Dizzy Dee

Web Hosting For Dummies

Someone recently asked about webhosting. Not in those words though, but rather something along the lines of “how do you get a plain .com” blog instead of the blogspot behind your blog name. I tried to explain by telling him about hosting on your own domain, and how it all works, but it was kind of useless.

I’ve since tried to make it a bit simpler to explain to myself in plain terms exactly what ‘hosting’ means – trying to think what I would use if I had to give a comparison to something which is more commonly known.

Wiktionary defines it like this: “The service of hosting a site on the Internet making it viewable for other users on the net”

However, if you compare it like this, maybe it will make more sense: Blogspot accounts are free, because the main domain name, being www.blogspot.com has already been bought – however, they choose to give people free accounts, for whatever reason they have. Comparing this to market is the best I can do. You don’t pay for the space you use, but at the same time the space you’re using is very high quality. For some people this could work perfect. They don’t intend upgrading, ever. The cons of hosting with a free server such as Blogspot is that your website address might be a little bit difficult to remember if you intend to attract customers for that matter.

If you can run a successful business (or blog) from your free market space (or blogspot blog), you might want to consider upgrading. See this as moving into an office park, or maybe even a mall. This sounds wonderful, but you need to be able to justify the move. It doesn’t help you move to a mall if your income is so little that you’ll not even be able to pay the rent from your profit you make.

Its pretty much the same with webhosting in that sense. If you generate an income from your blog, that’s great, and if it could cover a proper .com domain (www.yourblog.com), and you still have a bit extra left, I believe that justifies it. However, if you want a .com domain name just for the fun of it, you’re going to be prepared to put cash into your hosting, without getting anything back – kind of like a hobby I suppose. This is still fine if you can afford it, but you need to understand your motivation for wanting to move before doing so. Also be sure that you are aware of the cost – there’s a registration fee, and also a yearly hosting fee. Be sure that you know what these are, and that you will be able to cover those. Its better to have free account which is hosted by a provider such as blogspot, and never move from there, than to have a .com domain, and only stay there a year, only to realize that you don’t want to pay for something that you can have for free in any case.

My reason for moving to a .com host is first of all, the free service that I was using before shutdown my blog, because they didn’t allow paid posts. And secondly, I make an income from my blog (however little it is) it still covers more than my hosting costs.

If you need webhosting advice, speak to a couple of different service providers, and make sure that you know about all the costs before making a decision. There are different types of packages available. Some give you more space (if you intend to host large files, such as images or video’s). For a normal blog you might not need as much space as a business would, so double check that you take the right package for your needs.

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