Website Hosting? Whats That?

Published by john on January 18, 2010 Under Websites

Having your own website can be a great way to share your life with your friends, family, and acquaintances. If you own a business, having your own website is an essential part of attracting new customers and keeping your existing clients informed of changes to your business. One of the key components of setting up a website is choosing your website host.

A Website Host is the company that keeps your website online, so others can find it through their web browser. The Hosting Company maintains a number of web servers, which are connected to the Internet. They will host your website on one of their servers, which allows others to find your site.

Can I Host My Website From My Personal Computer?

While it is possible to host your website from your own home, there are a few downsides to this.

First, there are a lot of things that go on behind the scenes, so it is necessary to be a very technical user.

Also, if the power goes out, your computer crashes, or you loose the Internet, the website will go down, which means you not only have to have protections in place to prevent this, but you also need to be on call 24/7 to fix any problems. Further, while it is possible to host a website from a desktop computer, it is preferable to host it from a server using Linux, as this is the most secure. So, you would typically not want to run it from a regular Desktop Computer.

Most ISPs, like Time Warner or Embarq, prohibit hosting a web site from a residential account, so you would likely need to upgrade to a business account or risk having your Internet Service turned off.

The main advantage to using a web host is that they worry about all of these things and have plans in place in the event of an emergency. So, even though some people do host their website from home, if you need to be able to guarantee that it will be up and are not very technical, it is almost always better to use a web hosting company.

Advantages of Shared Hosting

There are many types of hosting available, but the most common and inexpensive type of hosting is Shared Hosting. Shared Hosting is when the host puts your website on the same server as several of their other clients. This means that on the same computer server that hosts your website, there could also be 20 other websites.

Shared Hosting is a great choice for low traffic sites or ones that are just starting out, due to its low cost. Even though there are other websites on the same server, visitors to your site will not be able to tell.

Downsides to Shared Hosting

Of course, shared hosting does have a few drawbacks. The biggest drawback is that you are sharing the resources of the computer with each website that is on the server. This means that if one of the websites is incredibly busy, it could slow down the entire server. There are checks and balances to prevent this, but they don’t work 100% of the time.

The other main drawback is that if your site is incredibly busy, shared hosting may be too slow. Also, for very busy sites, the hosting company may not allow you to use shared hosting and instead require you to get a Private Server

What is a Private Server?

If you choose to use a Private Server to host your website, it means that only your site(s) will be running on the server. The company will allocate a set amount of resources to your account and allow you much more control over the server. For example, when you have a private server and it starts moving slowly, you can restart it whenever you want. This is not something you could do with shared hosting.

Using a Private Server can be very expensive, but it means that your site will be more secure and it will usually run much more efficiently.

What Type of Hosting is Right For Me?

For most family websites, shared hosting is the best bet. It only costs $10 a month and unless you have an extremely high traffic site, performance wise, shared hosting will usually be fine. This is also true of most business sites, at least in the beginning anyway.

However, if you need to be able to fully control the web server or if you have a very high traffic site, using a private server may be a better choice.

Ultimately, for most users, starting with shared hosting and then moving to a private server when necessary is usually a safe decision, as well as being the most affordable.

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