You know you need a web host, but you don’t know where to start. So you do a web search to research potential solutions and get a bit overwhelmed with all the jargon: UNIX, dedicated servers, POP3, CoLo… the list goes on.

Step back a bit. You don’t need to learn everything about web sites to choose a host. You do however need to know what a web host is, and the basic types of web hosting. This knowledge will lead you to know what type of hosting you need, and ultimately you can make a sound decision.

To begin, let’s define the term. Web hosting is a service that hosts web pages on servers that can be accessed through the Internet. There are three primary categories of web hosting providers that cater to the requirements of site owners; these include virtual web hosting, dedicated web hosting, and co-located hosting. There are various sources online that offer detailed information and reviews on these services, but there are several details you should pay most attention to. The points to consider before selecting a web hosting provider include the number of clients they service, years in business, customer service reputation, hardware specifications, and backup routines. With that out of the way, let’s jump in and explore the basic types of web hosting.

Dedicated hosting

A dedicated web server is basically like the name sounds it’s dedicated to your site only. Typically it is leased to a site owner. The hosting company is responsible for the maintenance, backing up, security, and power management. The site owner manages the software-related issues.

Dedicated hosting is useful for websites that need extra bandwidth and system resources because of the use of technologies such as e-commerce software, customized server applications, and heavy traffic. Such websites are often better served by a dedicated hosting provider rather than developing and running an in-house solution. Dedicated hosting is possible with Windows, Mac, and Linux servers. A dedicated server can cost upward of $100 / month.

Pros and cons: 24/7 tech support is available. Speed, dependability, and customizability of website are often enhanced. The response time of dedicated servers is fast as compared to shared servers where the activity of other sites affects server speeds. Reliability and customizability of websites are improved as dedicated hosting offers greater storage capacity and greater freedom in terms of hardware configurations and software installations; hard drives can be upgraded and bandwidths increased with growth.

Shared servers and CoLo hosting are cheaper alternatives to dedicated hosting. Moreover, as the server is not owned by the site owner, security of sensitive data can be an issue.

Virtual hosting

Virtual hosting, also called shared hosting, is a popular and cost-effective web hosting solution. The hosting provider leases the website hosting server, services, and bandwidth to more than one website. Small and medium-sized websites, which do not have high traffic and have limited bandwidth requirements, benefit from virtual hosting. A virtual hosting offer by a service provider usually includes features such as Internet connection, domain name registration, file storage, email account, and may also include website design assistance. The cost of virtual hosting is in the range of $5-40 per month. It can be more or less depending upon the package selected.

Pros and cons: Virtual hosting enables the establishment of an online presence with no expensive equipment purchases required on part of the site owners and therefore is the perfect solution for SMBs.

One of the limitations of virtual hosting is that sites compete for the provider’s service, this may result in slow server response times in periods of heavy traffic and make browsing inconvenient. Since websites hosted on a server may be grouped under a single IP address, there is a chance that a site owner may have to share an IP address with adult or scam sites. This can lead to debarring from search engine placements which will have an adverse effect on the traffic. As the software components are shared between websites, a site owner may not be able to personalize the website as per his business objectives and target audience.

While purchasing virtual hosting services, it is useful to have an idea of the total anticipated traffic during the day as well as the visits during the peak period. This helps in obtaining a package with sufficient bandwidth for immediate and near term needs. Also, the cost of an upgrade and changes to the package should be understood.

Co-location (Co-lo) hosting

In Co-location hosting, the server is owned by the site owner and it is leased at the co-lo facility, where it is installed along with other servers in the facility. A co-lo service enables site owners to make maximum use of network access points and the freedom to choose between telecom lines provided by the hosting company and other telecom lines. Co-location hosting enables site owners to utilize high bandwidth at a cost that is not significantly higher than that of a normal web hosting package. The site owner maintains the server while the hosting provider ensures smooth running by providing regular power supply and IT support.

Co-location hosting services can be standalone data centers or companies that operate by leasing server space from a co-location web hosting reseller. The cost of the server and the volume of rack space required by the servers of a site owner influence the cost of co-lo hosting. Servers that fit in with the dimensions of the racks can help to save costs; co-locating tower servers usually cost more. Additional services provided by the hosting provider and insurance are other factors that affect cost. The monthly cost of a co-lo service for a half-rack of server space can be up to $1000.

Pros and cons: The benefits of co-location hosting include temperature and humidity controlled environment for the servers; security from hacking, fire, and theft, provision of redundancy and backup. It enables the site owner to control the critical features of web hosting such as bandwidth allocation, routers, VPN, server space, and VLAN.

Site owners may not find it easy to locate a co-lo service that is situated close enough to facilitate easy and safe transfer of servers and at the same time provide the best connection speeds. Co-lo hosting is of greater advantage to those who have hosting experience and consequently are better placed to recover the costs involved.

Ultimately, it is the requirements of the site that dictate the choice of web hosting solution. Online stores and sites with heavy traffic are better off with dedicated hosting, personal blogs and small sites without ecommerce activity that do not have high bandwidth consumption can function with virtual hosting, and websites that require a high degree of customization and deal with sensitive data benefit from a co-lo hosting arrangement.

To determine what type of host you need, ask yourself what type of site you have, and it should all flow naturally from there.

Author: John Hasson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital TV, HDTV, Satellite TV

Getting to know what is web hosting could be a difficult thing to learn if you are a novice to internet world wide web and in this article i would like to share something that i know about web hosting and why you should look for a good web hosting company to avoid things you do not wish to happen in future.

Well, let’s talk about what a web hosting is?

Web hosting actually means a web server with an allocated disk space that you buy from a hosting company to allows you to upload your web pages onto the internet to have peoples visiting it all the time. You may noticed some of the web hosting service even includes a free domain name on the web hosting plans they are offering. Hence, before selecting your web hosting service provider the next step you will need to take full attention after you have decided what is your domain name going to be. Most of the time, peoples who are choosing a web hosting company for their websites related on several factors such as diskspace allocation, total allowable monthly bandwidth or transfer, support response rate, on-site live support, reliability of the web server, server uptime, all the necessary software and scripts with necessary modules that are installed on the server.

Below are some of the steps i would like to discuss when choosing a hosting service for your business online:

1. The Types of Web Hosting Services You Need To Know

In normal circumstances, there are two common types of web hosting services available on the market. First type of service is usually being offered on a shared hosting and the other type is more good for better control which is known as dedicated hosting. The difference between the 2 services are the amount of web space and monthly transfer you are getting for your web site.

2. Dedicated Hosting Service

The advantages when you have decided to have all your web sites hosted on a dedicated hosting server plan is that you get full control on the entire server which literally provides you a large amount of web space for you to store all your web sites database, files, images, and other information that is deem necessary for running a successful web site without interruption. Furthermore, hosting your web site on a dedicated hosting server provides more security other than on a shared hosting server because you are not sharing the server resources with other users on the same server, But the only downside is the cost of owning a dedicated server would be quite expensive and not a recommended solution if you are just starting and uploading your website for the first time.

3. Shared Hosting Service

This type of hosting service is the most commonly used on almost all new sites that have been chosen by those peoples who just started their own websites that do not need much requirements. It was offered in an affordable price range because you are sharing the server resources with other users and also having the same IP address with other users too. However, there are problems when using this type of web hosting which is resource limited. For instant, the shared server may goes down once in a while when someone on the server exceeded the limits that may caused your website to go off line since a shared server is very much loaded with plenty of websites. One thing to bear in mind, if any user on the same shared server with you does anything illegal, unethical or spamming then most probably the other websites that hosted on the same server are also thoroughly scrutinized. Most of the time, a shared hosting server may not be able to let you have a larger web space and resources for your websites, this is why big companies and those who have larger websites choose to use a dedicated server.

4. What to Look for when selecting a Web Hosting Company?

As you should be aware when choosing a web hosting company it is not the right way to look for low and cheap pricing just because you want to cut costs. Most of the time, a worst web hosting company will cause you more serious problems or even interruptions and you will eventually ended up wasting more of your precious time and pay a lot amount of money to get all the problems fixed up just of troubles they created for you.

Therefore, you must make sure you choose a reliable and web hosting company which has their professionalism on maintaining their servers. And don’t forget that this company should provides full guarantee to the most minimal rate or no downtime at all. Server downtime is crucial and it means all your web sites are not online, this could possibly cause all your potential customers cannot reach you. For example, If you have some current customers that are looking to buy products or services from you and when the time they reached your site, found out the site could not be found just because of the server downtime especially a lot of down time occurred which cannot be get back online on the shortest period, these customers will move away immediately from your site and what they have in their mind is that they might even think that you are not serious on doing business online.

5. A Web Hosting Company that Offers Back Ups

Observe and check that the hosting company you are going to choose should be backing up all the files regularly so that if you should ever lose any information or in the event of a server failure, your work is saved and can easily be restored. My advice, you should not completely rely on the backup that is done by the hosting provider, you should do a practice on yourself to do the backup more on a frequent basis onto your own backup storage, this is to ensure total safety on files recovery for your website contents in case something happened on your hosting provider backup storage system.

6. The Amount of Email Accounts Being Offered

Another important factor when choosing a web hosting company is the amount of email accounts the company allocated for you. Make sure you don’t need to pay extra penny just for for any additional email addresses in case you may need in the future. This should be unlimited on most of the hosting company offers.

7. Server Speed and Performance

It is very crucial that your web hosting company guarantee a fast connection on all their servers. If your page loaded extremely slow then most probably you will lose plenty of potential customers. Some Internet users are still using dial up to access the net and what if your web hosting provider is offering a problematic server which has slow in connection then your page may not even load at all. This could again causing you to lose our potential buyers to reach your site.

8. Customer Service and Live Support is Essential

Lastly, before choosing the right web hosting company you wish to go for hosting all your sites, one of the most important aspect is to make sure the web hosting company has a good, reliable and efficient customer service support. It is important that you have the professional support available whenever you need them and also observe how fast they are responded to you when you have problems to get the problems resolved promptly, quickly and efficiently either through support ticket system or online live support help.

In conclusion for today’s article, the professionalism on a web hosting company based on the response rate and the time on resolving any issues for your problems are the key to take your business towards the next success level forever.

Author: Kenny Tan
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Latest trends in mobile phone

If you are in the market for a web host there are a number of things to consider. You may be tempted to choose your provider based on the suggestion of someone you know and trust who is one of their satisfied customers. However, website requirements can vary greatly from one company to another. The web host that provides excellent service and value for one company may be inadequate for another’s company’s needs.

You should know how much space you are getting for your investment. In addition you need to find out if there are any limitations on file size or type, in case you decide to upgrade. You also want to know if there is a bandwidth limitation.

Find out how reliable the host is. If your site is going to be frequently down because of technical options, it is not a good choice. How fast the site moves is also a factor to consider.

It is important to set a budget for your web hosting costs. By shopping around carefully you should be able to find a company that can offer you the web hosting services you need at the price you want.

Check out reviews of a web hosting service before you enter into a contract with them. You may also want to contact the Better Business Bureau to find BBB reviews of web hosting companies. By shopping around and being an informed consumer, you can find the best web hosting service for your needs.

If you have a web site you will need web hosting. Understanding that service is vital to making the right decision for your business. Choosing a free web hosting service may be very tempting, however typically these services are free because the web host will sell ads to put on your site. The types of ads are out of your control and may not reflect your business in the way you want to.

When you look for a web hosting package, you will find that many of them include your domain name, multiple email addresses, report options, website creation software, virtual storage and more. However, what should really interest you are certain other aspects. You may want a dedicated hosting package in which your site has its own server. This is more expensive than other types of web hosting but is very secure. Shared web hosting is the more common type and is simply where more than one web site is being housed on shared servers. The final type is co-location and is simply where you pay for an internet connection and equipment storage. It is the most secure method of web hosting and the server which you own can be managed by your own IT professional or by the web hosting company.

Choose the web hosting option that best suits your needs. There really is something to fit every company. Compare cheap web hosting to find an affordable hosting solution.

Many people choose the company that takes care of their website hosting for a variety of reasons. It may be that the host was highly recommended. The service might have been the best one you could afford at the time; it might even be free. It could be that it was the first one you came across. Maybe you did tons of research and found the one you thought was best for your needs. Regardless of how you chose your web site hosting company, it is important to know when it is time to change to another company, and it’s not always when the contract runs out (although you should definitely shop around as renewal time approaches).

If you find that your site is too slow, it may be time to change your web site hosting, as the host may not be equipped to handle the traffic on your site. If the web site host is not up to date in technology and you cannot update your website like you want to, it is definitely time to change. If your company has grown and needs different things from its web host and the present one is unable or too expensive for those things, switch. In today’s economy, it is important to keep a tight reign on expenses. If you find a web site hosting company that is significantly less expensive for the same or better service, you should change.

Your online presence is one of the most important aspects of marketing your business. Don’t let a poor fit between your company and your web hosting service interfere with you projecting the best image possible online.

Compare customer reviews of the top cheap hosting services.

Does your web hosting plan really matter? This is a question pondered by many people starting out in internet marketing. Unfortunately, not much thought is put into selecting a web hosting plan as part of the website development process. Many people don’t even review hosting plans at all, they just trust their web designer or web developer to choose a web hosting plan for them because they consider it a minor factor that doesn’t matter too much.

In reality, a web hosting plan is one of those things that doesn’t really matter and doesn’t come to attention unless there is a problem with it. So, if you get lucky and incidentally get a decent web hosting plan without considering your options, you probably don’t think choosing a web hosting plan is a very important aspect of website development. However, if you’ve had an inadequate web hosting plan, or you’ve been burned by a fly- by-night web hosting company, you may view the selection of a web hosting plan in a different light.

The main things to consider when choosing a web hosting plan are:

1. Security

2. Speed

3. Space

4. Email capabilities

5. Reports

6. Administrative functions

7. Reliability

8. Support

9. Extra features

10. Cost

Security

The security features of a web hosting plan’s servers is important to website development, especially if your website will be an ecommerce website through which customer payments or processed, or if customers will be transmitting personal information to you via your website. Without a secure server, customers may be hesitant to transmit personal and financial information through your website. Encryption capabilities and the ability to set up a dedicated secure server for your company are security features you should look for in your web hosting plan.

Speed

The speed at which your website loads is very significant in e-business. When people visit your website, if it takes more than a few seconds for the site to load they will get impatient and move on, forgetting your website altogether. When you evaluate a web hosting plan, be sure to ask the web host what type of internet connection they use to ensure that it is a high-speed connection.

Space

The space that your web hosting plan allows for your website and the bandwidth that is available for your use matters. In most cases, any web hosting plan provides adequate space for a standard website, but make sure that you can increase the space provided for your web hosting plan if necessary as your website evolves. Bandwidth restrictions can hinder the ability of website visitors to download or upload data.

Email Capabilities

Email capabilities should be included in every web hosting plan. The number of email addresses provided, the ability to use email aliases, and the ability to set up autoresponders are things to be considered. Also, restrictions on the size of files that can be sent and received or stored on the email server can be of importance.

Reports

Access to server logs and other reports regarding website activity should be standard features of a web hosting plan. Using such reports aids in your marketing efforts as you can tell where your traffic is coming from and which marketing mediums are producing results. You can also determine which of your web pages of most popular and which ones are not being visited.

Administrative Functions

Sometimes a web developer serves as a webmaster, but for the most part, a website owner needs to be able to quickly and easily make changes to the website. This is accomplished through the administrative features of a web hosting plan, generally on online accessible control panel.

Reliability

The reliability of the company that provides your web hosting plan is crucial. The length of time they have been in business, their percent of uptime, and their backup and data retrieval practices play a big part in whether or not your web hosting plan is reliable. Downtime results in lost business, so reliability is a critical consideration.

Support

Technical support is something that should definitely be a part of a web hosting plan. Different web hosts will have different levels of support with some offering person-to-person phone support while others respond to email or online requests. Some provide 24 hour technical support and others don’t. Find out about the quality and convenience of technical support that is
provided before selecting a web hosting plan.

Extra Features

There are many standard features that should be provided in a web hosting plan, then there are options that may cost extra. A full-service web hosting plan may cost a bit more than limited plans, but may be worth it. Some of the features to look for include FTP access capabilities for the purpose of sharing files and support for software you may use for your website.

Cost

Of course cost is important when choosing a web hosting plan; however, it is not the most important consideration. Sometimes you really do get what you pay for. So, cost should be factored into your decision but going with the cheapest web hosting plan is not always the best idea. Also, free web hosting plans are usually not worth having.

Compare the best cheap web hosting plans.

Author: Christopher J Enders
Provided by: Cellphone news

There are many things to consider when selecting the best small business web hosting. With all the options and features available in the web hosting industry, it may be a good idea to take time out to educate yourself on what is the best type of small business web hosting. Your particular needs are crucial in finding the best web hosting for your small business.

There are three categories of web sites. Personal/Small Business Homepages, E-Commerce, and Information sites. The type of web hosting you choose will depend on what category your business falls into. Your small business may be related to information and small business services. This is one reason why it’s important to find out what web hosting is best for your situation. You may not need the expensive types of hosting services that some people need for large sites. With a small business you usually do not need the massive disk space and bandwidth large E-Commerce business sites need for their hosting needs.

Important Considerations For Small Business Web Hosting:

Unlimited space, transfer. This is in many cases an advertising ploy. Be sure to check out the web hosting Acceptable Use Policies to see what they say about unlimited plans. You may end up kicked off if you use too much space if you do not upgrade.

Setup fees. Many small hosting services don’t tell you about the fees until you go to the sign up page.

No POP email access to emails. Some web hosting services only offer you access to site’s email accounts.

Limit on monthly traffic. Some small business web hosting services will limit you on how many hits your site or sites can receive.

Customer support. Does the hosting service have good customer support 24/7? Do they offer weekend support?

Control panel. For experienced webmasters this is not a problem, but for new users a small business web hosting control panel is a must.

Does the small business web hosting service require long term commitments? Many times you can go month to month with a good web hosting service.

Uptime guarantees. Take a good look at the hosting uptime qualifications.

FTP transfer limits. Few small business web hosts have limits on FTP use to their customers.

There are many aspects to consider when looking for affordable small business web hosting. The time you spend on educating yourself on the different features can be invaluable in choosing the right small business web hosting service for your needs. You will know you have made the right decision for your small business hosting solution.

Author: CY Fok
Provided by: Beading Necklace

When you look at getting web hosting a big mistake can be to look at the price first. This is because many web hosting companies offer an introductory price but don’t make it so cut and dry that the rate is only good for a few months –usually three or so.- The problem with jumping right into one of these web hosting companies that offer you this cut rate deal is that often times you will be accidentally neglecting the number one factor in web hosting; customer service.

We are all guilty of this behavior from time to time. You see a deal and you leap before you look. But in the case of web hosting you have to look at all aspects of the deal not just the price and be sure that the company you are choosing has customer service that is available by phone, that you can call toll free, and that you actually get to talk to a person when you are connected.

Another oversight that can occur when buying on introductory price alone is how much that price jacks up to in the long run. If you go with a service that starts at $1.99 for three months that is wonderful; until they go up to $9.99 a month after that. Take this out for a year and you will pay $95.88. Compare this to a web hosting company that offers service at $6.99 per month where you would pay only $83.88 for a year. What’s more is that you could have sacrificed service and still paid more in the long run.

I know it’s not the natural thing to do, but when you are looking into a web hosting service, price should be the last thing you consider. Look at everything else first and then ponder the price last. Trust me when I say you will thank yourself for doing so.

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Indeed, choosing the right web hosting service for your website is not an easy task especially when there are thousands of web hosting providers all offering almost identical web hosting packages. Therefore, it is important to know few major considerations even before you start your web hosting search. Below are three major criteria for web host seeker:

Web hosting features requirement

This is probably the most important consideration to start finding a host for your site. You need to decide the technical requirements for your website, this including:

a) Server platform and hardware requirements
If you plan to set up a website that uses programming environments such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Visual Basic scripts, Cold Fusion or Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL database, in this case, you will need to find a web hosting service that supports Windows platform such as Windows NT or Windows 2000 servers.

Likewise, if you plan to use programming languages such as Perl, CGI, SSI, PHP or mySQL database, then any web hosting plans that support Unix/Linux platform should be sufficient to meet your hosting requirements. Once you have these server platform and hardware requirements in mind, you can decide the best web hosting plans for your need. For more information, you can read “How to select a web server and server platform?”

b) Disk space & Bandwidth requirement
Here is another technical requirement that you need to consider before selecting a web hosting plan, i.e. disk space and bandwidth. If you intend to publish a website that does not have a lot of contents (meaning, web pages), then the disk space requirement may not be a big concern to you. In general, a disk space with 200MB to 500MB should be enough to meet your hosting requirement. In contrast, if you plan to host a website with enormous amount of graphic pictures, mp3 or video files, then you should consider a web hosting plan that provide huge disk space, for example, 500 MB to 1,000 MB.

Similarly, the bandwidth requirement will depend on your site traffic estimation. Obviously, a website that expect to attract high traffic will consume the monthly bandwidth allowance very fast. If so, you will need to find one web hosting service that offer huge bandwidth with 40 GB to 100 GB per month. Depending upon your website requirement, choosing a web hosting service that provide sufficient amount of disk space and bandwidth is crucial consideration to prevent paying extra costs in the future should you overuse the monthly disk space and bandwidth allowance.

c) Other hosting features
While the above requirements are utmost important, there are other hosting features that you have to consider too. Can web hosting provider support video clips on your website, if you have? Is the web hosting service compatible with Dreamweaver or FrontPage web authoring tool? Do you plan to set up a virtual store online? Can the host support the e-commerce features without adding extra cost to your monthly payments? On top of that, you may also want to find out the number of email accounts provided, number of FTP accounts, web statistic software (analyze your web traffic), type of control panel supported (manage your web hosting account), database and scripting languages supported and etc.

Reliability and scalability

A first-class web hosting provider offers reliable server uptime and fast Internet connection. You should only choose a web hosting service that guarantee at least 99% server uptime with high-speed Internet backbones using at least OC3 (Optical Carrier) lines (155 Megabits per second) or above instead of T1 or T3 lines. A reliable web hosting provider usually invests heavily on their data center infrastructure with high performance servers, high speed multiple backbones providers with fail-over redundancy, backup power generators and firewall software protection in place to ensure they meet the uptime guarantee specified in the terms of service.

Similarly, you should choose a web hosting service with hardware facilities that designed for scalability, so that they can grow with your business. For example, if you need to increase more disk space, bandwidth or number of mySQL databases, you should be able to upgrade as needed without any problems.

Customer service and support

The last major consideration in choosing a web hosting service is to find a web hosting providers that offers excellent customer service and support. You should always search for a web hosting provider that offers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week technical support that fielded with highly experience technicians, so that any web hosting problems will be resolved within a reasonable amount of time. You may also want to consider to test how responsive is their customer support by sending few inquiry emails to the web hosting provider. In general, any response in less than 24 hours is considered acceptable. It is a sign of poor customer support if they take more than one day to response.

In addition, a web hosting provider with excellent support should also provide multiple support channels, such as toll-free phone support, 24/7 email support, live chat, online knowledgebase, Interactive flash tutorials and FAQ.

Above are few major considerations before you choose your web hosting service. In addition, how long has the web hosting provider in business and the number of customers that they currently have are also a good indication of the quality of their hosting products as well as the stability of the company. Even though cost of the web hosting service is also important but it should not be your major consideration. Because the price of a web hosting service has been declining over the years due to competition, as a result, the price of most of the web hosting services offering quality hosting features has been converging to less than US$10 per month. If you can’t afford less than $10 per month, you probably isn’t in the online business for the long haul. Therefore, price should not be a major deciding factor.

On the other hand, it is more important to ensure the web hosting service that you choose is able to meet your website hosting requirements, guarantee your website is always accessible with satisfying speed, provide scalability to grow and expand your website as well as offer excellent customer supports. Depending on your web hosting requirements, you can take advantage of the site, Cheap Web Hosting Review to find the recommended web hosting services that can match the three major criteria above. Good luck to your search.

Andrew is the owner of Web Hosting Services, a website that provides complete and detail reviews on web hosting services. You can visit his website at:http://www.lowest-price-web-hosting.com/

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What is web hosting? Whenever you visit a website, what you see on your web browser is essentially just a web page that is downloaded from the web server onto your web browser. In general, a web site is made up of many web pages. And a web page is basically composed of texts and graphic images. All these web pages need to be stored on the web servers so that online users can visit your website.

Therefore, if you plan to own a new website, you will need to host your website on a web server. When your website goes live on the web server, online users can then browse your website on the Internet. Company that provides the web servers to host your website is called web hosting providers.

A well-established web hosting provider sometimes hosts up to thousands of websites. For example, iPowerWeb is a popular web hosting company that hosts more than 300,000 websites. For that reason, a web hosting company need many web servers (essentially, these are computers) to store the website. And all these web servers are connected to the Internet through high speed Internet connection and housed in a physical building called data center. In order to guarantee all the web servers are safe, secure and fully operational all time, a data center is a physically secure 24/7 environment with fire protection, HVAC temperature control, virus detections, computer data backup, redundant power backup and complete disaster recovery capabilities.

What are the different types of web hosting?
There are different kinds of web hosting companies out there with different characteristics. The main types of web hosts can be organized into the following categories:

Shared Hosting

In shared hosting (also known as virtual web hosting), many websites are sharing the space on the same physical web servers. Depending on the web host, a physical web server can hosts a few hundred to even thousand of different websites at one time. You may wonder if a physical web server is shared by so many websites, will the performance of the web server deteriorate? In fact, web servers are usually equipped with high-end powerful computer, therefore it can support up to a certain number of websites without any problem. But when the web server is overloaded and exceeded the reasonable number of websites that it can support, then you will begin to experience a slower response from the web server.

However, a reputable and experience web hosting provider will constantly monitor the performance of the web server and will add new web servers when deem necessary without sacrificing the benefits of the website owners. Since a physical web server is shared (diskspace, computer processing power, bandwidth, memory) by many websites, the web hosting provider can therefore afford to offer a lower hosting price. For the same reason, websites on the shared hosting would have to accept slower server response time. Typically, shared hosting plans start at $5 – $20 per month.

Dedicated Hosting

In contrast to shared hosting, dedicated hosting assigned a specific web server to be used only by one customer. Since a dedicated web server is allocated to only a single customer, the customer has the option to host single/multiple web sites, modify the software configuration, handle greater site traffic and scale the bandwidth as necessary. Therefore, dedicated hosting commands a higher premium and typically starts at $50 per month and can range up to $200 – $500 per month. As a result, dedicated hosting is regularly used by high traffic and extremely important website.

Co-location hosting

In dedicated hosting, the web server belongs to the web hosting providers and customers only rent the web server during the hosting period. While in co-location hosting, the customer owns the web server hardware and only housed their web server within the web hosting providers secure data center. In this way, the customer has full control over their web server and simultaneously benefit from the 24/7 server monitoring and maintenance provided by the secure data center. Depending on the monthly bandwidth and rack space required, typically co-location hosting range from $500 – $1000 per month.

Reseller hosting

In reseller hosting, a web hosting provider offers web server storage to third-party (i.e. reseller) at a discount price, who then resell the web server storage to their customers. Typically, resellers are web consultants including web designers, web developers, or system integration company who resell the web hosting as a add-on service to complement their other range of services. Commonly, resellers can receive up to 50 percent discount on the price of a hosting account from the web hosting provider. And resellers are allowed to decide its own pricing structure and even establish its own branding (in other words, reseller setup its web hosting company on the Internet and start selling web hosting plans under its brand).

To the resellers customers, the reseller is the web host provider. In cases when technical problems such as server down and access problem arise, the resellers will have to correspond directly with the actual web host provider. Due to the communication process taken place between customer to reseller and from reseller to actual web host provider and back and forth, undoubtedly problems will take longer time to resolve. Unless you are running your own personal website or non-profit website and willing to take the risks of poor support from the reseller, reseller hosting is generally not a good option.

However, the web hosting market today is filled with resellers that sell lowest price web hosting plans. So, how do you tell between a genuine web hosting provider from a reseller? You dont judge by the availability of toll-free number alone because some web hosting providers even offer their resellers with their own toll-free number for co-branded technical support. When the resellers customer calls the number for technical support, the web host uses the resellers name so the customer thinks that the support is coming from the reseller directly. Likewise, dont be fooled by the professional designed website alone because it is extremely easy to create a professional looked business website nowadays.

In general, resellers can be distinguished from their hosting price and company information. In most cases, a genuine web hosting provider has solid company information such as iPowerWeb.com where they publish its financial background, offices and data centers. In contrast, resellers usually do not have solid company background (here is just an example out of thousands out there). Moreover, the hosting price by resellers is generally below $5 per month. So, why settle for resellers when you can find genuine web hosting providers offering superb quality web hosting at the hosting price ranging between $7 – $10.

Therefore, you should not strive to find the cheap web hosting companies without first considering the quality of the service and support provided. Dont expect to find any top-level support if you choose to pay only $2 or $3 per months for your web hosting plan. On the other hand, by paying just slightly more for your hosting plan, you can now discover a list of low cost yet high quality web hosting plans to host your important website. Look at our high quality and cheap web hosting review and recommendation at http://www.lowest-price-web-hosting.com/top5.shtml

Andrew is the owner of Affordable Web Hosting, a website that provide complete and detailed review of cheap web hosting reviews. Visit his website at: http://www.lowest-price-web-hosting.com

Author: Andrew Webb
Article Source: EzineArticles.com