Aug 10
22
Web Hosting Options Explained
The terminology used in web hosting can often be confusing for the person not conversant with the current buzzwords. What follows is a basic breakdown of types of hosting types and the differences between them. No type is essentially better than any other type but each fits different needs and levels of growth.
One very common type of hosting is the free or community host. The good point to this type is that they do not charge and they usually provide simple tools to put a website up quickly. Individuals who want a personal site might find this ideal. Normally though, a business will find that free hosting allows little freedom and also serves advertisements.
Community hosting or free sites are not usually favored for businesses because they tend to limit growth. Sometimes a new business person will built traffic to a site and then find they have to move because they have outgrown the server package, in that case moving the entire site may be difficult or impossible. In addition these sites will normally insert advertisements in the web page to defray their costs, this can have a negative impact on sales.
Shared hosting is a very common place for a website to start. The site shares a server with many other sites. Each customer is allotted a specific amount of real estate and available resources. These packages usually offer a control panel, FTP access, emails and other features that make life simpler for the business owner.
While the shared hosting plan is an excellent way to begin many online businesses most will begin to outgrow this plan soon and begin to require more server resources and space to continue growing. Some hosts may offer to help the site owner move their site to a larger package such as a virtual dedicated or dedicated server.
Many consider the virtual private server or virtual dedicated package the next step up from shared hosting. Several users will normally share one machine but the allotted space is greater as is the bandwidth and the server resources are split among fewer users. Each of the virtual dedicated servers will have their own databases for the site user, the control panel and control over most aspects of server configuration including adding new domains.
Although the virtual dedicated server gives the site owner a greater share of server resources and a large amount of freedom, it is still shared with others. This means if one site draws more than their share of server resources then it can cause the others to slow down as well. These hosting choices are most often used for intermediate level sites and there is still the danger of outgrowing it quickly.
Finally is the dedicated server option, which means that the website is on its own machine, which it shares with no one. In that case, there is little or no worry about bringing down the server for other users or having a site suspended for using too many resources. However many servers are unmanaged that means that the site owner must take care of the software upgrades and other configurations. The ideal server would be the managed dedicated plan. The managed dedicated server leaves the website owner free to focus on what they do best and that is marketing and the management of the server is handled by the web hosting company.
Locating web hosting companies is not difficult if you understand where to look. The features of HostMonster make it an effective and economical choice for your Internet business.
