There doesn’t seem to be an end to the number of companies offering web hosting solutions. To make things even more confusing, they all offer different packages with varying features and costs.

If you’re new to the Internet, you may be confused about which hosting company to choose, and what type of features your site will require.

Since different types of websites can have vastly different needs, web hosts offer a variety of features. For example, a site dedicated to storing images and media will need a hosting plan which emphasizes storage space and bandwidth (the amount of data your visitors can download from your site in a given time period).

Similarly, if your website will receive high traffic, you would require a server that efficiently balances the data load and keeps your website available on a consistent basis.

Depending upon these features, the cost of each hosting plan is different. When comparing web hosting providers, you will see that their price structure normally depends on the operating system, storage space, security options, availability of a dedicated server, the number of email addresses, and dozens of other features. Your decision to choose a hosting plan depends on how many of these requirements you want, and, of course, your budget.

If you have decided to buy a hosting plan for your website, you can often save money by getting domain registration and web hosting in one package. However, this is not a necessity, and many people choose different companies for both of these services.

For small sites, don’t be oversold or wowed by big numbers. You likely won’t use anywhere near some of the storage and transfer limits offered by many hosts in their premium packages. Stick with the basic package and upgrade if it becomes necessary.

For sites with higher performance or security needs, a virtual private server is recommended. While a VPS is more costly than other hosting plans, it ensures that your site will not share as much of the server with the hundreds of other sites that may be hosted there.

For enterprise level sites, a fully dedicated server is recommended. Sites on a dedicated server do not share any resources whatsoever with other sites.

Regardless of the size and type site you plan to host, look for things such as customer support forums, optional phone support, and reasonable prices. Remember that rock bottom pricing is sometimes a signal of poor quality, and opt for hosts which offer reasonable service at a fair cost.

By: Alex Johnson

About the Author:

Kansieo.com

The Pros and Cons of Managed Hosting

Managed hosting is a type of internet hosting using a dedicated server. For you, the client, this means that you have the server to yourself and you do not share digital space with anyone else. This is also called a dedicated hosting service. Using a dedicated service like this will enable you to have complete control over the programs, operating system, the hardware, and other specifications. The server administration is usually provided through the hosting company as an add-on service. In many cases, a dedicated or managed hosting service can have fewer overheads and can cost much less to run or purchase for a company.

It is ideal for large online corporations, as the extra room allowed by the exclusivity of the server can enable more programs and computer to run off the server.

Another ideal feature for larger companies is the ability to perform updates and patches to programs, whereas a shared hosting service would prevent that. In addition to this, the availability of high powered networks from multiple providers enables server providers to secure massive amounts of bandwidth, thus providing for a lower price for its clients.

There are on the other hand a few downsides to this hosting.

It does come at a price as most managed servers will cost significantly more than unmanaged servers. They can mean different things to different companies, so you must be clear on these differences before committing.

Problems can still occur on your server, so you must feel you can trust the company that is supplying this service to you.

And lastly you will have less control of your server, so this is maybe not so much of an option for the technically minded that prefer to have more control of their server environment.

In this scenario you can see the pros really do out way the cons.

Shared Hosting – Weighing up the pros and the cons

In sharp contrast, shared hosting means a simple partition is placed in-between companies programs and services. Often, programs or services may even be shared. This allows for viruses and bad code to easily be shared across the partition. This allows bots and other harmful malware to creep across the partitioned platforms and destroy your data. Even though shared hosting may be cheaper than dedicated hosting, in the long run it really isn’t. Shared hosting is also improbable for most companies in other respects, since it is not large enough to hold most the programs a large corporation would take. Additionally, you the client cannot use the programs you want. You are forced to use the hardware, programs, and operating system that are provided by the host of the shared server.

On the plus side, it can provide reliable web presence without having special technical skills.

It can be divided into 2 subtypes -Free and Paid.

Free Hosting allows you to try new ideas without the expense. It provides you with everything necessary for your floating site.

You should however NOT expect the best conditions for your site as Bandwidth and Disk space is limited.

Web statistics are also poorly provided.

Paid Hosting provides features that free hosting doesn’t such as multiply e-mail, MySQI and PHP which are all supported. Whether you want to host a small, intermediate or large professional business website, this can be used.

Using shared hosting you get a very good chance of hosting your site on a powerful, well administrated server at a low monthly cost.

By: Derek Rogers

About the Author:

Caffeinated Content – Members-Only Content for WordPress