Web Hosting
What is Website Hosting?
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their website accessible via the World Wide Web. When you create website, it is composed of web pages having text, images, videos and other content for people to see them. However, people can see your website only when it is available on the Internet. To make your website available on the Internet, you have to store it on a computer called web server. When you buy some space on a web server and store your webpages there, your website becomes hosted and can be seen by anyone.
What is Web Server?
A web server is the computer on which the web pages of your website are stored. It delivers or ‘serves’ the content of your website to the users through Internet. The computer which acts as server has to have very high specifications. It is also connected to the Internet through very powerful link. The web hosts or the web hosting companies have their own servers on which they rent out space to you so that you can host your website and make it accessible to the general public.
Who is Web Host?
Any person or company who owns a server and rents out web space for website hosting can be called the web host. Some web hosts do not own servers but rent a server from some large web hosting company and then resell the space under their own brand.The large web hosting companies even own their datacenter (collection of servers) where they can host millions of websites. Datacenters have many computer servers connected to the Internet with fast connections, back up and high security.
What are the Basic Features of a Web Hosting Plan?
Disk Space - Disk space means the amount of storage space provided to you by your web hosting provider. You need disk space to store your web files composed of text, images, video, audio, etc.
Bandwidth - Bandwidth means the amount of data that a website can transfer over a period of time. It determines the speed of your website. More bandwidth means more speed. The less bandwidth your site has, the slower it takes for it to load.
Uptime - Uptime means the percentage of time that a hosting server stays up or running. 99.99% uptime would mean that your website will go down only for about 8 hours in a year while 98% uptime would mean that your website may remain down for about 7.3 days in a year.
Programming Services - The website hosting packages also let you create web pages with programming languages including HTML, PHP, ASP as well as databases.
Customer Service - This is one of the basic and most essential features that one should look for while selecting website hosting service. A good customer service will help you whenever you will feel trouble.
What are the Types of Web Server Hosting?
Shared Hosting - Shared hosting refers to when your web site is hosted on a server along with many other customers' web sites. Your users won't know this - your web site is still configured as a separate web site on the server and can still have its own domain name etc. It is simply sharing the server with other web sites.The entry level websites don’t need high performance features and thus, shared hosting can fulfill their needs without having to pay larger amounts of money.
Dedicated Server Hosting - This is a server that hosts only your web site or web sites. This can give you more control over your web site. It can also help in ensuring that other customers' web sites don't impact on your web site. Using dedicated servers is much more expensive than shared hosting, but if your site receives lots of traffic or you have other requirements (such as extra security requirements), a dedicated server could be for you.
Cloud Server Hosting - It is new in the Market Based on the innovative cloud computing technologies, cloud hosting is done through multiple servers inter connected with each other. This is unlike shared or dedicated server hosting that are provided through only one server. The multiple servers acting as a single system has multiple advantages like load balancing, no single point of failure, non-reliance on a single server leading to higher security and also the facility to increase or decrease server resources as per your needs. It is also cost effective web hosting solution as the website hosting companies charge you for cloud hosting services on the basis of usage. As you can scale your resources up and down on a cloud server, you are able to use more resources only on the days when you expect higher traffic.
Virtual Dedicated Servers - Also known as virtual private servers, virtual dedicated servers are a low-cost alternative to dedicated servers. The web host can put many virtual servers on each machine, therefore reducing costs. When you log in to the virtual server, it appears as though you have your own dedicated server (even though other virtual servers are probably running on the same machine).
Reseller web hosting - It allows clients to become web hosts themselves. Resellers could function, for individual domains, under any combination of these listed types of hosting, depending on who they are affiliated with as a reseller. Resellers' accounts may vary tremendously in size: they may have their own virtual dedicated server to a colocated server. Many resellers provide a nearly identical service to their provider's shared hosting plan and provide the technical support themselves.
Why Do You Need Web Hosting?
A lot of people tend to think that registering a domain name is good enough to get a website active. What they fail to understand is that a domain is as good as your name, a name by which others may recognize you. In order to get a website active and live on the internet, you need to host a website. If you are seeking to build a website without taking web hosting services, registering domain names will serve no purpose. Having a web hosting account is very important in order to get a website hosted. A web hosting company makes it possible for your website to be accessed by everyone on the web.
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