What You Must Know When Choosing A Website Host By Jason Tarasi At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

One of the most overlooked aspects of Internet marketing is the host. Your host is like your foundation, and if you have a weak foundation, your Website will crumble around you!

If you choose the wrong host, someday you may find that all of your hard work and Website traffic is lost forever.

A host is a server which provides a home for your website on the World Wide Web. Just as your computer contains all your files, so a host contains all the files needed to run your website. Why can't you just keep all those files on your own computer? Because that would mean users would have to connect directly to your computer to see your website. Not a good idea-it wouldn't be secure and it would make your machine run like a tired snail. With a host, you can simply upload everything you need to the server and your users can then connect there to see your site. It lets the site run faster and allows it to have all the security and extras it needs.

Selecting a host is the first important step towards building your Internet business.

Hosting services and companies vary from totally free, shared servers to large-scale dedicated machines. You'll have to decide which is right for you and your business. To help you make that decision, I have listed the advantages and disadvantages of each kind of host:

Free Servers - While these hosts may be free, you will be at a severe disadvantage and many times have no control over advertising done on your site.

In many cases you may not be allowed to use your own domain name, which could have a negative impact on your Website traffic.

Cheap Web Hosting - This is the next step up from free hosting, but again it has some major disadvantages.

While you can select your own domain name, you will have limited bandwidth and disk space.

If you are on a shoestring budget, then this should be a temporary solution until you can afford a better host.

Mid-Priced Web Hosting-Shared Servers -

This is most likely your best bet as you will be allowed to have a custom domain name, and the bandwidth and disk space are significantly higher than with cheap Website hosting.

The only major disadvantage is that you will be sharing a server with other Webmasters.

This is not usually a problem, however.

Dedicated Servers -

This is the best form of hosting you can get. You will not be sharing a server with other Webmasters, and you will have almost unlimited bandwidth and disk space.

The only disadvantage is the cost factor, as it can be very expensive to have your own dedicated server.

Your choice of host will depend on how much money you have available at the beginning and how much you plan to grow in the future. In my opinion, for commercial sites, free hosting is a waste of time. Your users are going to get blasted with annoying pop-ups every time they surf to your page, it's going to be impossible to get a decent position in a search engine, and you don't even get a real business URL. No one's going to remember your Web address if they have to type www.freehosting.com/my_site. But it is possible to choose a cheap host at the beginning and move up as your business begins to bring in money.

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