Now, this is something which you may not know (finally something, you would like to hear from me), Don't worry, this is very normal. Domain name is simply your address, like a telephone number. You need to have an Telephone instrument to receive calls. Just like telephone, you need to have a server where you can store you message to the world. In simple to understand terms - `The server is a computer that is connected to the internet backbone, configured to understand its language and dish out the content of your web site to any visitors who requests it to do so. It can be on any Operating system and server software like Apache for Linux and UNIX, IIS for Windows and so on.

Some important point

1. When you register a domain name, it does not automatically includes web hosting.  Most of the domain name registrars charge extra for web hosting. 

2. Usually, You receive email along with web hosting. Email is part of a web hosting server and not part of domain name.

3. www or any other prefix is a feature of web hosting and not of domain name. A domain name is plain yourname.com or yourname.co.uk , you can request the web hosting company to prefix www or even home or business in you .yourname.com

Now there are two possible scenario for web hosting. First, you purchase your own server, software, high speed internet bandwidth connectivity from a telecom company or ISP and pay someone to administer it. Obviously, this is very costly. Another most common, easy an cheaper method is to share such server with other webmasters like you. There are many companies offering such services. This is called shared web hosting and is most common form of web hosting, you might have generally seen this.

Now, how do you purchase this, or what all do you need to look for buying this ? This is a very simple question, but answers have many gray areas. Usually, I am afraid to discuss this point, but since, I am stuck up with this article, I will make you read these points.

Speed - In case of small business and home web sites, this is probably the single most important issue. There are many technical glibbs like T3 connectivity, redundancy, uptime, no of sites hosted on server etc etc. Just read through web hosting companies web sites and you will have them all. Simple advise is - just ask from the prospective web hosting company to name a few web sites they are hosting and compare their speed. This is in the nut shell the final assurance of speed. Usually, your web server may be cheap or it may be fast, but it won't be both.

Operating System - Windows NT / Windows 2000 and now Windows XP verses UNIX / Linux. This question is most common with no definite answers. Both the OS are good with their own positive and negative aspects. The final answer to selection depends upon the merits and demerits of every project or what you languages you have learned and intend to use (Read: Pay me consultancy charges to suggest you depending upon your requirement). But, the comforting point is both support HTML web pages and your domain name based email address. This is the basic things that you can make your web site with. Since Linux Web hosting is cheap, this is the most preferred option for small business and home web sites.

Features - There are a number of features associated with web sites. The list can be long, but, for a simplest and most basic web site you need, make absolutely sure that you have atleast these, a:

• POP based email account like sales@yourdomain.com 

• support for CGI (UNIX, Linux) or ASP (Windows)

• FTP access.

Optional features that you can do without, but help you in maintaining your web site

• Multimedia file support (you may need them in future, not now)

• Control Panel - atleast to manage your email accounts - creating or maintaining

• Visitors Stats - Most of the web hosts offer it. Although many third part stats services are available for free and comparably easier to use, your server based stats are most useful and reliable.

Web space - This strictly depends upon the type content you are using in the making of web site you are making. A simple text only content uses minimal of web space, for example, the our homepage or the index file is 25 KB in size, as of November 12, 2001. The buttons used for navigation are less than 1 KB, the logo of 4eit.com is 8 KB, But, my photo is 56 KB is size. So, if your web site uses lots of images, you will need lots of web space. You must also make allowance for the approximate requirement at the end of the year. Generally though, for a small business or home web site 10 to 20 MB is enough.

Monthly Bandwidth allowance - This is the amount of data that is transferred from your web site in a month. The usual requirement are between 500 MB to 1 GB per month.

Where do you buy this from, as before, don't ask me. I have a vested interest in promoting 4eIT.com.