A guide to website hosting and ecommerce

Find a Webhost

Your web site is a set of files that reside on a specialized computer. This computer is known as a web server and is connected to the Internet. For customers to visit your site, they must be connected to that web server through the Internet and be allowed to view the files.

Web servers and the Internet connections that link them to visitors must be fast and powerful to in order to respond to all the visitors' requests quickly. Many businesses prefer to purchase, set up, and manage their own Web server hardware and software for better control.

However, other smaller e-commerce businesses prefer to hire an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Web hosting company for an online presence, without an investment in the hardware, software, and infrastructure. For a monthly fee, ISPs and Web hosting companies will put your site on one of the servers that connect to the Internet at high speed. This allows your site to be viewed by anyone with an Internet connection and a Web browser.

Apart from server space, your web host offers web server software, access to its high-speed Internet connection, tools for managing and maintaining your site, customer support, e-commerce features, and more. Hosting options varies with each hosts. So look for one that can meet all your needs.

What to Look for in a Web Hosting Company? Shared hosting or dedicated server?

Shared hosting is an arrangement in which your site is placed on the same host server together with several other Web sites. For smaller sites, this is economical. Getting your own dedicated server, a solution used by

If you site is larger and busier, getting your own dedicated server will provide faster access and ensures that your site will be accessible to visitors 100 percent of the time (instead of sharing Web server speed and power with other sites). Does your ISP or Web hosting provider offer both options?

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