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It seems as if almost everyone has incorporated the internet as a part of their daily activities. People are frequently using the net to communicate, socialize, listen to music, download videos and a lot of stuff we would rather not discuss. As a modern-day freelance writer, the internet is something I just can’t be without. The popularity of this worldwide network has led to the emergence of several online markets and the web hosting business is thriving like no other. With more people looking to benefit from all the resources of the internet and World Wide Web be it for personal or business reasons, web hosting firms have been able to make out rather nicely.

What is Web Hosting?

Website or web hosting, is a service that allows you to have your very own website. How does it work? Well, you sign up with a web hosting provider and they allocate disk space among other resources,  for you on a high-capacity computer, more commonly known as a web server. Hence the name, the web host’s server serves your website pages on the web, making them accessible to internet users throughout the world. Nearly every site on the web is being powered by one web hosting company or another.

Types of Web Hosting

There are many different types of web hosting available, each of which are geared towards businesses, webmasters and developers at varying levels. Some of the most popular types of web hosting including the following:

Shared Hosting

The most common type of web hosting, shared hosting describes a situation where you are literally sharing server space and various resources with other website owners.  Simplicity and cost-efficiency has made this arrangement quite popular among individuals and small businesses.

Dedicated Hosting

More commonly termed as a dedicated server, dedicated web hosting refers to a situation where you have an entire server dedicated to your website or business. Server space and all resources are made exclusive to you, providing the utmost in control and flexibility.

Managed Hosting

Managed hosting generally refers to the full managing and servicing of a dedicated server.  This may include server administration and database management among other services.

Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting is a situation where you purchase server space and associated resources from a web hosting provider and then sell it to your own customers. A reseller essentially acts a middleman between the customer and the web hosting company.

As you can see, web hosting comes in a variety flavors and these are just a few of many. Narrowing them down and finding one that suits your needs isn’t always easy but one thing is for certain – with all the providers currently on the market, there is sure to be a host capable of meeting your needs.

After completing the tough part i.e. creating the web site, the next further step to be followed is to host it, so that public can find ones site. The bad web host company traps the customers who are new to this web world and are web host seekers. There are many factors to be considered while selecting a web host, but the factor placed at the top is none other than price. All the users want cheap web hosting but if the web hosting is chosen on the basis of only price then it will not satisfy other requirements.

One should be very careful while choosing the web hosting company.

If one is having the budget he can fix to it, if one is not having much idea about web hosting he/she may wonder “how do they make money” its better to be away, the chances are in order to save cost, the web site will be hosted with less bandwidth resulting in a very slow accessible and unprofessional web site. Also in this case, the customer support will be absent or very less.

One should be very clear about his/her requirements from the web hosting company, if the customer do not choose the company as per his/her requirements then its not the fault of host but only he/she will be solely responsible for that .Its good to make a list of requirements such as particular files needed and thereafter he/she can send his/her requirements to multiple hosting companies and can wait for the company come back with the greater service.

If any user is having more than one web site to host, as in case of affiliate marketers, its not good to put all sites with single host in the very beginning rather one should be 100% confident with the service and start with one web site as a test. The user should also keep in mind that if he/she wants to host all of his/her websites with one host company only, all it takes is, one problem to bring all his sites down and could result in lose of revenue. It is good to host some of the websites by another company so they can work even in case of problems.

Some web host companies offer testimonials on their own web site from valued customers recommending them. Seeing is not believing, one should call these customers and get a face value recommendation for him/her self.

What to do with the problems?

Now the problems can arise either due to the customer’s fault or by the web host company. There is no certainty of the technological Problem to occur, as it can occur any time but it’s all depending upon the host company how to handle such problem in order to keep the customer. If the user finds his/her web site dropping off line or slow downloading at a regular basis, then he/she should move to another web host company. If the problems pertain and the company is not paying attention to it means they are showing arrogant behavior towards their customers. Support is vital from a web host company and it should be 24 hour if it’s a large organization.

Virus Problems and Hackers

It is the responsibility of the company to ensure that the files of the customers are protected from virus and hackers at all times. There are number of companies having their web sites hacked and that happens only due to the reason that their web host company had not got the latest patches and security software applied. The new comers to web hosting should always ask how often updates and what software is used to protect web sites.

Tips:

One can have a good earning by his/her web site or can be this only source of income for him/her. Therefore one should always do his/her own backups of the web site. If due to any reason the web host company experiences problem and has no backups available, then the whole business could go stop. Backups are very crucial and have to be done as regular as possible in order to avoid problems afterwards. Some companies have testimonials on their web site from customers, one should not be afraid to call these guys for an up to date reference.

One should be very careful while dealing with host companies and should check recommendations and references very carefully. Always one should ask for the full contact details of the web hosting company, as there are many people who simply go online and have an email address only as the contact. Now if their email goes down and one needs to contact them one should have their full details at hand. One should always shop around for the different web hosting plans and should compare all the features available. On comparison it’s sure to get large differences, therefore it’s very important to check each and every thing before final sign up.

This article is useful for understanding the hosting industry and studies its dynamics to know what to look for before selecting a web host.

Firstly it is good to have a proper introduction of web hosting chain. It is termed as chain because here about 3 upstream providers serve the end consumer. First the web-hosting provider, who is in direct contact, then comes the web host’s upstream company who maintains the servers and sells space to web hosts, and above that, the data center that serves the purpose of providing the connection and houses the servers. There are some web hosts who act as the server administrator and liase with the data centers directly.

The growth of the web hosting industry in at saturation point due to the presence of hundreds of web-hosting providers claiming to provide cheaper and better services to businesses and individuals. The reason for this is the availability of resources in abundance and at cheaper costs with reducing disk space and data-transfer prices. Its easy to enter the web hosting business as there are large resellers of server space providing cheap hosting and reselling plans that provides ground to incomers to join the business.

Due to growing number of suppliers with cheaper reselling plans, more and more web hosting businesses are coming up providing web-hosting solutions to business and individual websites due to lower fixed costs and investment. Not only that this increase in supply is not caused by factors in any particular country. As Internet is not limited to the boundary of any country so the data centers present in any part of the world can easily provide the servers and web space for a local hosting company. Due to Internet it is easy to communicate to each other and providers can easily exchange their services in the global space.

Maintaining a proper balance between supply and demand is quite good for the customers. But imbalance has forced several new web-hosting providers to offer extremely low prices for their web hosting plans or packages in order to make them self stand in the tough market. Now it’s time for customers to choose the hosting providers having lowered prices from the vast number of providers.

However, continuous decrease in prices is quite disadvantageous for both the providers as well as the customers. By reduces prices, companies are able to earn nominal profit and are even not able to cover their support costs. Customers suffer by getting less support with their web-hosting accounts. It’s quite obvious if the profits do not justify the costs, web-hosting companies will easily close down and takes their clients’ sites with them.

The following are the factors to consider while choosing a web-hosting provider: -

The most important factor to consider is Support for any individual or small business looking for a web host for their websites. The Internet web-hosting provider who is unable to provide the facility of responding to emails within 24 hours is probably having problems providing fast and reliable support services. One can’t ignore the validity of these services especially for the beginners who needs guidance with publishing their websites on the web hosting account provided. The success of any web hosting business depends upon the relationships between web host and web hosting customers. To make business success, provider should be able to provide services when and where required also its crucial for customers to know when their site is going offline for sake of maintenance.

After support next important factor is Stability. It refers to how much uptime one can expect from the web-hosting provider, which in turn depends upon the providers’ servers and network. If the providers are not having reliable and stable providers, it would affect their servers and cause problems for the website. It is must to have an uptime of about 99.5% in the industry, as there are other external factors, which may be beyond control of the provider.

Third factor to consider is Cost which depends on the purpose of the website and budget. The budget may be smaller in case of Personal /Individual websites and so they opt to go with a cheaper web hosting provider, possibly in exchange for support and stability. But in case of business sites as they need better stability and support they opt for expensive host providers. It is most often observed that cheap web hosting providers are able to attract customers in the beginning by offering low prices but afterwards fails in providing quality support to their customers thereby creating problems for them. Also the large numbers of client sites cause sustained high server loads which leads to server crash thus hampering stability.

Another factor, which is not so important, is Location of the server. It is not considered important as it depends upon a user’s ISP/country’s connection to the data center where the server is located. Pings to the server normally tells the network latency to expect when people can access to one’s site. Lower ping rates leads to loading of site faster.

Last but not least one should take time to identify and contact a web host to check their service. This helps in providing an idea of the kind of support that one might receive and helps in deciding the reliability of the provider.

These days, anybody can afford to order a feature-packed web hosting plan for next to nothing; however, cheap price cannot said to be the decisive factor which one should have to considered while purchasing web hosting services. This article provides a lesson of not considering the best price and features as the only passport of getting a good web hosting company but also emphasizing on reliability and honesty. If one is investing his/her money and effort into finding paying customers and he/she wouldn’t like to lose them in the condition just in order to save a few dollars per month on a web hosting service.

If a user is searching for a web hosting company, it is not a matter of concern that it is just for the inception of a web or the move of an established site; the user has to widen his/her thinking area before coming to a judgment that along which company he or she has to go with:

Customer support

Website hosting service is not restricted just to storage or bandwidth. Lacking customer support, a top-notch service is also nothing. If one is owning a business website, it is both duty and requirement of his/her hosting provider to be available for the service- 24/7, as any time any sort of technical fault may arise; neglecting it the hosting provider may suffer from serious shortage of customers and money.

Downtime assurance and service monitoring

It is a minor inconvenience to go down when it is a case of personal website; but it is serious when it comes to business website. Can anyone guess how much amount of profit would he/she lose if his/her site had been down for a week? As it is a trend of spending a large amount on advertising the website a long downtime can be lethal for today’s companies.

Basically, there are two rules upon which one can relay:

1. One should check if there is an uptime guarantee offered or not. An ideal service-oriented provider will not only give a money-back guarantee, but also offer a discount or free service as compensation for downtime. A company which avoids taking such liability will not provide an ideal service.

2. One should not go with a company claiming 100% uptime, as there is no such thing as a server with 100% uptime. If anyone ever announces that their server has a 100% uptime; one can easily conclude that they are either lying or they don’t perform the necessary upgrades that avoid a machine from being compromised.

Reputable web hosts will post statistics on their site, the remedial solution for the questions like for e.g., what is the frequency of interruption. How about the average percentage of downtime? If these aren’t posted, ask; if the answer isn’t forthcoming, that is not going to be a good sign. If one still likes to go with a host which doesn’t monitor servers, one has to do it by his/her own.

Backups

IS there any host who is safe against different types of technical and programical failures, the answer is NO! So, one should make sure that the company runs scheduled backups. The other probable advice would be that one must always have a backup of his/her website himself/herself, as one cannot predict what exactly is going to happen next. CPanel, currently the most popular web hosting management software, has a very comfortable backup-making tool. Which allows the user to backup files and databases quickly and easily, so backups are not a long head ace.

Acceptable use policy

Web hosts may have 200-300 or more clients per server; one cannot predict the exact number, as companies possess different hardware; while, each hosted website has different resource usage. One cannot ignore the probability of that a few of those customers host illegal content. There are several web hosts who have had their servers unplugged, resulting in their clients’ websites going down. Definitely ,one would never like to put his/her business at risk and locate the website hosted on the same server along with illegal pornography and software sites, so to avoid such types of problems one must check host’s acceptable use policy to find out, whether the host takes care of what’s hosted on their servers or not.

Hosting one’s site on an uncared-for server will also result in a low speed. If somebody on the same server sends spam, the server’s IP address will be blacklisted and he/she will have serious problems as recipients would stop his/her receiving emails. Spam is being sent almost everywhere, so having one or two red records isn’t that bad; but, if there are more, it may become a problem later on.

Infinite bandwidth and web space

If one talks about the adage “you get what you pay for” it ideally suit for the Web hosting industry. One should not fall in the craters created by the hosts like for e.g., unlimited allowances, as there is neither unlimited bandwidth, nor unlimited web space. Host’s pay for each GB of bandwidth themselves. One can think that hard drives are free but they aren’t. They are just a mirage to attract customers. The average website doesn’t use more than 1GB of bandwidth per month; the customer is satisfied as he/she bought something “unlimited” and through this host automatically receives a new customer, on whom they don’t need to spend more than $1-2 USD per month. But for imagination what would happen if one person had a website, burning much more bandwidth than an average site does, and he signed up with a hosting company offering unlimited traffic? The host would simply suspend his account and tell him, that it was via too much bandwidth. There even several companies there which offer unlimited bandwidth for the user and have a statement on their requisites of service, explaining that unlimited bandwidth means 40GB which they actually mean, for example.

Will someone really own his/her domain name?

If a user buy a domain name together with a website hosting package, he/she must make sure that the host is registered the domain name under his/her name or not. The name usually should be written in their FAQ, but, if there is no such information is provided, the user simply needs to take a step and contact them. This will also give the user a chance to detect whether their customer support team is fast enough or not. If the hosting company registers domains under someone else’s name, the user may have to face the challenges switching hosting providers later. If the user is in such situation, he/she have to file for a Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), which costs much beyond both domain name and web hosting service together.

Control Panel

A necessary tool for easiness and for regular maintenance, including, email mailbox additions/deletions, password resets, web additions, web count reports, statistics etc. This tool is unavoidable if the site is meant for any sort of business. That is why it is currently the most demanding web hosting management software. It is behind the screen role of a next-generation web hosting control panel system that allows a user to manage his/her domain through a web interface. The key idea is to transfer as much of the control of managing users web site to him/her; So one can say that, user have the ability to manage all the dimensions of e-mail, files, backup, FTP, CGI scripts, web site statistics, etc.

Value-added services

In the regular interval of time, hosting companies offer diverse sort of value-added services in order to give themselves an outstanding look. Of course, these are an advantage, but customers forget that many of the services cannot be applied in any of the field. But still some of the valuable features are mentioned below:

1. Auto-installer script –

Play a role saving the user’s time if he/she is going to install a forum, image gallery, content management system, etc. Installation procedures on an auto-installer script can be done in seconds and can be easily performed by novices by avoiding difficult tasks generally related with installations.

2. Online website builder –

Mainly dedicated with showing the way by moving on which the user can design a website in a few minutes without having any creation software and knowledge. One very powerful website builder established in the market is Site Studio; this quality based editor allows for ease of use, full control of color schemes and themes, one-click publishing, and a collection of templates to brought into use.

The last tip

The purpose of this article is to feel the users that price and allocations cannot be given reference over importance of quality of service; if the user possess limited budget, then the price can be a valid criterion, but if not, it should not be given much importance.

By going through this article and asking questions, one can narrow down the list of web hosts to the extent where the user by his/her own can make the judgment between what is right and what is wrong

If one’s new website is all set to upload, the next desirable thing for him/her is a web host. Conceivably he/she already possesses a web host, but uptime and support are lacking. With several scattering web hosts all around how can the users choose an ideal one? One should be aware of what can go wrong and what to look out for, and investigate prospective web hosts cautiously.

Mistake, which may appear with web hosting

Excessive downtime:

It is inevitable that problems arise in the course of time happen, but even in the condition in which they don’t appear server maintenance results in a minimal amount of downtime. One can not only hope a dependable web host for well maintenance of his/her servers, but also expect monitoring the servers and fixing of problems immediately. With the type of web host one want to avoid, however, his/her site may be down for days.

Features that cannot be put in use:

Once the email of the user doesn’t work, his/her business shuts down. Problems related to databases and other features can also deliberate down or stop his/her business. Such problems are taken into consideration by several web hosts, but a few don’t concern to give high priority on keeping not only the user’s site online but everything working as well.

Ghastic support:

The response time taken by the dependable web hosts to answer tech support questions is utmost a single hour. Other web hosts, however, have been recognized to take several days to give response. And when those responses come, often they’re canned responses that don’t deal with the issue.

Poor communication:

If proper level communication skills are present, it supports people to restrict problems from becoming bigger problems. As told, “Everything looks fine here, so the problem is solved,” promotes irritation. Thus, one’s site can shut down because it has used plenty of resources rather than the web host contacting him/her about the problem first.

Troubles of Billing:

Yet problems persist even after user cancels his/her account. A number of below dependable range web hosts don’t repute their refund policy. Others do not discontinue the automatic billing even after cancellation of account.

Things to watch out for:

One should consider the following as the red flags to warn the user of possible problems that can come on their way.

Untenable pricing:

If the pricing looks to the extent of superb to be true, it perhaps is. Will it be sufficient to pay for server maintenance and tech support? One gets similar what he/she deserve to pay for.

Limitless bandwidth:

There is not anything which is really unlimited in real sense. If one signs up for an account offering limitless bandwidth and then uses a lot of bandwidth, anticipating having the plug pulled on his/her site. The web host may locate further excuse for discontinuing his/her account, but “unlimited” classically represent that “as long as you don’t use a lot.”

A website with unprofessional look:

The user foremost consider how much effort the web host is putting in providing a usable website along with informative content. Does it really mean that user has got full confidence in the web host, or is it overwhelmed of unsubstantiated statements and grammar and spelling mistakes? A web host doesn’t require being a specialist in spelling insertion, of course. But if the company hasn’t advertise much enough to the user about their services, will they be meticulous about matching the clients’ requirements?

Way to research web hosts:

It is quite easy to look out for web hosts. Search engines can be one of the ways to went on the websites of thousands of web hosts. But short listening after going through features and price, how can the customer look out which web hosts are reliable?

Interpret particulars of web host package and TOS:

If the host provider is offering hosting packages with huge amounts of disk space and bandwidth for quite cheap prices, that means something is fishy around. One should not expect that company to be well equipped with enough money for maintenance and support.

If one wants to be sure that he/she can get a refund if he/she want one, should ensure what the Terms of Service (TOS) signify about refunds.

One should examine the web host forum:

User should be aware about the questions like, what is the ambience in the forum. Are clients’ questions answered satisfactorily? The user should not be anxious on seeing a problem but in the condition when they don’t. It is quite common that, some web hosts remove posts that don’t demonstrate their company in a positive light. But if posts about problems stay in the forum, the user can easily monitor the way the host use to tackle the problem.

User should examine web host reviews:

There is no lack of cases in which, client feedback at the web host’s site perhaps may or may not be legal. One could not ignore the possibility of manufacturing of feedback and tracing it from other sites. The user should inquire about that via different web sites.

There are several forums which permits people to post their web host reviews. While reading the reviews, one should deem the poster’s credibility. A few people knock their hosts just because of the reason that they’re unhappy about somewhat. If the host posts in response to a problem, the user should inquire the way host tries to resolve it.

Inquire about the background of the company:

The page which displays the points like “About Us” or “Company Background” should disclose the answer of following questions.

1.) The experience of the company in this sector. A new company perhaps is excellent, but it’s good to keep in mind that an ample of businesses fails within the first year.

2.) Does the company use to publish a privacy policy? And does this policy clearly protect clients’ privacy?

3.) Where are the servers located? Ideally, they should be in a datacenter, and not in someone’s basement.

4.) About the server uptime statistics? If the web host doesn’t publish a link to a server uptime monitor, one should ask for a link to one. Uptime of about 99.7 percent or higher is usually considered good.

5.) Does the company publish an address? The user perhaps should not be in the need of it, but when he/she placing his/her company website in another company’s hands, it is his/her right to know that the company is legal and handy.

Email pre-sales queries

Response to user’s pre-sales questions will tell more than enough about the web host. One can easily judge how fast the company responds and about their communication efficiency. One can ask questions about any of the above points as well as questions precise to his/her requirements.

There is no doubt, that, Finding a dependable web host spends time, but dealing with problems and moving one’s site rather takes more amount of time. The time spent searching for a reliable web host is a worthwhile investment.

One should act very smartly or can say intelligently while making decisions regarding web hosting services and plans. One who is serious for his/her business can suffer later on, if his/her decision of choosing web hosting went wrong. Due to inefficiency of the web hosting plan one can face loss by decreasing of sales as well as loosing the customers. One should not make decision in haste while choosing the web hosting plan rather he/she should study all the options and compare all the advantages as well as disadvantages, then make the decision accordingly .If the decision is made after studying every aspect then only it will prove very fruitful for the business.

What are the requirements of the user? A Personal Home Page or a Business Site Hosted

Before moving further the user should be very clear about his/her requirements and one of them is what type of the website he/she desires and want to have hosted. User should choose the plan as per his/her needs as if the user is running a small business then he/she does not require the larger hosting plans. If the user is going to plan on having a large ecommerce site hosted, then small hosting plan will not fulfill his/her obligations and the user have to move for the web hosting services providing all the bells and whistles. After deciding about the type of website one can easily host and compare all the services and plans and then can opt for the most suitable one.

Amount of Data Transfer And Disk Space Offered From The Web Hosting Plan:

While deciding about the plans, user should be very clear about the disk space and bandwidth he/she requires and then compare all the plans and choose the hosting plan that can easily manage the data transfer from his/her business promotions that can cause large amounts of traffic. This is very clear to the user that if he/she is going to deal with a simple home page then he/she will not need much disk space and bandwidth. When the user is clear that what he/she actually requires from the web hosting service, options and plans, then only he/she is able to make decision.

Web hosting needs should be considered earlier:

The points to be considered by the user of the web hosting services are, the cost and fees, customer support, control panel, POP email accounts, FTP transfer limits and if the user have unlimited space transfer.

Economic factor: Cost of Web Hosting and Possible Setup Fees?

Economic factor matters a lot for all kind of users as every one want best services at the most reasonable price. The user should be well aware before paying for the services as he/she should know that what he/she is paying for. Before making the payment user should compare the costs of the web hosting plans, and should know what the actual costs are, before signing up .User should have the complete knowledge about the prices as well as of the setup fees.

Support provided From The Web Hosting Company to its customers:

Before signing any hosting plan user should look at the support provided by the company to the customers .Customer support is very important aspect which can not be ignored as customer can need the company’s support any time. If customer support is not provided at proper time then in result his/her site will remain down for long periods of time. A company is said to be a reliable company if it is able to provide the support service of 24 hours a day customer support. User should also study about the experience of the company and also the support provided to its customers. User can easily check with the references to see how the web hosting company rates with customer service. If customer is aware of all these aspects it will be very helpful for him/her for making decision and can save himself/herself from the time and money loss.

Services available -Is Control Panel Available or not?

The new entries in this web world don’t have proper knowledge and much experience with web hosting control panels. Due to this reason they can suffer from severe problems many times. So before moving to any decision the user should collect all the complete information such as-

1. What type of control panel the web hosting service offers?

2. Is it user friendly or not?

3. Last but not the least that it suites all the requirements?

Control panel is not required by an experienced webmaster may not need a control panel, but it is necessary for rest of the users.

What about the availability of POP Email Accounts?

There are some other aspects as well which user can’t afford to miss. One such aspect is POP email accounts being offered by the provider. E-mail service is the service that is needed by many business plans from their web hosting plan. User should look out for the availability, if he/she desires access to email accounts.

Plans offering FTP Transfer limit as per requirement:

User should be sure enough about the FTP transfer limits with the web hosting services he/she is going to opt for. User should also watch out that the web hosting plan he/she is choosing offers FTP transfer according to his/her business needs. He/she should save himself/herself from those web hosts that do not have unlimited FTP use.

Some more things to be known by the user about the web hosting plan are:

1. Does they offer unlimited space transfer?

2. What are the terms of the services regarding upgradation?

3. Availability of the space if more needed in the future.

If the user does not look out for the terms of the space availability in its web hosting service then he/she can suffer from the problems regarding space, as if the user needs more space later on he/she will not be getting it.

User is able to make the proper decision of choosing the web hosting service only after having the complete information of each and every services provided by the web host.

Almost every one has the knowledge of present internet scenario! How fast it is!!? A bud of web pages nurture to trillions of pages on the Internet, providing several hosting plans to choose from under which comes affordable web hosting, Cheap Web hosting, ASP Web Hosting, Budget Hosting, Dedicated Servers, eCommerce Hosting, FrontPage Web Hosting, Hosting With Templates, Managed Web Hosting, PHP Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, Shared Hosting, Unix / Linux Hosting, Virtual Private Servers, Windows Hosting, Co-location Hosting and few others.

Above mentioned are the few web hosting terms which reflects several faces of web hosting. The entire highlighted web hosting plans and terminologies can be categorized in terms of cost, programming languages, operation systems, Web servers, and functionality.

Broad description is given below:

1. Cost:

Web hosting plans are mentioned and divided between affordable web hosting, budget hosting and cheap web hosting. Cost of web hosting is the prime aspect that several small budget site holders are looking for. On displaying the cost of Affordable web hosting, budget hosting or cheap web hosting plan one will come to know that it is less than $5 a month.

2. Programming Languages:

When a user wants to make his/her site dynamic and interactive, he/she should search for hosting plans that support the programming languages that user have command over. Usually applicable languages are PHP, ASP, JSP, PERL etc. Hosting plans assisting such programming languages are called PHP Web hosting, ASP Web hosting, JSP Web hosting or PERL Web hosting.

3. Operating Systems:

After selecting suitable programming language(s), user still has sovereignty to choose the operating system that can host the concern websites. Moreover, as everybody that ASP is restricted to Microsoft Windows, further programming languages, PHP, JSP and PERL; work not only on Windows, but also on UNIX and Linux. Hosting plans assisting particular operating system is termed as Window Hosting, UNIX hosting or rather Linux hosting.

4. Web Servers:

Talking about web servers, Apache is the most widely supported Web server in Web hosting industry. It operates only on Microsoft Internet Information Server or IIS server. For JSP hosting, Web logic or Web sphere is the main requirement. When ever there is any discussion related to Web servers, the main attraction is server performance. There are several solutions available like Managed Web Hosting, Shared Hosting, Dedicated Servers, or Virtual Private Servers (VPS). Out of these shared hosting is the cheapest plan, and one can host as many sites as he/she likes with a Reseller Hosting option. The cost of VPS is just $50 a month, and Dedicated Server plan costs from $50 – $100 or more per month depending upon storage space and bandwidth of the hosting plan.

5. Functionality:

In the market, one can find several hosting plans which either makes the site creation simple or rather offer assistance for the protection of online transactions. Creating a simple website can be a game of certain hours if the hosting plan selected by user supports assorted templates.

Thus on the hope that this article will definitely serve its users we wish best of luck.

After designing of website next important thing is to get it hosted on the internet. The task is not at easy as there are so many companies offering various types of web hosting packages like shared web hosting, dedicated web hosting, managed web hosting etc. Now the problem is which one to use?

In general it is considered a good idea to go for shared web hosting if the user is in a small business and wants to save cost. However before finalizing the deal it is good to know what is shared web hosting service and what are the merits and demerits of shared web hosting.

Defining shared hosting:

If extremely high performance and high bandwidth are not the points in question, then shared web hosting service can be a most convenient and economic way of hosting web sites.. As name implies, in case of shared web hosting service, the web server that hosts the web pages is shared by several other websites. Talking about number of websites on a shared hosting server, they can be in thousands. Now due to the fact that just one server is fulfilling the requirements of many other websites, the plus point is they can offer cheap prices for their server.

As there are so many websites hosted on a single web server, still there is no pint of worry for the user as the web hosting providers will not compromise on any kind of security and performance issues in case of shared hosting servers. Not only that, shared hosting web servers are operated, monitored and look after around the clock by IT professionals, so as to minimize server downtimes.

Shared hosting servers run on UNIX or other multi-user operating system and each website hosted on the web server is provided a separate account in the operating system. These websites hosted on shared servers are provided unique shared IP addresses and are provided with a fix amount of web resources.

The following are some of the merits and demerits of shared web hosting:

Merits:

1. Cost effective: Due to the fact that many websites are hosted on a single web server, web hosting providers provide economic shared web hosting services. Generally, the cost is as low as $5-10 per month for shared web hosting services. Now-a-days due to cut throat competition in web hosting industry, one can find several web hosting companies offering huge web space and bandwidth with as high as 1000 MB disk space and 40 GB bandwidth.

2. Feasible: Due to the fact that shared hosting web servers are operated, monitored and look after around the clock by IT professionals, who are experts in their respective field, one can concentrate more effectively on his/her web business and the problem of downtime and maintenance will not bother him/her any more.

3. Utility options: In case of shared web hosting, though web resources are shared, utility options are provided by the hosting company so that user can manage his/her website using control panel or similar tools. User is having an option to upload files, modify /remove web pages, add database, check web statistic etc. Not only that, user is also provided facility to create domain name specific e-mails accounts.

4. Efficient: Now-a-days shared web hosting service usually comes with web space and bandwidth that are more than sufficient for small business websites. Efficiency lies in the fact, that in addition to above, one can add more resources and can even overrun the web space or bandwidth usage.

Demerits:

1. Problem with response time: As the web server is shared, websites in the shared web hosting have to face problem of slower server response time as compared to dedicate server hosting.

2. Problem of Reliability: In case of shared web hosting, problem of reliability remains as usually web hosting providers may take care of the security and performance of the shared server but it is also possible that some of websites hosted on the shared server run a nasty program or script or over-utilize the resources, resulting in bringing down the web server. Thus due to fault of one all websites have to suffer downtimes and inaccessibility in case of shared web hosting.

3. Problems related to sharing: As discussed above also, due to fault of one all users have to face the problem for example if there is any one “bad” website in shared web server, due to it all websites on the server can be banned altogether by ISP or search engine due to shared IP address. However it is worth to note that one can always pay extra to get a dedicated IP address to avoid the above problem.

4. Problems related to Security: As many websites shared one server, problem of security always remains in case of shared web hosting as it is quite easy to hack one’s sensitive datas by another on the same server.

Thus in conclusion it can be said that before deciding to deal with shared web hosting, one should consider all the merits and demerits of shared web hosting as highlighted above. One should not forget the success of his/her business depends upon his/her website which in turn depends upon good host provider.

In the current event of time, some web hosts are offering additional features compare to others to the clients for the same price or even for a lower price. One cannot deny the fact that as due to cut – throat competition in the market several hosting providers are trying desperately to stay outstanding by adopting various methods. As a consequence, the web hosting service standards improved a lot and constantly is on verge of rising and evidently the clients are constantly enjoying the taste of amazing new features that were previously not there. Given below are the few things, which some web hosts frequently offer to their clients.

1.) Due to competitive market scenario website hosts are coming forward to assist the clients in the purpose of publishing and managing their own email newsletters or eZines. It is one of the most effective marketing weapons that promote sales. But some hosts go two-step forward by offering an infinite amount of auto responders. This assists a site owner automatically to pursue with prospects and therefore probability of making sale become significantly higher.

2.) In the contemporary era of time one can easily get the facility of hosting services that assists him/her to set up one’s own affiliate program which is verified to be the most successful route to grab traffic and profits for webmasters. There are several good sites like Amazon.com, which enables other website owners to promote their site and products on their site and in return can earn commissions from the sales that result from traffic that they have referred to one’s site as well.

3.) If one talks about the third most popular feature then it will probably be the service provided by the host to the users to protect their download page where the user is selling digital products for e.g. e-books, software etc. from his/her site. As in the current time period increasing number of hackers is a contentious issue and such sort of services definitely going to act as a pain killer for many webmasters.

4.) A few hosting services are also taking into account the hastily increasing threat of junk mail and offer quality filters to protect one’s email accounts. A few hosting providers even provide built-in anti-virus software in order that email that come to the inbox of the user along with the company of viruses, is automatically deleted.

Thus, above mentioned are the extra services, which hosts provide to the client. Thus, one can rightly say that,” The war between two, benefit the third party”.

There are many people who wants to have a presence on internet, purpose can be various; it can be whether business purpose, or just for personal reasons, but the second part of this process consists of a daunting task called selection of hosting service. A host who is affordable, providing maximum uptime, adequate bandwidth support, suitable web-space, and brilliant customer service and support is just like a dream and users usually do not get such an all rounder, still patient and strategic decision can provide user a dream output.

Here, user’s requirements and purpose of actual site plays a key role. If the web site required to be hosted is a commercial website, then uptime of the concern server matters the most. If the uptime were less than 99.5% then it can be lethal for a commercial web site. This is because if one’s site is suffering downtime and at that very moment search engines index the sites then one’s site may loose an opportunity as well as business. In addition to it, if there is any customer who visits the site finding it unable to publish it can create a negative impression in his/her mind. If the web site is meant for a non-profit organization, a club or for personal use designed for limited use then user should not concern about 99.5% uptime.

If one talks about another matter for consideration then it will be the quantity of file space that is provided by hosting company. If one talks about an average commercial web site then it usually enclose around few hundred web pages, some java or php scripts and image, multimedia files etc. One can surround all these details in the web space of about 50 to100 Mega Byte. But when it comes to additional space, charges differ from host to host.

Another concerning aspect is Bandwidth. If the site is meant for personal snaps then there will be no immense amount of traffic. But if user possess an Ecommerce site and have a huge amount of traffic each day then he/she should enquire how much amount of bandwidth does user offers for a month.

One should also ensure that what are the additional features in the package. Does the host provide only 3 email accounts, or rather up to 100? Can user establish sub domains along with it? What sorts of technologies does it adapt to? For example, if user plans to use PHP, he/she should confirm the installation of PHP in the server.

At the end, one should account repute of host in the market. It’s experience in the sector? What is their customer service standard?

If one values his/her web site then going along with a high standard and dependable web host is recommended, as it is always said, “prevention is better than cure”.