What Precisely is Hosting?

If you have created a website and you wish other people to notice it, you must copy your site to a public server.

Where to host your web site?

Even though you can use your own PC as a web server, it is a more conventional practice to let a hosting provider take care of your web site. The primary reason for that is the greater reliability and the uninterrupted availability of your web site, because web hosting service providers have top-quality hardware and apportion a much greater monthly bandwidth usage allowance, which guarantees the easier access to your site from all over the globe.

Hosting services

Choose a hosting solution, which permits you to register domain names and to set up mailbox accounts. A lot of web hosting suppliers, like us at EXTEC, offer a free domain registration as a gift if you open a web hosting account.

Hosting your web site yourself

Hosting your site on your own server is surely an option, but only if you have time and the required proficiency. There are certain facets that you need to take into account, among them the hardware and software costs. To make a genuine, proper website, you will need to invest in some powerful server hardware, because you cannot rely on a low-cost PC to accomplish the task. You will also need a permanent high-speed Internet connection without network downtimes, which generally is offered at a rather steep price. If you are availing of licensed software for your site, you will need to pay a license tax too. You may also have to cope with bugs and rootkits. You will need to keep your web server running all the time in an environment where "everything could happen". If you do not possess the required technical ability, you will need to resort to a sysadmin to handle these issues for you, which will make the price of hosting your web site on your own even steeper than that of a dedicated web hosting server supplied by a hosting company.

A dedicated web hosting server provided by a web hosting firm

Leasing a web hosting server from a web hosting firm is an appropriate choice if you want to set up a heavy resource-demanding web site or a business web page that has very meticulous safety requirements. The most important upsides of using a dedicated hosting server are the breakneck-speed Internet connection, the uninterrupted power supply and the extremely powerful hardware. Certain web hosting firms, again like us at EXTEC, supply VPS hosting and semi-dedicated server hosting services, which are based on very powerful web servers that can be shared by several users. You can also expect them to offer efficient server load balancing services and the necessary data backup servers.

Security and reliability

Web hosting suppliers are specialized in providing web hosting solutions and since this is what they do for a living, you can expect them to offer uninterrupted website availability, the newest software patches and the best anti-malware software, as well as sysadmins available 24x7x365 to assist you in case of an emergency.

Pick your web hosting services provider

What you need to take into consideration when choosing your web hosting services provider is the reliability of the offered web hosting services. Make certain that the hosting accounts provider of your choosing provides a 24x7 customer service. Do not put yourself in a situation where you cannot solve urgent problems straight away because you have to wait until the next working day. Moreover, if you opt for a shared web hosting package, which includes a 24x7 client support service, this means that there constantly will be system administrators available to fix any serious predicaments as soon as they appear, which is a very beneficial thing.

Daily data backups

Make sure that your web hosting provider offers daily data backups with the offered services, or else you may lose some precious data in the event of a hardware breakdown or because you have erased something accidentally. The availability of everyday backups is typically mentioned in the hosting distributor's Terms & Conditions.

Web traffic and web hosting server disk space

When picking your web hosting packages provider, give particular attention to the traffic quota limitations. Make certain that you don't have to pay a fortune for unforeseen high volumes of web traffic if your web site becomes more frequently visited. There are a lot of hosting service providers that offer unlimited traffic nowadays, so the most reasonable step to take is to make sure that you have taken the most appropriate decision prior to signing up.

Content limitations

Pay specific attention to the hosting service provider's content limitations. If you would like to publish images or to broadcast live video or audio content, make certain that you can accomplish that. In addition, the majority of hosting firms lay restrictions when it comes to utilizing their services for file hosting purposes, so if you upload too much content that is not connected or directly linked to your website, your website hosting account could get deleted. So, double-checking the hosting vendor's Terms of Use, regardless of how time-devouring and annoying this might be, is extremely essential.

Email capabilities

Most web hosting providers nowadays also offer e-mail services with all their hosting offers. It is not a bad idea to double-check if the hosting vendor of your choice offers such functionalities too, so as to confirm that you'll receive all the functionalities that you need in return for your cash.