Web Hosting Uncovered

If you have built a website and you would like other individuals to check it out, you must copy your web site to a publicly accessible web server.

Where to host your web site?

Although you can use your own PC as a web server, it is a more conventional practice to let a hosting service provider take care of your site. The principal reason for that is the bigger reliability and the uninterrupted availability of your site, since hosting service providers have special hardware and offer a much larger traffic allowance, which ensures the faster access to your website from all around the world.

Web hosting services

Choose a web hosting solution, which enables you to register domains and to set up electronic mail accounts. A lot of web web hosting vendors, like us at Zasta Hosting, offer a charge-free domain registration as a bonus if you open a hosting account.

Hosting your website yourself

Hosting your site on your own personal server is surely an option, but only if you have time and the necessary know-how. There are some facets that you have to take into account, including the hardware and software costs. To own an actual, proper website, you will need to purchase some powerful server hardware, because you cannot bank on a cheap PC to do the task. You will also require an uninterrupted breakneck-speed connection without network downtimes, which usually comes at a rather steep price. If you are availing of licensed software for your web site, you will need to invest money in the license as well. You may also need to deal with bugs and malicious software. You will need to keep your web server constantly running in an environment where "everything could take place". If you do not possess the necessary technical competence, you will need to resort to a system administrator to cope with these issues for you, which will render the price of hosting your site yourself even steeper than that of a dedicated web hosting server offered by a hosting company.

A dedicated web server supplied by a hosting company

Renting a web server from a hosting firm is an appropriate choice if you would like to create a resource-absorbing web site or a corporate web portal that has very rigorous safety requirements. The main advantages of using a dedicated web hosting solution are the breakneck-speed connection, the constant power supply and the extremely powerful hardware. Certain web hosting service providers, again like us at Zasta Hosting, supply VPS web hosting and semi-dedicated server web hosting services, which are based on very powerful physical servers that can be divided among several customers. You can also expect them to offer effective load balancing solutions and the needed data backup servers.

Safety and stability

Web hosting companies are specialized in offering web hosting services and since this is what they do to make a living, you can expect them to offer uninterrupted Internet connectivity, the newest software patches and the best virus protection, as well as system administrators available 24-7-365 to assist you in occasions of emergency.

Select your web hosting supplier

What you have to take into consideration when picking your web hosting plans provider is the reliability of the offered services. Make certain that the web hosting solutions provider of your choosing provides a 24-hour client support service. Do not put yourself in a scenario where you cannot resolve critical issues right away because you must wait until the next business day. Besides, if you opt for a shared website hosting plan, which features a 24/7/365 client support service, this means that there constantly will be sysadmins available to fix any serious problems as soon as they materialize, which is a very advantageous thing.

Everyday backups

Make sure that your web hosting solutions provider offers day-to-day backups with the offered web hosting services, or else you may lose some valuable content in case of a hardware breakdown or because you have deleted something by accident. The availability of day-to-day data backups is typically pointed out in the web hosting vendor's Terms & Conditions.

Traffic and hosting server hard disk storage space

When picking your hosting solutions provider, pay special attention to the traffic volume limits. Make certain that you won't have to pay a fortune for unpredicted high volumes of traffic if your site becomes more frequently visited. There are lots of hosting companies that offer unmetered bandwidth at present, so the best thing to do is make sure that you have taken the right decision prior to signing up.

Content limitations

Give special attention to the hosting service provider's content limitations. If you aim to post pics or to stream video or audio content, make sure that you can achieve that. Besides, the majority of hosting firms lay limitations as far as using their services for storage purposes is concerned, so if you upload too much content that is not connected or directly linked to your website, your website hosting account could get deleted. This is the reason why double-checking the service provider's TOS, irrespective of how time-requiring and tiresome this might be, is extremely vital.

E-mail capabilities

Most web hosting suppliers today also provide email services with all their web hosting offerings. It is a good idea to verify if the web hosting services provider of your choice offers such features as well, so as to be certain that you'll obtain all the features that you require in return for your money.