How Shared Web Hosting Works
If you have made a decision to develop your own personal website, but are not very sure about what a web site is and are not familiar with the term "shared web hosting", this article is devoted to defining these notions in simple language.
What exactly is a website?
A web site is an amalgamation of webpages brought together systematically. It has a special web address, also known as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). A web site may include just one single web page and sometimes may even have as many as 1000 webpages.
What is a web hosting server?
A hosting server permits you to upload your site onto it. In some instances, there might be even thousands of sites on one single web hosting server. The hosting server basically is a computer with special hardware, which is situated in a datacenter facility with special cooling systems, whose purpose is to ensure the seamless performance of the web hosting server and all the websites hosted on it.
In short, a web hosting server will be really a launch pad when the time comes for you to launch your website. It could be any type of web site - a corporate site containing a lot of pages, or a website, which contains just several pages and which you have created simply for your mates and family members.
You've made a decision about what your website will be, now what?
As soon as you have made a decision about what sort of web site you want to create, the next step is to find out what kind of web hosting service you must choose for your online project. Basically, there are two types of website hosting services - free-of-charge website hosting services and paid web hosting services. The free-of-cost hosting solution is ordinarily used by persons that do not possess a business-related web site.
Upsides and downsides of the cost-free website hosting solution
You will not get a lot of options with a free web hosting plan. Features like bandwidth, RAM memory and hosting server disk drive space are limited and inadequate for a complex e-commerce site or a corporate web site, or even for a web site with a lot of artwork. Furthermore, there are lots of adverts placed on your website by the web hosting provider. These ads occupy lots of space on your site and are quite frustrating.
Shared hosting
The paid shared hosting services are more stable and include a lot of advanced features beside the high-quality web hosting server that will host your site and its files. In spite of that, it is essential to know which features your site demands before purchasing your web hosting package. You should not hurry and wind up investing money in something that your site does not demand.
Select your hosting solutions provider
It is not hard to find a web hosting distributor. You have to just carry out an online search in order to find a web hosting distributor that meets your site's requirements. Before you make your actual choice, have a gaze at the features of the web hosting plans provided by the web hosting companies that have attracted your interest. We, for instance, are among the top-notch web hosting companies on the marketplace these days. The enormous array of web hosting services and our prices are what renders us an attractive option. However, you must confirm what type of web hosting service you need and if the price fits your allowance. Besides, you must always remember to examine the hosting company's Terms & Conditions before opening an account to make certain that your web site is not abusing them.
Signing up for a web hosting account
As soon as you have determined what features are optimal for your site, the next move is to open an account with the hosting accounts provider of your preference. You will receive all the essential tools for handling your files and databases. With us, for instance, you will receive a web hosting Control Panel, which is comprised of domain name, website, database and email account management sections. You log into the hosting Control Panel using your unique username and password, which grants you secure access to the part of the web hosting server where your site will be located.
Uploading your web site
You can either upload your site through FTP or, as is with most web hosting companies, through an online tool that is included within the Control Panel. With us, the File Manager is quite easy to use and offers features similar to those observed in Windows Explorer, which renders file manipulation extremely easy. We offer also a web site building tool and a PHP-driven script installer, which you can utilize to set up your website if you have no programming abilities and are making your very first steps in web design. The online web site building tool, whose name is SiteStudio, will also spare you the time and effort of making a website on your computer and then uploading it through an FTP client or the File Manager interface.