What is a Web Hosting Company? A web hosting company uses huge banks of computers called servers to store websites and to serve them to internet users around the world.

Once you have decided what your new website is about and what you are going to call it, you then need to decide which web hosting company you are going to use.

Websites are not delivered to internet users directly from your own computer. They are stored at web hosting companies on one of many specially set up computers, call web servers, this ensures that they are always available to internet users.

Choosing the right hosting company can be difficult as on the surface they both appear to do the same thing. However there are differences that you need to be aware of. The first difference you might be aware of is the Operating System that they use. The two most popular are Windows and Linux but to be honest for 99% of us either will do and as Windows tends to be more expensive Linux would be my reccommendation.

Speaking of cost, when you sign up with a hosting company you are charged a fee to host your website for a set period of time. You would usually agree to a time period, which can be anything from 3 months to several years. You would then be given the choice of paying for the hosting in one single payment or to have it split into equal monthly amounts for the period chosen. Price therefore is a factor when choosing a web hosting company.

Many web hosting companies give you a free domain name of your choice (subject to availability) when you use their services, so make sure your chosen one does otherwise you will be paying for your domain name in addition to the hosting charge. Something else to be aware of is the disk space allocated to you. Some web hosting companies set a maximum amount that you may use, yet others have no limits to this amount. This may be an important factor as your website grows in size.

The same goes for bandwith. This refers to how busy your website can be. If you only expect a handful of visitors then it doesn’t really matter but most website owners are looking for as many visitors as possible so, just to be on the safe side, always choose a web hosting company that provides unlimited bandwidth.

Some web hosting companies allow you to add more domain names to your main hosting account. This is beneficial if you plan to create more websites in the future as you then just pay for the domain name without needing to pay for more hosting, so choose one with unlimited add-on domains.

If your website is going to use WordPress, Joomla or Drupal systems then you need to choose one that can automatically install and set these up for you. Look for phrases like one click install or fantastico in the features section as this means that they have this feature which can save you a huge amount of time and trouble.

I have been using the same web hosting company for many years now. I chose them because they offer all of these features. They provide unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, free domain names, unlimited add-on domains and one click installations and all at a lower price than many of the others. I have included a link to them below if you want to have a closer look at my recommended web hosting company.

Want to find out more about the web hosting company I use, or visit my site to find out more about What is a Web Hosting Company?.