Carefree Insomniac Blog

 Anyone that wants to store their website or have a facility to offer products and services on the Internet will require a web hosting company to do this. This giant storage facility normally comes at a cost owing to the services it provides but in some instances (normally non-business or commercial), they can be offered free. Hosting companies can have many servers which they use to store these files, with each customer having their own section for storage; a little like a draw in a filing cabinet.Free hosting deals are great for those who want to ‘dip their toes in the water' for example but the range of services available to them will be limited. However, if you're planning to expand you should shift to a paid service as free web hosting only gives you limited space and sub-domains for your site. You can search the Web for many of the paid hosting services but their prices may vary depending on the packages they're offering. In the early days you may be quite happy to have your files on a server which is shared by many others while you try their hosting services. Once you are comfortable with the service level then it might be worth upgrading to a dedicated server. You need to have a registered domain to have a web hosting package otherwise files, websites and other digital information cannot be stored or accessed. The term ‘file' is a generic name for anything that is uploaded (the opposite of downloaded) to your website with the space allocated normally not less than one half of a full gigabyte but these figures are always increasing.When you have a paid web hosting package it will allow you to have an email address using your domain name unlike those that are offered free with the likes of Google, Yahoo or MSN for example where their name is at the end of the email address. If you have a business presence online you cannot afford to have another company's name at the end of your own e.g. www.yourcompanyname.hostingcompany.com when it should really look like this: www.yourcompanyname.com. The next thing to consider with your hosting package is how much information will be stored on the server that can be downloaded from your website as it will use a facility called bandwidth; the greater amount of files stored that can be accessed, the greater amount of bandwidth will be required.If you have a busy website and you have a low bandwidth allocation then there will be times when potential visitors will be disappointed as they will not be able to access your site until the allocation has been re-set. Sites that contain mp3 audio tracks or video files require more storage and a greater bandwidth allocation (amount of data that can be sent) if they are to be used. Some people use their own home computers for web hosting but there can be serious security and reliability issues here and will require certain  software testing types so it is best to look for a professional company to supply this service.