Choosing the Best Web Hosting for your Company

by Michael Craig on 28/02/10 at 7:59 pm

There is no denying that business competition nowadays is so tough that almost all companies around the world have set up their respective websites. This is true because a large portion of the world’s population is using the internet to do business, shop online, and transact payments. In setting up a website, however, many companies decide to get the services of best web hosting companies.

So what exactly is a web host?

A web host is basically a company that runs computers with extremely large hard drives and these computers are connected to the internet. This connection is uninterrupted because this is where the storage of web files is found like the HTML files or the web pages, graphic files, CSS files, JavaScript files, photos, videos, e-mails and basically everything we see in the internet. These computers are assigned with unique internet protocol (IP) codes and these are hooked up to the internet so that other servers can also locate them and vice versa. To illustrate it simply, these servers are very much the same as apartment buildings with their respective addresses called the internet protocol. It is because of this unique address that any webpage in the internet are accessible anywhere in the world. The idea of web hosting is quite the same as renting an apartment unit with corresponding monthly dues. Web hosting comes with different packages such as the storage space, bandwidth, e-mail accounts, and technical support, scripting support and backup services.

There are countless web hosting services available anywhere, but the following four major web hosting services are widely used by companies:

Shared Web Hosting. This kind of web hosting is good for companies who are just starting up in their business. In fact, many small businesses are currently using this type of hosting because this is very economical and affordable. This basically works well for many clients who are sharing the same server, thus there is an automatic reduction of costs in terms in maintenance, tuning and upgrading.

Reseller Web Hosting. This type of web hosting is very similar to shared web hosting in that it is economical and affordable and any small business can easily avail of this package. The only difference, however, is that the clients in reseller web hosting can sell a portion of hosting space to their own clients. They basically become landlords with the power to divvy space to their own clients. The advantage of this type of hosting is that you minimize the cost of running actual servers.

Virtual Private Servers (VPS). This type of web hosting is more commonly known as virtual dedicated server because it stands between shared web hosting and dedicated web hosting. What is good about this web hosting is that you are given a certain amount of control and power like that of shared hosting. On the other hand, it also allows you to live with others in a single server and yet you only pay for the space you are using.

Dedicated Servers. True to its name, dedicated servers are designed for large businesses because they are basically renting an entire server only for their sole usage (dedicated), not shared with any other clients. This kind of web hosting gives the clients full control and power over the servers, what kind of operating system to use, memory, hardware, and central processing unit. As expected, dedicated servers are quite expensive compared to other web hosting services precisely because these are designed for large businesses.