Welcome to the web world – domain names, web hosting, dedicated servers, dedicated IP address, ssl certificates. These words may be quite confusing to you if you are new to getting a website running. What are the main ingredients a web site absolutely needs to be up and running. For any basic site there are two main essential requirements – domain name registration and web site hosting. Basically your name like “yahoo.com” and a place to keep your files that your visitor will see.

Domain names are just an easy way for visitors to remember your site and type it into their browser. What about the web hosting aspect of it? Well let’s explain what you are doing when you purchase web hosting. Web Hosting is like a container for your web files. Files for your web site could be code or multimedia files, such as HTML, CSS or Flash. Your web site requires a server for web hosting, that is essentially a computer configured to show your web pages. In essence a web hosting package is a service provided by a Company that allows anybody with access to the internet the ability to view your web site files.

Now that we understand what web hosting actually is, when you look to buy web hosting what do all these features mean? For smaller sites, you will be mainly looking at two main features – disk space and bandwidth. The former translates to the file size you are allowed to keep on the actual web server. Bandwidth means how much data your server can transfer to your web site visitors in a given time. When your web site grows and needs more advanced features like a Content Management System, your next steps are to check into features for language support and database support. The programming language the site was coded in will help you choose the language support required, while the storage container for your web data is placed in a database.

In conclusion, web hosting is a server that displays your code and visual files to users of your site. Depending on the nature of your site, you will then need to consider package features such as disk space, bandwidth, language support and database support.