When a company or a person decides to have an online presence or other internet based project they will use a service called web hosting. The service they provide is normally chargeable, for obvious reasons but it is possible for personal websites to be hosted for free. Digital files like websites, videos and programs for instance are stored on a web host server sometimes called a data center where they can be retrieved by anyone who wishes to view the slide or video footage for example.

A large number of companies even supply free hosting to individuals, not generally companies, where they are able to have websites and blogs without any charge. When a person realizes they want to host additional sites and store other digital products, they may find that the range of facilities for unpaid web hosting plans is too limited. Hosting packages vary enormously and must be chosen according to the needs of the user and not based on price because certain requirements may not be available in the lower price range.

Most people and companies start their hosting by using a shared server system which means your files are on the system with other peoples. This will enable you to see if you have chosen a very good company; then change to a dedicated server with your company when you're comfortable with their services. With web hosting you get your own web space, but you do need to have a registered domain before you can use it, then you are allocated with enough storage to keep all your files for online publication. Files include web pages, images, audios, and videos, to name a few and normally, you will be provided with storage space of about 1Gb although the limit is continually rising as storage costs lessen.

If you have your own domain name, this allows for your own email address without another company (Google for example) having their name as part of the address; this is another benefit of paid web hosting. If you have a business presence online you cannot afford to have another company's name at the end of your own e.g. www.yourcompanyname.hostingcompany.com when it should really look like this: www.yourcompanyname.com. The next thing to consider with your hosting package is how much information will be stored on the server that can be downloaded from your website as it will use a facility called bandwidth; the greater amount of files stored that can be accessed, the greater amount of bandwidth will be required.

If your package cannot provide this or the company cannot meet your needs then visitors will not always be able to access your site during busy periods so a new package or company may be needed. This is extremely important if your website has many images, MP3 tracks or other large files like video clips; even a single webpage can contain a great deal of information, all of which is considered as bandwidth. In almost every case it is a wise decision to use a web hosting company and not consider using your own computer as a host due to the risks, especially for those unfamiliar with internet security.