What is "Web Hosting" ? 

Web hosting is exactly what it says. It is somewhere that all the files that make up your website live. In simple terms. It is a computer that sits connected to the internet delivering files to people that want to download them. The files that make up a page are essentially the HTML page that instructs the users browser how to display the information and what information exactly that is to be displayed. other files are things like pictures, images & sound et cetera. 

All these files that make a page and all the pages that make your site are called your web. It follows then that all these websites, pages and files files on the internet are called the world wide web (WWW).

Now we have established what web hosting is, you will understand that you need to find someone with a computer connected to the internet 24 hrs a day, for your website. 

How do I select a host ?
Selecting the right host for your company is not an easy task. The first thing to take into account is your website requirements. If you have secure areas and specialist scripting/programming within your pages, you will need to select a host that both supports your requirements and has a full working knowledge of them. Search around nd make a short-list of the ones that meet your requirements. 

When you have your short-list ready, pay a visit to hostsearch. Here you will be able to read reviews on thousands of hosts. either tick or strike through the names on your list dependant on what their own clients are saying about them. 

The next step is to send an enquiry email, typically a request for their uptime rate. This will achieve two results, it will give you an idea on their response times to emails and it will also give you an idea of the amount of time their servers are connected to the internet. Ideally you should be looking for uptime of 99.5%+. With regard to the email response time, if they cannot answer new business enquiries quickly, what do you think their support will be like ?

when you are down to the last few names, it is time to start looking at the value of the deals they are offering. To save you time, we have a list of hosts we recommend on our approved suppliers page

Next, we look at building your web site