The internet is powered by websites and at last count there were at least 1 billion websites containing a staggering 4.68 billion webpages. The content on these websites includes the entire gamut of media from text, to audio and video. All this content needs a home and hence the need for storage space to store all this content. Hence web hosting, which is an internet hosting service that allows you to store all the above aforementioned content and make it accessible to the rest of the world via a Uniform Resource Locator, URL.
There are various types of web hosting services available and your choice is dependent largely on your requirements and the costs thereof. These services begin from free hosting where your website is hosted as a subdomain of a top level domain such as on Blogger or WordPress, or self-hosting where you host your website on your local machine. The higher levels include shared hosting, which is the medium level, to Dedicated Hosting and Virtual Private Networks, the top of the pack, which is not only the fastest option but the most expensive.Let us quickly look at the factors that influence the type of hosting that you choose:
• Cost– It goes without saying that the greatest limiting factor that determines the type of hosting that you sign up to is the cost. It follows that the lower the cash you throw at your website the lesser the space and speeds that you will get for your website, and the more the money the more space and speeds you will get for your website.
• Space – Next tocost is the issue of space that you will need in order to store your documents on the internet. A general rule of thumb is that the more you pay the more the space that the web hosting company will allocate to your website.
• Speed – If you are running a real-time service like a social network of any caliber, there are a couple of things that you need to bear in mind and the most important of these, that is mission critical, is speed. You need to carefully consider your speed requirements before you sign up for a web service.
• Tech Support– Like it has been pointed out above on the aforementioned point, it is important that you do an audit of your website needs before you sign up. In most cases, you desire to have your website up and running throughout, that is 24/7, 365 days a year. In the event of a mishap, you need your issues dealt with as soon as possible.
• Additional Services– The fact of the matter is that the service offering is not greatly differentiated amongst the various web hosting service providers. Therefore, in order to separate themselves, many offer additional services including discounted domain registration, multiple data centers, uptime and other attractive offers all geared towards making your hosting and domain registration as seamless as possible.
