How Hosting Works

You have a concept that you want to convert into a website? Your first move should be to sustain your enthusiasm and discover a place for your web site online so that it will be constantly visible to the whole world.

Where should you host your site?

Because the number of websites online has risen exponentially during the last few years, the need for web hosting services has also lead to the birth of innumerable hosting suppliers. These are companies that offer you storage space for your own website on their web servers.

Varieties of web hosting services

The reach of hosting services varies immensely, so do the requirements of the web site proprietors. The most basic type of hosting is the small-scale file hosting solution, where files can be uploaded via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a web-based graphical user interface. A lot of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer this service for free. Personal web page possessors and companies can also obtain website hosting services from different hosting service providers. Personal website hosting services are usually either free, advertisement-subsidized, or inexpensive. Business website hosting services typically cost more, but thanks to the immense rivalry on the marketplace, a growing number of hosting vendors, like us at Hosting Mexico, offer business hosting services at lowered prices and with flexible billing intervals.

Kinds of web sites and their prerequisites

The free website hosting solution is usually sufficient for personal web pages like portfolios or online diaries. A more resource-absorbing web site, like a social networking website or a corporate website, needs a more advanced hosting platform that provides database support and application development platforms (for example PHP). If you would like to set up an online shop, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) must be supported by the web hosting packages provider of your choice. At present, Secure Sockets Layer certificates are offered by most hosting service providers.

The hosting Control Panel

The web hosting plans provider typically also offers a hosting Control Panel GUI for handling your web site files, e-mailbox accounts, electronic mail aliases, domains, DNS records, etc.

Service reliability

When choosing a hosting packages provider, service uptime is a very vital aspect. The availability of a web site is measured on an annual basis by taking into consideration the time when the web site is publicly available and viewable on the Internet. Network and service availability guarantees, therefore, should be vigilantly considered when ordering a website hosting service. You should re-examine the service-level agreements and the TOS of the hosting provider of your choosing in advance. Reading reviews from existing clients is also a rather good step before you choose to register.

The shared hosting platform

The most widespread and affordable type of web hosting service is the shared web hosting solution. It includes round-the-clock client support, which is an enormous asset for users who would not like to cope with server maintenance tasks, but could also impede users who wish to have more control over the web server. For such customers, a VPSs or a dedicated packages would be more suitable. Most standard apps and scripts work fine on a shared web hosting server. Moreover, the shared web hosting solution costs less than other types of web hosting solutions, like the dedicated hosting, because the web hosting vendor divides the server among multiple customers. The shared hosting solution usually includes usage limits that ensure that the different users do not interfere with each other and that the web server remains stable.

Administering your shared web hosting account

Shared website hosting plans typically offer a web-based hosting Control Panel, like cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, etc. The majority of the large-sized web hosting vendors, again like us at Hosting Mexico, utilize their very own custom-developed hosting Control Panel user interface.

Server maintenance

With the shared website hosting platform, the web hosting plans provider is responsible for managing the web and e-mail servers, for installing web server software, software updates and patches, and for offering tech support to its customers. The majority of web servers are based on the Linux OS. The hosting service provider's system administrators are responsible for keeping the Operating System up to date, unless you have a dedicated hosting web server and complete server root access.