Web Page Hosting

The main purpose of a web hosting service is to allow you to host your web pages and related files on a server that is accessible from the internet. However, web page hosting is only one purpose of the standard web hosting package; a standard web hosting package also allows the hosting of other related services for a website such as email hosting and DNS hosting. The type of web pages that you can host under the web page hosting part of your web hosting account are dependent on the type of web hosting package you choose, although more or less any web page hosting account is able to host standard HTML web page.

A web page hosting account is always hosted on a physical server in one way or another, even via proxy means such as a VPS server. Each server has an operating system installed on it so that it is able to process the requests of programs that are installed on it. In the web hosting world, there are two main operating systems that are used: Linux distributions and Microsoft Windows; this means that you are able to get web page hosting accounts on either a Linux distribution platform or on a Windows hosting platform. The main Linux distributions used in the web hosting world for web page hosting are CentOS and Ubuntu; other rarely used Linux systems include FreeBSD and Gentoo.

Dependent on your choice of scripting language, you can choose between either Linux based or Windows based web page hosting if you have developed a site using static HTML pages. However, if you have developed your web pages using a dynamic server side scripting language, you may be restricted with your choice of web hosting service. For example, websites that have been developed using the PHP scripting language with a MySQL database backend can be hosted on either Linux or Windows web page hosting services because either operating system is able to support both server components. If you are a Windows developer, then you might have developed your website using either classic ASP or ASP.NET with a Microsoft SQL Server database backend; in this case you will have to choose a Windows hosting package because both ASP and MSSQL Server are Microsoft products.

Basic web page hosting can be achieved with a shared web hosting account, which is the cheapest type of web hosting available at this moment in time. There are more advanced web page hosting solutions available for those who may require custom server configurations in order for their websites and web pages to function correctly; these come in the form of VPS hosting and dedicated server hosting.

VPS hosting is a cheaper form of dedicated hosting, but still acts in more or less the same way as a dedicated server meaning that you can easily achieve any custom configurations for web page hosting at a lower cost. VPS servers for web page hosting are available with both Linux distributions and Microsoft Windows Server, meaning that you can easily get a VPS server that meets your needs both component wise and operating system wise.

Dedicated server hosting is seen as the best type of web hosting that is available to the general consumer, and is the only type of web hosting scenario in which you are not sharing resources and hardware with any other users. Both individuals and businesses can purchase dedicated servers for the purpose of web page hosting. With a dedicated server, you are able to achieve the custom configurations you may need to ensure that you are able to host your web pages and other data with ease.

Web page hosting is a resource that can be easily had with the purchase of a basic shared web hosting package from any web hosting provider. As your website grows, or as your needs grow, you can then work your way up the web hosting tree until you have a dedicated server that you can use for web page hosting. If you want to provide others with basic web page hosting to begin with, then you can also consider a basic reseller web hosting account or a VPS hosting account for your needs.