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Choosing the Right Web Hosting for your Needs
_ There are a lot of aspiring
webmasters that know the benefits of setting up their own online website and wish
to have a website of his or her own right away. Having your own website is a
fun and exciting goal to make for yourself because managing the website puts
you on the driver’s seat where you can control the content and more importantly
the fate of your website in the future.
But like any project that you set up, the foundation and roots should be concentrated on first before kicking your website into gear. The roots and foundation of your website is known as the web hosting provider and if you get the wrong type of web hosting provider, your website will continue to go downhill unless you remedy the situation.
It is recommended, however, to start smooth from the very beginning to avoid any waste of time so you can start promoting your website early and grow exponentially. By knowing the different types of web hosting and what they are best for, you should have an easier time choosing which web hosting service is best for you.
Free Site Generators
Free site generators are the most basic forms of web hosting companies and have the most basic features out of the rest of the web hosting companies. These services usually guide newly registered members through a wizard that allows them to customize their website’s content and then let the service do the generating and hosting all at once. The end result is a fully functional website that is created instantly and ready for public viewing.
Most site generators have templates to suit the theme of the website. Free site generators should only be considered if you don’t have any website design as of yet or if you have no experience in designing a website.
Other than that, avoid these services most especially if you are making a site for business purposes. Customization options are usually lacking and if you are in a tight budget, you should go with the next option.
Free Web Hosting Providers
Free web hosting providers are services that offer web hosting solutions without any charge. Although some webhosting companies have site generator features, free web hosting services usually let registered users have more control on what content can be uploaded.
Still the features are still pretty basic when compared to the paid web hosting providers, but that can depend on the free web hosting service.
Generally free web hosting companies provide you with limited web space, limited bandwidth, exceptional speeds on light traffic, and slow speeds on heavy traffic.
If you have a new website all set up and ready to go, a free web hosting provider is a good temporary choice because some free web hosts allow you to use a subdomain that makes it easy to recognize or optionally use a purchased domain if you purchased any.
The idea is to set up your website in a free web hosting company, link it to your domain, and let it run for a few weeks or months until it develops some traffic.
Once you see that your site experience is slow, it may be time to upgrade to a payment plan of the free hosting you are in or transfer to a reliable and affordable hosting provider.
Paid Shared Hosting Providers
Paid shared hosting providers are similar to free web hosting providers in terms of general features, but the main differences are the monthly or yearly fees that is required for the site to stay online and the server that is used to host your site being much faster and more reliable than the servers used by free web hosting companies and packages.
In many cases, the web hosting company may have free web hosting plans and paid web hosting plans on different servers. Depending on the company, paid shared hosting providers can be 10 to 20 times more reliable and efficient than free web hosting companies and they do not cost too much because of the fact they are shared.
Shared hosting means that a registered member will have his site hosted on a shared server where other websites of other members are being hosted. This means that a single powerful server divides its resources among all the sites being hosted resulting to limited speeds, bandwidth, and space.
This may not be a big deal if your hosted site doesn’t have much traffic or doesn’t consume much of the space, but once you have thousands of visitors everyday and offer plenty of multimedia content on your site, the speed bottlenecks become recognizable.
Paid shared hosting providers are the best option for bigger sites that expect larger amounts of traffic in a short period of time. It is okay to stick with the shared hosting option if you plan on growing your website patiently, but remember that you will be paying hosting bills either every year or every month and you might enjoy some savings if you stick with free hosting for now.
Shared hosting sites are best for blogs, small forums, personal sites that have heavy traffic, and possibly some small businesses that have a low budget.
Paid Dedicated Hosting Providers
Dedicated hosting plans may be provided by the same web hosting company that offers shared plans while others may offer dedicated hosting packages alone. But if you check their prices, you will notice that they are around three to five times more expensive, yet have similar features.
The keyword there is “dedicated” and dedicated means that your website will be placed in a dedicated server where 100% of the resources are focused on your site. This means much faster performance even during heavy traffic periods, greater site security, and better uptime.
Choose this plan only if your site is getting lots of daily traffic every day. Since dedicated hosting can be a bit pricey, it is best to upgrade using the funds that you gained from advertising if your site has advertisements.
If you are unsure which type of web hosting is best for you, start with the first type and slowly climb up. Otherwise, stick with the recommendations listed and your site will operate just fine while you spend only money that is necessary.
But like any project that you set up, the foundation and roots should be concentrated on first before kicking your website into gear. The roots and foundation of your website is known as the web hosting provider and if you get the wrong type of web hosting provider, your website will continue to go downhill unless you remedy the situation.
It is recommended, however, to start smooth from the very beginning to avoid any waste of time so you can start promoting your website early and grow exponentially. By knowing the different types of web hosting and what they are best for, you should have an easier time choosing which web hosting service is best for you.
Free Site Generators
Free site generators are the most basic forms of web hosting companies and have the most basic features out of the rest of the web hosting companies. These services usually guide newly registered members through a wizard that allows them to customize their website’s content and then let the service do the generating and hosting all at once. The end result is a fully functional website that is created instantly and ready for public viewing.
Most site generators have templates to suit the theme of the website. Free site generators should only be considered if you don’t have any website design as of yet or if you have no experience in designing a website.
Other than that, avoid these services most especially if you are making a site for business purposes. Customization options are usually lacking and if you are in a tight budget, you should go with the next option.
Free Web Hosting Providers
Free web hosting providers are services that offer web hosting solutions without any charge. Although some webhosting companies have site generator features, free web hosting services usually let registered users have more control on what content can be uploaded.
Still the features are still pretty basic when compared to the paid web hosting providers, but that can depend on the free web hosting service.
Generally free web hosting companies provide you with limited web space, limited bandwidth, exceptional speeds on light traffic, and slow speeds on heavy traffic.
If you have a new website all set up and ready to go, a free web hosting provider is a good temporary choice because some free web hosts allow you to use a subdomain that makes it easy to recognize or optionally use a purchased domain if you purchased any.
The idea is to set up your website in a free web hosting company, link it to your domain, and let it run for a few weeks or months until it develops some traffic.
Once you see that your site experience is slow, it may be time to upgrade to a payment plan of the free hosting you are in or transfer to a reliable and affordable hosting provider.
Paid Shared Hosting Providers
Paid shared hosting providers are similar to free web hosting providers in terms of general features, but the main differences are the monthly or yearly fees that is required for the site to stay online and the server that is used to host your site being much faster and more reliable than the servers used by free web hosting companies and packages.
In many cases, the web hosting company may have free web hosting plans and paid web hosting plans on different servers. Depending on the company, paid shared hosting providers can be 10 to 20 times more reliable and efficient than free web hosting companies and they do not cost too much because of the fact they are shared.
Shared hosting means that a registered member will have his site hosted on a shared server where other websites of other members are being hosted. This means that a single powerful server divides its resources among all the sites being hosted resulting to limited speeds, bandwidth, and space.
This may not be a big deal if your hosted site doesn’t have much traffic or doesn’t consume much of the space, but once you have thousands of visitors everyday and offer plenty of multimedia content on your site, the speed bottlenecks become recognizable.
Paid shared hosting providers are the best option for bigger sites that expect larger amounts of traffic in a short period of time. It is okay to stick with the shared hosting option if you plan on growing your website patiently, but remember that you will be paying hosting bills either every year or every month and you might enjoy some savings if you stick with free hosting for now.
Shared hosting sites are best for blogs, small forums, personal sites that have heavy traffic, and possibly some small businesses that have a low budget.
Paid Dedicated Hosting Providers
Dedicated hosting plans may be provided by the same web hosting company that offers shared plans while others may offer dedicated hosting packages alone. But if you check their prices, you will notice that they are around three to five times more expensive, yet have similar features.
The keyword there is “dedicated” and dedicated means that your website will be placed in a dedicated server where 100% of the resources are focused on your site. This means much faster performance even during heavy traffic periods, greater site security, and better uptime.
Choose this plan only if your site is getting lots of daily traffic every day. Since dedicated hosting can be a bit pricey, it is best to upgrade using the funds that you gained from advertising if your site has advertisements.
If you are unsure which type of web hosting is best for you, start with the first type and slowly climb up. Otherwise, stick with the recommendations listed and your site will operate just fine while you spend only money that is necessary.