web hosting

Do You Need Free or Paid Web Hosting?

If you are in need of a website, it important to know that are many types of services that can help you achieve this goal.  Rather than going into the endless variety of web hosting types, we will discuss two of the most basic services – free and paid hosting.  Indeed, you don’t necessarily have to spend money to get a website.  However, there are a number of factors that need to be considered outside of costs, all of which will help you make an informed decision.

What is the Intent of Your Site?

When it comes to choosing a service, the first step that needs to made is determining the purpose of your site.  Some people use a website as a convenient means of sharing photos and information with family and friends while others are looking to start a business online.  Although every website is based on the same general concepts, there are extremes that greatly differentiate business sites from their personal counterparts.  Knowing the purpose of your site will make it much easier to decide between free and paid hosting.

What will it Include?

After determining the needs of your website, you should then have a better idea of the content it will include.  Some websites consist of a single homepage and others contain multiple pages with dynamic features.  If you only need to upload small text documents and photos, you will not require tons of disk space and bandwidth in a web hosting solution.  The same holds true if you only anticipate a minimal amount of traffic.

If the above sounds like your plans, you can probably get by with free web hosting.  Free services are typically easy to use and cater to individuals with no experience at creating web pages.  With the right platform, you can learn more about HTML programming and put those skills to use for a professional site in the future.  Many have used these services to build their presence online before moving on to a paid solution.

Can You Afford to be Limited?

Although a free hosting service can help you get a website, there are several drawbacks you should take into consideration.  First and foremost, you have very little control over your hosting environment.  Because of this, you may be forced to allow the hosting provider to place third-party advertisements on your web pages.  Secondly, features are quite limited in comparison to a premium hosting solution.  You only have a small amount of disk space and bandwidth to work with and technical support is almost non-existent.  Such disadvantages are the very reason free hosting services are best suited for personal websites.

Paid hosting gives you more flexibility and control with a variety of packages to choose from.

You will have access to more disk space and bandwidth along with a number of highly sought after features.  This ranges from powerful databases and dynamic programming languages to multiple email accounts and free domain names.  These are features you just won’t find in a shared hosting plan.

Conclusion

As you can see, free hosting has its purposes, howevef, the usefulness is primarily limited to personal sites.  Anyone who plans to make a serious impact on the web is better served with a premium hosting solution.  In this case, it pays to have a service that provides the features and reliability you need to achieve your goals online.

Beware of Cheap Web Hosting Practices

At first glance, cheap hosting is an ideal solution for individuals and small businesses looking to create a web presence.  After all, why pay top-dollar when so many hosts are offering the same service for next to nothing?  Yes, cheap hosting appears to be the route for obvious reasons but is it really a reliable solution?  You may find this service questionable after reading about some of the most common cheap hosting practices.

The Ambitious Newcomer

It takes a lot to run a web hosting company.  Providers require servers, bandwidth and a plethora of IT experts to help maintain the infrastructure.  Those who lack the resources and expertise to run the infrastructure outsource their hosting operations to third-party professionals, thus enabling them to elude the hassle and enormous costs.  Aside from financial resources, the cost savings obtained from outsourcing is what allows many companies to offer web hosting packages at competitive prices.

Along comes a new company looking to dabble in the web hosting industry.  Noticing all the low prices on the market, they come up with the bright idea of offering their service at a fraction of the price.  What better way to increase profits and overall growth of the company?  Things usually start out well for the new ambitious web host.  With everyone searching for affordable hosting, customers flock to the cheap service provider.  The veteran hosts even notice some of their clients fleeing for the cheaper service as well.  In the spirit of competition, they also lower their prices in order to keep pace in the market.  Here’s the catch – more than likely, the prominent web hosts have the flexibility and resources that allow them to trim costs without suffering any major financial losses.  The brilliant newcomer?  Well, they usually find themselves in a world of trouble.

Cutting Back Equals More Losses

Despite all the customers, the incredibly low price leads the newcomer to cut corners and make sure the company remains profitable.  They start by relieving some of their IT staff and technical support personnel.  When that isn’t enough, they began to trim away more essential aspects of their infrastructure.  They cut back on the maintenance and security procedures that are vital to any web hosting company.  Next, they overload their servers with customers.  From there, its reducing the number of servers entirely.  The cheap web hosting provider is still in business but in bad shape.  Limited personnel and IT engineers has resulted in horrible customer service.  The lack of preventative measures leads to more hardware failures and excessive downtime.  Overloading and minimizing servers results in poor performance and you’ve guessed it, more downtime.  Now that cheap but reliable web hosting package isn’t nearly what it is was advertised to be.

There is Hope

The cheap practices of an overzealous web hosting company hurts you the most.  Fortunately, not all cheap services are cheaply run as there are several reliable hosts on the market.  There is nothing wrong with trying to save a few dollars with an affordable web hosting service .  Just don’t go too low because you might get less than you paid for.

How Does Cheap Web Hosting Stack Up? A Closer Look at Your Options

Ever wonder why cheap web hosting is so popular these days?  Well for starters, it provides individuals and small businesses with a means for creating a presence online.  It makes sense – but why go cheap when you can pay for something that is more reliable?  Besides, “cheap” doesn’t have the most appealing ring to it.  Moreover, if saving money is the issue, why not cut your costs entirely by signing up with a free web host?  If you are still struggling with the concept of cheap web hosting, this article will explain why it makes a viable option between free and costly alternatives.

Free Equals Limited

Most free web hosting providers leave you very limited and are not recommended for business purposes.  For example, most of them will litter your web pages with banner and pop-up advertisements in exchange for their free service.  This can be a huge distraction to the people who come visit your website.  Many of them also limit you in terms of ownership.  Sure, they may provide you with a domain, but it is generally attached to their website, leaving you with a name that is both hard to remember and unprofessional.  Last but not least, free web hosts typically provide you with minimal bandwidth and disk storage.  Once you start to generate traffic and popularity for your site, you will eventually exceed the allotted resources and have no choice but to upgrade to a premium package.

More Freedom at a Great Price

The limitations of free web hosting is what leads most individuals and businesses to more flexible yet affordable solutions.  Cheap hosting delivers the features and flexibility you need at a price that is easily within reach.  With so many providers offering service, several companies price their plans considerably low to keep pace in the highly competitive web hosting industry.  Play your cards right and you can find a host offering service for under $10 a month.  It isn’t hard to get yourself a package with a generous supply of disk space, bandwidth and features.  Today’s cheap web hosting services are geared for individuals and businesses, providing email accounts, e-commerce applications and everything needed to open an online storefront.  These plans are widely available so why pay extra for something that could end up setting you back?

Don’t Forget the Essentials

Cheap web hosting offers many benefits but it can also be a disaster if you overlook some of the critical aspects.  Even though you are paying less for service, your hosting account should still come with acceptable customer service and technical support.  Getting answers from the experts is important as your customers will surely be needing an explanation from you if something should go wrong.  Additionally, you should never  go for any cheap web hosting plan that advertises an uptime guarantee less than 99.9%.  Excessive downtime is something you can’t deal with as it is the best way to cripple your web presence.  When knowing what to look for, you can go in on a strict budget and come out with a great web hosting package.

What is Managed Hosting?

Most large enterprises have an infrastructure in place that allows them to host their own web servers.  They have a team of IT experts to handle all the technical aspects along with developers to step in when updates are required.  However, if you are running a successful yet small to medium sized business, there is a good chance that you don’t have such resources.  In this case, you just may need a managed hosting provider.

Managed hosting refers to a hosting solution in which the provider tends to all the administrative tasks and operation of a dedicated server.  This type of arrangement is ideal for business owners who need a full turnkey service for managing hardware and software components, storage, network connectivity and all the requirements associated with a dedicated server.  Managed hosting is preferred by the those who desire a high level of support and services while  maintaining significant control over their server.  Because so many businesses rely on dedicated servers for mission critical tasks, the technical support, responsiveness and infrastructure of a managed hosting solution is typically greater than any other form of web hosting.

Though more expensive on the surface, managed hosting is actually a cost effective solution as it spares you of the large up front investment on the necessary software and hardware for the server.  Instead, you simply pay a monthly fee in return for a fully managed hosting solution.  In this regard, managed hosting is quite similar to outsourcing the technical aspects of your business to a team of professionals who are better equipped to handle them.

Who Needs Managed Hosting?

Ideal for the business who lacks technical knowledge and resources, managed hosting is also the perfect solution for those who need to focus on the core of their business.  This environment alleviates the hassle of maintaining a web server as well as the performance and security issues that come along with shared hosting.  The backing of a reliable infrastructure pretty much guarantees stability and all the flexibility you need at a fixed cost.

Managed Hosting Features

The services provided by a managed host range widely but generally include private networks, security products and database administration.  Some also extend their services to fully managed SQL server hosting.  In regard to server administration which is the standard feature, you can expect services like managed storage, connectivity, load balancing and monitoring and reporting of the server.  In most cases, physical maintenance such as servicing of the equipment is covered by the provider as well.  Add-on features such as software management can usually be obtained for an additional fee.

Summary

Managed hosting can be viewed as a tailor made hosting solution, allowing organizations to focus on marketing and actually running their businesses while all the complex tasks are handled by the experts.  As this solution doesn’t require a large up front investment, businesses can enjoy significant cost savings on handling a dedicated server.  When signing up with a good provider, you can better assure the availability of your online business with a server that puts out the best performance.