Going Online? Things To Know About Web Hosting

Find out about Web Hosting and The Common Words Here!

So, you’ve just chosen to take your small business online, or simply start up a personal blog and are looking for how to do that. The very first steps are to purchase a domain name and some server space. During the process, you may read about terms that you’ve never heard of, formerly.

We’ll discuss some of those ‘alien’ terms that the web hosting industry uses in this post. So, let’s dive straight into the content:

Web Server – What is a web server? Its a computer where you host your entire website, all the files, images, code, etc. All these can be accessed anytime, from anywhere. If you were to do this yourself, you’d require a high-end computer and an impeccable Internet connection. These two will cost you a lot, both initially and as on-going costs. This is why most of us rent web servers.

Storage Space – The amount of data, i.e. images, files, information, etc that you’re allowed to store on your server. This is measured in bytes, and these days you normally get hundreds of gigabytes as storage space. Many times, you’ll see web hosts advertise unlimited storage which is simply not true. There has to be an upper cap, depending on the server specs. Since the average webmaster won’t ever hit the upper cap, many hosting companies advertise unlimited hosting.

Bandwidth – Again measured in bytes, bandwidth is the measurement of data that you’re allowed to transmit from your server. As an example, if your website’s homepage is 50kb, each time a visitor comes to your website, they are accessing 50kb of bandwidth. Most often, bandwidth also has an upper limit (it is only fair that it does).

Control Panel – It is nothing but the place, or the ‘backend’, from where you control your entire website. This is where you make changes to your server. So, if you need to check how much data you’ve used, or how much bandwidth you’ve consumed, control panel is where you need to go. There are quite a few software for the backend, namely cPanel, Plesk, etc.

Uptime – Uptime is generally reflected by a %. It tells you the approximate time your website is supposed to be up for, i.e. accessible to the general crowd. Hence, when someone advertises hundred percent uptime, it means your website will be up for all the 720 (or 744) hours in a month. At times, the server goes down for maintenance related work or due to some server issues.

These are all the terms that will be useful when you’re purchasing hosting. Hope the content above helps you find the perfect host for your needs. If you require more details on top 10 web hosting and compare different web hosts, just go to top 10 web hosting.