos or music. Finally, bear in mind that your web site could very simply disappear overnight. New companies that will offer you free hosting pop up almost everyday, but they also disappear with astonishing regularity and without prior notice. When your free hosting company vanishes, your web site will go with it.

Therefore, if you have the serious intention on having a web site you will need to use a reliable web host. To obtain this, prices range considerably – some companies will offer you rates as low as $2 a month whereas others will charge you $60 and more. Be cautious, however, as high rates don't always signify high service. Some of the lower priced hosts will offer you reliable, stable environments that will allow your website to be accessed day in day out for many years.

More generally speaking though, the rule is that the more you pay the more you will get. Higher rates could bring you more storage space, more bandwidth to handle Internet traffic, and more services such as databases, email accounts, mass mailers, and the possibility to add custom scripts. Higher rates can also imply better technical service when you encounter problems with your website.

What are Web Servers?

Whichever hosting company you choose to work with, it will always be helpful to understand some of the technical details that their service offers. Each host has dedicated computers which are called servers which can connect to the Internet and 'serve' pages when they are requested. This means that whenever anyone wants to view a given web page by clicking on a link, the request will be sent to the particular server where the web page is kept. The server will then respond by sending HTML data across the Internet. Therefore, your web server must have swift connections to be able to serve pages rapidly. For the greatest speed and dependability try to look for a host that will have multiple high-speed connections as well as dependable back up power supplies in case of power cuts.

Article Source: http://www.webdesignarticles.net.

About the Author:
Martin Redford is contributing editor at http://www.webdesignarticles.net/. This article may be reproduced provided that its complete content, links and author byline are kept intact and unchanged. No additional links permitted. Hyperlinks and/or URLs must remain both human clickable and search engine spiderable.