Your web hosting is your home on the internet. Think of it as s your website's name and address. The name is the domain name you register; your address is established by uploading your website's files to the hosting company's server and pointing your domain servers to it. Then you're part of the world wide web.
When you look into web hosting, you'll find a broad range of plans available, and a broad range of prices to go with them. The most basic form of web hosting plan is known as shared hosting. In this plan, a number of websites are hosted on the same server. This is the plan that most people go for and it's perfectly adequate for most needs. A more robust arrangement is known as dedicated hosting. As you might expect, this means your website will be hosted on its own computer. A relative newcomer to the hosting scene is managed hosting. In this plan, your hosting company manages your dedicated server as a premium service.
The next thing to consider with regard to web hosting is the server platform. This means the operating system (OS) that runs the server. The most popular OS for web servers is UNIX or one of its variants such as Linux. The second is Windows. Each OS has its own peculiar features, advantages and disadvantages and for most people it makes little difference which platform it is, especially if you just have static web pages. But if you're looking to have dynamic content, you'll need to establish what kind of software your scripts need. For example, it you want to incorporate a MS Access database, you'd probably be better off with Windows.
When you look into web hosting, you'll find a broad range of plans available, and a broad range of prices to go with them. The most basic form of web hosting plan is known as shared hosting. In this plan, a number of websites are hosted on the same server. This is the plan that most people go for and it's perfectly adequate for most needs. A more robust arrangement is known as dedicated hosting. As you might expect, this means your website will be hosted on its own computer. A relative newcomer to the hosting scene is managed hosting. In this plan, your hosting company manages your dedicated server as a premium service.
The next thing to consider with regard to web hosting is the server platform. This means the operating system (OS) that runs the server. The most popular OS for web servers is UNIX or one of its variants such as Linux. The second is Windows. Each OS has its own peculiar features, advantages and disadvantages and for most people it makes little difference which platform it is, especially if you just have static web pages. But if you're looking to have dynamic content, you'll need to establish what kind of software your scripts need. For example, it you want to incorporate a MS Access database, you'd probably be better off with Windows.