Definition of Website Hosting

You have a concept that you want to transform into a website? Your first move should be to sustain your enthusiasm and discover a spot for your site on the web so that it will be always available for the whole world to see.

Where should you host your web site?

Since the number of sites on the Internet has grown rapidly in the last couple of years, the need for web hosting services has also lead to the emergence of countless website hosting providers. These are firms that offer you storage space for your own web site on their web servers.

Types of hosting services

The reach of web hosting services varies considerably, so do the needs of the website owners. The most basic type of web hosting is the small-scale file hosting solution, where files can be uploaded using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a web-based graphical user interface. Plenty of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer this service for free. Personal web page proprietors and companies can also get hosting services from various web hosts. Personal web hosting services are typically either free, advertisement-financed, or reasonably priced. Business web hosting services often are more expensive, but thanks to the immense rivalry on the web hosting marketplace, an increasing number of web hosting firms, like us at 123 Get Online, deliver business website hosting services at moderate prices and with flexible invoicing periods.

Types of sites and their requirements

The free-of-charge hosting platform is normally sufficient for personal web sites such as portfolios or online blogs. A more resource-requiring website, such as a social networking site or a corporate site, needs a more advanced website hosting platform that provides database support and application development platforms (including PHP). If you would like to host an online shop, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) must be supported by the hosting solutions provider of your choice. Nowadays, SSL certificates are supplied by most web hosting corporations.

The hosting Control Panel

The web hosting vendor typically also provides a Control Panel interface for handling your files, mail accounts, electronic mail aliases, domain names, DNS records, etc.

Service stability

When picking a hosting vendor, website availability is a very important aspect. The availability of a web site is estimated on a yearly basis by taking into account the time when the web site is publicly available and reachable on the World Wide Web. Network and service availability guarantees, therefore, should be meticulously taken into account when signing up for a web hosting package. The best thing to do is re-examine the SLAs and the Terms of Use of the hosting accounts provider of your choice in advance. Reading online reviews from existing clients is also a rather clever step before you decide to sign up.

The shared hosting platform

The most famous and inexpensive type of web hosting service is the shared web hosting solution. It includes 24-7 customer support, which is a great plus for clients who do not want to cope with server maintenance tasks, but could also hinder customers who would like to exert more authority over the hosting server. For such customers, a virtual private servers or a dedicated web hosting would be more appropriate. Most popular applications and scripts work alright on a shared web server. Besides, the shared hosting solution is less expensive than other types of web hosting solutions, such as the dedicated web hosting, since the web hosting packages provider splits the server among numerous customers. The shared hosting solution normally includes usage restrictions that ensure that the separate customers do not meddle with each other and that the shared server remains stable.

Handling your shared hosting account

Shared website hosting plans typically include a web-based web hosting Control Panel user interface, such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, etc. Most of the big hosting providers, again like us at 123 Get Online, utilize their own personal custom-developed hosting Control Panel.

Server maintenance

With the shared hosting platform, the hosting supplier is responsible for managing the web and email servers, for installing web server software, security updates and patches, and for offering technical support to its customers. The majority of web servers are based on the Linux Operating System. The hosting supplier's administrators are responsible for maintaining the Operating System up to date, unless you have a dedicated hosting web server and full server root privileges.