A definition of website hosting

As its name signifies, web hosting is a service, which involves hosting web content. There are various varieties and kinds of web hosting, based on the purpose and on the usage. Nonetheless, they all refer to hosting files, which, once hosted, are made available throughout the World Wide Web. A web host is actually a server that is linked to the Web and has its own personal IP address, which permits users to get access to it via the Web. The server's architecture and its system resources depend on the kind of hosting solution it will be utilized for.

What are the various forms of hosting?

Based on the objective, the web hosting solution may be:

File Storage Web Hosting - this type of hosting allows the users to deposit their files on a particular web server. With the common file storage web hosting service, the files that are hosted may only be accessed by the person that's utilizing the service. This web hosting service typically is associated with backups of PCs , docs, private files and even other hosting servers. This solution may also impose given limits in relation to the storage space and the root-level access. There may also be bandwidth restrictions, but that is dependent on the given hosting service provider.

Warez Hosting - the so-called warez web hosting service is very similar to the previous hosting service type. Even so, unlike the file storage hosting solution, the warez web hosting solution is used for propagating licensed materials without the permission of the copyright bearer. In brief - it refers to the illicit circulation of files and materials. There are many approaches for this to be completed, but the two chief ways are - via plain Hypertext Transfer Protocol downloading and via peer-to-peer connections. The first method entails either a particular web site, or, most often, simply a directory on a web server that's been made available for everybody to access it and thereby download proprietary files free of charge. The second approach entails a peer-to-peer connection, using the so-called Torrent web servers, via which users share files between each other. There are just a few webspace hosting distributors that permit that form of hosting on their web servers, mainly due to all the judicial troubles that it entails. Commonly such web portals are hosted on personal dedicated hosting servers that are registered by 3rd party enterprises either in the Middle East or in Asia.

Electronic Mail Hosting - this service is used with both shared hosting and dedicated web hosting servers, depending on the user's desire. If you would like to set up your very own personal SMTP electronic mail server, then you will need either a VPS web hosting server or a dedicated server that provides the level of access required to carry out such an operation. For normal email hosting ends, however, you can utilize a standard shared hosting account, to which you can point the MX records of your domain. This is not a service that's widely famous, since the web site hosting and the email hosting services are being served by 2 separate servers, often owned by different web hosting providers.

Site Hosting - the most famous and largely used hosting service now. It's utilized for hosting web site files, whose sort depends on the OS the server is running - Linux or Windows. Different kinds of files require concrete web hosting server OSs, or else they won't be displayed properly on the Web. This type of web hosting may involve server storage and traffic restrictions, server root access and CPU usage limitations.

Depending on the aims and on the usage, the user should pick the type of hosting server that he demands for his work, and, of course, the webspace hosting supplier that's going to provide it. There are several sorts of web servers, depending on the specifications and the website hosting services that they offer. These are:

Shared Hosting Server - a shared web hosting server offers a smaller quantity of resources, which, of course, is manifested in the cost of the service. It can be utilized for hosting small sized and middle sized web sites, which do not require huge amounts of disk storage and traffic.

Semi-Dedicated Hosting - they work on the same principle as the shared website hosting servers. Even so, there are much less customers sharing the same web hosting server. Hence, each of them will get a bigger quota of the web hosting server's resources like RAM, data storage space, web traffic and CPU. Ideal for hosting heavy websites that do not require full server root access.

Virtual Private Server - the virtual private web hosting servers are ideal for middle scale web sites, which do need root access to the hosting server's configuration files. Typically, there are a number of private virtual web server hosting accounts sharing the same physical machine. Still, each of them is insulated from the others and runs its own Operating System.

Dedicated Server - a completely dedicated physical machine set up and accessed by you and solely you. It guarantees a mammoth amount of system resources. It also gives server root access, which makes it an ideal platform for any sort of web page that demands a web space hosting solution.

The sole question that's left is:

Which web hosting distributor should I settle on?

As already mentioned, there aren't many companies offering warez web hosting services due to judicial entanglements. Such hosting companies are being closed down virtually every month. Therefore, if you want to run such a service, you should do it on your own PC. The shared web site hosting solution is the most popular type of web hosting service. For that reason, each hosting vendor offers it. Not all of them, however, provide services such as private virtual hosting servers, semi-dedicated servers and dedicated web servers. Most of the small sized website hosting firms do not have the means needed for offering those services. Because of that it's invariably best to select a larger web host that can supply its clients with all the services that they request. You can quickly recognize such web hosting companies by the kinds of services that they are supplying and by the way that they introduce them to the customers. For instance, certain hosts allow you to kick off with a small scale website hosting plan and then move to a bigger one, if you consider it obligatory to do so. This is extremely convenient, since you do not need to transmit web pages between servers and there is no risk of experiencing service downtime due to all the problems that may appear. Hosting providers such as Joomla CMS Hosting are offering all types of solutions and have the needed web server resources and personnel to ensure that their clients will not encounter any problems when changing services, which is what a top hosting provider is actually all about.