Website Hosting

Web hosting is easily the most expensive part of getting a website online. Basically, a web host is a computer where you store your website. Hosting is the service that the web host provides by storing your website and sending the information to your visitors' computers. Of course, you can host a website on your own; however, self-hosting can be a time-consuming task. It can also cost money if you don't have the necessary equipment and internet connection. This is why this tutorial will focus on purchasing hosting online.

Free Hosting

There are free hosts out there that will provide a home for your website at no cost to you. However, these free hosts often make you display advertisements on your pages, and they almost always make you use a subdomain. An example of a domain would be "WengerEnterprises.com", while a subdomain would look like "images.WengerEnterprises.com". If you were receiving hosting for a site about cats from "A-Free-Host.Com", your domain might look like "MyCatSite.A-Free-Host.Com". Note that subdomains are longer and harder to remember. This is one reason why subdomains aren't a good idea for businesses or any other web page that needs to be even somewhat professional. Basically, they should only be used for personal websites. Free hosts have other limitations as well. They don't usually give you much storage or bandwidth (explained below). Therefore, Wenger Enterprises recommends paid hosting for anything other than personal pages.

Paid hosting

Paid hosts are what most businesses need. They are ad-free unless you choose to add them manually and they usually offer more options than free hosting. Different web hosts provide different options. This can make choosing a web host and plan a difficult task. We will now briefly explain a few of the options you need to know in order to choose your hosting.

Options

Storage

The amount of data your host will store.

Bandwidth

The amount of data you can transfer on the server over a certain period of time. The most common time-period is a month. The more visitors you have, the more bandwidth you need.

Domains

Some web hosts will give you one or more domains for free when you buy their hosting. Some hosts only let you add a certain number of domains to your account.

This short tutorial provides the basics of web hosting. However, there are more options to consider when purchasing a domain such as dedicated or shared hosting, reliability, and support. Visit here for more information and assistance with purchasing website hosting. Web Hosting Search is a site dedicated to providing information on web hosting and helping you decide where to buy.