What is that?
Website hosting is the service that web hosting companies provide for people who want to expose their web pages on the internet. There are two general types of hosting possible depending on whether or not you, the client, own your own domain name. A domain name is, simply put, an alias for the IP* address of your computer. For instance http://www.google.com is read by the computer as the ip address of Google's main server assembly (because Google works with a whole network of servers acting as one).

Hosting without a domain name on your ISP
If you prefer not to get your own domain name, you are still eligible for web hosting as a sub domain of the host. In this scenario your url might look something like http://mywebsite/mywebhost.net. You will get this kind of set up, for instance, if you apply for free web hosting with your own internet service provider (ISP), that is if they do offer such added features. This arrangement is perfectly comfortable for a small-scale, website that is not promoting anything and does not expect a huge number of visitors. For instance, a website showcasing your favorite shoes, or your favorite movie stars or even just a simple family website with a few display pages will need nothing better than this.

Getting the service free from external hosts
If your website gets to be over 20 Mb in size, for example if you want to sell dog clothes on it and need to display an extensive database of pretty dog sweaters, your ISP's web space will be too small for your site. The next logical step will then be to find a company that can furnish you with about 40 Mb of space. This will not be difficult to do because there are actually web hosts willing to house your site in their domain for free.

The only hitch to this is that both of you will have the prerogative to display your own ads on your website. The ads that the host will display are random and may very often be unfit for your target audience. You may end up losing visitors and getting a bad reputation on the side.

Another risk involved in free web hosting is that some hosts may think of spamming or hacking into your clients ip address. Since these activities may be connected to your web pages, you may find yourself in a pretty mess in a short while.

You can safely choose this option if you are sure that the company you registered with is perfectly straightforward and all their activities are legal. Otherwise, you shouldn't even entertain their suggestion to remove all their ads from your site if you upgrade.

Paying a small fee for more privacy

The next step you could take is to look for sites where you can pay a small fee and have full control over your website. The best people to approach for this are well known companies that deal in computer equipment connected with networking. At least you are sure they will not be conducting illegal activities under the umbrella of your site.

At this point, you still don't have your own unique url to identify your personal business. Apart from making it evident that you don't really have your own website to your visitors, some of the urls can be jumbled up sequences of letters that are not easy to type out. Specifically, this is the situation you will find if you enroll with companies that are sensitive about hackers and who like to encrypt everything in the address bar of the browser, including your url. This won't do much for attracting new and returning visits.

Web hosting the right way, the way to the big times
Really, the only way to avail of web hosting is the way most successful internet businesses have done. If they needed to do that to succeed, you won't be a special exception, you can bet your last cent!

Most websites with a profitable presence on the net have their own domain names. This gives them absolute control over their web pages. They will not need to consult anyone else to add pages and place more ads. This total control goes also for the theme or subject of the website, something that may be restricted if your web pages reside in a sub domain.

Another good reason for you to set up your own domain is for search engines. Search engines will ignore sub domains unless these are linked to from the main domain. But that is beyond your control and will take more time than what you would have to spend to get your own domain soaring to the top of the organics when people punch your keywords in.

You may need to pay a little bit more for getting yourself a respectable identity on the internet, but if business is what you need, that is the only practical way to do it and there is a chance that what you are going to pay may not even matter in time.

We provide reviews of many different web hosts so check them over to find the one most suitable for you.

*IP. Internet Protocol. This is the address that computers look for. Every website has an address so it can be found just as you have an address of where you live so letters (and those nasty things called bills) can be posted to you.

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