Hosting Unmasked

If you have made a decision to build your very own website, but are not quite certain about what a website is and are not familiar with the phrase "hosting", this article is devoted to explaining these concepts in plain language.

What exactly is a website?

A website is a collection of webpages gathered systematically. It has a special address, also called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). A web site may have only one webpage and sometimes may even have as many as one thousand web pages.

What is a web hosting server?

A hosting server permits you to upload your website onto it. In some cases, there might be even 1000's of websites on one single web hosting server. The web hosting server basically is a computer with special hardware, which is situated in a datacenter with special cooling systems, whose mission is to safeguard the seamless performance of the hosting server and all the websites accommodated on it.

In brief, a hosting server will be truly a launch pad when the time comes for you to launch your website. It could be any kind of web site - a corporate site consisting of many web pages, or a site, which includes only a couple of webpages and which you have set up simply for your chums and family members.

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

Once you have made a decision about what kind of site you wish to build, the next step is to find out what kind of web hosting service you have to pick for your Internet endeavor. Essentially, there are two kinds of hosting services - free-of-cost website hosting services and professional paid web hosting services. The free-of-cost hosting solution is ordinarily utilized by persons that do not possess a business-related site.

Positive and negative sides of the free-of-cost hosting solution

You will not get many options with a cost-free hosting plan. Features like web traffic, memory and hosting server disk drive storage space are restricted and inadequate for an elaborate e-commerce web site or a corporate site, or even for a web site with lots of graphics. Also, there are lots of banner advertisements placed on your site by the web hosting accounts provider. These ads occupy plenty of space on your site and are pretty embarrassing.

Shared website hosting

The paid shared website hosting services tend to be more reliable and offer many powerful features beside the high-quality server that will accommodate your website and its content. However, it is essential to know which features your web site needs before choosing your web hosting plan. You should not rush and wind up buying something that your site does not require.

Choose your web hosting supplier

It is easy to find a hosting provider. You have to just carry out an online survey in order to find a web hosting company that satisfies your website's needs. Before you make your actual decision, check the specs of the hosting plans supplied by the web hosting suppliers that have caught your interest. We, for example, are among the top web hosting service providers on the market these days. The immense range of hosting solutions and our prices are what renders us an enthralling option. Nevertheless, you must determine what kind of hosting service you need and if the price suits your budget. Moreover, you must not forget to examine the web hosting provider's ToS before registering to confirm that your website is not abusing them.

Signing up for a website hosting account

As soon as you have determined what features are most important for your website, the next move is to sign up for an account with the web hosting accounts provider of your choosing. You will be bestowed with all the needed tools for administering your files and databases. With us, for example, you will acquire a web hosting Control Panel, which consists of domain, website, database and email box account management sections. You log into the Control Panel using a unique user name and password, which grants you secure access to the part of the hosting server where your website will be located.

Uploading your website

You can either upload your files via an FTP program or, as is with most web hosting distributors, through a web-based tool that is integrated within the web hosting Control Panel. With us, the File Manager is extremely user-friendly and offers features comparable to those encountered in Windows Explorer, which makes file management very easy. We offer additionally a web site builder and a PHP-driven script installation tool, which you can use to build your website if you have no programming experience and are taking your first steps in web design. The web-based web site builder, called SiteStudio, will also save you the time and effort of creating a web site on your PC and then uploading it through an FTP software program or the File Manager interface.