What is Hosting?

Most of them realize the importance of a good content. They hire a good web-developer to create a beautiful website or sometimes develop it themselves. But once it is done they think rest of the things don't really matter. This is not true. The actual business starts then. You will need to choose a good hosting provider to get your website online. Hosting provider are basically those who provide a space for your website on their server, so that it can work online.  They are responsible for your web services like file management and server space because it is practically impossible for everyone owning a website to have their own servers, since all can't afford one. Constant working of the server is very important for an undisturbed business, since the downtime can cause you loss of traffic and decreased page ranking. There are different types of hosting meant for different requirements.

There are too many hosting providers promising 100% uptime and cheaper prices. But not all keep up their promise. If you are a newbie for webhosting, you may end up choosing a service where you will later have to compromise with lot of things. Not all services suit all the websites. So depending on the type of your website, you will need to choose a hosting type and a provider. What exactly you are willing to do with your website matters when you choose a provider. To decide what exact type of hosting you need, it is important to know the types of available hosting.

Types of Website Hosting based on server type.

Shared Website Hosting

Shared hosting, a single server is shared by multiple websites. A shared server allows a user to get hosting space to store their files online, so that others can access them online.

Dedicated Website Hosting

In Dedicated web hosting, a web server is entirely devoted to your site. You may purchase your own server or pay for access to a server owned by someone else.

Virtual Private Server Website Hosting

A virtual private server, like the name says is a server shared by multiple users. However, each is maintained separately. This type of hosting is something of a combination of dedicated hosting and shared hosting.

Types of hosting based on Operating System

UNIX Hosting

The hosting means your website will be running on the UNIX operating system. This is the first and knows to be most reliable operating systems for the servers.

Windows Hosting

The hosting means your website will be running on the WINDOWS operating system. This is the service to choose if you are using ASP for server scripting and if you want to use databases like MicroSoft Access or MicroSoft SQL.

Free Web Hosting

Why Free Web Hosting? Is it actually free?

As the name suggests, free web hosting is a non-paid web hosting service. There are many web hosting providers who provide tools and interface to create an account which is absolutely free and those sites can be accessed via sub domains which they provide for that particular account.  If you wish to access the website with your own domain name then you need to register your own domain name.

Apart from these fully free hosting providers, there are also some providers who provide certain services free of cost with some paid services.

How a Free Web Hosting works? Why would one provide services for free?

The single and ofcourse biggest benefit of such hosting is that it is free of cost. Well you might be amazed why on the earth are they providing a free service. What kind of business is theirs? Are there any hidden charges which would come up later once the website is set up and in a point where you cannot refuse to pay, since all the effort to create that website would go vain.  No, that’s not true here. 

These services are absolutely free.  Features and resources are limited ofcourse. These type of companies let you create sites with them and later place various kind of ads on your sites which is their source of income here.  Some of them might share the revenue earned with you and some may not. It all depends of the individual providers. You need to make sure what type of service do you want before you sign up. Some providers may provide partial control on such ads like to move them in any corner of the page, re arrange the colors, fonts and sizes etc. But unlike paid hosting services, you will not have full control over your website.

Such service is suitable for the sites are just for sharing public information where security is not a concern and the sites are shared with only limited people and has limited traffic.

There are some providers who provide free service which can be upgraded later. You can use such service when you are experimenting with some ideas. If your idea gets successful, you can upgrade later for obtaining more resources and features. 

• Some of the major differences between free and a paid web hosting services which will give you a better understanding about what is free web hosting service and whether it’s worth to opt for such free hosting for websites?
•  Advertisements on your website are controlled fully or partially by the web hosting company that provides you with the free web hosting. It might be any type of ads like pop-ups, banners, pop-under or any other advertisement on your site on which you do not have control.  Also, the revenue earned is owned by the provider, or they might give only some percentage of the revenue earned through your site. But, in paid web hosting, you have full control over your website. They will not be able to place any ads and even if you place any ads, you will be the sole owner of the revenue generated and you need not share it with anyone. 
• There won’t be customer service. 
•  Limited Bandwidth and disk usage which can be reason for frequent downtime. 
• Most importantly, Limited security: Such accounts a much vulnerable to hackers and other fraudsters since the security limited. 
•  Low bandwidth and lesser data transfer capacity makes free website hosting vulnerable to greater downtime whereas paid website hosting gives you optimum bandwidth and data transfer for maximum uptime.

If you want to have a site for which security is not a major concern, can be managed with limited resources and if you do not intend to earn any revenue from it, then free hosting is the right option for you.

Dedicated Hosting

What is a Dedicated Webhosting? 
 

When you purchase a dedicated hosting an entire server is dedicated to serve your single account. This is why it is called dedicated web hosting. You may purchase your own server or rent a server paying to the server owner just like you pay for any other hosting accounts. If you own a server and have it stored in someone else's facility, it is known as collocation hosting. In any of this type of dedicated hosting, the use and administration of the server will be in your control, since the server is dedicated to your site alone. This enables all the aspects to be manageable. So a dedicated hosting is best suited for a website which requires lot of server space and bandwidth also when you want to create a large site for company with lot of technical resources.

Since this type of hosting is bit expensive compared to the others, you may also need strong financial resource. Because of the same reason, this may not be suggestible for small and medium companies. Other than this reason, there are plenty of other reasons because of which smaller companies may not prefer this hosting like maintaining such hosting needs higher technical skills. Hence, people new to this field definitely shouldn't go for this type.

Pros:

• Suitable for websites with higher traffic.
• You can have multiple domain names.
• Efficient email solutions.
• Efficient database support.
• Strong software support.

Cons:

• Comparatively expensive.
• One needs to have better technical skills to be able to maintain such a hosting account.

Shared Hosting

What is Shared Website Hosting?

When multiple websites are hosted on the same web server, it is Shared hosting. It is called virtual hosting. This is most basic and simple type of hosting. This is suitable for personal, hobby or small business websites. When you purchase a shared hosting, you are provided with the space for storing your files online on the server which is shared by multiple users just like you.  Saving files online will enable you and other internet users to access your website files online.  This is most affordable and suitable for small business and also medium businesses. Most of the shared hosting services provide unlimited diskspace and bandwidth, though most of the website user do not use large amount of diskspace and bandwidth, only few users use the entire amount provided.

Since an efficient server is shared by all the hosting accounts, there is reliability of a good server at exceptionally lower price compared to having your own servers. Shared hosting is an appropriate choice for many users, but not right for everyone. Those with high end technical requirements and want to control the entire server and website, you may need other hosting than a shared hosting. Additionally, if you have a large and extremely active site, you may need more server resources than shared hosting provides.

Pros:

• Low cost
• Suitable for small business and websites with an average traffic.
• Multiple software options.
• Own Domain name.
• Good Support.

Cons:

• Comparatively less security since many sites are hosted on one server.
• Restrictions on traffic volumes.
• Restricted database support.
• Restricted software support.

Virtual Private Server

What is Virtual Private Server Website Hosting?

Virtual Private Sever or VPS hosting is combination of both dedicated and shared hosting.  Here a part of a server is dedicated to a single website. The server will be shared by many sites, but one part of the server will be assigned to each site on that server. This makes it a combination of both dedicated and shared server. Even there is an entire server dedicated to a single site, there is a part of server which is entirely dedicated to that particular site. Even though there is lot more flexibility and control in this type when compared to shared hosting and it is definitely less cost effective compared to dedicated hosting, there might be certain complications. Limitations by the service provider may often be confusing. Hence, it is necessary to choose one which has the features best suited for your site.   

Pros:

•  It is definitely more cost-effective than dedicated hosting.
•  It is easy to modify and upgrade the virtual servers.
•  VPS gives access to the server and enable to control few sever function.
•  Better performance and control compared shared in a price much lesser than dedicated.
• Powerful database support.
•  Software of your choice can be installed.

   Cons:

•  Users share software components.
• Much expensive compared to shared hosting.