A definition of web site hosting

As its name suggests, web hosting is a service, which involves hosting online content. There are various varieties and types of web hosting, based on the purpose and on the functions. Still, they all pertain to hosting files, which, once hosted, are made available throughout the World Wide Web. A host is in fact a web server that is connected to the World Wide Web and has its own personal IP address, which permits users to get access to it through the Web. The web hosting server's configuration and its resources are subject to the kind of hosting solution it will be used for.

What are the various forms of hosting?

Depending on the goal, the business hosting service may be:

File Web Hosting - this type of web hosting allows the clients to accommodate their files on a particular web hosting server. With the routine file web hosting solution, the files that are stashed may only be accessed by the customer that's utilizing the service. This hosting service typically concerns backups of computers , documents, private files and even other hosting servers. This solution may also contain given restrictions in terms of the storage space and the root privileges. There may also be bandwidth limitations, but that is dependent on the given hosting service provider.

Warez Hosting - the so-called warez hosting service is quite similar to the previous web hosting service form. Still, in contrast with the file storage hosting solution, the warez web hosting solution is used for propagating copyrighted work without being okayed by the license holder. To cut a long story short - it pertains to the unauthorized distribution of files and documents. There are multiple ways for this to be accomplished, but the two principal ways are - via plain Hypertext Transfer Protocol downloading and through P2P connections. The first approach involves either a particular site, or, most often, simply a directory on a hosting server that's been made available for everyone to access it and thereby download licensed materials free of cost. The second approach involves a peer-to-peer connection, making use of the so-called Torrent web servers, via which users exchange files between each other. There are not many site hosting vendors that allow such type of hosting on their hosting servers, mainly owing to all the legal complications that it entails. Commonly such web sites are hosted on personal dedicated hosting servers that are registered by 3rd party enterprises either in the Middle East or in Asia.

E-mail Web Hosting - this service is utilized with both shared web site hosting and dedicated web servers, depending on the client's intention. If you wish to establish your own private SMTP mail server, then you will require either a private virtual server or a dedicated hosting server that offers the access level required to complete such an assignment. For common electronic mail web hosting ends, however, you can set up a regular shared web hosting account, to which you can point the mail exchanger records of your domain name. This is not a service that's widely famous, because the web site hosting and the electronic mail hosting services are being served by two different web servers, usually belonging to separate providers.

Site Hosting - the most widely spread and regularly used hosting service at present. It's used for hosting website files, whose type depends on the OS the web server is utilizing - Linux or Windows. Different sorts of files necessitate specific web server OSs, otherwise they won't be shown accurately on the Internet. This sort of web hosting may involve data storage space and traffic quota limits, server root access and central processing unit usage limits.

Depending on the goals and on the usage, the user should choose the kind of hosting server that he demands for his work, and, of course, the website hosting provider that's going to provide it. There are several sorts of servers, based on the specifications and the website hosting services that they provide. These are:

Shared Hosting Server - a shared hosting server provides a smaller amount of resources, which, of course, reflects on the price of the service. It can be used for hosting small scale and medium size web sites, which do not demand big amounts of disk storage and bandwidth.

Semi-Dedicated Servers - they perform on the same principle as the shared web site hosting servers. Still, there are much less customers sharing the same hosting server. Therefore, each of them will enjoy a greater quota of the web hosting server's resources like RAM, web space, web traffic and CPU. Perfect for hosting bulky sites that do not need complete server root access.

Virtual Servers - the private virtual hosting servers are ideal for medium scale web sites, which do demand root-level access to the server's configuration files. Traditionally, there are a handful of private virtual server accounts accommodated on the same machine. Yet, each of them is independent from the other ones and runs its own OS.

Dedicated Hosting - a completely dedicated machine set up and accessed by you and solely you. It ensures a tremendous amount of resources. It also provides full server root access, which renders it a perfect solution for any sort of site that requires a web hosting service.

The only question that's left is:

Which website hosting corporation should I select?

As already stated, there are not many companies offering warez web hosting solutions because of judicial complications. Such web hosts are being closed down practically every month. For that reason, if you want to offer such a service, you should do it on your own personal computer. The shared website hosting solution is the most widely spread type of web hosting service. Because of that, each and every web site hosting vendor provides it. Not all of them, though, offer solutions such as private virtual web hosting servers, semi-dedicated hosting servers and dedicated web servers. Most of the smaller website hosting vendors do not have the means required for offering those services. Because of that it's invariably best to pick a bigger host that can supply its clients with all the solutions that they are looking for. You can quickly identify such companies by the sorts of services that they are making available and by the way that they present them to the customers. For example, certain hosting companies permit you to begin with a small sized website hosting package and afterwards upgrade to a bigger one, if you deem it obligatory to do so. This is quite convenient, because you do not have to move websites between web hosting servers and there is no possibility of suffering service disturbances because of all the complications that may occur. Providers like FastFlashWeb provide all sorts of services and have the necessary hosting server resources and personnel to ensure that their customers will not encounter any troubles when changing services, which is what a top hosting provider is actually all about.