Choosing a domain name and web hosting are first essentials when it comes to planning and developing a website. Website owners provide their websites’ files to the web host for storage and publication on the Web. So, a web hosting is like an “online home” for a website. Web hosting service allows making the website accessible on 24 hours/day and 365days/year. Web hosting companies provide internet connectivity and space on a server they own.
Generally, it works as follows. Any website has a domain name, which is actually linked to an IP address and points to a certain computer. When a user enters the domain name into the browser address bar, the IP address is placed and the website is loaded from the web hosting provider. In order to publish your website you have to find a reliable web hosting company that delivers quality technical support and no downtime.
Web Hosting Types
There are two web hosting types: free web hosting and paid web hosting. Free web hosting offers limited services. Paid web hosting is completely different and offers more services and many benefits.
Free web hosts offer basic limited features and become a good choice for technically simple websites (blogs, personal sites, diary sites, and other average sites with low traffic and small files). Free web hosts make it possible to setup many popular PHP and MySQL database web applications. You can store the website on a free hosting, but should know that some free hosts use forced ads that appear on your site.
Paid web hosts are a better choice for business sites, e-commerce, and other types of large websites. Paid web hosts vary based on costs and provided services. Paid web hosting monthly prices depend on the amount of the webspace, bandwidth, CGI access, technical support, domains hosting, security levels and additional web hosting services.
Also, there are shared web hosts where your website has a shared IP address and is one of hundreds websites located on a certain server; and, dedicated web hosts where your website is the only one that resides on its server.
Web Hosting Tips
To host the website, you have to take the following steps:
• Choose a good unique domain name
• Select a reliable web hosting company
• Analyze carefully your web host features: hosting type, IP address, amount of space, bandwidth, control panel, nameservers, FTP info, etc
• Have your website files ready to upload to the server
• Install FTP software (or Filezilla, or SmartFTP) to transfer files to the server
• Change your nameservers
• Upload your files to the server: Open the FTP software (you can use Filezilla for free) Enter the required information (domain, username, password) Transfer website files to the server
• View your new website by typing website address in the browser
• Praise yourself and enjoy new site
Modern Web offers many web hosting providers. The choice of the web hosting company depends directly on your website goals, type, size and budget.
