Web Hosting - View Our Plans

The hosting service of The Virtual Key is offered through another digitaleffex subsidiary, eXostream Communications. eXostream Communications specializes in server administration to help provide its customers with the preeminent web hosting service available.

What is web hosting? Web hosting can best be described through a comparison to apartment buildings. We, The Virtual Key, own the apartment buildings (servers) and we rent space in the buildings to customers. We provide all the furniture (web control panel) needed to get the apartment (website) ready and a super (system administrators) as well as other amenities for your convenience.

Without using an analogy, web hosting is a service provided to individuals or businesses looking to have their own website or move an existing website. We have special fast computers, known commonly as servers, with very fast internet connections among other things that help to create reliability and speed. Once you have a site designed, it needs to "live" somewhere that allows others to view it. This service is what we provided by giving your site a place to "live" on our servers. This "living" includes the actual website, email accounts, and FTP access. We also provide technical support for any issues that arise and easy to use web tools for novices that are not familiar with producing a web site.

Domain Registration - View Pricing
Like a street address, a domain name is a unique address that identifies your web site on the internet, e.g. www.thevirtualkey.com. Each domain name is made up of two components, a generic or global top-level domain, gTLD, and a second-level domain, SLD, which are separated by a period. For example, in thevirtualkey.com, “thevirtualkey” represents the second-level domain, while the “.com” represents the top-level domain. Together, exostream.com, is referred to as the second-level domain name.

There are also country code top-level domains called ccTLDs. These domain extensions represent a specific country for example, .us for the United States, .uk for the United Kingdom and .ca for Canada.

The Virtual Key offers domain registration services, whereby clients can choose their own web address name using virtually any available top level domain that they want, assuming that the desired name is not already in use. When a domain name is purchased, it is actually ‘leased’ for a given amount of time, typically in increments of 1 year. Prior to the expiration of the domain name, The Virtual Key contacts the client to see if they would like to renew the domain for a longer period of time. If the client no longer has a need for the domain name, it will expire at the end of the term and become available for another party to register.

DigitalSSL - View Pricing
Through our partnership with GeoTrust, The Virtual Key offers a 4 distinct 128-bit security solutions, the highest commercially available level of security today, starting at $100 USD per year with no set-up fees. 128-bit SSL has become the standard for e-commerce-enabled web sites or sites that collect private information from users such as credit card numbers, account numbers or passwords. By purchasing an SSL, you can ensure the security of your website, and in turn, your customers security as well.