Here are a few terms you are likely to encounter when you hit almost any hosting company’s website:

• Disk space :  Simply put this is the amount of space you will have to store your website on their server. This will include the files html or otherwise that display your site. Dont forget that if your site is database driven then this will also use space
• Transfer : In order for people to see your website the web host has to send it to them. This is called data transfer and it costs the host money (very little per visitor) to send it to them. Most hosts will allow between 1GB – 10GB per month for a standard account although some providers do unlimited accounts. For most people with a new site 10gb should be more than enough.
• Server technologies:  If your site does more complex things than just static web pages like let people purchase your products online or browse your inventory then it will likely be a dynamic site. This means that someone has programmed it to do different things depending on what the visitor asks it. In order for this to work it will need to have the right server technology that the site was programmed in installed. Examples of these include asp/php/coldfusion/java
• Domain name :  This is the name of your website or what you have to type in to your browser to get to it. For example my domain name is http://businesswebhosting.org.uk/ . Some hosts will give you a free domain when you signup, however i recommend you get your domain name from a separate company as if you ever have problems with your web host (very possible) then they have complete control over you. If you but your domain somewhere else then you can move it whenever you want.

So there goes my hosting basics for people new to the hosting world. I know for some people these things will be very obvious and even a little tedious but i think we should remember that we all had to start somewhere, even me! Let me know if you enjoyed this post as i will write more for you all you beginners out there!

Another thing that people may be concerned about is the time difference as far as support goes. In the east cost of the US the time difference is not that big, around 5 hours. However this still is not really a factor with the bigger business hosts as they offer 24 hour support. Also the great thing about America is there really is no language barrier to speak off. This however could be an issue if you choose to host in some of the other big hosting countries like India although it does depend on the type if company you choose. At the same time you may be concerned that your host in the US (or even here for that matter) could be outsourcing their support somewhere else like India too. If this is the case i would definitely not recommend going with them. Not necessarily because Indian support is bad but i just don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have onsite support, its never as good no matter what people may claim.

I think theres also alot to be said for going with the bigger hosting companies in general as they have alot more to lose if things go wrong. With this in mind they are likely to put more into keeping their infrastructure up and running 24-7 as any outage is potentially going to affect thousands of customers. You also have to think about their track record and length of time in the business, some of these larger American business hosts have been in business for 10 years or more. I can tell you any internet business thats been going that long has to know what they are doing and how to keep customers happy!

As you can see i am a fan of offshore hosting for your business in general but it is the same as all things you have to look beyond the sales page of any business and work out if they are what they say. I know this can be hard in today’s market with everyone promising the earth. However i think there are a few points you can check automatically:

1. How long have they been in business?
2. Do they have an uptime guarantee?
3. Lots of small print
4. Do people talk about them on the web forums? Good or Bad?

So as promised that is my view on overseas hosting. More to come soon!

Another decision that you are going to have to work out when deciding which web host is best for your business is if you want dedicated/managed or shared hosting. It may seem confusing if you have never heard the distinctions before but it is very important that you understand the differences.

• Dedicated hosting means that the server (computer) your website is running on has only your site running on it. This means that there wont be any other sites that you have to share your bandwidth with. This hosting is only used for very large sites that get 1000s of visitors per day. Also with dedicated hosting you may need to know how to manage the server or employ someone who will do it for you.
• Managed hosting means that you may or may not be sharing the server with other websites, however the host will be managed by the hosting company for you (unlike dedicated). The main advantage of this option is that it is cheaper than dedicated and you don’t have to worry about the settings and general running of the server
• Shared hosting is the cheapest of the bunch and sometimes looked down upon by internet nerds like myself! However hosting is all relative and theres no point in paying for dedicated hosting if you don’t need it. As you can guess shared means you are sharing with other websites on the server. However aslong as the server is setup/managed correctly then the other websites should not be able to affect yours. Shared hosting can also be really cheap as low as £5 per month and is often ideal for small or startup businesses.

As you can see there are a few different options when it comes to hosting. Theres actually a lot more options if i am honest but i don’t want to overwhelm you too soon. The main thing to remember is that you can always upgrade your hosting package as you need it. So if your site does become very popular overnight you can usually ask your host to bump you up to a higher plan as required. There may be a little down time as they switch your plans but it think that is a small price to pay for scalability.

As a side note you may also want to consider what features your web-host comes preinstalled with. I don’t just mean the scripting language (ill talk about that later) but the many free scripts that are now available. I will give you and great example, this blog runs on a program called Wordpress. Now this software is free and allows me to post all my blog entries and content here with no web design knowledge at all! The great thing was that because my hostgator has a wordpress install from the cpanel i was able to setup this site in about 5 minutes. It was really a case of two forms that i had to fill out and i had a new blog that was ready to go.

So hopefully i didn’t get too off track there but hopefully you have a little more knowledge about the hosting world than you did when you started reading!