If you are new to web hosting, you might be forgiven for thinking that you need a diploma in computer science to figure the do and don’ts of this service. You might have also been confused by some web hosting companies with irrelevant technical jargon that then propose to charge you a silly price to deliver an underwhelming service. Well, let me put your mind at ease – web hosting is a pretty simple service to understand (and eminently affordable too).
Let me start with an analogy…imagine a filing cabinet that is connected to the world in a way that everyone can access and in turn view all the individual files contained in it. Well, you can kind of picture web hosting in that way. In terms of hosting, the ‘filing cabinet’ is a powerful computer (known as a ’server’) that is permanently connected to the World Wide Web.
The ‘files’ are websites sitting (‘hosted’) on the server. Every time someone types in an address of a website e.g. www.google.co.uk, the server shows the user the requested website. Now, in theory, you could host a website on your own personal computer, but in practice that’s not really feasible unless you have lots of money to invest in a powerful server and internet connection that can handle lots of traffic (bandwidth). Plus there are security and other issues to think about.
That’s where hosting companies come in. Essentially when you buy hosting from them, you are effectively renting some space on their server and you are also allocated bandwidth – the amounts would depend on how much you are willing to pay. If you tell a hosting company what your needs are i.e. what kind of website you have/are building and what kind of traffic you expect to get, they should be able to tell you how much space, bandwidth, etc. you need.
I would also suggest that you satisfy yourself with the level of support you will get and how i.e. telephone / live web chat. Finally, in terms of cost, you shouldn’t have to pay more than a few pounds per month, possibly less depending on your website. And that, to be honest, is just about all you need to know about web hosting if you are a small business. Many people made the wrong choice of hosting because they think that cheap Linux servers are able to handle ASP or ASP.net applications using the apache module. The truth is, to date, ASP and ASP.NET are fully usable only on Windows or Microsoft hosting servers.
So if you are you looking to host your website using a Windows platform, we present here a list of best .Net web hosting companies to help you with your cheap VPS Europe web hosting choice. Windows or Microsoft hosting is the first step to your utilizing your ASP programs and to create those powerful ASP.net applications. Choosing the wrong web hosting plan can be detrimental to your business. Alternatively, if you prefer to use Linux based hosting for your business blog, product forum and much more, we suggest that you try inMotion hosting.
Their unlimited web space and bandwidth hosting plans can allow you to install different web applications such as WordPress, Joomla, Coppermine Image Gallery and much more in one-click. You also have the ability to host streaming audio and video. Read this inMotion hosting review if you decide that Windows and .Net web hosting is not for you. If you are on a tight budget, try iPage instead. An iPage review said there are awesome too. They cost only $4.50/month for their “unlimited” hosting package.
