Website Hosting Explained

 

To get a website online you need to have some space on a Web server computer. Web servers are computers that are permanently on and permanently connected to the Internet. They have also been specially set up to host websites. This means that when someone types in your domain name they will be directed to your web hosting company's server which will then send out your webpages in the correct format.

 

If you're connected to the Internet the chances are that you have some space on a Web server already allocated to you by your ISP. This free space however is usually very basic and may not even allow you to use your own domain name. To do this you'll need a web hosting account from a web hosting company. There are lots and lots of web hosting companies offering web hosting accounts with lots and lots of different options. It can very quickly get confusing trying to choose the right web hosting company and web hosting account for your website.

 

The main features we used to evaluate how good a web hosting account is are…

 

 

When you put your website online you want your webpages to appear as quickly as possible. When someone types in your domain name or clicks on a link to visit your website the web server where you have put your files needs to send information to the visitor's computer. Some web hosting companies have faster servers than others. The speed of a web server is partly due to the type of computer being used (more powerful computers will run faster) but also to the number of other websites being run by the same computer (the more websites the server is hosting the slow where it will go). The companies we recommend use modern, powerful servers and do not overload them by putting as many websites as possible on each computer.

 

 

When you buy a web hosting account you will be given some space on the Web servers hard disk. The more space you have the more webpages and information you can store. If you're running a single, simple website you'll probably never need more than 0.5 GB (500 MB) of space. Almost all hosting accounts offer much more than this which may seem like you're paying for space you're never going to use. On the web hosting accounts that only let you have one website this is perfectly true. The web hosting companies we recommend all let you create as many websites as you want so you can make use of all the web space you're paying for. These are called multiple domain hosting accounts. You might now think that you've only got one website so what's the point. Have a look at our page on unlimited domain hosting to see how you can easily add extra websites to your online portfolio to build a much more powerful online presence.

 

 

When your web server sends pages to people looking at your website your web hosting company keeps a record of how much computer data was sent. During each month it will add up the total amount of data for all the webpages viewed on your website. This is called your monthly bandwidth usage. Most web hosting accounts give you a certain amount of bandwidth free each month. If you use more than this you will be charged extra. For an average website you'll probably use less than 5 GB of bandwidth per month. The accounts we recommend all for over 1000 GB per month. This becomes important when you start to use the unlimited domain facility to boost your overall web presence.

 

 

Having a great hosting account is no good if you don't have the tools to make use of it. Standard website hosting accounts provide you with the space, show you how to connect to it and then leave it up to you to work out the rest. We strongly recommend using hosting accounts with a proper control panel (all of the ones we recommend do). These control panels are a piece of software you access using your web browser, i.e. they work like a website. Using these control panels (e.g.cPanel) you can set up your website, set up your domain names, control any databases you need and even install complete, ready-made websites to build your online portfolio (for example adding a blog, a forum, etc).

 

All of the web hosting accounts we recommend the use cPanel to give you total control of how your hosting a kind of setup and Fantastico to let you create a wide range of other websites at the touch of a button.