Thinking about starting a website? Probably you have come across the term ‘web hosting’ and asked yourself if your website needs hosting. Here is everything you need to know about web hosting and its advantages to your website.
If you want to have a website, definitely you need web hosting. Although websites seem to be untethered to the physical world, truth is that websites are housed by companies that occupy a physical place with rooms having computers. This is the online space that the cheap reseller hosting with WHMCS companies rents your site to store all your data, databases and media components.
Every website on the internet is hosted and takes up some designated space on a server computer somewhere. All the information on a website is usually stored on the servers. Servers communicate with local computers to relay the information in browsers. Although we think less of the server computers, they are an essential part that houses the websites we browse to access the content.
Why Does a Website Need Hosting?
After you create your website and you are ready to show it to the whole world, your website needs to live somewhere where your visitors will get it. Cheap reseller hosting with WHMCS gives your website a unique address that can be used by everyone around the world to view the content and services you provide.
Does My Website Need a Hosting Service?
The answer is yes if you need your website to be alive and visible to everyone around the world you need a hosting service.
A hosting service will provide you space to store your website’s components and make them easily accessible by the users. You need to look for a hosting provider.
You will pay for the hosting service either annually or monthly after that the hosting provider will house your website and keep it up and running. However, some people may prefer not to pay the hosting prices over and over again but instead set up their own private hosting.
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Although setting up a private hosting is among the options, maintaining a private server requires advanced skills to manage. The amount of bandwidth required for private self-hosting is far beyond what most internet providers offer for individuals or businesses. Instead of committing your website to self-hosting, many people look for hosting companies to rent them ‘online space.’
Can I Host My Website for Free?
Now that you already know you need web hosting, you also need to know the pricing and ensure it does not affect your budgeting for other essentials. From searches online, it can be noted that some website building platforms can build your website which will come with free hosting. Why can’t I go for them? Of course, everyone likes free stuff.
There may be sensible cases where one can opt for free hosting, if you are building a website for fun and you are not interested in making it profitable in the future, for instance.
For someone with a bigger vision for their website, choosing free hosting may land you into serious risks later.
Limitations for Free Hosting
If you chose to host your website for free, you may have fewer options for branding and customizing your website to suit your needs. For full control over your website’s appearance and functionality, free hosting is not among the options.
Other than fewer design privileges, free hosting packages provide less storage space for their clients, unlike paid hosting plans which have more storage space for your website’s data. People who land for free hosting have limitations on the sizes of files they can upload to their websites. This will limit you from uploading media content with large file sizes like audio and video files.
The inability to set up URL redirects and custom error pages is also another limitation of opting for free hosting. Some options like keeping backups for your site and adding more security plugins are limited.
It May Not be Free
Some hosting companies may use ‘free’ in their packages just to lure you into signing up, then once you have created your website and it is time to get it live, you realize there is nothing you can do with the free plan until you upgrade to a paid plan.
Since they have already lured you into their plan, you could feel stuck with their plan even if it is not the best deal in the market. Most free hosting and website building providers won’t allow you to shift your site to a new provider. You will be stuck and start building a new site from scratch.
You Need Web Hosting
After seeing all the advantages of hosting, by now you can clearly state that yes, you need web hosting for your website. Before you start creating a website, keep the concept of hosting in mind. Do keen research on the market to ensure you land the perfect hosting provider and your website gets value for your money after you pay for their services.
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