Archive for November 26th, 2011
Website owners are often faced with a difficult decision right from the beginning of their online venture. This decision is to choose a web hosting service for their website. Not only are there hundreds of web hosting companies offer their services at affordable prices, but there are also some that offer free hosting to their customers. Here we look in detail at the major differences between having a free hosting service versus a paid hosting service and the impact it can have on your website.
Price
The first difference is the price. Free webhosting allows website owners to host the website completely free of charge. There are no fees involved in uploading files to their server. There are no fees involved for keeping the website hosted on the server over time. Paid webhosting services on the other hand charge a small fee for website owners to have their website hosted. Payment to web hosting services is usually prescription based on a monthly interval. You may choose to sign up for 12 or 24 months and receive huge discounts or you can stick to a month by month plan to make sure you are happy with the service.
Speed
One important aspect of webhosting you need to look is bandwidth. This determines the speed that data is transferred from the hosting server to the Internet user visiting your site The greater the bandwidth, the faster your site will load and the faster users can see videos, pictures and download files from. Free web hosting services usually restrict the amount of bandwidth to your website and as a result this will affect your website’s loading time as well as speed when visitors are trying to browse your site. If you have a relatively new site without many visitors yet or your site does not consist of many pictures and videos then the restriction on bandwidth have little or no effect on you. Conversely, if you are planning to grow your website or have a large website with lots of graphics then a paid web hosting option with unlimited bandwidth is your best solution
Space:
The amount of web space you need for your website is also important if you are planning to grow your website, or at least have the flexibility to be able to expand it at a later date. Free web hosting services usually limit the amount of web space allowed by you web site, the number of pages your website can have or both. It is therefore important that if you have a website that can grow to being quite large and significant you are going to need server space from a web hosting company that provides you with plenty. Many paid web hosting services also provide unlimited space for your website, which helps put your mind at ease.
Functionality:
Functionality and control of your website is probably one of the most important aspects when considering a web hosting solution. You want to be in control of your own website and have be able to do whatever you want with it. Most free web hosting accounts do not allow you to use your own domain name. As an alternative, you must use a subdomain or internal domain of their own website. This can be seen as a drawback since you will then have poor branding of your products and services. In addition, many free hosting options place their own ads on your website. You cannot remove these ads and they may be annoying and distracting to your potential online visitors.
In conclusion, pricing would be the only advantage a free webhosting service would have compared to a paid webhosting service. It is also a known fact that it may also be costing you more and causing you to sacrifice more if you do not have an adequate and reliable web hosting service for your website. If you have taken the initiative to start your own website then your next step is to find an affordable webhosting solution with no restrictions.
The word free has a very powerful appeal. Various advertisements for free FTP hosting also cast a powerful spell on the web surfers searching for a solution to their file transfer problems, and they therefore are easily taken in, only to realize later on that they had been trapped into reading unwanted advertisements or irritating pop-ups.
It is always advisable to make enquiries before entrusting your valuable individual or corporate data in exchange for tardy transfer of your files. The first question to ask should be about the track record of the hosting company. How long the company has been in business? A new entrant, despite honest intentions, may not have acquired the expertise to handle your important files and may be offering free service just to enlist you as their customer, but may close the shop sooner than later. It takes around five years to build a solid foundation in the business. Then there may be fly-by-night companies who may just vanish with your invaluable data by luring you with a free service. So, make sure that the company is legitimate.
It is easy to launch a website and name it a FTP hosting company. Ask for references of the actual users. The company should have a toll-free telephone number and should answer your queries courteously and in detail. A free FTP web hosting company cannot provide you with sufficient bandwidth for uploads and downloads of the data. The service and technical support of the free hosting company may be poor and below mark. It may not support file transfers from Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. A free web hosting company may force you to purchase their own specific software at their own rates, and may not allow you to opt for off-the-shelf purchase of the software that you need.
A free web hosting company can be useful if you just want to gain experience by learning the techniques of FTP and be well versed with the job before launching into a serious business.
The Pros and Cons of Managed Hosting
Managed hosting is a type of internet hosting using a dedicated server. For you, the client, this means that you have the server to yourself and you do not share digital space with anyone else. This is also called a dedicated hosting service. Using a dedicated service like this will enable you to have complete control over the programs, operating system, the hardware, and other specifications. The server administration is usually provided through the hosting company as an add-on service. In many cases, a dedicated or managed hosting service can have fewer overheads and can cost much less to run or purchase for a company.
It is ideal for large online corporations, as the extra room allowed by the exclusivity of the server can enable more programs and computer to run off the server.
Another ideal feature for larger companies is the ability to perform updates and patches to programs, whereas a shared hosting service would prevent that. In addition to this, the availability of high powered networks from multiple providers enables server providers to secure massive amounts of bandwidth, thus providing for a lower price for its clients.
There are on the other hand a few downsides to this hosting.
It does come at a price as most managed servers will cost significantly more than unmanaged servers. They can mean different things to different companies, so you must be clear on these differences before committing.
Problems can still occur on your server, so you must feel you can trust the company that is supplying this service to you.
And lastly you will have less control of your server, so this is maybe not so much of an option for the technically minded that prefer to have more control of their server environment.
In this scenario you can see the pros really do out way the cons.
Shared Hosting – Weighing up the pros and the cons
In sharp contrast, shared hosting means a simple partition is placed in-between companies programs and services. Often, programs or services may even be shared. This allows for viruses and bad code to easily be shared across the partition. This allows bots and other harmful malware to creep across the partitioned platforms and destroy your data. Even though shared hosting may be cheaper than dedicated hosting, in the long run it really isn’t. Shared hosting is also improbable for most companies in other respects, since it is not large enough to hold most the programs a large corporation would take. Additionally, you the client cannot use the programs you want. You are forced to use the hardware, programs, and operating system that are provided by the host of the shared server.
On the plus side, it can provide reliable web presence without having special technical skills.
It can be divided into 2 subtypes -Free and Paid.
Free Hosting allows you to try new ideas without the expense. It provides you with everything necessary for your floating site.
You should however NOT expect the best conditions for your site as Bandwidth and Disk space is limited.
Web statistics are also poorly provided.
Paid Hosting provides features that free hosting doesn’t such as multiply e-mail, MySQI and PHP which are all supported. Whether you want to host a small, intermediate or large professional business website, this can be used.
Using shared hosting you get a very good chance of hosting your site on a powerful, well administrated server at a low monthly cost.