A definition of web site hosting

As its name hints, web hosting is a service, which entails hosting online content. There are various forms and types of web hosting, depending on the goals and on the functions. Nonetheless, they all entail hosting files, which, once hosted, are made accessible throughout the World Wide Web. A host is actually a server that is linked to the Web and has its own IP address, which allows people to get access to it via the Web. The web hosting server's configuration and its resources are determined by the kind of hosting solution it will be used for.

What are the various types of web hosting?

Based on the application, the business website hosting solution may be:

File Storage Hosting - this type of web hosting enables the clients to deposit their files on a given hosting server. With the customary file hosting service, the files that are saved may only be accessed by the customer that's utilizing the service. This hosting solution traditionally concerns backups of personal computers , documents, personal files and even other web servers. This solution may also have given limitations in terms of the disk storage and the root-level access. There may also be traffic quota limitations, but that is dependent on the particular provider.

Warez Hosting - the so-called warez hosting service is very similar to the previous hosting service type. Nevertheless, in contrast with the file web hosting service, the warez web hosting solution is used for distributing patented materials without being given the go-ahead by the copyright keeper. To cut a long story short - it is connected with the criminal propagation of files and documents. There are lots of approaches for this to be done, but the 2 essential ways are - through plain HTTP downloading and via peer-to-peer connections. The first way involves either a specific web portal, or, most commonly, simply a directory on a web hosting server that's been made available for everybody to access it and thus download licensed content free of cost. The second method entails a P2P connection, availing of the so-called Torrent servers, through which users swap files between each other. There are very few web page hosting firms that allow such form of web hosting on their servers, mainly because of all the judicial problems that it involves. Usually such web sites are hosted on personal dedicated servers that are registered by 3rd party companies either in the Middle East or in Asia.

Electronic Mail Hosting - this service is utilized with both shared web hosting and dedicated web servers, based on the customer's desire. If you would like to set up your very own private SMTP e-mail server, then you will require either a virtual web hosting server or a dedicated server that offers the access level required to execute such an operation. For ordinary electronic mail hosting purposes, however, you can use a simple shared hosting account, to which you can point the MX records of your domain name. This is not a service that's widely famous, because the site hosting and the mail hosting services are being served by two separate web servers, usually owned by different firms.

Site Hosting - the most popular and vastly used hosting service today. It's used for hosting site files, whose sort depends on the Operating System the hosting server is running - Linux or Windows. Different sorts of files require different web hosting server OSs, otherwise they won't be shown accurately on the Internet. This sort of web hosting may impose web space and traffic quota limits, server root access and central processing unit usage restrictions.

Based on the goals and on the usage, the customer should pick the sort of hosting server that he requires for his project, and, of course, the web site hosting firm that's going to supply it. There are different types of web hosting servers, depending on the configuration and the web site hosting services that they offer. These are:

Shared Web Hosting Server - a shared website hosting server supplies a smaller quantity of system resources, which, of course, reflects on the price of the service. It can be used for hosting small scale and medium size web pages, which do not require vast amounts of disk storage and traffic.

Semi-Dedicated Hosting - they are based on the very same principle as the shared web space hosting servers. In spite of that, there are much fewer clients accommodated on the same server. For that reason, each of them will obtain a larger quota of the web server's resources like RAM, disk storage, web traffic and CPU. Ideal for hosting bulky sites that do not need root-level access.

VPS hosting - the VPS hosting servers are excellent for medium size online portals, which do need root-level access to the web hosting server's configuration files. Typically, there are several virtual server web hosting accounts situated on the same server. Still, each of them is isolated from the other ones and runs its own Operating System.

Dedicated Server - a completely dedicated server configured and accessed by you and only you. It guarantees a tremendous quantity of system resources. It also gives server root access, which makes it the optimal solution for any type of web portal that necessitates a web site hosting solution.

The sole question that's left is:

Which web hosting supplier should I select?

As stated above, there aren't many web hosts providing warez hosting solutions because of judicial complications. Such hosts are being shut down virtually every month. Because of that, if you wish to establish such a service, you should do it on your very own personal computer. The shared web page hosting solution is the most widely spread type of hosting service. Therefore, each web space hosting distributor provides it. Not all of them, however, offer solutions such as private virtual web hosting servers, semi-dedicated web servers and dedicated servers. Most of the small scale web space hosting firms do not have the means demanded for offering those solutions. That's why it's always best to pick a larger host that can supply its clients with all the solutions that they are looking for. You can effortlessly identify such web hosts by the sorts of solutions that they are supplying and by the way that they present them to the clientele. For example, some web hosts allow you to commence with a small scale web hosting account and then upgrade to a more powerful one, if you deem it compulsory to do so. This is extremely suitable, because you do not have to migrate sites between web hosting servers and there is no danger of facing network downtime due to all the problems that may occur. Web hosting companies like Clic offer all sorts of services and have the adequate web server resources and personnel to ensure that their customers will not run into any complications when changing services, which is what a top hosting company is actually all about.