Web Design Companies & Webhosting providers offer the answers as they offer different hosting solutions- solutions that are sure to match whatever your business needs and requirements. The following is a listing of the major types of webhosting services that a good web design company should be offering. And we list some of the basic things that you need to know about them- and some of their limitations as well.

Shared web hosting. If this is a popularity contest, then this form of hosting will win hands down. The reason for its popularity lie in its price- this is considered as one of cheapest, if not the cheapest among your many options. Under this arrangement, you will share the server with a number of websites. The sites will be partitioned on the server, and the account can be accessed by the website owner through the interface control panel. These features of the service make this as the perfect choice for those just starting up, or for those websites with limited needs in terms of disk space.

Semi-dedicated hosting. This form of hosting sits in between shared webhosting and dedicated webhosting. But between the two, semi-dedicated webhosting has more affinity to shared webhosting. Under this hosting arrangement, the server will be configured in such a way it will only accommodate a small number of websites using bandwidth as the parameter. The website owners will also have different accounts.

Dedicated webhosting. Consider this as your premier hosting choice available online. The set-up is in contrast with shared since the owner will take the server for his/her own convenience. This means that the bandwidth will be all for the owner's taking. With the dedicated server, the most common operation system used are the Linux, the FreeBSD and of course the Windows. This kind of hosting is best for websites that are known to accommodate large amount of traffic every day and best for e-commerce websites.

Virtual server. The last popular type of webhosting service is through the use of the virtual server. This form of hosting service straddles between the shared and the dedicated webhosting service. In virtual hosting, the server is often sub-divided into a number of independent servers. And each of these servers can be referred to as a dedicated server since there is a different operation system that is installed on each of the partition.

The listed four (4) types of webhosting are just the major ones that are available in the market. But outside of these four, there are a number of hosting types that are starting to creep into the consciousness of website entrepreneurs and internet marketers. For example there is the co-location hosting and the free webhosting as offered by many enterprising sites. The increasing number of choices for hosting means only one thing- webhosting is a critical service so it should be properly researched and selected. The list of hosting types should serve as tool in selection and not just for information.