This is an important question and we will teach you how web hosting works. For your website to be online you need to have your website files stored to a company that offers hosting services. This will make your website available to be accessed through a web browser. By signing up for a hosting service you’re essentially renting space on a server that their web hosting companies own and manage.
A server is a physical computer that runs 24/7, so your site’s files can always be accessed without interruption in service. These servers are loaded with the necessary hardware and software that your website needs to function.
How does web hosting work
Your website is just a collection of different files. When you create a website you need a place to store all of these files. That place is your hosting company’s server.
On this server, you’ll store your website’s media, files, databases, and anything else required to properly render your website. Exactly how much storage you have will depend on the hosting plan you choose (more on this below).
Read: Cheap Domain and Hosting Provider
If you’re just getting started online, then you’ll probably just be renting a portion of a server that you’re sharing with other websites. As your storage and traffic needs increase, then you may need to scale up to renting an entire physical server—or at least using the resources of one, with a cloud or VPS server.
When you sign up for a web hosting package you’ll usually get access to the server via a solution like cPanel. This makes it easy to upload your files to the server. Or, you can install a CMS like WordPress to easily build out your site.
Web Hosting and Datacenters
The term web hosting refers to the service you pay for that hosts your website’s files, so they can be displayed on the internet.
The most crucial element of a data center is the network of servers. A server is actually kind of similar to the desktop computer you might have sitting on your desk, only they’re more powerful.
The term “datacenter” refers to the actual technical infrastructure used by the hosting company to provide the hosting service. Beyond servers, this will typically include things like backup supplies, security measures, connection devices, air-cooling systems, and a lot more.
Different Kinds of Web Hosting
Most web hosts will offer various forms of hosting packages. For example, a site that gets millions of visitors per month will have different requirements than a site that was built a few weeks ago.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is easily the most common form of hosting. It’s also probably the most suitable style of hosting for a lot of website owners. With a shared hosting plan, you’re sharing the physical server environment with dozens to hundreds of other websites.
VPS Hosting
VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. This style of hosting relies upon something called “virtualization”. This allows you to use the resources of multiple different servers, but it all acts like it’s a single server.
Cloud Hosting
This is a relatively newer form of hosting. However, it’s risen quickly to become one of the premier forms of hosting available today. In case you don’t know what cloud hosting is, it’s when your website is hosted on multiple different servers simultaneously.
Dedicated Server Hosting
Here you’ll get access to the resources of an entire physical server. Dedicated hosting is generally the most expensive as you’re not splitting server costs with other websites (as you do with shared hosting). This style of hosting is usually reserved for websites that either receive a very large volume of traffic or require a unique server configuration.
