Web hosting for Idiots!

A website is basically a collection of web pages (files) that contain text and images. For people to be able to view your website on the internet, you need to store these files on a web server. Web servers are computers which store thousands of web sites. The web server is connected to the internet. The address of your website is the www.me.com. When someone puts the address into a browser the browser connects with the web server and downloads the page to your computer.

What?s a browser?

You?re looking through it now. It is the program you?re using to view this web page, Microsoft Internet Explorer properly, or you may be using Firefox or Netscape navigator.

With a fast internet connection you can turn any computer into a server free of charge, but the computer will have to be left on all day and night and you will have to maintain it. This is not practical and most people pay for a company to look after it. A company that owns web servers are called web hosting providers. These companies have much many servers hosting thousands of websites. Their job is to make sure they are all working . For your website to run properly you need a space on a web server to store your web pages and an Internet connection. The amount of space and is usually quantified in MB and the more you want the more it will cost. The Internet connection needed so that your web site can be accessed online is referred as the bandwidth and is also measured in MB or even GB. Different hosting companies offer different space and bandwidth, which for a novice is quite daunting. The best web hosting company are ones that have a good customer support help line. And I mean good old fashioned phone lines. Email is a bonus but sometimes you need to speak to someone to understand things or buy services. If you know you want a website with 10 pages of text and images a good web hosting company will tell you exactly what you need in plain and simple terms. Some web hosting companies offer more than just hosting. Some offer domain name registration, email where you can turn your domain name into an email address.

Domain name registration is where you register your domain (www.me.com). You can buy these from domain registration companies.Some companies also offer web design which is where someone designs the whole look and feel of your website and uploads it to the server when your happy with it. This is great for the complete novice. You can buy the domain name, web design; hosting and email in one go from one company. This is the best way as it means every aspect of your website is being looked after by the same company.

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