What is web hosting?

Web site hosting is the computer where your web site is actually stored. It is very easy to connect a computer to the internet. If you are reading this, you are connected to the internet and could easily run a web server. In fact, Microsoft Windows comes with a web server pre-installed.

So why buy web hosting?

There are many reasons to purchase web hosting instead of hosting it yourself. Most home users don't have a fixed address. Comparing to your actual home, it's as if you rented an apartment and moved every week. It would be nearly impossible to receive all of your mail.

With slightly more money, you can purchase a "fixed Internet address" for your internet connection. Most small businesses have internet addresses that don't move.

But the most important issues are reliability and security. Web sites are available to the public and that opens them up to hackers. A good web hosting company will diligently apply the latest security patches. They should also have redundant power, computers, and network. That means if the power goes out, they have battery backups to keep your site running. And unlike most small businesses and home users, if a tree falls on their primary internet connection, they still have a second connection.

What are disk space and bandwidth?

Disk space is the amount of storage available to your site. A good web page should be less than 100 kilobytes. With that guide line, you should get about 1000 web pages for each 100 MB (megabytes) of disk space. Video and Audio use significantly more storage.

Bandwidth is the transfer of your web page from the server to the viewer. A 100 kilobyte page results in 100 kilobytes of transfer every time it is viewed. If this 100 kilobyte page was viewed by 200 different people in a month, that would be 20 MB of transfer. Transfer is usually measured in gigabytes (GB), which is 1000 MB.

How can web site hosting be compared?

Unfortunately, this is a very difficult question. Like most commodities, the marketing is designed to confuse instead of educate. For instance, two web hosting companies offer disk space. One offers 1000 MB of storage, and the other offers 200MB of storage. The first one is better, right? Not necessarily. Some web hosting companies include the mail, log files, database, and a copy of the server software as part of your disk space. You usually have to purchase a plan before you have an indication of the available disk space.

The same problem arises with transfer. Some companies promise huge amounts of transfer, but run computers that are unable to actually deliver that amount of data. At Blue Ridge Solutions, we run several web sites that require dedicated servers that still transfer under 100GB of data per month.

Our services

We offer web site hosting as a convenience for our clients. However, there is no requirement to host your site with Blue Ridge Solutions to use our services.

Blue Ridge Solutions is a hosting reseller. We purchase web server space in bulk from high quality hosting providers. We maintain strong relationships with our providers, guaranteeing premium support. This ensures that our clients can get high quality hosting without the trial and error of purchasing hosting directly.

Please contact us with feedback about this article.