Once you decide putting your site on the net, the first question you ask yourself is where do I put my site so that everyone can browse it?Here comes the job of web hosting companies.

These companies put the files of your site on their fast servers. These servers are running 24/7 to make available your site round the clock to anyone who points his browser to your pre allotted web address called the URL.

Many hosting companies are available offering various web hosting packages. You need to choose among these packages according to your needs and requirements. Your priority should be to select a cheap web hosting package that can also meet all your needs and demands.

Some Important Features in a Web Hosting Package

The difference between the available packages can be on the basis of availability of certain features and services. These features are discussed below:

Basic Features

1. DISK SPACE: The amount of disk storage is the basic factor among web hosting package. The requirement of disk space varies according to the size of your site and other content attached to it to be hosted on the server.
2. DATA TRANSFER: Data transfer is the amount of data that you are expecting to the web site viewers to use in a specified time period. It is affected by the size and popularity of your site. The bigger is your site, the more data transfer it requires or the more is your site popular, the more data transfer it requires.

Domain Features :

1. DOMAINS PROVIDED: Web hosting package include the service of domain registration. A domain name is the address that is used to locate the website. Web hosting companies charge for domain name registration.
2. POINT EXTERNAL DOMAIN: Hosting accounts typically let you point to several external domains. The ability to point to external domains lets you assign different domains to a hosting package.
3. SUB-DOMAIN: A directory pointer (or sub-domain) allows you to point that sub-domain to a particular page (or directory) of a Web site.

Email Features:

1. NUMBER OF EMAIL ACCOUNTS: This refers to the number of email accounts provided in a certain package. Some cheap web hosting packages offer limited number of email addresses.
2. EMAIL FORWARDING: If the package includes email forwarding option to some other address.
3. EMAIL VIRUS SCANNING: If the package includes virus scanning facility.

Web Site Management Tools:

1. FTP ACCOUNTS: This facility provides you with the number of accounts that can have access to the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) facility. However a cheap package web hosting might not offer this facility.
2. FrontPage: Some web hosting packages offer FrontPage? 2002 Server Extensions (FPSE). These are used frequently by hosting providers to enable users to upload their FrontPage-created sites. FrontPage? is a Web site creation and management software tool that allows you to create and maintain Web sites.
3. WEB STATS: This facility automatically generates statistics of your site.
4. GUEST BOOK: This feature provides you with a guest book on your site.

Web Site Development Features:

1. Windows .NET: A programming infrastructure created by Microsoft for building, deploying, and running applications and services that use .NET technologies, such as desktop applications and Web services. A cheap web hosting package might not provide this feature.s
2. Windows ASP: Active Server Page is a server-side scripting technology that can be used to create dynamic and interactive Web applications. An ASP page is an HTML page that contains server-side scripts that are processed by a Web server before being sent to the user's browser. This facility comes with additional cost.

Application and Database Features:

1. MS Access: A fast and flexible relational database management system, developed by Microsoft, which utilizes SQL.
2. MS SQL Database: An advanced server-side relational database system, designed for corporate users or those with intensive transactions.

Marketing Tools:

1. Search Engine Submission: Some web hosting packages include marketing tools. This includes the submission of your Web site to search engines and a complete analysis of your site, identifying improvement on your Web site that can help your Web site get indexed by search engines more successfully. But this facility adds to the cost of the web hosting package and a cheap package web hosting will not offer such facility.