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About Web Hosts
A guide to website hosting
What is a Web HostWeb Hosting is the publishing of your website or homepage on the internet so that others can see it and interact with it. It is important to find a high quality, dependable web host that can publish your website content and provide you with an easy to use interface (i.e. connection) with their server so that you can implement your website.
This in no minor decision, the web host that you select must be one that you can count on to be up on the latest technology and be sensitive to your needs. Cost should never be the sole reason for selecting your web host. Quality is far more important especially if you are marketing from your website. Following these simple rules will insure a wise decision.
- Be sure that they provide 24/7 support. You should be able to contact them anytime day or night. You should be able to maintain your website whenever it is most convenient for you, not for them.
- Don't sign-up for more than you need. Start with the cheapest plan and work your way up if necessary. Often web hosting companies try to get you to subscribe to more services than needed and of course this will needlessly increase your expenses.
- Do not transfer your domain name registration to them. If you do then they will have full rights to the name and you will have no further say in the matter. The domain name will belong to them not you. Should you want to change web hosts in the future you will have to change your domain name and lose your target audience, those visitors who have come to know you by it.
Free vs Private Web Hosting
Free Web Hosting
There are two ways to host a website. You can use a free web hosting company or a private one that charges a fee. The difference is that a free web host will require you to have some form of advertising on your site, such as a banner or pop-up window over which you have little or no control.The free services also limit the amount of memory space available to you as well as impose many restrictions as to file sizes, types, etc.. For a commercial website this can pose problems but a personal website might use this service quite well as long as you are not seeking much exposure. It all depends upon the type of website you have in mind.
Also, the search engines tend to rank free websites rather low. It is difficult to obtain a good ranking on the major search engines with a web address that is several layers deep. Such an example would be, www.freehost.com/id number/your website. Your website is not an upper level address but a second or third level one. This makes it difficult for the search engine spiders to find you and will limit your efforts at website promotion.
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