Web Hosting

By Sid • Mar 17th, 2008 • Category: Posts

We’ve spoken about starting an online business in the past, where we discussed online shopping carts. Another important aspect of an online business is that web host you choose. There are quite a few types available and you’ll have to see what’s good for your business. You’ll have to choose between free, shared, dedicated, and co-located hosting.

As the name suggests, free hosting doesn’t cost you any money, but there are limited options for software, support or service. Shared hosting is a very good option in the short term as it is economical, and sufficiently fast – there are however, restrictions on space and bandwidth utilised. Dedicated is quite good for the long term, in that the whole server is yours, no sharing but it can get quite expensive. Finally, there’s Colocation. This type of hosting allows you to place your server in a location that’s designed for hosting. It’s the same as running it from your house, but there are many added benefits, since the location is specially designed for the purpose and will probably have dedicated resources for fire prevention, anti-vandalism, measures, a regulated power source and a high speed internet connection among other facilities.

Depending on the type and stage of your business I suggest:

Free – do not use unless you’re running a personal site
Shared – use for the short term and to test your business concept
Dedicated or Co Located – Depending on your budget and technical skills, either of the two will make sense for the long term perspective.