When looking for a hosting company, there are several different types of hosting that you can choose (as I mentioned in “What is Web Hosting?”). Your choice should be based on how you plan on using the site, how much money you want/can spend, and how much time you want/can spend maintaining the servers. If  you consider these three things, you can find a hosting company that will work for and with you to make your site the best possible.

ISP 

First, you must have and Internet Service Provider (ISP) to use the Internet with you site. ISPs are a small amount of free web space to create web pages quickly and easily.  An ISP site is perfect for people who want a small site with low traffic. These sites are normally personal sites,  or sites that are put up for testing and preparation of another site. ISPs normally have rate restrictions and most don’t offer a lot of features with their web space.

Free Web Hosting 

 If you have and ISP that doesn’t offer web space, then I suggest that you consider free web hosting. There are many free hosting providers who can offer additional services. Free web hosting is normally supported by advertising on the site.  This type of hosting is beneficial for personal sites as well as small business sites, because they are supported by advertising. I do not suggest using free hosting if you are serious about conducting business on your site. You may however utilize a free hosting service for running test and preparations on pages.

Standard Paid Hosting 

Standard Paid hosting, need I say more? Usually you will pay a monthly fee for a space and services on providers site. Payments can range from $1-2 to several thousands of dollars, normally though it depends on what type of services you will require. This is a great option for most web-based business.

Domain Hosting 

If your business is small and you don’t have a lot of money to spend on web hosting, I suggest taking the route of Domain Hosting. It can be hard to understand at times, but instead of paying for a web space you would pay for your domain. Then you can have you site hosted wherever you would like. Domain hosting is also known as URL redirection. You can user your ISP or free hosting service and can still accrue the benefits of having a personal web site URL.

Colocation 

A great option for small to medium sized business’s that want to be able to control their own hosting company would be Colocation. The server would be put in a machine room of a larger company and can be connected to their high-speed Internet connection. There are two types of colocation: Managed and Unmanaged. Managed Colocation is like having an IT department in your company, even if the company is small.

Direct Internet Access 

If you company has a large database of information or is interested in  controlling every aspect of their web and Internet access should consider Direct Internet Access. This allows you to host your site yourself. However you are required to have:

  1. Web Server Computer
  2. Software
  3. High-Speed Internet with a dedicated IP address

This options offers most control over a web server. Just be sure to contact you ISP before setting up a direct connection on a DSL or Consumer ISP connection. Direct Internet Access does also require that you spend a lot of time maintaining and updating your information and web site yourself. If you do not have a lot of time to spend, I do not recommend this specific type of hosting.

Each company has different ideas on how they want to use their site. When you do decide what you want your site to do, you then must decide how much money and time you want to spend on your web hosting. I hope that this will aid you in making your decision on what type of hosting would be beneficial to you.