Title:
The Nitty Gritty of choosing a website hosting company

Word Count:
1144

Summary:
Does the web host company's technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year around? Make sure you get a response for the web host company quickly not just the next day. Another thing to check is that the phone number they provide actually is answered by a real person.

Keywords:
website hosting

Article Body:
If you have a website or would like a website you're going to need a website hosting company. The good news is there are tons out there to choose from. The bad news is you're going to have to learn a little bit about web hosting to be able to choose the right one for you. That is what we are going to discuss in this article, to help you choose the right web host for your company/personal website.

What is a web host company?

A web host provides the service that allows you to store the information that makes up your website. A web host stores your website's information on a web server. Each time you type a web address into your browser , the browser asks for your website's information from the web hosts server and then the browser displays it on your screen. Basically, if you don't have a web host or your own server, you don't have a website. Some ISP's (Internet Service provider) provides web space but, this is not the type of web hosing we will be discussing.

Types of hosting plans

The next thing you are going to need to know is that there are different types of hosting that is available to you. There is virtual / shared hosting. What that means is that the web host company hosts more than one account on that server. There is also dedicated which basically means you would get your own server. Another type (which is not as common as the first two) is VPS (Virtual Private Server) and what it is, is " virtual " servers on the actual server and the user can add different modules within their server. The user can also allocate how much CPU usage or memory easy module gets. Most users will generally only need shared hosting unless you have a large website with over 5,000 visitors per day and large scripts. If that is the case you will need dedicated hosting.

Types of Operating Systems

There are three different types of operating systems for servers. There is Linux, Unix and of course Windows. Just because your computer is a PC doesn't mean you have to opt for Windows web hosting. The operating system you use on your desktop has little to do with your choice of web hosts. As long as you understand how to use your FTP or web publishing software, your can use either operating system.

When it comes to Web hosting, Linux has for some time, been widely considered the best Operating System for Web servers. It's typically found to be the most reliable, stable and efficient system. If your website, like most web sites, is what might be termed "brochure-ware" then Linux servers are ideal. A web site housed on a Linux operating system will have very high up-time and very low downtime.

If you intend to create your website using ASP, FrontPage, the .NET environment, Windows Streaming Media, Access, MSSQL, or any of the other Microsoft proprietary technologies then you probably need to use a Windows host. All other languages are able to be hosted on either platforms. Basically, unless you are specifically using features that are unique to one platform or another your time will be much better spent looking for a really good quality host than a really good quality server.

Email

If you have your own site, you would probably want to have email addresses at your own domain, like you@yourdomain.comany_e-mail@yourdomain.com