Web Hosting

You must have worked very hard in creating your website, so don’t let the work go in vain by adopting half-hearted efforts in getting the website online. You have three options to choose from in this regard. First, you can host the site directly on your computer, second is hosting it on a server, and the third option is to get a third-party host it. The first two alternatives are mostly used in practice and are good for people with a fast internet connection, and even for sites that are inclined towards businesses. Monitoring regularly is required for the maintenance of the web server in this case.

So the easiest alternative would be to use a web-hosting company. They are designed to put up your site using their server while you could access it via FTP to upload your files on the site. Web-hosting is of three types- free, paid and dedicated. Dedicated hosting is the costliest option available and is suitable only for sites that entail such attention. Your website is hosted by the company on their own server with their connection.

It is often found that people are inquisitive about the need or role of paid web-hosting as there is the option of getting this service free.

Then comes the two other options - free web hosting and paid web hosting. It is very normal if a question comes into your mind as to why anyone would pay for a service which he can get for free. There are many advantages which accrue to a paid web hosting.

Some free hosts do not place their banner on your website, yet in most cases the services are not good enough. Some free web hosts have brilliant features but the tech-support is unreliable! For a small site, or if you are just venturing into this field go for a free web-host in the initial stages.

As far as the free web-hosting is concerned, they lack in the aspect of reliability notwithstanding having some brilliant features. Honestly speaking, their service is not up to the mark, although, there are some free hosts who do not put their banner on your website. You can consider these options if you have a small site or you are a beginner in this field. The web-hosts provide you with certain features and a list of such features is given below. This is not certainly an extensive list. Let me put it in this manner that in order to get your site hosted, you are expected to know about certain terms.

URL/ Address- If you have a domain name, it’s all right. Otherwise, you are in need of having a URL address. This is very important.

Space- as a web page most sites require very little space, and 5MB is adequate for a small site, which will take over a hundred pages. Most of the times graphics take up about 35KB of space, but if it is a graphics intensive site, or one featuring downloads, then you will need around 15-20MB. Unlimited space though offered by many web-hosts is not required as such.

Bandwidth/ transfer- this is a monthly affair, and accounts for the total number of files transferred from your site in a month. The best option being unlimited bandwidth. You need no less than 1GB per month for average sites.

CGI-BIN- This is of paramount significance as far as your dealing with interactive scripts like guest-books, counters is concerned. It provides you with the facility of remote hosting also bearing the banners from the site that live up to the task of presenting them.

SSI- It points towards a feature of special function. What it adds to your facility is that it lets you employ a plan of prompting your server to put something on your page. It can be either simple text or CGI generated code or anything like this.

MySQL/ASP/PHP Support: These are basically database formats which help you maintain database on your website. ASP’s normally generate key sites.

Technical Assistance- As mentioned earlier, a paid host can endow you with better technical support than a free host and your site is in a great need of this. This technical assistance can be had through either e-mail, phone or fax.

E- mail- It is always wise to have a POP3 mail service as it lets you receive any message from your web-host before they send it to you. Actually, it is very common to have such mails provided you have a domain name.

FrontPage Extensions: These extensions are required only if you use the facility of Microsoft FrontPage for construction of your website. Also, the FrontPage components can be added to your website as well.

SSL/Secure Server- this is essential to ensure secure ordering facilities on your web-site.

Statistics/ Log Files- this section provides you with information about your users, like what files have been downloaded and which of the pages have been accessed.

FTP Accounts: Users get the option of downloading files by logging into an area of your website with anonymous FTP. Basically, File Transfer Protocol [FTP] allows you to upload files on your server.

Some Information About Paid Hosting: If you agree to spend some money in order to have an ad-free hosting and satisfactory technical support, it is possible to upgrade a free hosting. So, find out a better web-hosting and it cuts down the charge making it $5 to $75 per month (it is $150 per month with dedicated servers).

However, if you are opting for paid web host services, then you must ask them about a list of all the websites which they host. By doing this, you can contact webmasters of those sites and get first-hand information about the web host. Also, enquire about the technical support, since this is a very important factor as far as paid web hosts go.

Thoroughly read the terms and conditions outlined by them. Some of the free web hosts claim to own the copyrights of our webpage which restricts you from publicizing your own website. So take care of all these issues before you sign the agreement and pay hem the amount.

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