Article by Jan Pascal
Web hosting is the most popular internet service. You need a computer, internet connection and web browser. Once you discover the world of web pages there is no way back. However, most people don’t ask themselves where these pages come from. Web users usually don’t care about hosting, domains, traffic, bandwidth and other technical terms related to hosting. The truth is that reliable and fast web hosting is a key element for good user experience while browsing.
What is web hosting? It is a service which offers some resources on a web server: disk space, internet connection with fixed IP address, guaranteed bandwidth, web server application with popular plug-ins, remote access for administration and support. In principle this is pretty simple. You put some server in a data center, install hosting software and you are ready to offer services. Is that simple? Yes and no. It is not enough to only install server and start accepting money. You need to provide some quality of service.
Web hosting is more than offering the service and accepting money. Customers expect that the server will never fail, that the hosting provider will perform regular backups for all the files and databases, that the bandwidth will be unlimited, and there will be support available around the clock. Good hosting providers offer all of this and more. It is not uncommon to offer unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, hosting of unlimited websites, free setup, 99.9% up-time, 45 day money back guarantee, CGI, PHP 5, Perl, MySQL, SSH, SSL, IMAP, POP, free site builder, cPanel remote access, 24/7/365 support and attractive hosting plans.
Hosting providers can not afford to be off-line for more than what is acceptable. Usually 99.9% up-time is enough for typical hosting. Up-time and support is probably the most important factor when choosing hosting. If the website is offline it is not the problem only for the website owner. It is a problem for any visitor trying to visit the page which is now off-line. Typical user simply browses to the next website and rarely comes back. If this page is bookmarked and visitor frequently finds the page off-line then it is very likely that he will never visit that page again and will delete the bookmark. That visitor had a bad experience and is lost for the website owner.
The fact is that if websites are frequently found off-line, users will not visit them and search engines will not index them or will mark them as “low quality” pages. Therefore is of utmost importance to choose a reliable web hosting service provider. Before you start looking at hosting plans and prices check at various places about reliability of this web hosting service. This will save you a lot of money and customers.
About the Author
The author likes to create simple websites for better user experience. He is now focused on the http://garagedooraccessories.net/ website which focuses on garage door accessories and garage door advices.
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