Internet Technologies/Web Hosting
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Web Hosting: An Introduction
Important: Someone needs to write the 'Types of Hosting Control Panels' section. This article also needs cleanup.
Outline Of Article
- What is Web Hosting?
- What does Web Hosting do?
- How can I get web hosting?
- Where can I get web hosting?
- Types of hosting control panels
- What is Reseller Hosting and how does it compare to standard?
Contents |
[edit] What is Web Hosting
When someone sets up a server and hooks it up to the internet, the files on the server become accessible over the internet. Web Hosting is your personal space on that server. Web hosting is your own storage on the internet. If you upload HTML files, you'll have a website. If you upload .ZIP files, you'll have a download area. It's up to you what you do with it, but Web hosting is online storage.
[edit] What does Web Hosting do
Most companies own their own servers these days, but some still pay for web hosting. Let's say John Doe decides he wants to sell his paintings online. He purchases web hosting, and sets up a website. Jane Doe, on the other hand, wants to set up a forum system. She purchases web hosting and installs the forums. If you know how, you can make an entire website, or put any files you want, online, via your web hosting.
In addition, over the last few years hundreds of "web site softwares" have been written that, when installed onto your hosting account, give you an immediate web site.
When looking for a web site software, it's important to consider the software license. If you stick with free software when selecting your web site software, you will have the advantage of new software releases that are made available free of charge. Commercial, albeit more powerful, alternatives are often available..
[edit] How & Where can I get hosting?
Webhosting comes in two forms, paid and free. Paid hosting has a termly fee - be it monthly, quarterly or annually, and with considerable amounts of space. Free hosting, on the other hand, has limited web storage and low bandwidth provisions. It also usually comes with advertising banners on your web pages.
With the recent drop in web hosting monthly fees (usually in the region of a few dollars a month), the recommended way to go would be a decent, commercial hosting service.
A free hosting site such as Tripod or Geocities is over-subscribed and would be good for those who do not mind waiting for periods of time for support resolution. It is a good place to start learning the basics of building a webpage or if your target audience is small, not exceeding their bandwidth restrictions.
[edit] Reseller VS Shared
Reseller accounts allow clients to divide their account and sell or distribute these allocations to other users. For example, if John purchases a 10GB reseller account, he can then sell ten 1GB accounts. Shared hosting refers to the fact that there are usually 100+ people per server - in effect, 'sharing' the server. Personal accounts.
[edit] Types of hosting control panels
Just a placeholder section - this article needs a sort of cPanel/Plesk/DirectAdmin/etc comparison. Sparky 20:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Creating a Web Host with your Home Computer
Most home internet connections can be used to create a home web server to act as your personal Web Host. The simplest type of web server is probably running a "HTTP server" software in Windows XP with a DDNS (Dynamic DNS).
HTTP File Server - One of the simplest web server softwares on the market with lots of wiki's and howto instructions on their website.
Alternatively, depending on your needs, an expert may decide to pay and get a "Static IP" and/or run more sophisticated web servers such as Apache.
[edit] Further reading
More information is available on the Wikipedia article about Web Hosting.
[edit] Notable sites
Godaddy - Large scale domain and hosting provider.
Tripod - Ad-supported, free web host. Owned by Lycos.
Geocities - Yahoo's answer to Tripod.
Freewebspace.net - Useful website for locating free hosting providers.
Namepros - Domain / Hosting forum; newbies may wish to consult members here.
Web Hosting UK Cheap Hosting and Domain Name Registration Services by Webhosting.UK.com
[edit] Note to future article editors
I, the original author of the article (Sparky2002b), wish to remind Wikibooks that this is an informative work and not a Classified Ads section. Please don't add in advertisements for your own host.
Note to original article creator. Leaving the article "neutral" means leaving your personal (business) websites out as well
