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Domain Names and Webhosting Explained By Ted Prodromou www.valiss.com When you launch a new website you must register a unique domain name with an authorized registrar. When the internet was first starting, all domain names were registered through one company, Network Solutions. Today, there are hundreds if not thousands of websites where you can register your domain name. Some websites charge as little as $4.95 per year for your domain name while others charge as much as $35 per year for the exact same service. Why pay $35 when you can register your domain name for much less at another website? The interesting thing is that Network Solutions is still the keeper of the domain name database and the other websites are domain name "resellers. Why does Network Solutions charge $35 per year if they are the keeper of the database? Who knows and who cares! Register your domain with one of the cheaper providers and you'll be fine. Now when it comes to webhosting, cheaper is not always better. You can get webhosting for free from some companies and the level of service you receive will reflect what you're paying. You're website will be hosted on a server with hundreds or even thousands of other websites. Your website will probably respond slowly and you may have frequent outages. Worse, your email may or may not get delivered because of the slow server and network bandwidth problems. Don't cut costs on your webhosting company. A penny saved will be many dollars of lost business. Webhosting Explained Web hosts are service companies that provide space on their servers for internet users. Web hosts provide online systems for internet connectivity and for storing information, image mediums and other internet content. For the company interested in conducting business on the web, the proper choice of web host is a crucial step in any internet marketing plan. There are several types of web hosting available. Free hosting is the least costly, but the most limited with regard to services and space; though a free web host may be a consideration for an individual professional or small business to start out. The restrictions on advertising, bandwidth and permissible edit sites, may be limiting for a company looking for rapid growth. Shared hosting places your website on the same server as several (potentially hundreds) of other sites. Although these are less restricted than free hosts, they do impose some limitations on site capabilities. Reseller hosting allows an e-business to obtain a large amount of bandwidth and space on its account and divide the space as it sees fit. This is similar to a shared hosting because your server is placed on the same server as others. But you can decide on the amount of the divisions and with whom to share. Less Restricted Web Hosting Choices Dedicated hosting and Virtual Private Server hosting provide very similar results. A dedicated hosting is relatively expensive, but is less restricted than those previously discussed. With dedicated hosting, you, as the user, have a server to yourself. Thus, there are very little restrictions and you are on your own with regard to services. Virtual private server technology enables one server to host multiple virtual environments. These environments have the characteristics of individual stand-alone servers. Essentially, the results are the same, though a virtual private server hosting is less expensive. With Colocated hosting, the user installs a self-purchased server at the data center of the host. The services often provided for other types of hosting, must be paid for by the colocated hosting user, thus the costs associated with this choice tend to be high. In order to use a web-hosting service, your e-business must already have an existing website ready to go. So as you develop your website, one of the crucial planning components is deciding what web hosting service your e-business and site will require. Valiss is the internet marketing expert. They will help you design and implement your entire internet marketing plan, and will then help you navigate the many issues involving your web hosting choice.

About the author: Ted Prodromou spent over 25 years in the computer industry working for IBM, Digital, and Cellular One. Today he's the owner of Valiss IT, a consulting firm that provides small business marketing solutions. Learn how to automate your marketing with Ted's latest program at www.valiss.com/specials. You can also sign up for his marketng newsletter at www.valiss.com.