Different Types of Hosting and Which one is Best for You?

The Internet is a wonderful place, bustling with e-businesses, personal blogs and a whole lot of information. It is a meeting point for different businesses to attract customers, right from the comfort of their home. We have come to an age where if we want any service, we look it up in a search engine and come up with a long list of businesses which cater to our needs. We then go on to choose whatever is feasible for us, for example economically or location-wise. E-businesses provide a quick and easy way to obtain services with just a click of a button. We are no longer required to physically go to a shop or business to buy their services. We can order products, food and even book appointments online within minutes. Which is why more and more physical businesses are setting up a “shop online”.

And this is possible through web-hosting. Web hosting is a means through which we can setup a website and make it public for the whole world to see. When you create a website, you have to store it on a web server, and it becomes available on the internet there.

A Web Host is a business which provides space on their web server, or the web server they have rented out; to other businesses which want their websites online. They do so for a fee, or for free (where they earn revenue from the advertisements they post on the website. Along with space on their web-servers, they may also provide a domain name, SSL certificates and an email hosting service. Some website also provide templates and tools to build a website. E.g. www.tripod.com

There are different types of hosting :

Free Web Hosting : These companies provide limited services. They earn revenue through the advertisements they post on the websites. While these are good for personal blogs, they are a good option for businesses, as they offer limited space, no domain name (like .com or .org) and don’t often have good security option. E.g. www.lycos.com www.wordpress.com www.blogger.com

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Shared Web Hosting : This is where a bunch of businesses are hosted on to the same web server. The number can range between hundreds to thousands of websites. This is a good option for small businesses which are looking to get a domain name with a low cost. All the websites share the same CPU and RAM of the main server, due to which there are a lot of restrictions on security and traffic volume. www.dreamhost.com

Reseller Web Hosting : This is where a client becomes a web server. A business buys server space from a web host, and sells that space again to another business which wants to put up a website. E.g.www.hostgator.com

Dedicated Web Hosting : This is a good option for semi-large to large business which require a lot of server space, as well as produce high traffic. The business gets the entire server (but doesn’t own it; ownership remains with the web host) and has complete access over it. The client gets multiple domain names and strong and unlimited support from the web-host. The only downsides being that it is expensive and requires a great amount of skill set as pre-defined template or builder tools aren’t available. E.g. www.hostgator.com/dedicated

Colocation Web Hosting : Here, the client owns the server. The Host merely provides the physical space to store the server, and they maintain the server and provide physical security to the server. This happens to be the most expensive form of hosting as it provides unlimited software options.E.g.http://www.netmagicsolutions.com/co-location-services http://www.verizonenterprise.com/products/cloud-it-infrastructure-services/colocation-services/

Clustered Hosting : The website is stored on multiple servers and in case one of the servers stops working, another server is there to back the website up, providing a disruptive environment for the website. It provides a scalable web hosting solution. E.g. https://www.clustered.net/www.hostrocket.com/clustered_hosting.html

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Cloud Hosting : These hosts provide hosting for websites on virtual servers. In this form of hosting. The client pays only for the amount of service they use. It is a format of clustered hosting, where the website is hosted on multiple servers. If in case one of the servers is down, then another server is available to back the website up. The servers may be in different locations physically but are connected to one another virtually. If in case the traffic of the website goes up, there are multiple servers to support the website, without causing it to crash or slow down. Since these servers are housed in secure data centers, there is no worry of the data being accessed by unwanted people. E.g. www.linode.com https://cloud.google.com/

So, whether you are a beginner or a professional, there are quite a few web hosting options out there to cater to you requirement. And an equally large number of hosts which offer tailor made services, based on your business requirement. One’s need may vary with other, some basic factors to consider when searching for a web host may be :

Company
People
Reliability
Availability
Redundancy
Support
Backup
Policies

Withstanding all these facilities available, web hosting has been really easy and convenient, as a result more and more business is getting attracted by web hosting. From as small as an oil pin to as big as a car or a flat everything today is being sold online, making it easy for the seller to reach out to customer and vice versa.

In our next post we will discuss about how you can make a swift move from one hosting provider to another one without loosing any of your Data and making a quick move easy and hassle free for your website since many hosting transfers results in a downtime for your website which surely you don’t want to have.

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Till then stay with us and learn more about blogging here.

Tell us about your experience with your hosting provider and what all problems you faced. If you are satisfied with your hosting tell us the name of your hosting service so that others can also be benefited with it.

I was using HostGator for 2 years but then i realized that it has started to charge more money for the same old hatching package. Then i shifted to ASO (A small orange ). Would you like to know how the new hosting is going for me now and how much i am paying for the new hosting?

Surely i am going to tell you all that in my upcoming post, till then enjoy blogging and keep discovering.