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FreeServerweb.com
You have just built or had built that
perfect web site for your business. It was completed
just the other day and it looks great when you demonstrate
it on your laptop computer. But your web site cannot
help to sell your product or service parked on your
laptop and at some point it will need to be installed
on the World Wide Web. This is where you are going to
need to buy a hosting account to park your domain and
web pages for presentation. But there are so many different
choices when it comes to web hosting. There are dedicated,
shared, and reseller accounts. There are web hosting
services that service only PHP pages and those that
service Microsoft-type web pages written in either ASP
or ASP.NET. There are those that provide MySQL databases
and those that allow one to have SQL Server or Microsoft
Access databases. So many choices and it can be very
intimidating for the new web user who has traveled beyond
the realm of just email and browsing. To put it in simple
terms, a web hosting account is a server space where
you put your pages for serving to the World Wide Web.
Usually, what happens is your web site is built on your
local server (running on your laptop for instance).
You then purchase a domain name, and then purchase the
web hosting space and park your domain name with the
web hosting company. The domain name is the www."something".com
name that everyone will know your web site by. You could
for example purchase the name www.yourcompany.com from
a domain name seller like Register.com and then purchase
web space at GoDaddy.com and park your domain name there.
Then, when the general global population types in www.yourcompany.com,
domain name servers and forwarders will find your pages
located on GoDaddy.com because you parked www.yourcompany.com
there. But how do you go about choosing the web hosting
that you need? There is a standard answer among information
technology geeks and it goes like this: "It depends..."
What does that mean? It means it depends on what you
want to do. If your web pages were written in PHP with
a MySQL database then you will need a web hoster that
supports those types of web sites. If your web pages
were written in ASP.NET then you will need a web hoster
that supports ASP.NET. Also, be aware that there are
two ASP.NET versions: 1.1 and 2.0 and the pages are
not interchangeable. A good web hoster will give you
the option of both. For example, www.omnis.com allows
you to switch from the web hosting control panel whether
your pages are written in ASP.NET 1.1 or 2.0. Your decision
on web hosting needs to consider whether you want shared
or dedicated hosting. Dedicated hosting basically means
you get your own server and you do not share the bandwidth
of your connection or system resources with anyone else.
There is also another twist to dedicated hosting and
that is managed versus unmanaged dedicated hosting.
Managed hosting means the hosting company will act as
a web master and handle any issues arising with your
service. Unmanaged is just the opposite and you are
basically on your own in managing the server. One thing
you had better be prepared for is if you are prepared
to do all of the functions of a webmaster on your server.
There is also a revenue-generating type of web hosting
and it is a reseller account. This is where you purchase
a web space and resell it to your own customers (or
even your friends for free) dividing up the space. You
act as the web hosting company and bill your customers
just as if you owned the servers. There are even some
reseller account hosting companies that offer all management
services to include billing for a small fee to you the
customer. In fact, in some cases they do everything
with the exception of marketing your hosting service.
To the end user it looks like it all came from you.
They have no idea you are the middle guy unless you
tell them. Some issues you need to consider is can you
handle billing and collecting fees from customers and
if you can handle the technical support issues. If you
value your time off, make sure that you have the technical
support area covered well. Also, make sure your reseller
hosting company provides you with a powerful yet easy-to-use
control panel so that you can set up the accounts for
your customers. If you manage your reseller account
well it can be a good source of residual income. And
finally, there is the shared hosting account where you
purchase a "slice of the pie" so to speak when it comes
to overall hosting space. You have your area shared
with many other users who have their small areas as
well. For most websites this is more than sufficient.
Their big advantage is low cost because you are sharing.
However keep in mind that you are sharing disk space,
system resources, and bandwidth with who knows how many
other users. If you need a high performance site with
lots of space then this might not be the option for
you. Of course the domain name you purchased points
to your space in the shared realm and no one will be
writing their files from their sites into your folder
in the shared area.
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