Hosting Defined

If you have made a decision to make your own web site, but are not very sure about what a web site is and are not aware of the phrase "hosting", this article is devoted to clarifying these notions in simple words.

What exactly is a website?

A web site is a collection of webpages brought together systematically. It has a special web site address, also called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). A web site may be comprised of just one web page and sometimes may even consist of as many as one thousand pages.

What is a web hosting server?

A web hosting server enables you to upload your web site onto it. In some cases, there might be even 1000's of websites on a single web hosting server. The hosting server basically is a computer with specific hardware, which is placed in a datacenter facility with special cooling systems, whose mission is to ensure the seamless performance of the web hosting server and all the websites hosted on it.

To sum up, a web hosting server will be really a launching pad when the time arrives for you to launch your site. It could be any type of web site - a business web site containing multiple web pages, or a website, which consists of just a couple of webpages and which you have built just for your acquaintances and relatives.

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

As soon as you have decided what type of site you want to build, the next step is to discover what kind of web hosting service you must choose for your Internet adventure. Essentially, there are two sorts of website hosting services - free website hosting services and paid hosting services. The free-of-charge hosting solution is ordinarily utilized by customers that do not possess a business-related site.

Upsides and downsides of the charge-free website hosting solution

You will not get lots of options with a cost-free website hosting package. Features such as traffic, RAM memory and hosting space are limited and insufficient for a complex e-store or a business web site, or even for a website with a lot of artwork. What's more, there are a lot of commercials incorporated in your site by the hosting vendor. These adverts take up lots of space on your website and are rather embarrassing.

Shared hosting

The professional paid shared hosting services are more reliable and offer a lot of sophisticated features beside the high-quality hosting server that will accommodate your site and its data. Nonetheless, it is important to find out which features your site demands before buying your web hosting plan. You should not rush and wind up buying something that your web site does not need.

Choose your hosting solutions provider

It is not hard to find a web hosting supplier. You need to simply conduct an online search in order to find a web hosting solutions provider that satisfies your web site's needs. Before you take your actual decision, have a glimpse at the specifications of the web hosting plans supplied by the hosting distributors that have caught your interest. We, for example, are among the premier website hosting providers on the market now. The extensive selection of web hosting services and our prices are what makes us an appealing choice. Nonetheless, you must determine what sort of hosting service you require and if the price fits your budget. Also, you must always remember to go through the provider's ToS before opening an account to verify that your website is not abusing them.

Signing up for a website hosting account

Once you have determined what features are optimal for your site, the next step is to open an account with the hosting services provider of your choosing. You will get all the necessary tools for managing your files and databases. With us, for instance, you will acquire a web hosting Control Panel, which comprises domain, website, database and mail account management sections. You log in the Control Panel using your unique username and password, which gives you safe access to the portion of the server where your site will be located.

Uploading your site

You can either upload your web site files through an FTP software program or, as is with most web hosting service providers, through a web-based tool that is integrated within the hosting Control Panel. With us, the File Manager is rather user-friendly and offers features comparable to those observed in Windows Explorer, which makes file management extremely easy. We offer also a web site builder and a PHP-based script installation tool, which you can use to develop your web site if you possess no programming abilities and are taking your very first steps in web design. The web-based site builder, whose name is SiteStudio, will also spare you the time and effort of making a web site on your computer and then uploading it using an FTP client or the File Manager interface.