What is a Web Hosting Company?

What is a Web Hosting Company? A web hosting company is a business that utilises a large number of computer servers to store and deliver websites to the internet.

When you first decide to create a website of your own you, of course decide what your website is going to be about and what it is going to be called. At this time you also need to choose a web hosting company, you need to decide where your website is going to be hosted from.

People often think that their website is stored on their own computer, and yes a local copy usually is, but the main website itself is held in a specially configured computer at a web hosting company, where it can be easily accessed via the internet.

Deciding which web hosting company to use is not easy, mainly because on the surface they all seem to do pretty much the same thing. Just like your own computer these servers use an ‘Operating System’ and in most cases this is either Windows or Linux. For most website owners there is little to choose between the two. They both do 99% of the same thing with just a few slight technical differences which are unlikely to be of concern to most of us. Linux is usually the lower cost option out of the two so is preferable from a cost point of view.

Web Hosting Companies charge a fee for their services. You sign up for a given period of time which can be from months to years. You can pay in one payment or regular monthly payments. Price is therefore a factor to bear in mind when you are choosing a web hosting company.

You should also look for a web hosting company that gives you a free domain name with the hosting package otherwise you will have to pay for your website domain name separately. Disk Space is also important. This is the amount of space that you are allowed to use on their server. Initially this might not be a concern but as your website grows you may regret signing up for a package with a limit on the space you can use.

Some web hosting companies offer unlimited bandwidth. This essentially means that there are no additional charges if your website ends up with lots of visitors, but watch out some of them have limits to this bandwidth and charge you more as your visitor numbers increase.

Some web hosting companies allow you to add more domain names to your main hosting account. This is beneficial if you plan to create more websites in the future as you then just pay for the domain name without needing to pay for more hosting, so choose one with unlimited add-on domains.

If your website is going to be based on WordPress, Joomla or Drupal systems then you want to choose one that can automatically set up these systems for you with just a few clicks of the mouse. If not you will have to manually install them and manually set up databases which can be difficult. Choose a hosting company with one-click installs, easy installs or something called fantastico, which is the same thing.

I have been using the same web hosting company for many years now. I chose them because they offer all of these features. They provide unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, free domain names, unlimited add-on domains and one click installations and all at a lower price than many of the others. I have included a link to them below if you want to have a closer look at my recommended web hosting company.

Want to find out more about the web hosting company I use, or visit my site to find out more about What is a Web Hosting Company?.