What is Hosting?

If you have made a decision to develop your own site, but are not very certain about what a website is and are unfamiliar with the expression "hosting", this article is dedicated to explaining these notions in simple English.

What exactly is a website?

A web site is an amalgamation of webpages brought together systematically. It has a special address, also referred to as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). A web site may consist of just one single webpage and sometimes may even contain as many as one thousand webpages.

What is a web hosting server?

A web hosting server permits you to upload your web site onto it. In some cases, there might be even 1000's of websites on one single hosting server. The hosting server basically is a computer with specific hardware, which is physically located in a data center facility with special cooling systems, whose purpose is to safeguard the smooth operation of the web hosting server and all the websites hosted on it.

In short, a hosting server will be really a launching pad when the time arrives for you to launch your website. It could be any type of web site - a business website containing numerous webpages, or a site, which contains only a couple of web pages and which you have set up simply for your associates and relatives.

You've made a decision about what your website will be, now what?

As soon as you have reached a decision about what sort of web site you desire to create, the next move is to find out what kind of web hosting service you must pick for your online adventure. Essentially, there are two sorts of hosting services - free-of-charge website hosting services and professional paid website hosting services. The cost-free website hosting solution is usually utilized by persons that do not have a business-related web site.

Advantages and disadvantages of the free web hosting solution

You will not get plenty of options with a charge-free website hosting package. Features such as web traffic, memory and web server disk drive storage space are restricted and inadequate for an elaborate e-store or a business web site, or even for a website with a lot of artwork. Additionally, there are a lot of banner commercials inserted on your website by the hosting provider. These ads take up a lot of space on your website and are very annoying.

Shared website hosting

The paid shared website hosting services tend to be more stable and offer a lot of advanced features apart from the high-power server that will host your web site and its data. Nonetheless, it is essential to find out which features your website demands prior to choosing your web hosting plan. You should not hurry and end up spending money on something that your web site does not demand.

Choose your hosting provider

It is not difficult to find a hosting solutions provider. You have to just carry out an online survey in order to find a web hosting solutions provider that answers your site's needs. Before you make your actual decision, take a gaze at the specifications of the web hosting plans provided by the hosting service providers that have made you an impression. We, for example, are among the premier hosting service providers on the market at the moment. The enormous assortment of hosting solutions and our prices are what renders us an enticing choice. Yet, you must determine what kind of hosting service you need and if the price suits your budget. Besides, you must always remember to go through the provider's ToS prior to signing up to ensure that your site is not violating them.

Signing up for a hosting account

As soon as you have determined what features are most important for your web site, the next move is to open an account with the web hosting supplier of your preference. You will receive all the necessary tools for handling your web site files and databases. With us, for instance, you will obtain a hosting Control Panel, which includes domain name, website, database and e-mailbox account management areas. You log into the Control Panel using your unique user name and password, which gives you safe access to the portion of the server where your website will be located.

Uploading your site

You can either upload your web site via an FTP software application or, as is with most web hosting companies, via an online tool that is included within the web hosting Control Panel. With us, the File Manager is pretty user-friendly and offers features comparable to those encountered in Windows Explorer, which renders file management extremely easy. We offer also a website building tool and a PHP-driven script installation tool, which you can utilize to set up your web site if you possess no programming experience and are taking your very first steps in web design. The online web site building tool, whose name is SiteStudio, will also save you the time and effort of creating a web site on your personal computer and then uploading it via an FTP client or the File Manager interface.