would be considerably harder. Simply put, and for the majority of people and companies, this means allowing their website to be seen by others around the world; some of these services are actually free. Hosting companies can have many servers which they use to store these files, with each customer having their own section for storage; a little like a draw in a filing cabinet.
Many types exist, some provide free hosting but with these types you pay the price of having restricted facilities that usually allow the likes of blogs, email and basic websites to be accessed. However, if you’re planning to expand you should shift to a paid service as free web hosting only gives you limited space and sub-domains for your site. There is a huge range of services available and often comparison sites are the best place to search as prices do vary considerably and you must really know in advance what type of service you need.
Almost everyone starts out with what is termed ’shared hosting’ where the server is used by many.However, it is often a good idea to see if the company is reliable before this more costly option of a dedicated server is taken. You need to have a registered domain to have a web hosting package otherwise files, websites and other digital information cannot be stored or accessed. A file is anything that is stored on the server and can include images, documents, programs, video or audio files, in fact anything that can be stored digitally; prices for storage continue to fall so limits are constantly rising.
Of course when you actually have your own domain name combined with web hosting, you are able to have your own email address which uses the name of your domain and no-one else can use it. If you have a business presence online you cannot afford to have another company’s name at the end of your own e.g. www.yourcompanyname.hostingcompany.com when it should really look like this: www.yourcompanyname.com. The amount of data that is viewed on your site each time someone accesses it is called bandwidth; it is an extremely important aspect to consider and the main reason why buying the cheapest hosting package is not always best.
If your company can’t offer you better bandwidth, then it will be very hard for your users to view your web page. If you only have a small site that does not have much on it then this probably won’t concern you but as soon as audio, video and hi-resolution images are incorporated, it becomes more of a concern. While it is possible to use your own home PC as a web host, this is not advised as the number of security issues involved will make it a risky proposition and it is far easier to pay another company for their web hosting service.