Choosing a web hosting is also a significant step in creating a website. The entire performance of your web resource depends on this decision.

All hosting providers are divided into two large groups: free internet hosts and shared ones.
In the first place allow me to say that many of the completely free web hosting providers are not exactly free, i.e. in exchange for their services that they may locate their advertisements on your website.

If your site is a home page containing your personal information or a little web resource where you share information on a specific topic, free web hosting will most probably be sufficient for you. In the event your website is an information portal, a site of your company, you should definitely utilize services of shared hosting.

Difference between shared and free hosting

As mentioned previously, very often free web hosts insert their advertisements in the kind of banner ads or pop-ups. Visitors of your website won't be pleased with it because it is widely known that ads are bothersome, especially the pop-up kinds. Consequently, if your objective is to attract the audience who are eager to come to your website frequently, coming back again and again in a day, a week, a month instead of just shutting your resource in 5 minutes after getting to your first page, then choose hosting without ads.

What is more, with free web hosts you can only anticipate such domain name as your_site. host.com. Such domain names will barely affect the reputation of your website in a positive manner; it will sooner damage its image, particularly if it's a company's website.

"Why aren't the pictures loading up?" -SUPPORT SERVICE will provide you with answers for such questions. It is absolutely crucial to have one since great service support really speeds up the problem-solving procedure. 90 percent of shared hosting providers have sufficient service support and only 10 percent of free web hosting providers have one.

Not each free hosting can boast these solutions as their own CGI-BIN directory, or the support of Perl, PHP, MYSQL, Cron, SSH, Telnet and many more. And even if right now your web resource needs none of these, such a requirement may seem in the nearest future with the increase of your website. With time you'll also need an increasing number of disk space. Free web hosts typically give you 1-100 Mb while shared web hosts provide 1-5000 Mb for your website.

So, the bottom line is as follows.

In case you have only a home page or a little website about your interests, go for a free web hosting with no doubts. But before choosing a particular hosting you should:

Decide the disc space quantity you're likely to want, taking under account further growth of your resource;
decide whether you need the support of scripts, whether it's required to have a file manager or you may do just fine using ftp-access, whether you need a site-generator
think over the domain . It should be brief and easy to remember.
Define your attitude as to host advertisements: if you are against it or not
When you are finished with all these items, remove all of the hosts which do not meet your requirements. I'd recommend that you check out the loading rate of websites located at hosting providers that fit your needs. And then you just choose the host with the least crowded stations.

I personally recommend freehostia.com. They provide:
250 MB Disk Space
6 GB Bandwidth
5 Domains Hosted
+ 1 MySQL Database
+ 1-click App Installs

FTP access. Support of PHP, Perl, Python, SSI and even more. There is also a catalogue of ready-made scripts with a option to adapt the design to your site - the optimal choice for a beginning webmaster.

Shared Hosting
Some may say that shared hosting is expensive, but it is just a myth. Its costs vary from 1 to 50 dollars a month depending on the set of resources and services provided. Obviously shared hosting doesn't have the disadvantages of this free one.

Nevertheless, shared hosting providers differ according to the range and quality of services. Here are some criteria which can guide you in your choice of the shared internet host:

A host should not put tough restrictions on visitors. There should be a possibility to pay if you exceed the limit, but the cover should not be overly significant.

If you require ASP, FrontPage Server, MSSQL, then you ought to be looking for a web hosting on NT-server and the host itself must offer these services. Otherwise, you'd better pick UNIX-hosting.

It is desirable that a server should provide Perl, SSI, PHP, MYSQL...

Apart from disc space a host should offer mail. Make sure it covers the services of ingoing and outgoing mail. Sometimes it occurs so that a server offers you email addresses rather than with e-mail boxes. In this case all your mail will be redirected into the e-mail box you have suggested, which will hamper your work.

A hosting provider should have its service service - working 24/7 through email as well as through phone (fax). Ask them any questions - that a good hosting provider will answer you within 24 hours. Should they continue ignoring you, or when there is no service service in any way, keep away from such hosts.

Check out what rights you are likely to exercise as to handling the server. As a minimum, you should have FTP-access to your catalogue - it will permit you to carry out necessary actions when archiving, deleting or editing files. It would be wise that a server needed internet interface to work with your own server along with your account.

If you're an experienced user, then it is desirable that a server supplied telnet-access - you will have the ability to work with the supplier's computer almost on precisely the exact same level as with your own personal one.

Everyday archiving (making book copies) of your site is a massive advantage too.

Good hosting is fast web hosting. The less crowded the supplier's servers and stations are the better. Minimum bandwidth needs to be no longer than Pentium III-800 Mhz with 512 Мb RAM

It is good practice for a web hosting provider to get their physical address and a few other data

Before ultimately submitting the payment, and get acquainted with Internet reviews of other customers concerning this server
Certainly, it's undoubtedly not a comprehensive list of all of the criteria according to which one should choose a web hosting provider. But if a server fulfills all the requirements mentioned above, you can begin working together.