What is Hosting?

If you have developed a web site and you wish other people to discern it, you must transfer you website content to a publicly reachable server.

Where to host your site?

Even though you can use your own personal computer as a web server, it is a more common practice to let a hosting provider host your site. The principal reason for that is the greater reliability and the better visibility of your web site, since hosting service providers have high-end hardware and allot a much higher web traffic allowance, which guarantees the faster access to your site from all over the globe.

Hosting solutions

Select a hosting solution, which enables you to register domain names and to set up mailbox accounts. A lot of web hosting vendors, like us at Sales Hub, offer a free domain name registration as a gift if you sign up for an account.

Hosting your website on your own

Hosting your site on your own personal server is undoubtedly an option, but only if you have time and the required expertise. There are certain matters that you need to take into consideration, among them the hardware and software expenses. To build a genuine, professional-looking site, you will have to invest in some powerful server hardware, since you cannot count on a cheap PC to carry out the task. You will also require a constant breakneck-speed Internet connection without network downtimes, which generally is offered at a pretty steep price. If you are availing of licensed software for your website, you will have to spend money on the license too. You may also have to cope with bugs and loopholes. You will need to keep your server constantly running in an environment where "everything could take place". If you do not possess the necessary technical expertise, you will have to resort to a system administrator to tackle these issues for you, which will render the price of hosting your website on your own even higher than that of a dedicated server furnished by a hosting provider.

A dedicated hosting server furnished by a web hosting company

Renting a dedicated hosting server from a hosting services provider is an appropriate choice if you would like to establish a heavy resource-devouring site or a business web page that has very meticulous safety requirements. The most important upsides of utilizing a dedicated hosting solution are the breakneck-speed Internet access, the uninterruptible power supply and the extremely powerful hardware. Some web hosting distributors, again like us at Sales Hub, offer VPS hosting and semi-dedicated hosting services, which are based on extremely powerful web servers that can be divided among several customers. You can also expect them to provide effective server load balancing services and the necessary backup servers.

Safety and reliability

Hosting suppliers are specialized in furnishing hosting solutions and because this is what they do to make a living, you can expect them to offer continuous network connectivity, the newest software updates and the best anti-malware software, as well as system administrators available 24x7x365 to assist you in emergency cases.

Select your hosting accounts provider

What you have to take into consideration when choosing your web hosting accounts provider is the reliability of the offered services. Make sure that the hosting provider of your choosing provides a 24/7 client support service. Do not put yourself in a position where you cannot solve serious predicaments right away because you have to wait until the next business day. Besides, if you pick a shared website hosting plan, which features a 24-7 customer support service, this means that there always will be system administrators available to solve any urgent predicaments as soon as they crop up, which is a very beneficial thing.

Day-to-day backups

Make sure that your hosting solutions provider offers everyday data backups with the offered hosting services, otherwise you may lose some important content in the event of a hardware failure or because you have deleted something by mistake. The presence of everyday data backups is usually pointed out in the web hosting supplier's ToS.

Traffic and server hard drive storage space

When picking your hosting provider, pay special attention to the bandwidth usage quota limitations. Make certain that you don't have to pay a fortune for unforeseen high web traffic volumes if your website becomes more frequently visited. There are plenty of hosting providers that offer unlimited traffic nowadays, so the most reasonable step to take is to ensure that you have made the correct choice before signing up.

Content limitations

Give special attention to the web hosting supplier's content restrictions. If you would like to post images or to stream video or audio, make sure that you can achieve that. Also, the majority of web hosting service providers impose restrictions as far as using their services for file storage purposes is concerned, so if you upload too much content that is not connected or directly linked to your site, your web hosting account could get discontinued. That is why exploring the provider's TOS, regardless of how time-devouring and dull this might be, is extremely essential.

Electronic mail capabilities

Most hosting providers today also offer e-mail services with all their hosting offers. It is not a bad idea to verify if the hosting accounts provider of your choosing offers such options as well, so as to be certain that you'll get all the functionalities that you need in exchange for your cash.