Web hosting is the act of renting space and bandwidth through a company who store these files so that you can publish your website and make it accessible to users online.
How does this work ?, consider the files you have saved on your computer, they are stored on your hard drive and can be retrieved at any time. A web page is also a file, just like your other documents. In the same way that your other files need your computer to store them, web pages also need a computer to store them.
The difference is that web pages are generally intended to be seen by the general public. To enable this, the computer on which they must be stored must be of a much higher specification than your desktop PC, and must be connected to the internet through a very powerful and secure connection. A computer on which web pages are stored is called a web server (because it serves pages, on request, to users on the internet).
It is technically possible to connect your desktop PC to the Internet and have it serve pages, but it is not practical since generally a home-based internet connection is not powerful enough to serve many users at the same time. In addition to performance difficulties there are issues of system security (blocking hackers) and support (ie. there is none !) as well as the inconvenience of having your computer running 24/7. For these reasons, web hosting companies exist. They own and maintain very powerful web servers which house your documents. They also connect their web servers to the internet by very powerful connections, enabling many web users to access your web pages at the same time.
This depends on the size and sophistication of the site. Web space providers usually offer different packages based on the amount of space your site will take up and how many additional features you require (eg. email addresses). As a rough guide you should expect to pay anywhere between 5 and 10€ per month for a suitable hosting package. However, a quick browse through google will show you that there are hundreds of web space companies who offer free hosting, so it is possible to pay nothing at all.
As the old saying goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch, nor is there truly free website hosting. If you're considering free web hosting, ask yourself what's in it for the provider. Almost all free web hosting has a catch. Servers, internet connections and engineers aren't free. Here are a few of the pitfalls you are likely to encounter with a free hosting service :
-Poor reliability
-Slow loading
-Restricted bandwidth or even your site being taken off line when it get busy
-Risk of the web hosting company disappearing
-Emails selling paid upgrades
-Very basic features
-Your domain may be reconfigured eg."mywebsite.free-host.net" - not a real web address
-No technical support
-Placing pop-up/pup-under ads, and/or banner advertisement on your website
All in all. free web site hosting could cost you both time and credibility.
As well as providing web space, web hosting companies invariably provide a number of other "value-added" services. The extent of these varies from company to company but there are some key services provided by nearly all. These are the registration of domain names, e-mail services and web statistics, they may also provide technical support either through their web sites or by e-mail or telephone.
A domain name is your identity on the internet, to publish a website you will need a domain name., eg. he registered domain name of this website is frenchpropertywebdesign.com. All web sites are reached by a user typing in the domain name to their web browser, and all e-mail accounts are related to a specific domain name. A domain name that does not have any web space allocated to it and does not have any e-mail facilities is known as a parked domain, this means it is reserved for the owner's later use.
Yes, all good hosting packages will allow you to have unlimited e-mail addresses of your choice. It is know fact that people are more likely to contact you if you have a professional e-mail address, eg. if your website is called hellofrance then yourname@hellofrance.com is preferable to hellofrance@hotmail.com or yahoo.com.
We use a fast, reliable & secure web hosting platform that utilises large network disk arrays, this ensures there is never an issue with web space. If they need to add more web space they can do this with no downtime by adding more disks to the arrays. As there are multiple arrays, if one fails another one automatically takes over. You have access to a control panel where amongst other things you can configure your e-mail or view the number of visitors to your site.
We do not charge for the first 2 years of hosting and after that there is a nominal charge of 35€ (£25) per year.
This recharge is an accurate reflection of what hosting costs us.
You are under no obligation to buy your domain name or host your site with us, although we do feel we offer a great deal and save you all the hassle of setting it up. If you only require a site design and wish to buy a domain name and host the site yourself, that is absolutely no problem.