Web hosting companies offer a dizzying array of services. At its most basic level, web hosting involves a web page and small scale file hosting. Computer files can be uploaded by way of either a Web interface or else a File Transfer Protocol (FTP).These files are delivered to the Internet with little processing. Many Internet service providers offer web hosting to their subscribers for free or sometimes for a small fee. On most occasions web hosting is free or relatively inexpensive and is sponsored by advertisements.Web hosting is mainly used for personal homepages. More complex corporate sites require a higher level of database support and platforms for application development such as ASP.NET, Java and PHP.Web hosting also includes a web interface panel such as Plesk, Hosting Controller and cPanel. These make it possible to have e-mail service to install scripts and to adequately manage the web server.In some cases web hosts specialize in a certain type of software or service. They are used by large corporate establishments to outsource work to a particular web hosting company.Web hosting also involves hosting up time. That term refers to the percentage of time that the host is accessible to users over the Internet. Most web hosting companies aim for hosting up time that is 99.9%.That simply means that over a calendar year the downtime is approximately 8 hours and 46 minutes. It is important to keep in mind that planned interruptions for any number of reasons as well as server restarts are sometimes a reality of web hosting.Web servers can sometimes also run Internet hosting services. There are a number of web hosting services that are limited strictly to the Internet. These services include the following:
free web hosting service
the shared web hosting service
reseller web hosting,
the virtual dedicated server,
the dedicated hosting service,
the collocation web hosting service
clustered hosting.
These types of web hosting options has its good and bad points. Some examples of some specialized web hosting services include
image hosting
video hosting
blog hosting
one click hosting
shopping cart software.
Web hosting has become extremely competitive. They have also become very creative in their adverts. They bundle as many customer benefits into their user friendly packages including free web hosting.So why is it that some people still pay for it? The old expression you get what you pay for is valid in this instance. Free web hosts usually offer quite limited services. They are not charging you to host your website. However, they still need to generate revenue.Sometimes this is done by placing advertising on your website. It is very likely that you would not have any control over what kinds of ads are displayed on your site. You take it or leave it. They will also restrict the content that you put on your site.In certain instances you may not be able to sell products or have videos or music. With free web hosting you should adopt a give and take attitude. After all, it does not cost you anything to have a presence on the internet.
