Web site hosting services offer the hardware, software, and telecommunications
connections necessary to connect any web site to the Internet. While technically
you can run your own server and host your site yourself, this requires a lot of
technical know-how, not to mention money and equipment. So more often than not
you will want to find a company that specializes in web hosting.
Before you decide on a web hosting service, you will want to know
what types of features you will be using on your site. For
example, you will want to know if you will offer
credit card processing (search) and
what your domain name (search) is going to be. Additionally, you should have an idea
of the size of your web site, in terms of disk space, and how many visitors
you expect every month. Web hosting plans specify how much bandwidth and how
much storage you are provided.
There are three different types of web site hosting services to choose from:
shared service web hosting (cheap),
co-located web hosting,
and dedicated web hosting (expensive).
Shared Service Web Hosting:
This is the easiest way to get you
site up and running, and the cheapest web hosting - some companies even provide free hosting for the first month.
With shared hosting (search) the hosting company provides you
with all of the equipment you need including software and internet connections.
The only thing you will need to supply is the HTML files and images that make up
your web site. Of course, as the name implies, under shared service web hosting you share
the equipment with several other companies. You will be given a private access
folder to hold your files but the size of the folder will be limited. The
price you pay for shared service will vary depending on the amount of storage
space and file transfer bandwidth you need.
Co-Located & Dedicated Hosts:
With a colocation (search) or dedicated hosts (search), your web site will reside on equipment dedicated to
your company. The equipment can be provided by either you or the web hosting company.
Dedicated web hosting service refers to when the service provides the space, equipment, and
Internet connection. All you need to do is provide the files and data for your site.
Co-located hosting service typically refers to when a web hosting company provides the space to house
the equipment and the Internet connection only. Obtaining, setting up and maintaining
your equipment is your responsibility. Either of these types of hosting services is
considerably more expensive that shared site hosting. Without even including
equipment expenses, you can expect to pay a few hundred dollars a month for web hosting.
Ultimately, your decision on a web hosting service should be based on the following criteria:
- the amount of disk space you will need
- type of access to reports and log files
- telephone support availability
- transaction processing services
- software package support services
