What is web hosting?

Once you sign up with a web hosting provider your website will be placed on his server and then others can view it on the internet whenever they want. Those businesses that provide this type of service will have access to a large amount of hard drive space and will have constant access to the internet. Your web hosting provider allows others to be able to view your website.

Why do you need web hosting?

You could try to host your website yourself but it would probably take up too much of your time and it is very unlikely that your personal computer would be able to handle this type of activity. Not only would you need to be extremely technically minded but your computer would have to be continuously sending files to the internet. Also you could find that your site is more susceptible to hackers if it is hosted by you.

Which is the best type of web hosting provider to choose?

Although there are free web hosting services available they may not be as reliable as paid web hosting providers. Most free web hosting providers will expect you to allow them to advertise on your site in exchange for this free service. A free web hosting provider makes money from these adverts. The free services may also have limitations as to the type and size of files you can upload. Technical support can be poor with these services and your site might have far more downtime than uptime.

Paid services can offer far more choice and reliability. Many of these will guarantee you uptime of as much as 99% - not bad. You will get much more space and bandwidth and may even get other features such as email accounts. Technical support tends to be a lot better with paid hosting services.

When you decide to go into internet marketing, you should make sure that you have web hosting sorted out. But the world of web hosting can be confusing. For instance, you could find reseller web hosting or even linux web hosting while searching different options.