If you want to take part in the internet as a business, information resource, directory, or as a hobbyist wanting to share data, information and knowledge with the many people and communities on the internet, you have to contain this in a central spot on the internet. You have to own a piece of space in cyberspace.

All hosting accounts offer a certain amount of disk space that you can use to store all your files. Exactly what is, and isn't counted towards your disk space usage will vary from host to host; so make sure you check exactly what files you will need to allow for when deciding how much disk quota you will need.

Too often web hosts talk about bandwidth and data transfer in the same breath but truth be known they are different although very closely related. Bandwidth is how much data can be transferred at a time and data transfer is how much data is being transferred.

I write this article especially for people who are new to web hosting. This is why I will only talk about the basic needs (in a shared hosting environment): space, bandwidth. Most of the people looking for advanced features (scripting, databases) already know what they want/need anyway.

You have probably come to this site to find a company that provides Web servers or Web hosting services. But do you actually know how these hosting machines work? It's a good idea to know a little bit about the product or service you are searching for before you begin your quest.