Anyone that wants to store their website or have a facility to offer products and services on the Internet will require a web hosting company to do this. This allows individuals and organizations to have their own website available on the internet which may be supplied as part of another package, free or through a fully paid service. Anything relating to a website (files, media etc.) can be uploaded onto one of these servers or data centers so people can access them form their computer.
A large number of companies even supply free hosting to individuals, not generally companies, where they are able to have websites and blogs without any charge. However, if you’re planning to expand you should shift to a paid service as free web hosting only gives you limited space and sub-domains for your site. There will be a large number of companies offering paid hosting but the prices do vary and this is usually down to how much is actually supplied as part of the package; any confusion is normally quite easy to overcome by using one of the internet comparison sites that are becoming very popular.
In the early days you may be quite happy to have your files on a server which is shared by many others while you try their hosting services. When the need for more space and security is required then a dedicated server at extra cost can be used. With web hosting you get your own web space, but you do need to have a registered domain before you can use it, then you are allocated with enough storage to keep all your files for online publication. The term ‘file’ is a generic name for anything that is uploaded (the opposite of downloaded) to your website with the space allocated normally not less than one half of a full gigabyte but these figures are always increasing.
Web hosting also provides the facility to have your own email address unlike those supplied by Google and Yahoo for example, this means, your e-mail address is exclusive to your website. People who are serious about their internet presence will want to have their own identity and to prove the point; you will never see a company using someone else’s domain in their email address. The next thing to consider with your hosting package is how much information will be stored on the server that can be downloaded from your website as it will use a facility called bandwidth; the greater amount of files stored that can be accessed, the greater amount of bandwidth will be required.
If your company can’t offer you better bandwidth, then it will be very hard for your users to view your web page. Sites that contain mp3 audio tracks or video files require more storage and a greater bandwidth allocation (amount of data that can be sent) if they are to be used. In almost every case it is a wise decision to use a web hosting company and not consider using your own computer as a host due to the risks, especially for those unfamiliar with internet security.
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