Colom Newbie

When a company or a person decides to have an online presence or other internet based project they will use a service called web hosting. Simply put, and for the majority of people and companies, this means allowing their website to be seen by others around the world; some of these services are actually free. The data center or server used for by the hosting company is able to store all kinds of digital media which can be accessed (if allowed) by visitors, this includes all website files.

Many beginners start by using the free hosting services that are provided by many internet service companies; while they will have access to email facilities, basic websites and blogs, they will have to pay for a full service provider. Many restrictions exist with free web hosting but that is to be expected and for some it is an ideal situation but for only a few dollars per month, a paid web hosting service is far superior. Paid hosting packages vary enormously so don't be surprised about the difference in prices; the best thing to do is sit down and work out exactly what your primary requirements are and then check out one of these hosting comparison websites.

Most people and companies start their hosting by using a shared server system which means your files are on the system with other peoples.It is usually possible to upgrade to have a dedicated server for your files once you know the service provider is reliable; there is normally an additional charge for this facility. However, all this is academic if you haven't registered a domain name that you can use in conjunction with the web hosting and to send your files to.

All companies will allocate a certain amount of space for your website and any other files required to be stored there (photos and MP3 tracks, for example) and this can be anything from 500Mb or more, depending on the host and package you are paying for.

Web hosting also provides the facility to have your own email address unlike those supplied by Google and Yahoo for example, this means, your e-mail address is exclusive to your website. If you have a business presence online you cannot afford to have another company's name at the end of your own e.g. www.yourcompanyname.hostingcompany.com when it should really look like this: www.yourcompanyname.com. If you have a busy site with lots of visitors, downloads or video etc.

Insufficient bandwidth will cause problems as visitors will be unable to see your site if it has been used up and you have a few more days before it is re-set for the following month, so you may need to use another web host. This point becomes more important when you have a site that provides large video, audio and image files to its visitors as all of these use up the bandwidth you have been allocated as part of your package. You may have your own web host in your PC, but that can be too risky; the best option is to settle for paid web hosting, even if you're new to the internet.