- Need assistance? Freephone0800 0470417 9am - 11pmorE-mail 24/7/365!
- All prices ex. VAT
Go to Web Hosting Overview
Web Hosting > Jargon Free Guide
Hosting with Vidahost: The Jargon-Free Version!
This page contains as little tech talk as we can manage without withdrawal symptoms :)
At least two potential customers a week contact us saying that they are totally confused. They tell us that we must be losing a lot of business because of how techy everything is. And while the terminology isn't confusing when you get used to it, we understand what they mean.
The problem is that even more people want more technical details - the exact version of software available, configuration limits and so on - information that we try to include but which can make things sound much more complicated than they actually are. The reality is that hosting is very simple - all is explained below!
So how does it work in two sentences?
When you view a website online, you type in a domain name. Let's take vidahost.com as an example. A domain name works like an address - it tells your computer where to look for the website.
Vidahost is hosted on a server (computer) with the IP (Internet Protocol) address of 195.62.29.7. An IP address is a unique identifier that all servers and networks have - your home network will also have one. This server contains all the data that you see before you - the images, words, page layout and so on. Your internet browser then shows that information on your screen.
These are the two things we provide - a domain name and a hosting account on a server.
What does the hosting company do?
You can register domain names with a number of different providers - we all have agreements with organisations like Nominet to sell those domains.
Theoretically you could put your website on your own computer. You would just need to point the domain name to your home computer's IP address rather than ours. However, home computers and home networks are not designed for hosting websites - for example, they can't cope with the intensity or traffic that a web server can.
What all of our web hosting packages provide you with is space on a web server, a control panel (cPanel) to manage that space, and a free domain registration which we then point to that space. Apart from a design (see below), that's all you need to get started.
What we do not do is actually design the website for you - that you can either do yourself (you can use one of the tools we provide free) or get a designer to do it for you.
What does the control panel let me do?
The control panel (cPanel) lets you do a lot of different things - including advanced functionality to administer databases and restore from backups. However, the two primary things you need to do with your hosting account will probably be 1. Create content for your website, and 2. E-Mail accounts.
E-Mail Accounts: Our hosting packages let you set up and manage email accounts right from within the control panel - you can set up yourname@yourdomain.com for example, read emails online or set up a mail client such as Outlook. Email accounts need storage space on servers too because it takes up physical space to store the emails you receive.
Content: If you want use a desktop website creation program (such as iWeb or Dreamweaver), or if you know or want to learn html, you can upload using ftp (file transfer protocol). This is very simple to use and you can use a free client such as FileZilla.
Alternatively, you can use one of the many autoinstall programs we provide such as Wordpress, or get in touch with a designer.
What package do I need?
If you are asking this question, you almost certainly need a standard web hosting package - either our basic, shared, medium or advanced package.
If you are just starting out and would like a basic website - our basic package should be absolutely fine and work great for you. For medium sized businesses without we tend to recommend the medium package due to it's ample email account and resource limits. You can always upgrade/downgrade without any financial penalty as you like, or get in touch with us if you'd like some help.
Will this get my site to the top of Google?
No. Hosting itself won't list you on Google. You will need to put some content on your website which search indexes can list, and then you have to have some other sites link to you. That's something we can help you with once you sign up.