The websites you browse online are classified into two categories. These are static and dynamic websites. The static websites are purely Hyper Text Mark Up Language (HTML). Web hosts can publish static websites by merely using a web server like Apache, Personal Web Server Services (PWS), Internet Information Services (IIS), etc. On the other hand, dynamic websites use server side scripting. They are considered interactive websites because they can generate outputs given inputs from online users. Static websites are not interactive. You can change the content of a static website if you change the website manually. To publish dynamic pages, web hosts must run these pages using a web server and a web scripting language. ASP hosting can run dynamic pages.

ASP stands for Active Server Pages. It is a Microsoft technology to display dynamic websites. It is a proprietary application. The default scripting language for writing ASP is VBScript, although you can use the Microsoft based scripting language Jscript. Writing ASP requires programming skills and familiarity with the ASP syntax. ASP runs well under its partner web servers PWS and IIS, both of which come free with Windows operating system. PWS is an add-on feature of Windows 98 while IIS is included in the feature of Windows200/XP Pro. For the NT4/95 version, you can get hold of IIS by downloading the NT4 option pack.

If you open an ASP website, you can identify as such by its extension .asp. If the extension is .html, that is a static webpage HTML. ASP hosting is a requirement for ASP web pages. Otherwise, if you have your ASP website hosted in a non-ASP hosting provider, you are knocking on the wrong door. Your ASP website is non functional in a non-ASP hosting.

How do you know whether you are on the right ASP hosting provider? Various web host providers offer ASP hosting. You probably heard of web hosts like StartLogic, BlueHost, iPowerWeb, Hostgator, Dot5Hosting, MidPhase, Lunarpage, Infinology, hostmonster, midphase, inmotion, an hosting, PowWeb, Globat, yahoo hosting, Host Excellence to name a few. These are all popular web host providers. But not all of them offer ASP hosting.

Among those offering ASP hosting include iPowerWeb, Hostgator, Lunarpages and HostExcellence. They vary though in their ASP hosting features. The ASP hosting providers HostExcellence, iPowerWeb and Lunarpages use Windows as their operating system. Hostgator offers ASP hosting without using the Windows operating system since it makes use of ChiliASP. Another technology, which runs ASP without Windows, is InstantASP. It can also be noted that no one among these ASP hosting providers offer ASP hosting exclusively. The trend is ASP hosting is just one of the services of web host providers.

The rest of non-ASP hosting providers offer the open source PHP as the scripting language. Relatively ASP hosting is higher in rate because it makes use of a proprietary operating system. ASP hosting can be possible with some limitations if is paired with non-Windows operating system like Linux or Sun Solaris.

With new ASP features and upgrades available, ASP hosting using Windows should be a wise move because these are built to run under this environment. ASP hosting is possible using non-windows operating system but you may face incompatibility problem.