GBs and Gbs of Web Hosting
What is web hosting you ask? Web hosting refers to the
service that a webmaster provides to ensure your website
and email at your domain name stay up and running 24/7.
Think of web hosting as renting space on a special computer
that stays on all the time to keep your precious domain
name up and running. The computer that hosts the files for
your website is called a web server. A web server is really
just a computer that hosts the contents of your website
either in files. These files can be in any number of different
formats, but that is a whole nother topic in and of itself.
You buy web hosting just like you buy internet service
from an ISP. You usually pay monthly, although some web
hosts offer discounts if you pre pay annually. Today, web
hosting is often one of the most difficult things to price.
You will see offers online for gbs and gbs of transfer and
file storage for very little money. But who knows what the
service or uptime will bee like? If you're serious about
building a website and developing a website that will be
succesful, don't skimp on web hosting. It is the backbone
of your website. For a little extra money you should get
24/7 email support and phone number that you can call during
normal business hours. 5 gbs of transfer and 1 gb of disk
space should be more than enough for the first year if you're
just starting your website.
You will often get a good discount if you pre-pay for a
year or two of web hosting so take advantage of any kind
of offer like that. After that year or two you may be ready
to start heavily promoting your website and at this time
you cacn upgrade your hosting account to account for the
extra traffic. Perhaps at that time, 20 GB of monthly transfer
will be the right amount for you. And, by that time it may
even cost you less. Disk space is getting cheaper and cheaper
all the time. It wasn't long ago that web hosting plans
were offered in terms of mbs rather than gbs. I suspect
that in a few years, even gbs of disk space will be obsolete.
If you do a Google search for web hosting, you will be
overwhelmed by the thousands of results and sifting through
them would probably prove fruitless. There are many good
offers out there that give you more than you will ever need.
The question then becomes which host has exactly or close
to exactly what you need. Write out exaclty what is important
to you and what features you will want on your website.
Will you want a forum, content management system (cms),
shopping cart, or all of the above? If you are creating
an online forum, ask several top webhosts how easy it would
be for them to install a script like phpbb or invision power
board. If you're creating a shopping cart or eccommerce
website, ask your web host how easy it would be for them
to install oscommerce for you. And, if a content management
system is what interests you, ask your web host how easy
it would be for them to install Mambo.
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