Table of Contents
What Does Hosting Mean?
what does hosting mean? Hosting Explained for Beginners – Hosting, in its most generic sense, is a service through which storage and computing resources are providing to an individual or organization for the accommodation and maintenance of one or more websites and related services. While hosting doesn’t need to be IP-based, the vast majority of instances are web-based services that allow a website or web service to be globally accessible from the Internet.
Hosting is also known as Web hosting or website hosting.
How does web hosting work
Web hosting happens when the files that make up a website are uploaded from a local computer on to a web server. The server’s resources, (RAM, hard drive space, and bandwidth) are allocated to the websites using it.
The division of server resources varies depending on the type of hosting plan chosen.
To choose the appropriate hosting plan :
what does hosting mean? you first need to differentiate between the plans available. This doesn’t have to be complicated. For the non-technical readers, let’s use a simple analogy: Choosing web hosting is similar to searching for office space:
- How do you decide which type of office space is right for your needs?
- Is a workstation in an open co-working space enough, or the next best thing; an office within a business center?
- Do you have intentions to expand quickly or expect a lot of people coming and going? Would you consider renting an entire building or would building your own space appeal?
Aside from the style of office you use there are other considerations.
- How easy the rooms are to access, which functions they offer (extras such as a whiteboard, high-speed internet, and other facilities) ?
- where are they located and the overall cost.?
These considerations will determine your needs and help decide which type of office is right for you.
Let’s compare this selection process to deciding which web hosting fits.
1- Shared hosting
is similar to renting a workstation in a busy, noisy, open plan office or co-working space. You have all the modern conveniences: a desk, internet connection and some stationary and you share the space with other co-workers including the kitchen, printer, and restroom. You can’t do any makeovers to the space such as installing whiteboards etc. This is a popular option for launching small websites and not appropriate for large-scale commercial projects.
2- A virtual private server (VPS)
is similar to renting a workstation in a busy, noisy, open plan office or co-working space. You have all the modern conveniences: a desk, internet connection and some stationary and you share the space with other co-workers including the kitchen, printer, and restroom. You can’t do any makeovers to the space such as installing whiteboards etc. This is a popular option for launching small websites and not appropriate for large-scale commercial projects.
3- dedicated hosting
Using an entire office building is comparable to hosting on a dedicated server. It’s a more expensive option and best for websites who value reliability and high performance. Since you control the entire space, you have more say over configurations and plenty of space, but it’s not worth investing in if you won’t use the space included.
Web hosting and domain hosting
what does hosting mean? Once you’ve purchased a domain name, the files that hold your website’s content (HTML, CSS, images, databases, etc.) need to be stored together in a location connected to the internet — a web server. Once the website’s files are uploaded to a hosting company’s web server, the host is then responsible for delivering the files to users.
We’ve mentioned that hosting makes websites available for people to visit through their web browser, but how does that work exactly? The domain name system (DNS) makes sure that website browser connects to the right computer (server) that stores your website files.
What is DNS?
The domain name system (DNS) connects URLs with their IP address. With DNS, it’s possible to type words instead of a string of numbers into a browser, allowing people to search for websites and send emails using familiar names. When you search for a domain name in a browser, it sends a query over the internet to match the domain with its corresponding IP. Once located, it uses the IP to retrieve the website’s content. Most impressively, this whole process takes just milliseconds.
It might seem like magic when you go online shopping, video chat across continents, and stream videos or music to your phone, but this is all thanks to the sophisticated engineering achievement that is the domain name system (DNS). DNS is a powerful network that keeps billions of internet users and over 300 million domain names connected.
The DNS underpins the internet we use every day. This transparent network runs in the background whenever you send an email, or load a website. DNS is often likened to the internet’s version of a telephone book. To call someone, you must first find their telephone number. To do so you look up a contact name, similary, DNS converts email addresses and websites humans read into computer-readable, numerical IP addresses.
DNS is a complicated topic with many aspects that affect your day to day life, especially if you own a website. If you’re a domain owner, listen up, because the DNS controls different aspects of your domain name. If you simply want to broaden your knowledge of what’s going on behind the scenes of the world wide web in general, stay with us.
What does DNS Mean
The DNS goes by many names, including name server, domain name system server, and nameserver. Regardless of which name is used, all describe the process of making domain names alphabetical. DNS also refers to the hierarchical system used to search through the network of millions of IP addresses, to locate the exact IP of your desired website.
How DNS Works
Everything that connects to the internet – websites, tablets, laptops, mobile phones, Google Home, internet thermostats, and refrigerators has an IP address. An internet protocol address by its full name is a unique string of numbers that identifies each digital device to communicate via the world wide web.
Thanks to DNS, there is no need to maintain an address book of IP addresses. Every time you use a domain name, the DNS service locates the website and translates the name into its corresponding IP address. Alphabetic domain names are easier to remember than IP address numbers, so when you type www.google.com into a web browser, you only have to remember the URL.
IP addresses help locate a computer on the internet and relay the information (website data, emails etc) traveling between computers. As soon as you type a domain name, for example, Amazon.com into your browser, your browser, and computer check if one of them has the domains related IP address in their memory.
If Amazon.com isn’t in your computer’s local memory (cached memory), it expands the search out to the internet where it queries the DNS to determine if the domain exists in their DNS database. If the first DNS doesn’t find it on its server, it sends it to the next server until the right domain name server is found. For example, the URL for Amazon.com is associated with servers run by Amazon Web Services. The domain name system allows you to reach Amazon’s servers when you type Amazon.com into your web browser.
Once the DNS server finds the domain name Amazon.com, the server returns the domain name, and it’s IPS address to the requesting DNS server, along down the line until it arrives back at your computer.
Once the IP address has reached your computer, your browser finds it on the internet. Next up, it communicate with the domain name hosted to request any associated files. The host server returns the files which display Amazon.com in your web browser.
If Amazon.com isn’t in your computer’s local memory (cached memory), it expands the search out to the internet where it queries the DNS to determine if the domain exists in their DNS database. If the first DNS doesn’t find it on its server, it sends it to the next server until the right domain name server is found. For example, the URL for Amazon.com is associated with servers run by Amazon Web Services. The domain name system allows you to reach Amazon’s servers when you type Amazon.com into your web browser.
Once the IP address has reached your computer, your browser finds it on the internet. Next up, it communicate with the domain name hosted to request any associated files. The host server returns the files which display Amazon.com in your web browser.
IP addresses help locate a computer on the internet and relay the information (website data, emails etc) traveling between computers. As soon as you type a domain name, for example, Amazon.com into your browser, your browser, and computer check if one of them has the domains related IP address in their memory.
Once the DNS server finds the domain name Amazon.com, the server returns the domain name, and it’s IPS address to the requesting DNS server, along down the line until it arrives back at your computer.
If Amazon.com isn’t in your computer’s local memory (cached memory), it expands the search out to the internet where it queries the DNS to determine if the domain exists in their DNS database. If the first DNS doesn’t find it on its server, it sends it to the next server until the right domain name server is found. For example, the URL for Amazon.com is associated with servers run by Amazon Web Services. The domain name system allows you to reach Amazon’s servers when you type Amazon.com into your web browser.
IP addresses help locate a computer on the internet and relay the information (website data, emails etc) traveling between computers. As soon as you type a domain name, for example, Amazon.com into your browser, your browser, and computer check if one of them has the domains related IP address in their memory.
DNS hosting
what does hosting mean? Hosting is simply parking your website on a computer which then connects to the internet. Whenever someone types your website address, the stored pages are retrieved via the internet and displayed in their browser. DNS hosting is just a form of this.
Many domain name registrars offer hosting with domain registration, and there are free and premium DNS hosting services available. For example, Namecheap offer FreeDNS for people whose registrars don’t provide DNS hosting with domain registration, as well as Premium DNS hosting platform which can be used with any domain name registered with any registrar.
Premium DNS accounts
Premium hosting provides quicker response times to your visitors, unfailing access, maximum uptime and more powerful security measures. Most premium plans offer advanced features such as advanced reporting capabilities, DNS load balancing, and some other tools beneficial if you’re building complex applications across multiple service providers. Given the increased attacks on websites by hackers in recent years, many site holders are opting for premium hosting. Premium DNS packages offer an additional level of security to your website and more protection against hackers.
Free DNS
Try free DNS hosting for your website and decide later whether you need to upgrade to premium or not. If your website is relatively small, there’s no need to use a Premium DNS, and several registrars offer a free tier anyway. Most registrars will provide basic tools to publish and modify CNAME, MX, A, SRV, TXT and other records for instance. If this is all you expect to do, free DNS will be sufficient for your needs.
How to pick a web host
Your selection of an appropriate and reliable web hosting service provider is an important step in coming online, especially if you are launching a business website. Hosts not only make your site available to others, but they also offer services related to managing these servers and its software, support, bandwidth, speed and so on.
Free web hosting comes with a cost
Bandwidth Allowance
Bandwidth allowance (sometimes loosely referred to as “traffic” or “data transfer”) is the number of bytes required to transfer your site to all of your visitors when they browse your content. Does the hosting provide enough space for your needs? To give you a rough idea of the typical traffic requirements of a website, most new sites that don’t provide video or music on their site use less than 3 gigabytes of bandwidth per month. If you anticipate quick future expansion or your needs include sound, video, etc., then consider the extra space offered by a paid hosting provider.
what does hosting mean? | Hosting Explained for Beginners- If you’re thinking about going for a free host, think first about the size of your site and how many visitors you expect on a daily basis. Many free web hosts impose daily or monthly limits on the amount of traffic your website can use. If your content includes lots of images or videos that attract over the “agreed” amount of visitors (traffic) per day/ week/ month, the host is within its rights to disable your website for breach of contract – or send you a bill.
Another consideration before using free hosting providers is that they frequently impose a maximum size on the files you upload. If you wish to distribute software or high-resolution imagery, a paid host offers you the ability to load the larger file sizes you’ll need.
Advertising
Many, but not all free hosts impose advertising on your website to cover the costs of providing your site with free web space. Most people are put off by commercial banners and pop-ups. Sites littered with adverts are generally considered low quality and even spammy, which is an immediate put-off. To be on the safe side, check the fine print to see if adverts are expected in exchange for free hosting before you sign-up.
Upgrade Options
Look out for is whether a host gives your site room to grow. Most new sites start on shared hosting which is pretty powerful these days. However, as you expect a website to grow over the years, you might need to consider a more powerful server (virtual private or dedicated for example). Check the host has suitable plans to upgrade to and that the process is as straightforward as possible.
Why pay for web hosting?
Uptime (reliability)
Reliability is extremely important for both free and paid services, but you should only expect any real reliability with a paid hosting plan. It’s likely that you’ll want your website to operate 24/7, and you’ll only get that from a web host with reliable servers and stable network connections. Before you decide on a host, check out its uptime history. You can read reviews and check their advertised uptime guarantees.
what does hosting mean? | Hosting Explained for Beginners- A site that is hard to reach or frequently down loses visitors, customers, and can hit revenue hard. If someone finds your site and tries to access it only to find that it’s unavailable, they won’t hesitate to go to a competitor site. Slow access is also very frustrating for dedicated visitors (and for you also, when you upload new content).
Traffic/Bandwidth
Read and understand any limitations placed on the bandwidth you use and select an appropriate plan. If your site is going to incorporate video, audio, or other elements that require a higher level of bandwidth, you want a plan that matches your needs.
PHP, .htaccess, SSH, MySQL, FTP etc
• If you need to install PHP or Perl – make sure you can do this without needing your host’s approval. If not you will have to wait for their say so before you can implement a feature on your site.
• Assuming you want to do things like customizing your error pages (the messages displayed when visitors land on an extinct page on your site), protect your site from bandwidth theft and hotlinking, etc. and to password-protect your folders, you’ll need the ability to create or modify “.htaccess” files.
• SSH access is useful for maintaining databases such as MySQL and when you want to run a blog or a content management system.
• FTP is a popular method to transfer web pages and other files from a local computer onto a web hosts computer (servers) so that it can be viewed by anyone worldwide. Some hosts only don’t allow you to design and upload your own pages. Instead, they ask that your pages are designed and uploaded using their online site builder. Unless you are an absolute beginner and plan a pretty trivial site, make sure you have FTP access or the ability to upload your pages by email or browser at the very least.
Control Panel
The purpose of a control panel is to allow you to manage various aspects of your websites hosting account yourself. You should expect a control panel from a commercial host so you can perform everyday maintenance tasks without having to wait for technical support to make simple changes. A ‘cPanel’ provides a simple dashboard to manage email addresses, account passwords and basic server configurations. It can be time-consuming to go through a technical support operator or be obliged to pay an additional fee each time you want to perform simple admin tasks.
Multiple Domains Hosting
It’s common to own more than one domain, they’re cheap these days, and it’s hard to resist owning a few. In this case, you need to accommodate extra domains with extra hosting space. To simplify the hosting process, it’s possible to host more than one domain from a single account. Each separate website hosted on the same account is called an add-on domain. Most shared hosting providers allow addon domains. It’s advisable to check in advance how they charge for it.
Cost
With web hosting as with everything, you often get what you pay for. If you have a basic website not expecting a large amount of traffic, expect to pay between $10 to $150 per year for shared hosting. Higher capacity hosting plans can start at $150 and go up from there.
Most commercial hosts offer the flexibility to choose how you want to pay with monthly and annual payment plans; the latter gives you a cheaper rate. Once you’re reassured they offer a reliable service, you can switch to the cheaper annual payments, or switch hosts quickly if they don’t meet your expectations.
Finally, let’s discuss renewals. If you’re satisfied with the price of a package, check the price for renewals. It’s a norm in the industry to offer low signup prices but charge much higher amounts on renewals. Unless you are ok with switching between hosts every few years, renewals prices are unavoidable.
want to solve it in your own time while getting a better handle on your server settings. Does the host have a knowledge base or FAQs to browse to help advance your understanding? Whether you prefer to chat over the phone or rather have comprehensive documentation at hand to solve problems yourself – check they are available.
Types of web hosting
what does hosting mean? As technology has progressed, different types of web hosting have been introduced to meet the different needs of websites and customers best. These include:
Shared Web Hosting
Shared hosting is when a website is hosted on the same server as many other websites.
Types of web hosting
Reseller Hosting
Reseller hosting is a form of web hosting where the account owner can use his or her allotted hard drive space and bandwidth to host a website on behalf of third parties.
Types of web hosting
Shared Web Hosting
Shared hosting is when a website is hosted on the same server as many other websites.
Reseller Hosting
Reseller hosting is a form of web hosting where the account owner can use his or her allotted hard drive space and bandwidth to host a website on behalf of third parties.
VPS Hosting
is when a virtual server appears to each client as a dedicated server even though it’s actually serving multiple websites.
Dedicated Hosting
It allows greater self-service server administration facilities. This is considered a more flexible arrangement because it allows total control over the server, its software and security
Cloud Hosting
This type of hosting operates across many interconnected web servers that supply an affordable, scalable and reliable web infrastructure. Cloud hosting plans typically offer unmetered, reliable bandwidth and an infinite amount of disk space for unlimited domains
How to host a hosting
01 Step
In step 1 Choose the hosting company to work with. Depending on the needs you have, you can choose between the different companies in the market.
02 STEP
In step 2 Once you have decided the company with which to work it is important to select what type of hosting we are going to use: shared, VPS, dedicated…
03 Step
how to host hosting step 3: Change the DNS. It is necessary to change the DNS of the domain for the web to work. Its very important step choose carefully
04 STEP
how to host hosting step 4. Upload the web. Through the server with cPanel or FileZilla the web is published on the hosting. Its really significant important.
Best Web Hosting Services
Your website needs servers to make it available online. Your web host provides and maintains reliable servers that ensure your visitors have constant access to your site. They’ll also act as your domain registrar and register your domain name and IP address with ICANN.
Here are the top five web hosts you should consider:
Bluehost
Best Overall Web-Hosting
SiteGround
Best Hosting for Customer Support
WP Engine
Best Managed WordPress Hosting
GreenGeeks
Best Eco-Friendly Hosting
Hostgator
Best VPS Hosting
What Does the WHOIS Information Mean?
The “who is hosting this” tool gives information about a website or domain’s:
Hosting provider
Company that manages the servers on which a business’s website information is stored. To create a website for your business, you’ll need to choose a provider to host your website, then it will be available online.
Owner details
Detailed contact and location information about the owner of a domain or website. While ownership details are sometimes private and hidden, some contact information is usually provided.
IP Address
Every device connected to the internet has an IP, or ‘internet protocol’ address. The IP address in the web hosting checker’s results is the IP address for the server who is hosting the website.
Nameservers
Nameservers work behind the scenes, translating domain names into IP addresses. When you type Digital.com into your browser, a nameserver tells your device which IP address to connect to.
Who Is WHOIS?
WHOIS isn’t a company, or organization. It’s a general term for the large collection of data that has the ownership details for every registered domain. It’s often referred to as “WHOIS data,” “WHOIS information” and “WHOIS record”.
When you register a domain name for your business website, you’ll be asked to provide some basic WHOIS data. This will include details such as your company’s legal name, email, phone number, physical address, and administrative and technical contact information.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is the non-profit organization behind the WHOIS data. ICANN is responsible for coordinating and maintaining the system of domain names and IP addresses used online. Though ICANN doesn’t collect WHOIS data itself — in fact there’s no single, centralized WHOIS database — it does write the rules which all domain registrars need to follow.
Can You Keep Your WHOIS Data Private?
In most cases, yes. When you purchase a domain— either through a registrar or web hosting company— you can pay an extra fee to keep your WHOIS data private. The fee typically runs around $10-20 per year, per domain.
However some domain extensions, .us is one example, do not allow private registration.
Why Do Companies Choose to Keep WHOIS Data Private?
Companies might choose to keep WHOIS data private for any number of reasons, including:
A home-based business that doesn’t want or need the public to know its exact physical location or phone number.
Some companies use WHOIS data to look for prospective customers. If your WHOIS data is private, you can avoid receiving these sales pitches and emails.
Criminals can use WHOIS data for identity theft and other forms of fraud. Keeping the data hidden can help prevent this.
Some companies use WHOIS data to look for prospective customers. If your WHOIS data is private, you can avoid receiving these sales pitches and emails.
Companies can choose to keep WHOIS data private for a variety of strategic reasons. For example, they may want to make it harder for competitors to see how many or which domains they own and use.
What If You Keep Your WHOIS Data Private?
what does hosting mean? | Hosting Explained for Beginners – If you keep your registration data private, you should offer some other way for the public to contact you. You can do this by publishing general contact information somewhere on your website. You can choose to include:
Business contact information: A must-have for local businesses, but important for all, contact information helps customers and prospective customers get in touch.
Webmaster/IT contact information: This makes it easy for visitors to report website problems, and have them go straight to your IT team (or managed service provider.)
Corporate identity: If your company owns multiple sites or brands, identifying the parent corporation on each lets visitors know when they’re on one of your sites.
Ready To Launch Your Business Website?
If you’re ready to launch a website for your business, these tools can help you take the next steps:
Business name generators: These online tools help brainstorm new ideas for your business name. They’re a great place to start for owners having difficulty finding the perfect name for their business.
Domain name generators: Do you have a business name but can’t find a good domain name? These tools are very helpful, suggesting a wider range of creative domain names and extensions to choose from.
If you already have a business name and a domain name, you’re ready to select a hosting provider:
Compare Popular Web Hosting Plans
Need a great web host? Want to save some time? This shortlist is your best place to begin:
Bluehost
$2.75/mo
Hostinger
$2.99/mo
SiteGround
$3.99/mo
A2 Hosting
$2.99/mo
DreamHost
$2.95/mo
