What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting, in simple English, is just a service that leases you a web server for you to store the content and media of your web site.

Web hosts, refer to companies that provide web hosting services, usually own the computers that run the web servers and lease partial or full control of their web servers to you.

It is also possible to get a web hosting service from web hosting resellers, who resell the web hosting services they got from web hosts that own their own web servers.

Web hosts usually offer a number of different services that include email, databases, web domains and bandwidth for your web site.

The type of web hosting you need will depend on your available budget and needs.

Dedicated Web Hosting

Dedicated hosts are recommended for very large web sites that receive a lot of traffic and activity.

This one of the most expensive web hosting services because a web host loans a web server exclusively to you. Hence, the name dedicated server because no one but you has access to the web server but you or your company.

In most situations, the web host is responsible for making sure the hardware and software is working in tip top condition. If you know what you are doing, you may request to manage the web server yourself, which is usually done online instead of being at the location of the web server.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) or Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) Web Hosting

VPS servers usually have multiple users using the same web server but not as many users as a shared hosting environment.

A VPS server will appear to each user as though they were using a dedicated server but they won’t be able to use 100% of the server resources as each VPS user has a specific amount of server resources allocated to their account.

VPS services usually come with managed web hosting and 24/7 technical support. VPS web hosts are great for web sites that have exceeded their limits on a shared hosting environment.

I host some of my web sites on a VPS server because I need my web sites to be fast, stable and up 99% of the time but I do not need the features of a dedicated server.

Co-Location Web Hosting

Co-location is a type of full service hosting where you provide your own server to a company that sets it up in their co-location centre and allows you to use their bandwidth for a fee. You’re responsible for server maintenance and must update it and keep it running yourself.

This is a great way of hosting your own web site if you’re tech savvy enough to have your own server, but it is too hard for most of us. Some businesses use a co-location centre for backup purposes and to save costs.

Shared Web Hosting

Shared web hosts are usually shared among a lot of users on the same web server.

Shared hosting is usually the cheapest option and it is recommended for small web sites without a lot of traffic.

You cannot expect to host big web sites on a shared web server. Web hosts usually “oversell” their web server’s resources by promising each customer more server resources than they can possibly allocate to all of the users on the web server.

What happens is they will either politely ask you to upgrade your web hosting plan or simple suspend your web hosting account for using too much resources. I have experienced this a couple of times and it was not a pleasant experience.

Read the fine print of every shared web hosting plan thoroughly and carefully to see how they actually handle users who use much resources on their web server. The problem is, it is not understandable by most people and that is how they make money.

Reseller Web Hosting

Reseller web hosting is a form of web hosting whereby the account holder of a particular web hosting service is allowed to resell or share their allocated resources on a web server to other customers.

This is great for webmasters who have a lot of web sites, new and small web hosting companies as well as some web design companies. This is how I manage to provide free web hosting for my clients as described on my services page.

So if you meet someone who tells you they can provide you with web hosting, ask them if they own any web servers and do they have a team working 24/7 making sure they are up and running properly. If the answer is no, chances are they are using a reseller web hosting plan too.

Free Web Hosting

Free hosting, for instance, usually restricts the user to a small amount of space or bandwidth and requires him or her to allow ads to be placed on the site in exchange for the hosting. Sites like the now defunct Yahoo! Geocities used to work on this model.

Blog Hosting

Blogging hosts like WordPress.com and Blogger.com are like free web hosts that allow you to use their blogging platform to create blogs.

Image Hosting

You may make use of image hosting services like Flickr, Photobucket or Tinypic to upload your pictures. Although they have some restrictions on the image size and bandwidth, they are usually enough for most users.

Video Hosting

Sometimes uploading a video onto your own web server isn’t a good idea due to the bandwidth constraints. It is better to upload a video to video sharing web sites like Youtube to get more exposure for your videos and save on your bandwidth usage.

Which Web Hosting Service Should You Get?

For personal bloggers, you should be able to get by with free blog hosts, image hosts and video hosts for a while. Once your blog becomes very popular, you might consider getting a domain name and a shared web host at the minimum.

For businesses expecting light traffic, a shared web host or reseller host should be sufficient. Once you start getting a lot of down times or warnings from your web host, it might be necessary to upgrade to a VPS server. Again, once you are starting to max out the resources of your VPS server, you might have to upgrade to a dedicated web server.