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What Is A Web Hosting ?
A web host is a service provider that places your web site on a computer which is connected to the internet. This then gives people who surf the internet a way to access your web site. The computer that the web hosting company uses is typically just like the computer you have at home, the only difference being that it is set up to serve up web sites and is therefore called a "server".
A web host will typically have a fast connection to the Internet and they may host thousands of web sites on many servers. The web host essentially rents out space to you so that you can get your web site up on the world wide web.
Some large web hosts own their own data center (collection of servers), some rent a server from a larger web hosting company and then resell the space under their own company name. In this case the web host will manage your account on the server, but they will be renting the actual web space from another much larger company.
This is a picture of a data center. Which contains many PC's all connected to the Internet It is very expensive to own and operate a data center. Data centers have reliable and fast connections to the Internet and also have backup power and high security.
Most web hosting companies do not own a data center, but rent web hosting space in a data center.
There are literally thousands of web hosting companies available in the market, all with different types of plans and at different prices. It can be hard to wade through all the options, especially if you are completely new to web hosting and just want to get your web site up on the web. All web hosting plans have some basic common features.
Different Kinds Of Web Hosting
There are different kinds of web hosting setups and dependent upon your web site and budget, any of these may be the right type. This is not a discussion of the features a web hosting plan may offer - just a description general types of web hosting
1. Free Web Hosting
It is possible to get free web hosting accounts. These are great for small web sites, but normally you have to have a banner ad at the top of every page. Some free accounts let you use your domain name (free virtual hosting) and with some your web site address is a sub domain of the free hosting company (www.yoursitename.freehosting.com). This second type is called Free Sub-domain hosting.
Hosting for small web sites can be very cheap, but If you can answer yes to all of the following questions, then free web hosting may be right for you.
I don't care about having ads at the top of every page in my web site
I don't care about the performance / reliability of the web site
I don't expect any customer support
My web site is very small and will never grow
2. Shared Hosting
This is the most common type of web hosting account and can be very low cost. With paid shared (virtual) hosting you pay a monthly fee and get a share on a server. For very low cost plans you may only have a small amount of disk space and a low amount of bandwidth (although this will probably not be a problem for the vast majority of web sites). With cheap virtual hosting plans you maybe one site amongst hundreds on the same server - in this case reliability may suffer. For slightly more expensive plans you will probably find better reliability.
3. Dedicated Hosting
With dedicated hosting you have a full server dedicated to your web site. This gives you a lot more freedom and you can host potentially hundreds of your own web sites. Typically you will have access to the server just like you have access to your PC at home. Dedicated servers are normally reserved for large ecommerce type web sites, sites that get a lot of visitors (thousands a day), or for people that want to start their own hosting company and sell shared hosting accounts. A dedicated server is more reliable, but also much more expensive being at least $100 a month vs $1 - $20 range of a shared hosting plan.
4. Colocated Hosting
This is very similar to dedicated hosting, except that you own the server rather than rent it. Your server is placed in the data center and connected to the Internet through the web hosting providers fast Internet connection. You will then pay a fee for maintenance and bandwidth.
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