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. Most people will require their services which may be provided as part of a package which will probably at a charge but could be free. A certain amount of storage space on the server is allocated to each user where they can store their website files and other data for people to access.

There are a great many services available; you even have free hosting where you won't have to spend a single dime, this is ideal for absolute beginners. For more storage space, better email facilities, sub domains and more you really need top look at paid web hosting plans; this is particularly pertinent for business customers. Paid hosting packages vary enormously so don't be surprised about the difference in prices; the best thing to do is sit down and work out exactly what your primary requirements are and then check out one of these hosting comparison websites.

In the early days you may be quite happy to have your files on a server which is shared by many others while you try their hosting services. When the need for more space and security is required then a dedicated server at extra cost can be used. 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. The term 'file' is a generic name for anything that is uploaded (the opposite of downloaded) to your website with the space allocated normally not less than one half of a full gigabyte but these figures are always increasing.

The good thing about having your own web hosting package and domain means that all your email addresses will contain your domain name in them and not that for the free service provider you may have been using previously. People who are serious about their internet presence will want to have their own identity and to prove the point; you will never see a company using someone else's domain in their email address. Another problem to consider is called bandwidth which is essentially how much digital data is being transferred using your domain name and will affect the cost of the hosting package, this needs to be considered carefully.

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. Of course this won't matter if you only have a basic website but as soon as you start adding large images, audio tracks, video footage and other big files, your bandwidth will be used up very quickly. 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.