Answers To Your Server Hosting Questions

Today, websites are as integral to doing business as business cards and power lunches. As a result, the everyday business man and company owner is finding themselves required to learn a whole new vocabulary of terms that include phrases like IP address, instant messages, social media, and often the most elusive term: server hosting.

To make matter worse, other terms are often coupled with the words server hosting, like dedicated and shared, to make the whole concept even more confusing. In this overview, you will be introduced to the concept of website hosting and what form is likely to be best for your business needs.

Let´s start with the basics. A server is a storage device that is utilized for the purpose of holding and sharing website information through the internet. The server is essentially the home of your website and all the data and information it contains. As a business person, you may have a physical server somewhere in your office building that you can see and touch, or, as is most likely among small and mid-sized businesses, you may be hosted by a third party. By utilizing third party hosting providers, small businesses are able to essentially rent space for their website, without having to buy expensive machinery or specialties.

It is within this concept of server providers that you can start to understand two key differences in server options. There are two alternatives, shared server hosting and dedicated hosting. Shared hosting refers to a storage plan you can buy where your website will be maintained on a server that also stores other websites. With these arrangements, you are essentially buying an allotted portion of the space with little control over the server at large and who you share it with.

Alternatively, dedicated hosting refers to a storage plan where you rent an entire server for your website and do not share it with any other site owner, giving you greater control and options, but usually at a higher price.

Each of these options has pros and cons depending on your unique business situation.

The pros of a shared server is that storage packages are very cheap, with some offered at just $20 per month. Compared to the cost of maintaining a server in house, this price is very reasonable and makes having a website accessible for just about everyone. However, with shared servers you only have limited space and therefore cannot support a website that utilizes high bandwidth or becomes a high traffic location. Furthermore, if your site is on a server with spam sites or pornographic sites, it can affect your search engine ranking making you harder to find by customers.

Dedicated servers offer many additional benefits to users, with the most poignant being significant control over server settings, upgrades, and policies, as well as unlimited potential to grow your site and drive traffic. The only major con to a dedicated hosting is that the cost, which can be into the hundreds of dollars a month, may make it prohibitive for smaller operations.

The nice part about these choices is that you have a large degree of flexibility. Most server hosting companies will let you upgrade if you start on a shared plan and want to move to dedicated, or vice versa, meaning you can shift your hosting needs based on your website success or development. Remember, your website is your online calling card and should be housed in the most optimal environment possible!