5 Web Hosting Tips for '07

Are you planning your web hosting needs for 2007? Maybe you are ready to buy a web hosting plan for a new blog site or that online video family website you're planning? Then it's a great time for you or your company to consider the following tips for a successful year of hosting! By following these simple steps, you can not only save money, but also ensure that your website has its most successful year ever.

Tip #1: Upgrade to an Annual Plan - If you are happy with your hosting provider, consider moving to an annual payment basis. By doing this, you can benefit from a lower prorated monthly rate. If you are looking to transfer to a new web host, you might also wish to consider an annual plan as they often come with no set-up fee. Even better, consider the discount of adding a 2nd year onto that annual hosting plan; sometimes adding the 2nd annual time period results in very little extra cost since you get a web hosting discount on the first year as well. For example, HostMonster offers a 1 year hosting plan which works out to $6.95/month, and a two-year price of $4.95/month.

Tip #2: The economy is growing and Internet usage continues to increase. Is your company website ready for an increase in traffic during 2007? With monthly fees for dedicated servers coming down rapidly over the past year, your business may wish to consider moving to a dedicated environment which will offer more capacity for servicing your online customers. At least be sure that your current plan has adequate bandwidth allowances. Even the shared space now offers close to unlimited bandwidth (considering what the average website actually uses). Take a look at HostMonster - they provide 999GB of monthly bandwidth for as low as $4.95/month. Just like a cell phone, if your current website is experiencing traffic overage charges, then it is time to consider a larger hosting package.

Tip #3: Check out your Hosting Service Agreements. These agreements contain the "legal terms" of your hosting contract and may be changed from time to time. The 'New Year' is a good time to review the latest documents surrounding the relationship between you and your web host. For some customers, you may find that you are on a high-end SLA and could lower your monthly service fee by accepting say a 99.8% uptime guarantee vs. a 99.9% standard.

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Tip #4: Secure a support domain for your company. Many companies are now providing technical support and service follow-up online. With Internet access still growing on a worldwide basis, you may wish to consider reserving the domain name for a potential service/support site. For example, usxmodeltrains.com might wish to reserve usxtrainsupport.com. Also, think about registering some of the new top levels domains including .info and .biz - these can be useful in driving more traffic to your website. Most web hosting companies now offer to purchase a free domain for you as long as you purchase their annual web hosting account.

Tip #5: Watch for software upgrades! Each year, many providers of web design and server software launch new versions. For instance, is your web host delivering the latest Windows or ASP.NET versions? Also, make sure your company is using the latest design software to maximize your site visitor's experiences. By checking to see if your provider has the latest server versions, you can verify their technical knowledge, ensure maximum website uptime, and create a website that is more competitive vs. your peers in terms of website interactivity and features.

By following these simple tips, your business can maximize it's online efforts in 2007 by ensuring a stable hosting environment while gaining better knowledge about your web host.

Looking to give the gift of web hosting - Learn more in our web hosting gift guide.
Want more tips, check out our 2006 web hosting tip sheet: click here.

5 Web Hosting Tips for '08

Are you planning your web hosting needs for 2008? Maybe you are ready to buy a web hosting plan for a new blog site or that online video family website you're planning? Then it's a great time for you or your company to consider the following tips for a successful year of hosting! By following these simple steps, you can not only save money, but also ensure that your website has its most successful year ever.

Tip #1: Upgrade to an Annual Plan - If you are happy with your hosting provider, consider moving to an annual payment basis. By doing this, you can benefit from a lower prorated monthly rate. If you are looking to transfer to a new web host, you might also wish to consider an annual plan as they often come with no set-up fee. Even better, consider the discount of adding a 2nd year onto that annual hosting plan; sometimes adding the 2nd annual time period results in very little extra cost since you get a web hosting discount on the first year as well. For example, HostMonster offers a 1 year hosting plan which works out to $7.95/month, and a two-year price of $5.95/month.

Tip #2: The Internet economy continues to grow and global Internet traffic is predicted to continue its steady usage increase during 2008. Is your company website ready for an increase in traffic during 2008? With monthly fees for dedicated servers coming down rapidly over the past year, your business may wish to consider moving to a dedicated environment which will offer more capacity for servicing your online customers. You can review 2008 dedicated server specials at our Dedicated Server Showcase. At the very least, be sure that your current plan has adequate bandwidth allowances. Even the shared space now offers close to unlimited bandwidth (considering what the average website actually uses). Take a look at HostMonster - they provide unlimited GB of monthly bandwidth for as low as $5.95/month. Just like a cell phone, if your current website is experiencing traffic overage charges, then it is time to consider a larger hosting package.

Tip #3: Check out your Hosting Service Agreements. These agreements contain the "legal terms" of your hosting contract and may be changed from time to time. The 'New Year' is a good time to review the latest documents surrounding the relationship between you and your web host. For some customers, you may find that you are on a high-end SLA and could lower your monthly service fee by accepting say a 99.8% uptime guarantee vs. a 99.9% standard.

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Tip #4: Secure a support domain for your company. Many companies are now providing technical support and service follow-up online. With Internet access still growing on a worldwide basis, you may wish to consider reserving the domain name for a potential service/support site. For example, usxmodeltrains.com might wish to reserve usxtrainsupport.com. Also, think about registering some of the new top levels domains including .info and .biz - these can be useful in driving more traffic to your website. Most web hosting companies now offer to purchase a free domain for you as long as you purchase their annual web hosting account.

Tip #5: Watch for software upgrades! Each year, many providers of web design and server software launch new versions. For instance, is your web host delivering the latest Windows or ASP.NET versions? Also, make sure your company is using the latest design software to maximize your site visitor's experiences. By checking to see if your provider has the latest server versions, you can verify their technical knowledge, ensure maximum website uptime, and create a website that is more competitive vs. your peers in terms of website interactivity and features.

By following these simple tips, your business can maximize it's online efforts in 2008 by ensuring a stable hosting environment while gaining better knowledge about your web host.

Looking to give the gift of web hosting - Learn more in our web hosting gift guide.
Want more tips, check out our 2007 web hosting tip sheet: click here.

Web Domain Name

it is important to know how to buy web domain name if you are a business person and would like to put up your business over the internet or if you are into internet marketing. You domain name is important because it is what people will remember and notice first regarding your business or organization. Also, it will depend upon the domain name if you will easily get organic search engine traffic. If your business belongs to a very competitive market, then getting the right domain name could mean success or failure for your business endeavor.

Registering and buying a domain name is very easy and quite fast. A lot of web hosting sites also offer domain name registration. Before you get started, think about the domain name you want really carefully. Do not go for a name just because it sounds cute or just because it is the only one available or it is the first thing that comes to mind. Read on and you will see why having the right domain name and taking the time to think about it is essential.

First off, take note that if you have sufficient budget, you can afford to brand yourself properly whatever domain name you decide to use. Just take Google and Yahoo for example. Those names are not popular and Google does not even exist in the dictionary, but look at them now. They are the top force to reckon with when it comes to the online business. Their success is not due to their name, although it helps that is can be easily remembered, but their success is largely due to an excellent brand internet marketing strategy and thousands and even millions of dollars to implement it.

Now, you want to have a focus so your mission, goals and objectives will be all synchronized. You should know your target market or your niche. Know your main product or the main service you are offering. If you have the information in mind, type it on Google Keyword Tool. This tool will reveal what internet users use as keywords in relation to your product, service or target market. Look at the most common used keywords and incorporate it in your domain name so your site will be easily researchable.

After making sure you have the right domain name for your website, you are then ready to register. A lot of web users are using NampCheap.com when registering their domain names nowadays because their fee includes privacy for the domain name owners. This is important because if you really want to do serious business over the internet, you need to cover your tracks. If your website gets recognized, your competition will most likely seek you out and find out how your other sites are doing. The better your tracks are covered the more secure you and your business will be. You do not want your ideas ripped off by the competition right?

If you are putting up a website for business purposes, always go for a .com as your first option as it is given search engine priority. If your domain name is available in other extensions such as .net, .org or .biz, buy it also if you can to keep the competition at bay.

What is web hosting? What do I need to consider?

What is web hosting?

Web hosting (sometimes referred to as 'web space') is a service which allows you to upload your own files and site to a server in a data center. Once uploaded, your website can be seen by anyone who is connected to the Internet.

What do I need to consider?

For a business website, you need to ensure you use a reliable host so that your site is always available for potential customers to view it. You also need to ensure that it is speedy so that your site doesn't take a long time to load (how the site is designed also impacts this). You need enough storage space for all your files and a monthly bandwidth allowance that will not stop people viewing your site. Hosting accounts also come with a number of e-mailboxes as well as scripting tools which your site may require.

GOOGLE WEB HOSTING

Google Web Hosting: Pages.google.com has now shifted to sites.google.com .. The new Google web hosting page allows you to create rich web pages easily, collect all your information in one place, and control who can view and edit your site. Like all google application Google web hosting is easy to use and a great web hosting option for anyone looking for a very simple web page.

If you are looking to create a professional web site for your business, blog, church, or other website you may want to consider some other cheap (but great alternatives). Although Google web hosting features many great tools you really are limited with what you can do. I would suggest purchasing web hosting from on of the providers on our Top 10 Hosting List . These Google web hosting alternatives cost less than $5 per month but will give you unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space, and something that Google will not give you A FREE DOMAIN NAME for Life!

Again, if you are looking to create you own personal website just for you, Google web hosting would be a great free option; however, if you are looking to create a professional image for your site on the web you should choose one of the web hosting providers listed below. Google web hosting will allow you to create your own site but fails to provide you with the resources that other hosts can bring. For example, it is nearly impossible to install wordpress or any other CMS on a Google Web Hosting server.. Also for a professional appearance on the web you should have your own custom domain name.. You can get this free with the purchase of web hosting but not with a free account from Google Sites.

Webhosting

Free Webhosting;-Free hosting is the most basic web hosting service. Banners ads are common on this type of website hosting (for example Geocities or Angelfire). There are a few free web site hosting providers in existence today that provide excellent options but that is the exception to the rule. Most free hosting plans do not provide users with MySQL databases, multiple e-mail accounts, or the ability to run any scripting language. The type of domain one receives in free web hosting is typically a sub-domain (yoursite.webhost.com) or a directory (www.webhost.com/~yoursite). Our recommendation is to avoid these kinds of web host services. Put a small investment in for cheap web hosting and get your own site, in the long run you will be happier and more satisfied.
Dedicated Web Hosting;-Dedicated hosting is a good option for someone who wants more storage and bandwidth and control over the server. The advantages of having dedicated hosting are: unlimited databases and email addresses as well as unlimited bandwidth. Generally, a dedicated server plan offers the user with a monthly bandwidth of 500 GB to 1 TB. Also important to know that there are two types of dedicated web hosting plans: managed and unmanaged. Managed hosting is hosting that is still controlled by the hosting company. In unmanaged dedicated web hosting, the user is the server administrator, permitting the user the greatest amount of control and flexibility. Unfortunately, unmanaged hosting is complicated and takes more time than a managed hosting solution.

This is a quick summary of the plethora of web hosting companies. Yes, we admit, it is a daunting task to find the best web hosting service for your needs. First know that the function of the website usually determines the type of web host. Then, the features, support, reliability, and control decide the pricing of a hosting account. At Web Hosting Search, you can browse the site and lDifferent Types of Web Hosting

There are many different types of web hosting companies available in the market today. Choosing a web hosting provider depends on what type of website you want to have: hobby, blog, or ecommerce site. As a result, there are different flavors of hosting providers. Some of the most common web site hosting types are: shared, free, and dedicated hosting. Free web hosting services for example, place ads on the user's web pages and can be cumbersome and annoying for visitors. The other web hosting plans offer great support, options, and bandwidth but charge a monthly fee.
Shared Web Hosting

Shared hosting is the most popular web hosting plan, basic. Shared web site hosting permits more than one site to be hosted on the same server. Here, the web hosts provide the system administration and the server maintenance. Benefits of a shared hosting site are programming features such as ASP, PHP, MySQL, large bandwidth, and multiple e-mail address capability. Compared to free web hosting, shared web hosting allows a user to have their own domain name. Shared hosting is a way for a hosting company to offer affordable web hosting to their clients while having more users on one server and thus less overhead costs.earn more about hosting, buy a hosting plan, and get your website online.

How To Find A Perfect Web Host

Take into consideration that there is no perfect web hosting plan out there. We can back that up with the flat out knowledge that any one hosting plan does not fit every requirement, budget and web site, therefore it can’t be perfect. You can however find the perfect web host, that is, at least a perfect web host for YOU.

First do a little smart investigating as to exactly what you need from your hosting provider. Are you looking for cheap web hosting and have a small budget? Does your webhosting provider need to have a datacenter near you and have the ability to let you get your hands on a dedicated or collocated server? Well cheap web space is everywhere, you can find that easy enough, but finding the perfect mesh of the extras beyond just a server plugged into the wall and then into the backbone, is what will get your problems taken care of before you even knew you had them.

Taking price out of the picture for now, since cheap hosting is really available from any web host out there these days, let’s focus on the web site itself. What will you be doing with your site that makes unlimited data storage and transfer a necessity? Is your blog popular enough to require terabytes of bandwidth? Will your company web site be able to stand with one hundred other sites on a shared hosting account, sharing the drive and IP address, and connection for that matter? Your best web hosting plans will not always be the ones with sky-high limits, or no limits on your web site hosting, but will keep their web space and yours at a maintainable level in a catered-to environment.

Once you have determined what your web site will do for you, ask yourself, or your developer HOW it will do those things. Will you need ASP hosting on a Windows or modified Linux server? While most business web hosting accounts are beefy enough to handle hundreds or thousands of simultaneous visitors, will your database or cart that accompanied your ecommerce web hosting be able to take that much pressure? Simultaneous activity is one of the weak points in a cheap host and its ability to deliver reliable website hosting service.

With all your pieces of this hosting puzzle collected, now you can focus on finding the most affordable web hosting that can also accommodate your other needs. Never try to find the cheapest host and buy a plan blind, because you always get what you pay for. Select your web hosting service based on your needs, and then choose a provider and plan that fill those needs. You will be happy with your results and wont end up with glorified ftp hosting from some guy’s basement for $1.25 a month. Good luck!

Hosting reliability and uptime

Hosting uptime refers to the percentage of time the host is accessible via the internet. Many providers state that they aim for at least 99.9% uptime (roughly equivalent to 45 minutes of downtime a month, or less), but there may be server restarts and planned (or unplanned) maintenance in any hosting environment, which may or may not be considered part of the official uptime promise.

Many providers tie uptime and accessibility into their own service level agreement (SLA). SLAs sometimes include refunds or reduced costs if performance goals are notmet

Web Design

Site registration is a mess in itself, and when you are finished with the mess you expect your worries to end. You want that your business should reach new destinations now, appeal to people and markets worldwide. However, a piece of reality is that registration is similar to you purchasing an empty plot, with the house construction still left. The sales and value of the house in upon the architectural structure; if the structure is built with intelligence, it is bound to last for years and give you unmatched profits. However, a fussy construction might bring your house down within a year.

Let me introduce you to the concept of web designing. Your web design can redefine the outlook of your website. Suppose your site is about electronics and service. Your web page design should contain pictures of all the products. Effects along with that could give an even better look. Special offers section, pre- and post-services section and other things that your store offers should also be included. Now imagine the same site which has no pictures, no layout, no services, and no links. How will it even tempt a customer to come to it again?

So, the first step you need to take is to judge your personal capabilities. If you can come up with a great web page design, then its best that you save the money, and use the web design software and start the work. On the other hand, you can hire the services of a web design company. The web design company will use advanced web design software and provide you with the best web designer in the market to make your site more than perfect. If you render the services of a web designer, then you don’t have to worry about the layout design. He will just ask you all the things you want to put on the site and then come up with the right outlook for your site.

If you are about to launch an e-commerce site, then your preferences should be a little different. As you will not only need an excellent layout, but along with that you will need ad blogs, credit card support, features such as shopping carts and others to provide your customers with all the facilities that are present. Hence it is preferable that when you are going to run an e-commerce site, you render the services of web designers. Overall, a professional web design can boost your sales, attract customers and I can give you proof of various businesses that have reached new heights and attracted customers worldwide after advance web design. It’s now your time to make the right decision and gain profits that you could only dream about before.

OBTAINING HOSTING

Web hosting is often provided as part of a general Internet access plan; there are many free and paid providers offering these services.

A customer needs to evaluate the requirements of the application to choose what kind of hosting to use. Such considerations include database server software, scripting software, and operating system. Most hosting providers provide Linux-based web hosting which offers a wide range of different software. A typical configuration for a Linux server is the LAMP platform: Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python. The webhosting client may want to have other services, such as email for their business domain, databases or multi-media services for streaming media. A customer may also choose Windows as the hosting platform. The customer still can choose from PHP, Perl, and Python but may also use ASP .Net or Classic ASP.

Web hosting packages often include a Web Content Management System, so the end-user doesn't have to worry about the more technical aspects. These Web Content Management systems are great for the average user, but for those who want more control over their website design, this feature may not be adequate.

Most modern desktop operating systems (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) are also capable of running web server software, and thus can be used to host basic websites.

One may also search the Internet to find active webhosting message boards and forums that may provide feedback on what type of webhosting company may suit his/her needs

SERVICE SCOPE

The scope of hosting services varies widely. The most basic is web page and small-scale file hosting, where files can be uploaded via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a Web interface. The files are usually delivered to the Web "as is" or with little processing. Many Internet service providers (ISPs) offer this service free to their subscribers. People can also obtain Web page hosting from other, alternative service providers. Personal web site hosting is typically free, advertisement-sponsored, or cheap. Business web site hosting often has a higher expense.

Single page hosting is generally sufficient only for personal web pages. A complex site calls for a more comprehensive package that provides database support and application development platforms (e.g. PHP, Java, Ruby on Rails, ColdFusion, and ASP.NET). These facilities allow the customers to write or install scripts for applications like forums and content management. For e-commerce, SSL is also highly recommended.

The host may also provide an interface or control panel for managing the Web server and installing scripts as well as other services like e-mail. Some hosts specialize in certain software or services (e.g. e-commerce). They are commonly used by larger companies to outsource network infrastructure to a hosting company.

HTML CODES

HTML, which stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists etc as well as for links, quotes, and other items. It allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms. It is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of "tags" surrounded by angle brackets within the web page content. It can include or can load scripts in languages such as JavaScript which affect the behavior of HTML processors like Web browsers; and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to define the appearance and layout of text and other material. The W3C, maintainer of both HTML and CSS standards, encourages the use of CSS over explicit presentational markup.[1]

Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is the encoding scheme used to create and format a web document. A user need not be an expert programmer to make use of HTML for creating hypertext documents that can be put on the internet.

SITE CONSTRUCTION

Photography:

The majority of the pictures on here at this point were taken with a Canon Digital Rebel, a digital SLR. I've been happy with it, though at this point it's starting to show its age (2 years old is ancient, these days). I've used a number of different lenses, including:

* The Digital Rebel's kit lens, a 18-55mm f5.6 or so zoom lens. For its price (cheap) this is a pretty capable lens. However, it's a slow lens that gives poor resolution towards the corners under many circumstances and will sometimes give color fringing.
* Sigma 105mm f2.8 EF macro lens. This is the lens I use the most, and I've been very happy with it. The finish on mine is flaking off, but that doesn't really matter. It takes good pictures and is cheaper (though possibly slightly better optically) than the Canon equivalent. I had a Sigma 50mm f2.8 EF macro lens earlier, but the shorter focal length made it much less useful.
* Canon 28mm f2.8 lens. I used this on a lot of landscape stuff until I dropped it down a lava crack at the Grants Malpais. Oops. It was a good lens and I might end up getting another.
* Canon 24mm f2.8 lens. I got this as a replacement for the Canon 28mm, figuring the slightly wider field of view was worth a little more money. I've been quite happy with it.
* Canon 50mm f1.8 lens. I got this because I figured I ought to have a good 50mm lens. I haven't had it long, but it seems like an excellent lens for the price and I've been happy with pictures from it so far.

Some other things I use include:

* Canon 420EX Speedlite. A good all-purpose flash. It doesn't do some of the fancier things for using multiple flashes and so forth that more expensive flashes can do, but I haven't found this to be a limitation. I usually use it with a hotshoe cord so I can move it around. I've thought about getting some sort of nifty bracket to hold it where I want it, but so far the weight and expense haven't seemed worth it.
* Slik Sprint tripod. A small, lightweight tripod. I got this model because it seemed to be the only one that would allow very low pictures (the head resting practically on the ground) as well as moderately high pictures, without being prohibitively expensive or complicated. It could use a stronger ball head and it lost one of its feet (lava and camera equipment don't really get along), but other than that I've been happy with it.
* Adobe Photoshop CS2. I've also used several other versions. This is the program I use for all of my digital photo editing. It took a while to learn how to use it to its full potential (I learned by the "let's try buttons and see what happens" approach), but it does pretty much everything I'd want.

Web Hosting:

This site has always been hosted on Macintosh computers running OS X, using the Apache web hosting software that comes with OS X.

The primary stable domain for the site is polyploid.net. The site was originally hosted from two servers at Indiana University (bee.bio.indiana.edu and lucerne.bio.indiana.edu), since moved or defunct. The current computer was previously reachable at boechera.nmsu.edu, but due to various technical problems ended up moving to boechera2.nmsu.edu. I also own the domain names hexaploid.com, newmexicoflora.com, indianaflora.com, and organmountainsflora.com. The first takes you to the main site, the next two take you to the plant pages indicated, and the last is the future home of an interactive online flora for the Organ Mountains to be created at some indefinite point in the future.
Site Construction:

Most portions of this web site were constructed by hand using pico or emacs under Mac OS X. I mostly use pico, but sometimes emacs is more convenient. Web galleries are constructed in Adobe Photoshop and then modified by hand and with batch modifications.
HTML by hand:

Basic html tags for images, links, etc., are easy to memorize. If I want to do something more complicated I'll look for a web page that does what I want to do and then figure out what html it's using to accomplish this, or look for useful html information through Indiana University's Knowledge Base, a compendium of technical support documents. For instance, the Knowledge Base is how I know how to create client-side image maps for the scenery maps (e.g., this one for Lincoln Co., New Mexico) on the site.
Adobe Photoshop:

Photoshop was used to create all of the galleries on this site. For this, I use Photoshop's "simple" gallery style and have it insert an image file's title or caption to provide information about the individual images. After construction in Photoshop I modify the galleries by hand (e.g., to insert the links to other pages of the gallery and to higher levels of the website that you can see at the top of each gallery page) and with batch modification using this method (for instance, in order to modify the color-based southwestern plant galleries so that the links direct you to the species' page rather than to the page Photoshop created for that image).

Errors:

As some of you may have noticed, there are a number of broken links, missing images, or other errors scattered throughout the site. If you notice any of these, please email me (paalexan@nmsu.edu) and let me know. Obviously I want the site to be in good shape, but I also don't generally have time to sit around clicking on things to make sure everything works

TYPES OF HOSTING

Many large companies who are not internet service providers also need a computer permanently connected to the web so they can send email, files, etc. to other sites. They may also use the computer as a website host so they can provide details of their goods and services to anyone interested. Additionally these people may decide to place online orders.

* Free web hosting service: Free web hosting is offered by different companies with limited services, sometimes advertisement-supported web hosting, and is often limited when compared to paid hosting.
* Shared web hosting service: one's website is placed on the same server as many other sites, ranging from a few to hundreds or thousands. Typically, all domains may share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU. The features available with this type of service can be quite extensive. A shared website may be hosted with a reseller.
* Reseller web hosting: allows clients to become web hosts themselves. Resellers could function, for individual domains, under any combination of these listed types of hosting, depending on who they are affiliated with as a provider. Resellers' accounts may vary tremendously in size: they may have their own virtual dedicated server to a collocated server. Many resellers provide a nearly identical service to their provider's shared hosting plan and provide the technical support themselves.
* Virtual Dedicated Server: also known as a Virtual Private Server (VPS for short) divides server resources into virtual servers, where resources can be allocated in a way that does not directly reflect the underlying hardware. VPS will often be allocated resources based on a one server to many VPSs relationship, however virtualisation may be done for a number of reasons, including the ability to move a VPS container between servers. The users may have root access to their own virtual space. This is also known as a virtual private server or VPS. Customers are sometimes responsible for patching and maintaining the server.
* Dedicated hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server and gains full control over it (root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, the user typically does not own the server. Another type of Dedicated hosting is Self-Managed or Unmanaged. This is usually the least expensive for Dedicated plans. The user has full administrative access to the box, which means the client is responsible for the security and maintenance of his own dedicated box.
* Managed hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server but is not allowed full control over it (root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, they are allowed to manage their data via FTP or other remote management tools. The user is disallowed full control so that the provider can guarantee quality of service by not allowing the user to modify the server or potentially create configuration problems. The user typically does not own the server. The server is leased to the client.
* Colocation web hosting service: similar to the dedicated web hosting service, but the user owns the colo server; the hosting company provides physical space that the server takes up and takes care of the server. This is the most powerful and expensive type of the web hosting service. In most cases, the colocation provider may provide little to no support directly for their client's machine, providing only the electrical, Internet access, and storage facilities for the server. In most cases for colo, the client would have his own administrator visit the data center on site to do any hardware upgrades or changes.
* Cloud hosting: is a new type of hosting platform that allows customers powerful, scalable and reliable hosting based on clustered load-balanced servers and utility billing. Removing single-point of failures and allowing customers to pay for only what they use versus what they could use.
* Clustered hosting: having multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource utilization. Clustered Servers are a perfect solution for high-availability dedicated hosting, or creating a scalable web hosting solution. A cluster may separate web serving from database hosting capability.
* Grid hosting: this form of distributed hosting is when a server cluster acts like a grid and is composed of multiple nodes.
* Home server: usually a single machine placed in a private residence can be used to host one or more web sites from a usually consumer-grade broadband connection. These can be purpose-built machines or more commonly old PCs. Some ISPs actively attempt to block home servers by disallowing incoming requests to TCP port 80 of the user's connection and by refusing to provide static IP addresses. A common way to attain a reliable DNS hostname is by creating an account with a dynamic DNS service. A dynamic DNS service will automatically change the IP address that a URL points to when the IP address changes