• Shared web hosting. If this is a popularity contest, then this form of hosting will win hands down. The reason for its popularity lie in its price- this is considered as one of cheapest, if not the cheapest among your many options. Under this arrangement, you will share the server with a number of websites. The sites will be partitioned on the server, and the account can be accessed by the website owner through the interface control panel. These features of the service make this as the perfect choice for those just starting up, or for those websites with limited needs in terms of disk space.

• Semi-dedicated hosting. This form of hosting sits in between shared webhosting and dedicated webhosting. But between the two, semi-dedicated webhosting has more affinity to shared webhosting. Under this hosting arrangement, the server will be configured in such a way it will only accommodate a small number of websites using bandwidth as the parameter. The website owners will also have different accounts.

• Dedicated webhosting. Consider this as your premier hosting choice available online. The set-up is in contrast with shared since the owner will take the server for his/her own convenience. This means that the bandwidth will be all for the owner’s taking. With the dedicated server, the most common operation system used are the Linux, the FreeBSD and of course the Windows. This kind of hosting is best for websites that are known to accommodate large amount of traffic every day and best for e-commerce websites.

• Virtual server. The last popular type of webhosting service is through the use of the virtual server. This form of hosting service straddles between the shared and the dedicated webhosting service. In virtual hosting, the server is often sub-divided into a number of independent servers. And each of these servers can be referred to as a dedicated server since there is a different operation system that is installed on each of the partition.

The listed four (4) types of webhosting are just the major ones that are available in the market. But outside of these four, there are a number of hosting types that are starting to creep into the consciousness of website entrepreneurs and internet marketers. For example there is the co-location hosting and the free webhosting as offered by many enterprising sites. The increasing number of choices for hosting means only one thing- webhosting is a critical service so it should be properly researched and selected. The list of hosting types should serve as tool in selection and not just for information.

All that worrying won’t help you kick start your online business. To make life easier, a simple breakdown of the different types of webhosting services will be helpful. So here we go.

Free webhosting is the most widely used webhosting service because, as the term implies, it’s all free! Most of those who are just starting out don’t have the financial means to go for the premium plans. Luckily for them, free webhosting is sufficient enough to accommodate the needs of a new online business. Up to a point, at least.

As expected, choosing free webhosting comes with a price. You get limited control over your website, not to mention limited bandwidth and disk space. Usually, your website will be registered under a subdomain. For example, if you are selling slot cars online, your website’s name will appear beside the domain name of the web hosting company you signed up with. Instead of “www.slotcars.com”, your site’s url might be presented as www.freehost.com/slotcars. This is a drawback since it doesn’t have good recall and your website appears unprofessional. As a result, visitors will think less of your products and services.

You also don’t have a choice in the matter if third party ads get posted on your website. These ads can be distracting to your visitors and cause them to look somewhere else.

As mentioned earlier, these disadvantages won’t matter much if you’re just starting out. Once your business starts to gain momentum and you’re able to gain ROI (returns on investment), you can always choose to upgrade your plan when the need arises.

Paid webhosting services, on the other hand, give you better control and flexibility over your website. These types of services offer different kinds of plans, with each one having its own set of options. As a rule of thumb, you only choose the cheapest plan that can support your website’s needs. As your business grows, you can always upgrade to a premium plan in order to enjoy other perks such as additional bandwidth, bigger disk space, better security and additional servers.

Better yet, you can enjoy the convenience of getting better support from the webhosting company. That’s why I highly recommend that you choose the one that provides quality support to its customers. Web hosting is no simple task. Imagine the frustration it will bring if you encounter server problems and the webhosting company isn’t capable of providing you the help you need.

The trick is to recognize the type of service that will suit the needs of your website and have the awareness about the upgrades that you can make according to the growing demands of your business.

Of the many webhosting choices that can be laid out in front of you, one option that will stand out is the virtual webhosting. Now choose virtual if your concern is your budget. Don’t have the cash to pay for a dedicated webhosting service? No stress; what you should do is to take a look at what virtual hosting can offer you. Its strongest point is the price.

The cost can be anywhere between less than $5 to slightly more than $20 per month. Now this is what you call cost-effective, right? And if you are feeling lucky, then you can even get a free hosting but for a catch- you need to display some advertisements. But just because this is cheap will mean that you will jump on it fast. Slow down, and make sure that you are aware of the common problems and issues associated with this kind of webhosting.

• Did you know that when you sign up with virtual webhosting, there will be that big chance that you will share the platform with different kinds of websites? To put it more bluntly, there is that probability that you will share the server with spam websites and even porn websites. Are you ready for this kind of scenario? Do remember that sharing servers with these websites can be costly, at least in the eyes of search engines. Some of these websites often incorporate trickery in their search engine optimization SEO techniques so that Google and other search engines can give them better rankings. As a result, these sites are often banned, including the entire IP!

So what you need to do is to check out the Terms of Service. If possible, ask for the possibility of having a separate IP address for the same server.

• And because it’s shared, this means that the service that you get will be dependent on the others as well. The processing of requests goes like this. A request on the server will be done on a first come first served basis. So if you are on top, then requests will be processed first and site will be fast. The opposite is true if the requests come in late. So make sure that you ask the number of clients or sites on every server. The response time will be dependent on the number of websites on how server and how loaded these websites are in terms of traffic.

Sounds scary to try out virtual webhosting? Discard those thoughts; this type of webhosting is the choice of majority of the websites. And these websites can’t be wrong right?

No more pesky adult sites to share with, and no more spam websites that can undermine your IP address with a dedicated webhosting. But here’s the fly in the ointment. Since the server is all yours for taking, you should prepare yourself for a pricier rent for the server. But this is just secondary; strive to get the dedicated webhosting since this offers more control and a host of other benefits.

• When you sign up with a dedicated hosting provider, the server is all yours. Plus you don’t need to lose sleep on the bad script and other things that may slow down or even crash your server. So make use of the server responsibly since you are the one using it and you are the one that will suffer once it crashes.

• Expect better response rate in this form of hosting. In shared hosting, a number of websites are competing for attention on one server, thus it can be expected that the response time will be off. This time in dedicated hosting, the server will only request for one request- your website’s request. The end result is a website that is fast and always up and running.

• Did you know that this type of hosting is easy to set-up? This is especially true if the server is going to handle the FTP and the SSL. You cannot expect this to happen with the other type of webhosting.

• In this type of webhosting, you will never be bothered by the bandwidth. In many webhosting options, you will be restricted by the bandwidth. For example, in your virtual hosting there is a certain bandwidth assigned every month on a specific server. So if your website is thriving and growing, then this can be problematic. Well you can still go over the assigned bandwidth level, but expect that you will be charged an extra cost for this. But when you decide that dedicated webhosting is right for you, and then you will not think about any limits or exceeding the limits because it can go unlimited!

• And also, you get control in terms of customization. In many providers, you will be given the chance to customize your own server. This means that you can select the features that you only need, and pay for those features. You will also be given the chance to select the operating system software- will you go for Windows Server Edition or the Linux? And more importantly, you get control on the control panel to use- you can select the Plesk or the Cpanel.

Better control is indeed its strongest suit. And if you are looking for a hosting plan that can give you better leeway and control, the dedicated webhosting may be ‘it’ for you.

This is hosting that comes for free but with a few catches. For example, if you sign up with a free webhosting provider then the service that you will get will often come with advertisements. Companies need to recoup some of their expenses and investments, right? In this kind of set-up, the user will be provided with the sub-domain or a directory. For example, you will be given www.yoursitename.provider.com.

This is in contrast with the paid webhosting provider where you will be given a second level domain, like www.yoursitename.com. But more than these, there are certain features and characteristics that you may want to learn about free webhosting.

• Because the hosting comes for free, then you should expect that this will come with a number of advertisements. Sometimes these adverts will simply pop out from nowhere.

• For a free web hosting services, the amount of space available to your business will be limited

• Free web hosting also means that your bandwidth will be controlled and limited. When signing up with a free webhost provider, it’s wise to ask the kind of content that can be accommodated by the provider. Some providers will be strict on the kind of videos that can be posted on the sites, and the number of videos that can be handled.

• As mentioned earlier, the free web hosting provider may also host your domain. If you really want to have your own domain, then you will be required to sign up for a domain hosting.

It doesn’t mean though that just because it’s free, then you can no longer ask for better service. You still can, and what you can do is to compare the leading providers of free web hosting services. You can also narrow down your choices by taking into account a number of factors. These are the same factors that you can use when selecting for paid web hosting services.

One factor that you can use in choosing is customer service. Even though it comes for free, these providers will also offer support. Choose the hosting provider that can offer you the most number of support services. At least go for the provider that can give you an e-mail support every time you have questions or there are downtimes. Also use forums as a way to find out which free webhosting providers are the best ones for your needs.

Another factor to use is the disk space- you can consider the provider that can give you more space and more leeway in terms of contents. Without doubt, paid services are still best but when your financing is not yet ready a free webhosting service may be fine for now.

Moving your hosting from one provider to the another is acceptable and recommended if you are no longer satisfied with the kind of service that you are getting. If you have already decided to move to a new hosting service, then make sure that your website is ready for a move. Back it up to your hard drive so you will be able to upload it to your new hosting company’s server without any difficulty. Do this before you terminate your contract with the existing provider.

There are good reasons why you should do this before cancelling your current hosting provider. You never know what will happen if your current service provider reacts negatively. Will the service provider undermine the site infrastructure? Will it tweak the bandwidth? Anything can happen, so it is always a better move if you can be a step ahead of your current provider.

Copying your website to your computer is easy. The process of copying will depend on how you created your website.
For example:

• If you used FTP (File Transfer Protocol), then instead of uploading to your hosting copany’s server you would use download all the files and subdirectoris to your computer.
• If you used Dreamweaver make use of the appropriate steps in order to download the site. You can use the get command to download all your files.
• If you used Front Page then you can utilize use the remote website feature to transfer your website site your computer.

The other important thing to remember is if your emails are part of your hosting service they will not function during propagation. Propagation is the time it takes for your new web address to be updated in all the nameserver. Every hosting service has its own nameserver. When you move to a new hosting company you will need to change the nameserver that hosts your domain to the nameserver that your new hosting service uses. It only takes 2 or 3 days to propagate but during that time your emails won’t work.
Make a list of the email addresses you use on your website domain so you can rebuild them with your new hosting service. You will need a password for each email when you build them.