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Web sites need to be "hosted" on a computer that's connected to the Internet. For this service, businesses and individuals arrange with internet service providers (ISPs) or specialized Web hosting companies.
As the Web hosting industry has matured, hosting offers have split into a few distinct categories, each with strengths and weaknesses.
Web hosting empowers you and anyone with a computer and internet connection to own a piece of cyberspace. In your space, you can have news, bulletins, documents, data, files (your web site) and your own post office (mail server) to accept mail, all in the context of you or your business. This is your space and to get this space you either have to own a piece of the physical internet with a network connection to the internet backbone and computer(s) operating as server(s) offering access to your files and post office, for people on the internet to view your web site or send and receive email with you
The web server is a relatively simple piece of software that accepts requests over HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and delivers HTML pages and Image files.
Hosts with Instant Activation usually give very little storage space and bandwidth allowance, and have lots of limitations. The webhosts usually either require the users' web pages to display their banner ads, textlink ads, or popups; or else the users' files to be uploaded through a web-based file manager that display ads to the user uploading files. Hosts with Instant Activation are often abused by spammers, which upload pages to these hosts to use for Link spamming
When viewing the web you use a web browser like Internet Explorer. Many web hosting companies provide a Control Panel to administer your web host account, which you use with your web browser. Most allow you to configure most aspects of your account using a simple web browser.
If you are using server side scripting on your web server (you use something like Microsoft Internet Information Server) then instead of providing static data only on web pages you can provide data from a database allowing your users to search and view the data in different and dynamic way. Also, a Database server is used to gather data from visitors to your site; orders, feedback, discussions and the like.
Today many web servers allow editing of WebPages over HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) based on Microsoft FrontPage technology.
This is a very simple piece of software that allows you to view the server folders and files in your web host account as if they were files and folders on your own computer. You can then drag and drop files between you computer and your web host account.
The most common databases used with web servers are Microsoft SQL Server (available only on Windows) and MySQL (commonly found on Linux and UNIX but also available on Windows). SQL Server comes with it's own administration client where you can view your databases, edit them, backup data and do all the administration functions you need. MySQL has an active online community where there is a range of administration clients available
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