Web hosting refers to a kind of hosting service on the internet, which allows an
individual or an organization to make his/her/its own website accessible to others,
through the World Wide Web. As it is, web hosts are service providers, who provide space
on a particular server, which they own or may lease for use by the clients.
They also provide Internet connectivity as well, usually in a data center.
Along with that, a website owner may also be provided with data center space as well as
internet connectivity for servers which they do not own to be situated in their data center.
This is known as colocation.
Depending upon the service that a website owner opts for, a web host might also offer an
interface or a control panel, in order to manage the Web server apart from installation of
scripts and other services such as e-mail. You may also opt for web hosts, which specialize
in particular software or services. Specialized services like VPS hosting are quite common in case
of e-commerce, or social networking websites. In case of personal web pages, this would not
actually appeal.
These days, several kinds of web hosting services are available, such as Free web hosting service,
Shared web hosting service, Reseller web hosting, Colocation web hosting service,
Virtual Dedicated Server, Dedicated hosting service, Managed hosting service, Cloud hosting,
Clustered hosting, Grid hosting, as well as Home server. Of all these services,
the free service may appeal to you the most. However, you should always keep in mind, that
although free web hosting services may be quite popular, they are usually available with
limited facilities, which make them useful primarily for personal web pages.
If you have bigger plans and you wish to avail better facilities, then in that case,
a paid service would be the option to go for. Some of the web hosting services may even allow you,
to function as web host yourself. Depending upon your budget, you may select a service for
hosting your web portal.
