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Online Guide - Domain Hosting
 After you have decided on the domain name and it is available, the next step is to look for a hosting company to register and host your domain name.
With the hosting service, your domain name will be visible on the Internet, i.e. you have your own website. You can print the website URL on your namecard, on company letterheads and on product brochures. Examples of website URL are:
http://www.geromail.com
http//www.geromail.net.sg
Types of Domain Hosting
There are several main types of hosting:
Free Hosting
There are also free hosting services available. Free hosting normally comes with advertisement being added to your website as part of the terms and conditions of use. Free hosting is not recommended for hosting business website.
For free hosting, you cannot use your own domain name. You will be assigned a sub-domain name, something like, myweb.geromail.com, sports.freeweb.com, etc.
Shared Hosting
Many hosting companies offers budget hosting services, ie. shared hosting service, with prices ranging from $2 to $30, depending on the diskspace and features provided. Normally, several hundreds domains will be housed on a single server.
Shared hosting service is ideal for businesses that requires a website and email system.
As many domains are housing with a single server, any scripts errors or intensive use by other domains will affect your domain performance slightly.
Reseller Hosting
Similar to shared hosting except that you can host multiple websites and email servers.
This hosting is suitable for users who have several domains or wish to sell hosting services to their customers.
Dedicated Servers
For this hosting, you own the whole server. The main advantage is that your server performance will not be affected by other domains.
You have full accesses to the server via a remote access software. You will be given several dedicated IP addresses to hosting setup.
Dedicated server are intended for users who wish to sell hosting services to their customers. A good knowledge is required in the setting up hosting server and email system.
Alternatively, you can also engage a managed dedicated servers whereby the hosting company will configure the server and all necessary applications for you, for a slightly higher monthly fee.
A comparison of the various hosting types:
| Features | Free
Hosting | Shared
Hosting | Reseller
Hosting | Dedicated
Server |
|---|
| Average Cost | Free | $5 | $20 | $200 |
| Multiple domains | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Diskspace | 20Mb | 200Mb | 1Gb | 160Gb |
| Email | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dedicated IPs | No | No | No | Yes |
Tips: Have both your domain name registration and domain hosting from one source, for convenience and very often, you can have them at a discounted price.
Hosting Operating System
There's 2 basic operating systems for domain hosting: Windows based or Linux based. Both types perform the same basic functions: To host your website and email server.
Generally, Linux based hosting is more stable and cheaper than Windows based. However, the latter have more advanced application support due to large numbers of application developers for Windows based system.
Next topic: Website Design
Prior topic: Domain Name
Related topics:
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