When a company or a person decides to have an online presence or other internet based project they will use a service called web hosting. 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. The hosting company has a number of servers, or data centers, where each person is provided with varying amounts of space to store their digital media, including websites; others can then access these files (web pages for example).
Many types exist, some provide free hosting but with these types you pay the price of having restricted facilities that usually allow the likes of blogs, email and basic websites to be accessed. There are many limitations to free web hosting services and they are not generally regarded as an option for serious web users as the amount of storage space is limited along with many other functions a web user may require. Hosting packages vary enormously and do not rely purely on the storage capacity available so the decision should be made relative to your particular needs.

Initially, the majority of users decide on paying for a shared server with their hosting company.However, it is often a good idea to see if the company is reliable before this more costly option of a dedicated server is taken. You need to have a registered domain to have a web hosting package otherwise files, websites and other digital information cannot be stored or accessed. 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.
Of course when you actually have your own domain name combined with web hosting, you are able to have your own email address which uses the name of your domain and no-one else can use it. Many people take you more seriously if you have your own email address and not one supplied free by the myriad of other companies who have an online presence. The amount of data that is viewed on your site each time someone accesses it is called bandwidth; it is an extremely important aspect to consider and the main reason why buying the cheapest hosting package is not always best.
Problems will occur in the form of an inaccessible website if the bandwidth is exceeded so if the web host cannot provide the bandwidth you require you will need to use another company. If you only have a small site that does not have much on it then this probably won’t concern you but as soon as audio, video and hi-resolution images are incorporated, it becomes more of a concern. You may have your own web host in your PC, but that can be too risky; the best option is to settle for paid web hosting, even if you’re new to the internet.


