Web Hosting and Hosting Services
In layman terms, a web hosting means “hosting your website” on the Internet whereas a web hosting service is a service which provides space for you to host your website on the internet. If you develop a site and intend to publish it, hosting it becomes a prerequisite. This is referred to as web hosting. The services which assist you with web hosting from the class of WordPress hosting services.
Now since thereโs not much understanding to do when it comes to web hosting (it is simply putting up your website or say publishing it), we will take a closer look at how this publishing is actually facilitated by the web hosting services such as WP Engine andย HostGatorย and many more which happen to be the top players in the game.
Understanding the Fundamentals
Any basic web hosting carried out by the web hosting services has some rudimentary basics attached to it no matter how complex the process can get. These services work by maintaining and storing all your data on web servers which run on a super-fast network.
If you have a website, say www.abcxyz.com, and someone enters your web address on the address bar, and presses enter, the network makes a quick connection to the web server holding your websiteโs data. Post that, the network transfers the information of your website to their system. It is referred to as pinging the server. As you can see below, when I try to ping www.google.com, I get connected to them, and the data communication takes place in the form of packets, sent and received. Thatโs too technical, so we just leave it there.
Domain Names
Talk about the domain names provided by a service and you have talked about everything!
Yes, it is true. Domain names are an integral part of your website. They help people locate your website on the internet! How more significant can they be? In technical terms, the domain name is your web address which helps people locate your website on the internet.
The web hosting services trigger your website servicing by providing you with a variety of domain names and giving you the power to choose them. This comes at a cost which is only fair.
Our top favorite domain providers are NameCheap and NameSilo.
Many companies provide a free domain name too while you sign up for the first time! How cool is that? ๐
A Broader Aspect to Web Hosting
Cutting straight to the chase, web hosting can be of many types too, most importantly,
- Shared Web Hosting – Forms the most common class of web hosting which is easier to use and cheaper than most of them since you neednโt pay for the whole server-related services at the beginning itself. As the name implies, you share the resources allocated to by the server with other people too who also have share similar interests with you such as hosting their website.
- Also Read Best WordPress Shared Hosting Compared.
- Website Building – Specializes in building thousands of website templates and then assists you to get your site up and running. It also comes with a free domain.
- Dedicated Hosting – Only for you, the dedicated hosting allocates a specific server as well as a dedicated pool of resources just for you. This type of hosting would definitely provide you more flexibility as they make you the full in-charge of handling the hosting.
- Cloud Hosting – Lies somewhere between shared and dedicated hosting. Via. Cloud hosting, the cloud servers share the physical hardware with other servers but each cloud server has its dedicated pool of resources.
So, what’s the scope?
Thus, as one can say, the scope of website is tremendous in the future, even more than what it is today because ensuring a dedicated web hosting service is a service which would always have an increasingly abundant demand let alone a stable demand and to meet this abundant demand, a robust supply needs to be ensured thus promoting the way for web hosting services in the long run.
Must Read: How to Decide Which Hosting is the Best for Your WordPress Site?