Ewan MacLeod asked:




Choosing the right Web Hosting package for you can be a bewildering task. With so many packages, prices, terms, conditions, companies and countries vying for your business, it’s important that you understand what you need, so you can choose a company who can give you what you want.

So here’s a list of the major types of Web Hosting available on the market – what they are, and what they’re suitable for. And to make it a bit easier, we’ll follow the career of Dave*, a budding web entrepreneur making his first forays into the world of Web Hosting.

Free Hosting

Free Hosting is exactly that, and although the old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ doesn’t exactly apply – as you are getting something, after all – Free Hosting is not recommended for anyone with any kind of serious aspirations for their site. Of course we offer Web Hosting so we would say that, right? Well, the two main things to consider when looking at Free Hosting are 1 – someone has to pay for it, and 2 – what happens if something goes wrong.

With regards to the first point, it’s often the case that your Web Hosting is paid for by advertisements on your site, and as that is what makes the Web Host their money, they could well be as interested in advertising on your site as they are in getting you to use their service so they can have more adverts. This leads on to point two – what kind of support do you think you will get from a company that is giving you something for free? What kind of guarantees can you have that your Web Hosting is reliable or secure?

It is also common for Internet Service Providers (ISP’s), amongst others, to offer Free Hosting as part of a package with other services (such as Broadband or Digital TV). These are better solutions as they obviously come attached to a reputable (well…) company, and will be able to provide support. Again, though, remember that it is their other service that pay for your Hosting – the Hosting is an enticing extra. Support may well suffer, too, if the company specialises in other products and services.

Some companies, for instance Blogger, will offer free online spaces for specific sites (in Blogger’s case, you get a free online blog). However, you’re limited to what you can do with the templates they give you, and you won’t be able to expand your site or even have your own domain name. So, only go for Free Hosting if you are completely satisfied that the company will be able to provide you with what you want. We wouldn’t advise choosing Free Hosting for a business-related site in any circumstance!

In Dave’s instance, he has been given some Free Hosting as part of a deal with his ISP. Dave’s never made a website of his own before, and he’s certainly never had any Web Hosting. He’s interested but a bit lost, and manages to build a basic, personal site with only a few difficulties. He stumbles across WordPress and finds that he doesn’t get any databases with his Free Hosting. As the Hosting is part of his package – and free – his ISP don’t have any facility to upgrade his account. Dave decides he wants his blog on the Internet, and after talking to one of his friends on Blogger and thinking dreamily about maybe starting an online business, Dave contacts some Web Hosting companies to see what is available to him.

Shared Hosting

This is the most common form of Web Hosting available. A company sets up one or more servers to be used for Web Hosting, and their customers in turn pay for a portion of that server and share it with other customers. So a server may be responsible for several hundred web sites at a time.

Shared Hosting has many advantages. It is the cheapest form of commercial Hosting, as the cost of the server can be offset by the many customers who can use it at once. They don’t require advanced technical knowledge to use and you only need to administer your account – at no point do you have anything to do with the server. As it is a paid solution you will have access to customer support, a contract, uptime guarantees and so on.

The disadvantage is that, as you are sharing a server with other customers, you are also sharing the resources of that server. The server, just like a home PC, has only so much memory, CPU and disk space available, and if other customers are using it heavily – or if the Web Host has put too many people on the server – or even if the server isn’t particularly fast in the first place! – you may well find that your web site appears to be slow.

You will also find that Shared Hosting doesn’t allow a lot of the advanced, powerful features that higher end options present to you. There is a slight increase in security risk, too, as you can never be sure how secure your ‘neighbours’ are – but bear in mind that the server will be very secure in the first place, and the risk is not something to be alarmed about.

So our friend Dave starts out with a very simple Web Hosting package, with a little web space and a database. He installs WordPress and starts to blog seriously, and then decides he wants to start his online business. With his basic account he commissions a Web Design Company to build him an eCommerce site, with his blog built in as one of the features. As his store grows, he finds that he can expand his site fairly easily, without having to worry about any limits like he had with the ISP.

Shared Hosting is the ideal solution for most sites and users. With a few exceptions, only people who want their own server and/or control over the contents of it will need anything else. So Dave, like many people, is perfectly happy, until he decides to quit his day job, and go full time with his eCommerce site. At this point, Dave, who is a bit more knowledgeable about Web Hosting now, considers if there is anything he can do to improve his site.

Reseller Hosting

Reseller Hosting is a generic term that applies to several different kinds of Web Hosting. It isn’t a definition of the kind of Web Hosting on offer, as such, as the kind of person offering it.

A Hosting Reseller purchases a larger Web Hosting account from a Web Hosting company, and in turn sells portions of their account to their own customers. They are essentially providing the services of a Web Hosting company, without having to set up and finance the expensive hardware and the maintenance of it themselves. This kind of Web Hosting is popular with, for example, start-up Web Hosting businesses, companies with a large portfolio of sites, and Web Design companies wanting to offer Hosting to their clients.

A Hosting Reseller may be offering Shared, VPS or Dedicated solutions (see part two). Customers tend to benefit from cheaper Web Hosting as a Reseller often purchases their Web Hosting at a discount. The only major drawback with Reseller Hosting is that the Reseller is also a customer of the company they have bought their Hosting off of in the first place. The more advanced the Hosting they are offering, the more support the Reseller can give you directly – but as a customer of a Reseller, it is possible that you will contact the Reseller about a technical fault, who will then in turn have to contact his or her Hosting company.

Reseller Hosting is only of use to Dave if he decides to sell Hosting to other people, or expand his business with a large portfolio of other sites. If he wasn’t looking to do either of these he’d probably stick with Shared Hosting – as it is the most common form of Hosting it is also the most popular, and he’d get more use out of it. For now though, Dave thinks he is happy with a single site, he would just prefer to have more control and performance as his site is getting quite busy and he has a few demanding redesign plans in mind. So, in the second part of this article, we’ll look at some of the more advanced Web Hosting options available to Dave (and you, of course).

*Dave is not real. He is just for illustrative purposes only, and any resemblance to any Dave or any events that have happened to any Dave, living, dead or otherwise, is purely coincidental.

Miguel Mateos Romo asked:




Reseller hosting is popular these days for a variety of reasons. For one, it is an extremely profitable way to go about starting a small company. And the web is one of the best places to start a business because just about everyone has access to the internet. Reseller hosting takes this to a larger level in what you can do with it. You can profit immensely from this particular area in web hosting business because of the level of clients you can accumulate. You can make money quick and easily just by being dedicated and researching the ins and outs of what you hope to accomplish.

Reseller hosting as a business brings the owner many advantages. Just by purchasing a web hosting plan you can start your own business by reselling these web host accounts to people. This in turns allows for others to pay you for your services each month, profiting over the amount you owe each month to the company you originally purchased the web hosting plan from. If you span it out right, you can make up to ten times the amount you originally invested in the business to begin with each month.

Reseller hosting may not seem like a very popular way to go about starting your own business. This may be the case for some people who have heard wrong about the merits of this type of business. But when you look at the benefits you’ll be surprised by how much you can profit and reap in the rewards. The website industry is booming these days and this is a perfect way to start out on the ladder to building a larger, more competitive business. Snagging in clients will bring you into new ways of how to run your business as a professional.

There are plenty of online resources for learning about reseller hosting as a business. They entail all the details about how to get a reseller account, how to bring in clients, how to run your business effectively, and even how to bring an edge into the game over competing companies. This makes life much easier for first time reseller hosting hopefuls who find this as the first step to expanding a larger business. Taking the necessary steps and being cautious of scams will launch you farther into this multi-million dollar industry. Anyone can start a business in reseller hosting and make money from it as long as you know what to do.

Reseller hosting may not seem like a business in itself, but in actuality it is a high profit earning area in the web hosting industry. There is plenty of information available to anyone who would like to look into starting a company in this particular area. It’s one of the easiest ways to start building a company from scratch if it has always been your dream to own a website business. Buying from a larger web hosting company is the first step before you think about clients and making profit. Being smart and researching all you can will bring your potential business success.

Anand Maheshwari asked:




If you really wish to host your own site, it is important to sign up with a hosting account. As a result of the limited budget, a large number of people wish to host their sites with inexpensive or cheap web hosting services. Although a large number of people have inhibitions regarding the effectiveness and reliability of the cheap hosting services, it is a good option to go with such hosting facilities.

Obviously the free web hosts will offer specific kinds of advertisements on their client’s websites in order to compensate for the hosting costs. It is most of the times seen that people do not like to place ads of web hosting companies on tier site in order to take the free hosting services. Also, it is a fact that the free web hosts can ban their client’s site at any point of time. So, all the efforts of the web site owners will get wasted with such an action. To avid such problems, it is wise to select a web hosting company that offers cheap yet effective hosting services to its clients. This will not only help the site owners to have great services at affordable rates, it will also contribute in letting their sites have online presence felt. However, there are some points that need to be checked and considered wisely before facing any future problems with the hosting account.

Support is the first and foremost thing worth consideration while taking the cheap hosting services. It is wise to ensure that the web host is offering great support either via phone or email. If you are not having the support when you actually need it, it is basically not worth to have any web hosting services. Ensure that the web hosting company you choose to avail the services from is featured with a good technical support facility.

Also, the hosting contract needs to be scalable. You need to have the ability to upgrade the hosting deal as per your requirements and that too without much hassle. Reliability is also one of the most crucial factors that need to be checked carefully while taking the services of a cheap web host. Also, backup or the data serves as the most precious thing in any online business. If a web hosting company is not offering any backup facility, then, it is important to take such a service at any cost.

Needless to say, it is also good to look out for the additional features and services offered by the cheap web hosting company. There are various web hosts that include the free applications which can be then launched easily from control panel. Programs like blogs, forums and shopping carts are some of the features that are additionally offered by some web hosts.

Joe Lapham asked:




Web hosting services vary in size, reliability, uptime speed, key features, user-friendliness and customer support. Numerous websites have selected the best web hosting sites of 2009 and listed herewith are commonly-ranked sites in most web hosting reviews:

1. Jumplaunch is Globel Hosting Reviews’ top recommended hosting facility. It that caters hosting services at a cheap rate of $4.95 per month. This hosting site is most famous among web hosting reviews. It offers unlimited storage, unlimited transfer, unlimited domains, free domain and setup, and secure hooting. Jumplaunch.com bagged the top recommendations from various hosting reviews. Truly satisfied business clients even brag about this web hosting facility’s great customer care. In fact, much of their attests have been acknowledged online by a lot of new users.

2. Bluehost offers professional webhosting for a minimum of $4.95 per month. This hosting site facility offers unlimited hosting space, unlimited file transfer and even unlimited domain. Most web hosting reviews via online enlists Bluehost in the “Top ten list of best hosting sites of 2008.” About 2,500 POP or IMAP Email accounts are hosted by this web hosting facility. The Bluehost offer business and personal packages with high-powered service at a fraction of the cost. Thus, Webhostinggeeks.com awarded this web hosting facility with an Editor’s Choice Award.

3. Completewebreviews.com awarded webhostingpad.com the Web Host of the Year of 2008 since it offers a wide-range of features like unlimited hosting space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited domain hosting, unlimited email accounts, unlimited databases and even unlimited FTP accounts. This hosting site was formed in 2005 and earned great credits ever since they have delivered the best value of hosting at a cheaper cost of $3.95 monthly. Its award-winning support and privacy protection has earned its way in the hosting industry as most business and personal web hosting clients become truly satisfied of their services. In the year of 2009, this hosting facility already grabbed 12 review awards from independent sites like CNET.COM.

Indeed, there are hundreds of hosting sites that offer delectable services to online users and clients. A lot of them offer unlimited services for at least as $3.00 per month. However, only a few of these web hosting facilities made it to the roll of the finest and most-acclaimed sites that offer excellent services in the web hosting industry. Only a few of them catches the attention of numerous users via the World Wide Web and only a number of them gets to be proclaimed reliable and deserving of awards. There have been numerous hosting reviews in 2008. Most of them have come up with a list of ten hosting sites based on costs, efficiency and reliability. This review however, is mostly focused on their offer and full-featured services to their clients from the online functionality to its customer care. Much has been focused on the data management, hosting support and even on technical support availability.