If you want a web site, it has to be hosted on a web server somewhere so that people can access it on the internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A web server is simply a computer which is running web server software, usually Apache Webserver or Microsoft IIS, that allows it to serve web pages to anyone who requests them. There are a number of ways you can achieve this: - Free web space provided by your ISP (eg Freeserve, BT, ntl etc.)
- Free web sites available on the internet
- Pay a commercial company to host your website
Of these only the last option is acceptable for a company website. With free webspace, you will not be able to use your own business domain name (e.g. www.yourcompany.co.uk), instead your address would be something like www.yourcompany.someisp.co.uk. A company that cannot afford to pay for commercial hosting will not be taken seriously Commercial Web Hosting So that leaves commercial web hosting as the only real option for most businesses. Again, there are several options, and and a variety of products from literally thousands of web hosts, big and small. In order of ascending cost they are: - Shared Hosting - you are allocated a certain amount of hard disc space (e.g 50 Mb, 100Mb, etc) on one of the hosting providers web servers.
- Dedicated Virtual Server, (also known as Virtual Private Server) - a server is split into several independant virtual servers.
- Dedicated server - you are allocated one of their webservers for your exclusive use.
- Co-location - you buy your own webserver, but have it physically located in the hosting companys data centre .
For most small businesses, shared hosting is the preferred option - even 50Mb of webspace would be sufficient for several hundred normal web pages, and can be purchased for as little as £2.49 per month. More space is needed if you have a busy e-commerce site, forum or community portal, or store a lot of images on your site. |
It is a common misconception that if you use Windows in your business, you need Windows Hosting for your website.