A definition of hosting

As its name signifies, web hosting is a solution, which entails hosting web content. There are various varieties and kinds of web hosting, based on the aims and on the functions. In spite of that, they all are associated with hosting files, which, once hosted, are made accessible through the Internet. A host is actually a server that is linked to the Web and has its own personal Internet Protocol address, which permits people to have access to it through the Web. The server's configuration and its resources are subject to the sort of web hosting service it will be utilized for.

What are the various forms of web hosting?

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

File Web Hosting - this type of web hosting enables the clients to accommodate their files on a particular hosting server. With the routine file storage web hosting solution, the files that are stashed may only be accessed by the customer that's using the service. This hosting solution mainly refers to backups of PCs , docs, private files and even other servers. This service may also involve certain limitations with regard to the web storage and the root privileges. There may also be web traffic limitations, but that is dependent on the given web hosting provider.

Warez Web Hosting - the so-called warez hosting service is quite similar to the previous web hosting service type. However, unlike the file storage hosting solution, the warez hosting service is used for transmitting patented content without being given the okay to do so by the license keeper. To cut a long story short - it is related to the forbidden propagation of files and documents. There are lots of ways for this to be performed, but the 2 main approaches are - via plain HTTP downloading and through P2P connections. The first method entails either a specific website, or, most typically, simply a directory on a hosting server that's been made available for everyone to access it and thus download patented content free of cost. The second method entails a peer-to-peer connection, using the so-called Torrent web servers, via which people transfer files between each other. There are very few hosting firms that permit that form of hosting on their web servers, mainly owing to all the legal troubles that it involves. Generally such websites are hosted on private dedicated web hosting servers that are registered by third-party corporations either in the Middle East or in Asia.

Electronic Mail Web Hosting - this solution is relevant with both shared web space hosting and dedicated hosting servers, depending on the customer's desire. If you would like to create your very own personal SMTP electronic mail server, then you will require either a VPS web hosting server or a dedicated server that provides the level of access required to perform such a task. For routine mail hosting purposes, however, you can utilize a regular shared webspace hosting account, to which you can point the mail exchanger records of your domain name. This is not a service that's very popular, since the web hosting and the electronic mail hosting services are being served by 2 different servers, usually owned by different web hosts.

Website Hosting - the most famous and regularly utilized hosting service today. It's utilized for hosting site files, whose type depends on the OS the server is utilizing - Linux or Windows. Different kinds of files request different web server OSs, otherwise they won't be shown properly on the World Wide Web. This form of web hosting may have disk storage space and web traffic quota limitations, server root access and CPU usage restrictions.

Depending on the aims and on the functions, the client should select the sort of server that he needs for his work, and, of course, the website hosting vendor that's going to furnish it. There are several kinds of hosting servers, depending on the specifications and the site hosting services that they provide. These are:

Shared Website Hosting Server - a shared web hosting server provides a smaller quantity of system resources, which, of course, reflects on the price of the service. It can be used for hosting small size and medium websites, which do not need vast quotas of disk storage and web traffic.

Semi-Dedicated Servers Hosting - they operate on the very same principle as the shared web hosting servers. Nonetheless, there are much less customers sharing the same hosting server. Therefore, each of them will have a bigger share of the web hosting server's resources like RAM, data space, bandwidth and CPU. Excellent for hosting big online portals that do not need server root access.

Virtual Servers - the virtual web hosting servers are excellent for medium scale websites, which do need root access to the web hosting server's configuration files. Usually, there are several virtual server accounts placed on the same physical machine. Nevertheless, each of them is independent from the rest and has its own Operating System.

Dedicated Hosting - a fully dedicated machine set up and accessed by you and only you. It ensures a huge quantity of resources. It also provides root access, which makes it an excellent environment for any sort of web site that requires a website hosting solution.

The sole question that's left is:

Which web site hosting vendor should I select?

As already mentioned, there are just a few hosts providing warez web hosting solutions because of judicial entanglements. Such web hosts are being shut down virtually every month. Therefore, if you want to start such a service, you should do it on your own PC. The shared website hosting solution is the most widely spread kind of hosting service. Hence, each and every web hosting company provides it. Not all of them, however, offer services such as virtual private web hosting servers, semi-dedicated servers and dedicated web servers. Most of the small scale webspace hosting vendors do not have the means needed for maintaining those solutions. That is the reason why it's invariably best to go with a bigger web hosting company that can supply its customers with all the solutions that they request. You can quickly recognize such hosting companies by the sorts of solutions that they are offering and by the way that they introduce them to the clientele. For example, some hosts permit you to start with a low-end website hosting package and subsequently shift to a more powerful one, if you find it necessary to do so. This is extremely convenient, since you do not have to migrate web portals between web servers and there is no possibility of facing network downtime due to all the problems that may occur. Hosting companies like The Claypoole Group offer all sorts of services and possess the adequate web hosting server resources and staff to assure that their clients will not run into any predicaments when swapping services, which is what a top hosting provider is in fact all about.