There are so many people who want to create a website, and right from the start one of the things holding them back is the question: what is hosting?
What is the definition of hosting?
In this introductory guide you will learn what hosting is and how it works.
Knowing the definition of hosting, what it means and how it works, will enable you to:
Work on your project with greater awareness;
Identify the causes of errors and problems more easily.
It will also help you relate to consultants and your hosting's technical support more clearly. So let's go straight to the definition of hosting and the various types.
What is hosting: complete definition
Hosting is the name of the service that allows your site and all of its pages to be visible on the web. For the purpose of this guide, we will always talk about hosting and server which are the same thing.
Hosting meaning - is literally "host, the one who hosts." And in fact, his "hosts" are the websites. So what is a hosting?
A hosting is a web space where the files and database that make up your site are hosted.
This hosting service is provided by so-called web hosts.
Web hosts are data centers that provide resources that can be hardware, software or combined for third parties to create websites.
In this guide, you will find the ranking of the best WordPress hosting.
Currently, in first place I put Register.it, one of the best WordPress hosting companies you can find on the market according to Trustpilot statistics. It is impressive the strides this hosting (and not only, compared to all the services it offers) is making in recent years.
How web hosting works
Let's continue our guide on what a hosting is and see how it works. Try typing a URL into your browser's navigation bar (for example, sos-wp.co.uk). If this page exists, within a few seconds you will be able to view it on your computer (or smartphone, or whatever device you use).
How exactly did your device show you that page, since the Web is made up of billions of pages?
Here is the basic workings of browsers and servers, described in broad strokes:
When you type a URL into your browser (i.e., the program you use to access the web such as, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Safari) a request is sent to the web server on which the contents of the website you want to visit reside. The web server responds by sending the information about the page, which is then processed and displayed by your browser.
3 types of web hosting available
There are different types of hosting, suitable for the needs of sites of various sizes and with different volumes of traffic. Now that we have explained what web hosting is, let's look at the three types of hosting most commonly used by people working on the web:
Shared hosting or "shared hosting"
A shared hosting is a hosting that can hold several websites. Your site may be hosted on a hosting space that is shared with other sites (and with which it therefore also shares an IP address). Those unfamiliar with the subject might think that each website has its own hosting, and therefore each hosting can host a single website. In fact, this is a solution that I discuss in the next section.
The most popular and undoubtedly cheapest form of web hosting is precisely that of shared hosting. If you have to open or host a site whose traffic does not exceed 100,000 visits per month, shared hosting is the right solution for you.
Dedicated hosting
The one related to dedicated servers, as I mentioned above, is a more expensive option with significantly higher performance than shared hosting. In this case, your site is hosted on a server of its own, thus not shared with anyone else.
A dedicated server certainly provides superior performance, however, it also requires some maintenance work on your part, if you have the necessary knowledge, or on the part of your hosting provider's technical support team. Dedicated servers consist of state-of-the-art hardware and include 24-hour monitoring with immediate intervention in case of any problem.
Virtual Private Servers
A Virtual Private Server (abbreviated, VPS) uses its own copy of the operating system in a virtual environment. It offers the same flexibility and control as a dedicated server, even though files may physically be on a server shared with others.
When you subscribe to a hosting plan, you will be allocated web space where you can upload your files and databases. If you subscribe to a shared hosting plan to host a WordPress site, most likely the server will use Linux as its operating system (this has nothing to do with the operating system installed on your computer).
It will also have a control panel-the most popular of all is called cPanel-through which you can "interact" with your server space by uploading your files, making database changes, and so on. An interface like cPanel makes the job of managing your hosting space much easier.
So make sure it is provided by your web host.
What a web host does
As we saw earlier, a web host is the company that offers the best web hosting services. Usually, a web host offers several services:
Web hosting;
Domain registration;
Additional services, such as:
SSL certificate,
Dedicated IPs,
cloud hosting,
email,
dedicated server,
shared server.
Maintenance services such as:
automatic backups and
cyber security.
But there are many other services that a hosting provider can offer depending on the user's needs.
Registering a domain and subscribing to hosting space with the same provider undoubtedly makes things easier. If you want, you can still subscribe to the two services from separate providers and work on the DNS of the domain so that it points to your server space.