A website can be regarded as the face of a business entity or an individual.To a large extent, it can be used to assess the personality of an individual or the nature of the promoters of the business, just like you do with handwriting analysis and the likes. Well, i’m not quoting any theory other than mine but personally, i will never stay a second longer or do any business with a company via a website that is shoddy.

Websites range from just a few pages to thousands of pages with varying technicalities implemented on such sites. But ever wondered where these pages or files reside? It could be as simple as the very PC you are reading my write-up from! So, why can’t i just host my sites myself instead of paying some fancy named company to do so for me? Well, apart from files been hosted on individual PCs for “seeding” on torrent sites and a few other instances, you will need to be tech savvy with a know-how of the technicalities involved in such ventures AND MOST ESPECIALLY,have the resources to dabble into such an expensive venture that is web site hosting, if you are to host your sites from your home or office computers. However, it is by far cheaper to do so with these companies, even when subscribing to more expensive options, no thanks to the inavailabilty and cost of essential basic requirements like stable power supply and internet service.

In this write-up, we will discuss further the concept of web hosting and their basic operational details in simple English, with minimal technicalities.

The most popular form of web hosting is probably SHARED WEB HOSTING because of its relative cheapness. In this form of hosting, a single server, which we can likened to a computer hard drive, is partitioned into hundreds of partitions to house as many websites. All the websites on this server share the system resources like the RAM and the processor. The major limitation of this type of hosting is that resources are limited, websites that require huge bandwidth, CPU usage or a secured environment to function are usually encouraged to subscribed to the more expensive and secured DEDICATED WEB HOSTING where only your websites are hosted.

Some of the most sought after features of shared web hosting services are email accounts (limited to avaiable web space), versatile web site administration interface like cPanel, customer support and server uptimes. Most important considerations are for sizeable web space  and adequate bandwidth at an affordable price. Lately, some companies have been offering Unlimited web space and bandwidth, you will do well if you do not take this seriously. Nothing is unlimited, even their server capacity is limited. Moreso, there are other considerations that will make sure you do not have this unlimited goodies. First is the CPU usage. Being a shared webhosting package, many websites are housed on a single server, each website has a limit to the server resource it can use. Secondly is the issue of inodes or let’s just say the number of files that can be contained on your web server or web site. They are limited but sufficient enough to sustain an average sized website but definitely not all types.

Lastly, not all types of contents are acceptable by web hosts. Most frown at pornography, hacks or cracks. Most also frown at anything that may consume large bandwidths on their servers, especially video and audio files. But if you really have to indulge in any of this, you may have to seriously consider changing to a Dedicated server or hosting your site yourself.

The importance of having a web presence can not be over emphasised, especially for businesses, whether small or large. In this time and age, it is very demarketing for a business concern to use free web pages or free email services like yahoo and gmail.

At the moment, the cost of hosting a site is almost free and quite a number of Nigerian companies are deep into such businesses.

Stay tuned to this site for more details on such companies.