The Basic Facts About Business Web Hosting

Terry Henry

There are a number of hosting options, from free to dedicated servers. Let's spend a few moments and look over the options.

Free Hosting The first and not recommended is free hosting. Remember what they say, there is nothing free. Well it's the truth about this also. Your webpage on a free hosting server may have banner ads from companies that may not compliment your business or page theme. Another common problem is the third level domain (http://yourpagename/theirdomain.com) Now that doesn't look professional as a business. Would you share your business name with some other company on a business card? I'm sure that would be out of the question.

Shared Hosting Shared hosting for the small business is the best way to go. Shared hosting has the server divided up with other websites allowing a lower cost for hosting. In most cases you are allowed more than enough disk space (Usually Between 100-500 Meg) and data transfer per month. The rule of thumb for small business is a minimum of 100 Meg of disk space and 1 gig of transfer.

Dedicated Servers The big boy on the block and the most expensive! Dedicated servers are used usually by medium and large size companies. The advantage to this form of hosting is complete control with the most disk space and the largest amount of transfer (Most companies selling dedicated servers allow a minimum of 500 gigs of transfer a month). Keep in mind that this requires a lot of technical ability; most companies hire a network administrator to oversee this form of hosting.

As you can see there are many options based on size and needs of your business. Hopefully you are a little more aware of choices out there now and will make the right choice on one that best suits your companies' needs.

Copyright 2005 Terry Henry ( Henry Marketing and Development), all rights reserved

About the author Terry Henry is operations manager for Henry Marketing and Development (www.hendev.com) and the PowerZone Hosting Group (www.powerzonehosting.com)

Terry can be reached at terry@hendev.com

Browse Hosting Plans

Home Private/Dedicated Co-Located Shared/Virtual Unix/Linux Windows Budget (<$10) Free Search Articles Contact Privacy Policy Add to Favorites

Did You Know?

Finding that Host that Offers the Most Whether you already have a website or are thinking of setting up shop online, sooner or later you'll have to deal with the issue of web hosting. Although it may seem like a "no brainer," there are actually many factors you'll need to consider before making this important decision. Your first inclination may be to look only at the cost, thinking "cheaper is better." However, that old saying "you get what you pay for,"is especially true in this situation. Here are some of the more important points you'll want to look at when considering your next host. UNIX/ NT/ The two most popular hosting platforms to choose from are UNIX and NT. UNIX is by far the favorite, as it was the only choice way back in the early days of the Internet. It is easy to configure, great for setting your own file permissions and the platform for most of the free scripts available for download. It is flexible, reliable and supports scripting languages like Perl and PHP3. NT is Microsoft's baby. One problem that I have found with NT servers is a lack of readily available scripts that work on this platform. Also, (unlike UNIX) many NT users need assistance from their Web Host Administrators to set file permissions. NT supports MS applications such as ASP, Access, FP and scripting languages such as Perl, Cold Fusion and ASP. TECH SUPPORT/ When you need help you'll want to make sure you can get it. Some web hosts offer phone support or even live chat. Make sure they have good tech support in place as there's nothing more annoying than needing assistance with your site and not being able to get it. More...