Blog Hosting

 

Introduction

To create your own personal blog you could install blogging software and publish it onto the internet from your own computer. However, that would require a fair degree of knowledge in terms of web server technology and is probably best left to the experts out there. So, most people will use a web hosting provider capable of offering them blog hosting along with all the usual web hosting services. Increasingly these days’ web hosting companies will automatically include hosting a simple blog as part of the whole web hosting package that they offer you.

Blog hosting requirements.

When looking for a web hosting company for your blog there are a few things you need to make sure that they can offer you. Don’t worry if the following seems rather complex, its all just points of information you need to check up on before choosing your blog host; actually using them will unfold when you start to develop your blog. First of all there are basically two types of web servers that a web site or blog can be hosted on: Windows or UNIX ones. Generally speaking UNIX web servers are easier to work with and are used for the most common blogging platforms, like WordPress, which have installation documents purposely created with UNIX web servers in mind. Whilst you can include images, sound and even video in a blog its main purpose is, of course, disseminating textual messages. Subsequently it’s essential that the blog hosting service will facilitate Perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language. This is a programming language that processes text and is essential for you to be able to create entries to the blog in the first place and then do other tasks such as archiving comments. In turn Perl is used to write CGI scripts which you can use to develop ‘extras’ for users of your blog like a newsletter. To further organize the blog entries you then need a server database system, of which MySQL is the most common one in use on UNIX web servers. Finally, you’ll need to access the web server space where your blog is stored from time to time to change or update the blog pages and files. To do this make sure the blog hosting company will allow you direct access the blog’s web space via FTP; rather than having to use a cumbersome, or even expensive, bespoke FTP tool. Finally, check that they can offer you traffic monitoring, so that you can monitor the number of visitors to your blog and establish those items that are most popular. Before choosing a blog hosting service make sure you read several web hosting reviews, to check that you’ll be signing up with a company that can offer you the correct blogging facilities.

Costs of blog hosting.

If you decide to sign up to blog through a social network website you may well find that the cost is entirely free, being subsidized by adverts on the social networking website. Other ‘free’ blog hosting options are usually dependant on you buying a web hosting package for a web site, with the hosting company then also giving you a small ‘free’ blog. These free blog hostings will frequently have a storage cap on them of up to 10MB and bandwidth caps of typically 100MB. Which is, of course, perfectly OK for someone interested in just placing their own thoughts on the internet and then discussing them with a small clique of friends and acquaintance’s. However, if you want to use your blog to share photos and podcasts; or as an extra way to promote your website and sell things directly, then you’ll need something a little more robust. For around $5 a month you should be able to find a blog hosting service that can offer you 100MB of space and 1 GB bandwidth, which should be sufficient for an individual to share multi-media files as well as textual messages. However, if you want to go for a blog that can be used commercially then you’d be better off upgrading to a professional blog hosting option, that can offer something in the region of 2 GB space and 5 GB bandwidth, for which you can expect to pay at least $10 a month. Don’t forget as well that whether or not you’re selling anything personally through your blog - it can still earn money for you. So be sure to check and see if the blog hosting company will allow you to add things like Google’s advert services or banner-adverts.