Web Hosting

After having designed your website and having purchased the web domain, its time for you to purchase a web hosting service that fits your need, from a professional web hosting company. A web hosting Service Company does the work of hosting your website on its servers. The web hosting Service Company can host many more websites with different domain names and IP addresses and at the same time it will also host your website efficiently. In return of the web hosting service, you will have to pay a fee amount on a monthly basis. The amount of fee depends upon the extra services that you take towards your web hosting plan. For example: Besides the standard web hosting package, if you go for a large amount of bandwidth and big disk space, then in that case you will have to pay more for the service.

 

There are many types of web hosting plans, such as : Affordable web hosting, cheap web hosting, ASP web hosting, Budget Hosting, Dedicated servers, eCommerce Hosting, Front Page Web Hosting, PHP web Hosting, Unix / Linux Hosting and so on . A novice webmaster is likely to get confused by various types of web hosting plans. There are certain things to look at, while choosing a web hosting plan. You might require choosing a web hosting plan for a hobby site, a small business site or for a high traffic eCommerce website. Whatever may be the reason, all web hosting plans and terminologies can be classified on the basis of cost, programming languages, operation systems, web servers and functionality. You need to be aware and should understand each of the above mentioned factors, before you decide to purchase the desired web hosting service:

 

1) Web hosting cost:

You must compare the cost of web hosting services with others. Although cost of web hosting is the first thing that you should think of, yet you must take the quality and service into consideration. You cannot directly purchase a web hosting plan just because it is cheap. You need to consider other factors too.



2) Consider the required programming languages :

While choosing a web hosting plan, you must ensure that the web hosting service provider supports the programming languages of your choice. Some of the common web development languages include PHP, ASP, JSP and PERL. Also, be aware of the web hosting plans that support programming languages such as PHP web hosting, ASP web hosting, JSP web hosting or PERL web hosting. Mostly, every web hosting service providers support PHP / MYSQL but very few support ASP or JSP.

 

3) Be concerned about the operating systems:

After having selected the programming language for your web development, you can then decide upon the operating system that hosts your websites. One should be aware that ASP works only on Microsoft Windows. On the other hand, PHP, JSP and PERL are the programming languages which work on windows, UNIX and Linux web hosting.

 

 

 

4) Be aware of the servers:

Most of the webs hosting service providers do consider “Apache” as widely supported web server. This type of server has the ability to rewrite in order to make dynamic URL look like static URL or SEO friendly.

 

5) Check the service performance:

A webmaster should always check upon the performance of the concerned server. There are dedicated servers or virtual Private servers and one has to choose the required type of servers depending upon the type of website. For example : If you have a website that deal with heavy audio / video files or require frequent installation of customized software package, then in that case, one needs to have a dedicated server.

 

6) Online secured support:

Those websites which accept online payments need to have a secure connection (HTTPS). It also needs to have a digital certification in order to have a safe online transaction.

In terms of price, one can find two types of hosting in the market:

1. Paid web hosting and

2. Free web hosting.

Several people run away from free hosting thinking it nothing but making fool of one.

However, it can have its own advantages.

It relies on the use and place of the user.

Why use (purpose)?

When one talk about a commercially meant website, for e.g. an Ecommerce web-store, dependability and uptime is must. As it is well said, downtime for second, high amount revenue in crater. However, some free web hosting assures providers warranty of uptime, still one cannot make them liable if they fail to reach as per user’s requirements. Now one will ask why? Since their clause mention lack of uptime guarantee due to free of cost service. As mentioned above, along with a crucial business website one cannot commit suicide by relying on a free web hosting.

Though, there are several user’s trying something outstanding or different from others on their websites, not assured with positive output. For them free web hosting is the best choice as it does not involve any gamble with currency and both parties can prevent themselves from any unanticipated damage. Each person learns from experiences and what can be the best way to learn as compare to it? One can see free hosting plans as supreme platform for optimistic webmasters to launch themselves to a new helpful scenario. Certainly, it is not free in the real sense, they ask something in return i.e. visiting sponsors, exhibiting ads on hosted pages, reading emails, and not long, sharing in online communities of the free web-host. This final alternative cannot say to be a worse thing as online communities permit several users to interact and discover something new from one another.

At the other hand, there are several users who heir free web hosting for a personal site as they do not think there is any use to denote time and payment for it. Still one can find few free web hosts in the market offering free service for nothing just to deal with. Thus, an apparent objective for going for a free web hosting is quite imperative. If the objective is sensitive and no excuse to problematic situations, then one should not recommend free web hosting. Except that, free web hosting cannot consider as bad.

Why position of the user?

In the present scenario, one can afford Web hosting plans in a reasonable way (some even for $1 a month). Thus, charges are not a big issue regarding web hosting for the people having high standard of living, reserve revenue can be a good option for the people to groom their web site. Further, working people can use a Paypal account as a source of payment. If one talks about students and young people they do not have much revenue to spend. For them, free web hosting plans can be the last and best alternative.

Hence, one cannot consider free web hosting a worse thing as people of some specific category can utilize it to fulfill their goals. So for the students and people trying to learn new things and gaining new experience can select, free web hosting as the best alternative.

Some of us have a very clear picture of what we want. Others simply can’t come up with good ideas. No matter which category you fit into there is a plan suited to your unique business and its website.

There are free websites on offer all over the internet but these are not suitable for an ecommerce site. Even personal or family sites find these free sites annoying because they are obliged to have pop ups advertising other websites. Obviously these free sites are not going to win you any customers. Your free web hosting plan should be discussed with a reputable provider. Your site may need a lot of features. If your customers use their credit cards online to purchase your products then your site must also be secure. Even if you don’t know anything about setting up a site your provider will talk you through the process.

Your provider should also have the expertise to help you put together a plan that will cover all basic as well as advanced and extra requirements. Site owners want their site to be unique. The last thing they want is to appear as if they’ve copied another site. It’s okay to use certain elements from other sites but the overall look and design must be unique. This is why a provider must produce creative thoughts as well as technological savvy. Your provider is responsible for making sure your website hosting plan is carried out exactly as agreed.

Never forget – a well maintained site is the result of a good website hosting plan. If you want to impress internet browsers enough to become paying customers then your site must function properly. A site that is always down and if downloading is slow, this is a bad reflection on your business. Customers want to see a site that is good to look at. They want to find answers quickly and know who you are. If you offer a download they don’t want it to take forever. Make sure you discuss these factors with your provider so that it becomes part of your website hosting plan.

Frankly speaking, one cannot imagine proper web presence without web hosting. However, finding an ideal host is not a simple task. The concept of hosting is quite complicated for the beginners. There are several questions, which come to one’s mind like do one, requires one gigabyte of bandwidth, web hosting with one IP, unlimited databases or a free domain name. From the above all questions it is quite clear that its not so easy to understand what are the things one should consider while searching for a suitable web host company.

Talking about the business of web hosting companies, they are extremely profitable if they are popular, they have high start-up costs, but over time their general overheads dramatically reduce (proportionally). Thus it is clear that in order to get good business, web-hosting companies also have to do a lot. Example they need secure fire resistance premises, equipment, support staff and much more in order to get success in this business.

Just the once a hosting company set up they turn down their prices as per web hosting account. While purchasing a hosting server from a chief hosting company, they just adjoin a computer to their present network to provide the service. Then user needs to pay around $150-$200 a month for the maintenance of that dedicated web hosting server. Quite reasonable amount isn’t it!

Necessities of user regarding web hosting:

First of all, user should know what are his/her requirements regarding web hosting, is 400 GB of bandwidth (transfer) is essential to complete a month? There are several sites, which requires only 2 GB of bandwidth a month. Other than bandwidth, Database is another contentious issue, as even on existing on the same server several companies charges additional amount from the users. One should measure his/her requirements before coming to any of the decision. If the user is planning to use certain scripts and software’s then his/her requirements should match them.

A user may find restrictions regarding mailboxes while dealing with several hosts. Several people start surfing the net with the purpose of offering email boxes to their relatives and staff.

Understood hosting requirements, what next?

Next to that one should search out the list of prospective web hosting companies via. Information sites.

Adequate listing:

It is quite usual that companies which are making profit via. Web hosting services will definitely advertise on Internet. More successful one will have more budgets to be spending on advertisement. Thus, through search engines one can conclude about a thriving web hosting company.

Short-listing of companies:

While short listing the user should look around each site and should evaluate their features and drawbacks. Companies lagging behind in communication and customer support definitely cannot be a right choice. It doesn’t matter user is a beginner or an experienced one he/she will definitely require customer support in the life one time or the other. Dealing with companies having such drawbacks will adversely affect the user.

Inside information:

After short listing an ideal list the user should investigate about them through forums and Webmaster communities. Through this user can discover hidden facts whether positive or negative. This is because any person who had an experience rather extremely good or bad will share it with other people online.

An ultimate choice:

After all the short listing there will be around two to three potential web hosting companies possessing an impressive track record. One can select the ideal choice by measuring features and charges of each one of them and match it up with his/her necessities.

Hence, if the user possesses a winning idea and effective strategy then a mega server will not be the only criterion to begin with, rather one can achieve heights even through a small but stable object. After that when the user begin to have a good source of revenue then he/she can even upgrade the web hosting account without countering any sort of downtime. If a user is receiving web-hosting account for $19.99 per month there is nothing use of going for a mega web hosting account. Via this user will not only save some money but can also invest it in marketing or in any other development purposes.

If you have your domain name then it would be time to look for your web hosting service provider. If you intend to get a hosting plan which is Linux-based, then make sure that you would have these important elements included in the plan that you would be getting.

1. Control Panel

This would be your website’s nucleus. In the CP or Control Panel, you would be able to do anything. From the moment that you would be signing up with a hosting plan, you have to be provided with a CP so that you would be able to easily manage your website.

2. POP3 email IDs and Aliases

An example of a POP3 ID would be name@domain.com. You should be given an ample number of POP3 email IDs – this would depend on the size of your package.

3. FTP Accounts a& Virtual FTP

This would be what you could use to be able to upload all of your files, as well as delete and update them.

4. Backup

Majority of the web hosts use automated backups. However, users usually do not care a great deal about this when they choose their hosting plan. This would be a feature that is just as essential as the other features mentioned here.

5. Web Statistics

The analysis of the visitors of your website plays a big role in your website’s success. With a Statistics Application which runs on the backend of the server, you would be able to view this report of visitor statistics.

6. Bandwidth

Make sure that you would be selecting the hosting plan which would be able to provide sufficient bandwidth.

7. PHP and MySQL Support

All of the Linux hosting plans can support MySQL and PHP. Verify if you would be getting these features for free as you purchase your hosting package.

8. Webmail and SMTP

Check if your host would be providing you with webmail so that you would be able to check your email messages using an interface which is web-based.

9. Spam Filters

These would be necessary so that you would be protected from any kind of spam attack. These should be installed on your website’s server.

10. IP

If you have a website which would be requiring SSL Support in the future, then you need to get a dedicated IP.

1.Goodwill of the web hosting company.

There are web-hosting companies on the web, which are running successfully for at least 2 years and are usually handled by experience and IT savvy network engineers. The biggest advantage of such companies is their perfect support and services to their customers. However there is yet another world of hosting which is handled by amateurs who are into this business just to extract money. For them providing support is just a joke as even they don’t know the fundamentals of the business. Thus one must be very sure to check the credentials of the web-hosting firm by either reading their profile or by looking on the technology they use for their server farm. One must make sure to select a company, which is in existence for at least 2 years with successful track record with 95% up time for all its servers. If a company is providing 95% its quite enough as 100% is just impossible.

2. Availability of storage space.

There are web-hosting companies offering space ranging from as small as 20 MB to as big as 2GB or even more. But this largely depends upon the user. One must make sure that his/her budget should not get fail by asking for unnecessary space than required. This trend is quite common among beginners, as they are unable to estimate the amount of space their web site requires and so asks for bigger space in order to play safe which is mere wastage of money. Thus one should be very careful while selecting the storage space for his/her website. It should not be less than required but at the same time should not be very much wasting money.

3. Availability of bandwidth space for transferring data each month

Its always required to transfer data to website and update its content often in order to stay afresh and also to keep ratings high up on the search engines right. There are several web hosting companies offering a certain bandwidth or “transfer window” to enable their clients to transport their data from local computer hard disk drive to the web server. But this transfer window has a limitation of limited space in order to prevent the bandwidth overloading from user’s repeatedly transferring large amounts of data to and fro. Therefore a bandwidth space is allocated to enable one to manage the amount data he/she wants to transfer each month into the storage space allocated. One should note that the data that one transfers is constantly kept track of until one has reach the transfer limit for that month. Now on this ground most web hosting companies tend to be mean so as to provide so called “high speed data transfer” to their clients and restrict bandwidth off at 1GB.

4. Support-Online as well as offline.

Support is an area often overlooked by the beginners while signing up for a web-hosting contract. However it should be noted that support is the most important feature one should check while selecting a web hosting company. It is very important for 24 hour successful running of a website that there is always any technical fellow from the hosting company to answer the calls and ensure the website staying up and running even at odd time. Thus it is important to have 24 hours support everyday of the week and also relevant safety measures implemented in the data center at which one’s server resides. Not only this it is also important to find out more about the location of the data center about the power supply facilities, its location and also the safety measures that have been put in place such as fire protection and relevant data backup facilities to a remote location as a safety should a physical destruction occur that literally wipes out the whole data center.