Beginners Intro to Buying Web Hosting

The web world may lead you into terms like domain names, web hosting and secure certificates. These words may be quite confusing to you if you are new to getting a website running. What are the main ingredients a web site absolutely needs to be up and running. Two items exist that are essential for any web site to be up and running – a domain name and web site hosting. Your name would be something like google.com and your files would be hosted online for people to see.

Domain names are just an easy way for visitors to remember your site and type it into their browser. What about the web hosting aspect of it? Well let’s explain what you are doing when you purchase web hosting. Your web site files need to be stored in a public place, a container, that will display your files. Files for your web site could be code or multimedia files, such as HTML, CSS or Flash. Your web site requires a web hosting server, that is basically a computer configured to show your web pages. Basically a web hosting package is a service provided by a Company that allows anybody with access to the internet the ability to view your web site files.

Now that we have defined web hosting, what do all these features mean when I am looking to buy website hosting packages? For beginner sites, you will be mainly looking at two main features – disk space and bandwidth. Disk space is the file size you can store on the actual web server. The latter indicates the amount of data your server is allowed to transfer when web site visitors visit your web page. When your web site grows and needs more advanced features like a Content Management System, your next steps are to check into features for language support and database support. Language support means the Server language the code was written in, while the storage container for your web data is placed in a database.

In conclusion, web site hosting is a server that displays your code and visual files to users of your site. The needs and requirements of your site will then determine what you need to look for in terms of disk space, bandwith, language support and database support.