What is Web Hosting?

For your website to work, you need a place to keep your website’s files, and you need a way for people to download and view those files.

This is what a server does. A server is a specialized computer that stores (hosts) your website’s files and sends (serves) them to people who visit your site.

A server can be just about any computer with an Internet connection. In fact, you can use your home computer as a server. However, there are all sorts of risks involved with using a personal computer for web hosting, and this is where web hosting services come in.

A web hosting service is a company that manages servers. When you sign up for a hosting plan, you are paying them for the right to use one of their machines. You are also paying for the benefit of having professionals take care of the computer that holds all of your valuable website files.

A good web host also ensures that their servers have up-to-date software, constant power, and regularly scheduled backups.

Before moving on, let me clarify some terminology :

• The server is the computer where you put your website files
• You host your website on a server
• The hosting service is the company that manages that server
• The terms hosting service and web host usually mean the same thing


The Different Kinds of Web Hosting

In general, there are three kinds of hosting : shared, dedicated, and VPS.

You should know heading in to this section that shared hosting is probably going to be your best choice. Most beginners will never need dedicated or VPS services, but it’s still good to understand how they work.

Shared hosting

Shared hosting means that you share a server with other customers. One server is split up into a bunch of virtual partitions, with each hosting account being assigned to a particular partition.

Shared hosting plans are cheap (starting at around a few dollars a month) and easy to use. Most shared hosting plans are very full-featured and allow you to host unlimited websites.

The biggest issue with shared hosting is the “shared” part. Since you’re splitting server resources with other customers, your site’s performance can vary due to activity of other sites on your server. If a site from a different account experiences a sudden spike in traffic, you might notice slower page loads for a short period of time.

Most hosting companies have countermeasures in place that prevent any one user from hogging all the resources, but it may still be an occasional issue.

Additionally, if your site begins receiving tens of thousands of visitors a day, then you may begin to run into some problems on a shared hosting plan. It’s usually easy to upgrade, so this isn’t something you should worry about.

For 90% of websites, shared hosting will be more than sufficient.

Dedicated hosting

With dedicated hosting, you are essentially leasing an entire server from the hosting company. Nobody else will be allowed to use your machine. Your website will load extremely quickly at all times, and unless you are receiving insane amounts of traffic you’ll never have to worry about performance. You’ll also have the ability to make all sorts of tweaks to how the hardware runs, and you’ll be able to install custom software.

Dedicated servers are good for large companies, high-traffic websites, and complex web applications that need a lot of processing power.

Dedicating hosting is expensive, with most plans starting at around $140/month, and there’s a lot more you need to know about hosting when you’re in charge of your own server. There’s very little chance you’ll need dedicated hosting for your first site.


Virtual Private Server (VPS)

A virtual private server is sort of a halfway point between shared and dedicated hosting. Virtual private servers are created by dividing a single server into a small number of “virtual machines”. These virtual machines behave like individual computers. They have their own memory, operating systems, etc. Even though they all run on a single physical machine, they’re don’t affect one another.

VPS servers are split among a very small number of customers. Shared hosting servers will usually have a much larger number of users on the same machine.

As with dedicated servers, VPS hosting is not necessary for the majority of new websites.


Reseller hosting

Some hosting companies offer a special kind of hosting package called reseller hosting. Reseller hosting lets you create multiple accounts under a single master account. These sub-accounts can then be sold to other people.

Reseller hosting is typically only used by web developers who use it as a way to sell hosting accounts to their clients. As an individual or small business, you won’t need this kind of hosting.

Start small, then upgrade

Hosting companies usually make it very easy to upgrade your hosting package, since it means more money for them. With this in mind, I would recommend starting with a mid-range shared plan ($5.00-$10.00/month), knowing that you can always bump up if you decide you need more power.