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Selecting a hosting service can be a very different experience for different people. For some, it is as easy as picking up their favorite ice cream, not much thought required to go in for the kill. While for others, it is like buying an expensive piece of property. A lot of factors to consider and a lot of time spent or wasted in the process. The key in selecting the best hosting service lies in knowing at least the basics of what hosting is and more importantly, what it is we plan to do with the service. Speaking of real estate, a simple explanation of hosting can be made by literally comparing it to property. In a traditional brick and mortar business, a shop, a store, business premise or whatever you want to call the property where the business is run is required. Physically it is where the business will take place. Where you would trade the goods or services offered. Likewise, in an online business this so called "shop" is like all things on the internet - virtual. You can consider it a piece of virtual real estate. This is true not only for online businesses but any website in general. Websites which are not used for businesses can be compared to non-commercial real estate such our homes. In reality though (and not to get into too much tech) we are really talking about space where data making up our website is stored. These are servers and the companies that run and maintain the servers are the providers for the hosting service. Making another comparison to property, the rent that business owners pay for using the real estate is the equivalent of the service fee that hosting companies charge to use their facility and services to operate a website. So in essence, a hosting service provides the infrastructure for websites whether it is for business or not. Generally speaking, we can classify hosting into 2 types, shared hosting and dedicated hosting. While both types of hosting will provide the means necessary to operate a website, there are some fundamental differences that will suit the needs of different website owners. Because of this, choosing the type of hosting, whether shared or dedicated, depends entirely on the requirements of the website to be hosted. Shared Hosting is generally used by individual website owners. As the name suggests, the server space is 'shared' by multiple website owners. Think of it like a condominium where a building is divided or partitioned into many units that belong to different owners. Similar to a condo, the costs of maintaining the server is shared by all the website owners who utilize the server for hosting. It is this reason that shared hosting is a much cheaper and affordable option. The trade-off for affordability in this case would be that the users have no control over the administration of the servers. Things like the server's operating system, security options and maintenance are all taken care off by the hosting provider and do not concern the users. Dedicated Hosting on the other hand, as the name suggests, just means that the entire server is 'dedicated' to a single user or client. Thus it can be expected then, that the associated costs is much higher as it is shouldered by that user alone. However since there is a sole user, he has full control on how the server is to be managed. As mentioned before, selecting between shared and dedicated hosting services depends on the owner of the website to be hosted. A beginner or someone new to the internet may want to choose a shared hosting due to the comparatively low costs and use the service just to learn the ropes. A more established website owner or even a company with advanced websites may opt for a dedicated hosting for the control it offers with regards to the administration of the servers. Aside from what has been mentioned, important characteristics to look out for in selecting a hosting service are among others, availability of support, uptime (website always accessible), user friendly interface for managing websites, offered storage capacity for your website and bandwidth (how fast the website will load). In any case, just like shopping it is wise to look around for packages with a good deal as there are many hosting providers available out there. Some of these providers will offer many additional services to entice potential clients. Be sure to stay focused on what are your own requirements and choose the service that best meet your needs. Kevin W. C. is an online marketing expert. This is his website
and
it is hosted with this Hosting Provider.
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