WEB AND DOMAIN HOSTING

Free Hosting

Some ISPs offer free web hosting.
Free web hosting is best suited for small sites with low traffic, like personal sites. It is not recommended for high traffic or for real business. Technical support is often limited, and technical options are few.
Very often you cannot use your own domain name at a free site. You have to use a name provided by your host like http://www.freesite.com/users/~yoursite.htm. This is hard to type, hard to remember, and not very professional.

Good:	Bad:
Low cost. It's free.	No domain names.
Good for family, hobby or personal sites.	Few, limited, or no software options.
Free email is often an option.	Limited security options.
	Limited or no database support.
	Limited technical support.

Shared (Virtual) Hosting

Shared hosting is very cost effective.
With shared hosting, your web site gets its own domain name, and is hosted on a powerful server along with maybe 100 other web sites.
Shared solutions often offer multiple software solutions like e-mail, database, and different editing options. Technical support tends to be good.

Good:	Bad:
Low cost. Cost is shared with others.	Reduced security due to many sites on one server.
Good for small business and average traffic.	Restrictions on traffic volume.
Multiple software options.	Restricted database support.
Own domain name.	Restricted software support.
Good support

Dedicated Hosting

With dedicated hosting, your web site is hosted on a dedicated server.
Dedicated hosting is the most expensive option. This option is best suited for large web sites with high traffic, and web sites that use special software.
You should expect dedicated hosting to be very powerful and secure, with almost unlimited software solutions.

Good:	Bad:
Good for large business.	Expensive.
Good for high traffic.	Requires higher skills.
Multiple domain names.
Powerful email solutions.
Powerful database support.
Strong (unlimited) software support.

Collocated Hosting

Collocation means "co-location". Collocated hosting lets you place your own web server on the premises (locations) of a service provider.
This is pretty much the same as running your own server in your own office, only that it is located at a place better designed for it.
Most likely an ISP will have dedicated resources like high-security against fire and vandalism, regulated backup power, dedicated Internet connections and more.

Good:	Bad:
High bandwidth.	Expensive.
High up-time.	Requires higher skills.
High security.	Harder to configure and debug.
Unlimited software options.

Your Checklist

Before you choose your web host, make sure that:

The hosting type suits your needs
The hosting type is cost effective
Upgrading to a better server is possible
If needed, upgrading to a dedicated server is possible

Before you sign up with an ISP, surf some other web sites on their servers, and try to get a good feeling about their network speed. Also compare the other sites against yours, to see if it looks like you have the same needs. Contacting some of the other customers is also a valuable option.

Example: eUKhost

eUKhost is a leading web hosting company in the United Kingdom.
eUKhost offers services including:

Shared Hosting
Reseller Hosting
VPS Hosting
Dedicated Servers
24/7/365 Support

on Linux and Windows platforms, powered by control panels such as cPanel/WHM, Plesk and DotNetPanel.
An account can be setup within a few minutes.

MS SQL Server or Oracle for high traffic database-driven web sites.

MySQL for low-cost database-access.

MS Access for low traffic web sites.

Web Databases

If your web site needs to update large quantities of information via the web, you will need a database to store your information.
There are many different database systems available for web hosting. The most common are MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, and MS Access.

Using the SQL Language

SQL is the language for accessing databases.
If you want your web site to be able to store and retrieve data from a database, your web server should have access to a database-system that uses the SQL language.
If you want to learn more about SQL, please visit our SQL tutorial.

SQL Server

Microsoft's SQL Server is a popular database software for database-driven web sites with high traffic.
SQL Server is a very powerful, robust and full featured SQL database system.

Oracle

Oracle is also a popular database software for database-driven web sites with high traffic.
Oracle is a very powerful, robust and full featured SQL database system.

MySQL

MySQL is also a popular database software for web sites.
MySQL is a very powerful, robust and full featured SQL database system.
MySQL is an inexpensive alternative to the expensive Microsoft and Oracle solutions.

Access

When a web site requires only a simple database, Microsoft Access can be a solution.
Access is not well suited for very high-traffic, and not as powerful as MySQL, SQL Server, orOracle.