| The service that enables users to post Web pages | | | | resources elsewhere. Web hosts are, however, not |
| on the Internet is known as Web hosting. The host, | | | | responsible for the contents of a Web site or the |
| called the hosting service provider (HSP), provides | | | | development of database-driven components or |
| the technologies and services that are required for | | | | code. |
| Web sites to be viewed on the Web. A Web host | | | | Free Web hosting from sites like Yahoo! and |
| provides its client's access to a Web server that | | | | GeoCities offer limited service depth and quality of |
| stores the pages and downloads them to recipients' | | | | service just because they are free. Paid services |
| computers on request. When a recipient accesses a | | | | offered by Internet service providers (ISPs) or HSPs, |
| Web page, his/her browser, be it Microsoft Internet | | | | however, offer a reliable set of services. |
| Explorer or Netscape Navigator, connects to the | | | | Paid Web hosting includes three types of services: |
| server. | | | | shared, dedicated and managed. In the case of |
| Most businesses find it difficult to own and operate a | | | | shared hosting, several Web sites are shared on one |
| Web server as it is very expensive and requires solid | | | | server. Although less expensive, they are incapable |
| technical know-how. Making use of this opportunity, | | | | of handling large amounts of storage or traffic. |
| Web hosts come into play. They accept the | | | | In dedicated hosting, a Web site is allotted its own |
| responsibility of storing a client's Web site and | | | | server. As a result, webmasters exercise full control |
| enabling Web site visitor traffic flow through their | | | | over the back end of the server, including choice of |
| computers to get to the client's site. In return, they | | | | operating systems. |
| charge a rental fee from the client. Quite expectedly, | | | | Apart from a dedicated server, managed hosting also |
| many individuals and small businesses leave it to Web | | | | provides extensive technical support, maintenance |
| hosts to be free of these "hassles" and use their | | | | and monitoring services. |