Hosting is also known as ‘Web site hosting’, ‘Web hosting’, and ‘Webhosting’) and is the business of storing, serving, and maintaining files for one or more Web sites.

Easiest way to think of it: a hard drive across the internet that holds your website.

More important than the computer space that is provided for Web site files is the fast connection to the Internet. Most hosting companies offer connections on pretty fast equipment, which means that users who visit your site,don’t have to wait for pictures to load, pages to load and thus don’t leave.

Self Hosting

Typically, some businesses host their own websites on their own servers and require a similarly fast connection which can make it an expensive option. Most common hosting for small to medium enterprises use ’shared hosting’. Using a shared hosting service lets many companies share the cost of a fast Internet connection for serving files, thus it’s cheaper but still reliable.

OwenDevelopment Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting is the provision of a dedicated server machine that is dedicated to the traffic to your Web site and you alone. Only very busy sites require dedicated hosting. This would only necessarily be needed for sites expecting huge volumes of traffic at any one time, and that transfer a lot of bandwidth via multiple forms of media. Many companies also purchase their own dedicated servers and place them on a site such as a datacentre with a fast access to the Internet.  This practice is called colocation.

OwenDevelopment can advise the best route for servers and hosting based on your needs, and can build the cost of hosting as well as the domain into the cost of your website.

I use a very reliable, powerful hosting company, MediaTemple who guarantee 100% uptime with great support and powerful machines.   OwenDevelopment wouldn’t consider recommending anything less.

Please see our pricing page for further information on costs and packages.