The Dedicated Hosting environment provides an exclusive server or servers devoted solely to your web site. You do not share a server with other customers, as with shared hosting.

Depending on which operating system to go with depends on your needs.

If you need to support Microsoft products such as ASP, MS Access, or VBScript, then Windows hosting would be better. Furthermore, if you are comfortable with IIS and do not have the time to understand how UNIX works, Windows hosting would again be a better choice.

There are some things to remember.

First, just because you use Windows at home does not mean you should use Windows hosting. The two are completely different, and having a Windows system at home will not affect your ability to communicate with a UNIX server.

Second, Linux is much more common with web hosts due to its superior stability and because it is free. Since it is free, Linux hosting is usually cheaper than Windows. Just because it’s free does not mean it’s not as good - Linux is an excellent product too.

This is when hosting companies offer their services to smaller companies or individuals, who wish to resell the actual hosting services as part of their own offerings. This is of great benefits for resellers, as they don’t need the hardware, bandwidth, or IT staff to actually run the services.

Also known as shared hosting, this form of web hosting should suffice for most everyone.

Virtual hosting simply refers to the fact that your site is on one server, and that this server hosts mulitple sites. You are virtually shared - your site will not be the only one on this specific server.

Web hosting is the act of renting space and bandwidth through a company so that you may publish your web site online.

You can either opt for free hosting that is usually supported with banners and pop ups, or may opt to get paid web hosting, which gives you complete control over your site contents.