Definition of Web Hosting

Web hosting is a service that web hosting distributors provide so that you can upload your website online.

How can people visit your web site?

When you build a site and you want other people to check it out, you will need to copy (or upload) it to a web hosting server. If you try to render the web site discoverable online by web hosting it on your own personal computer, there is no way for you to keep it up and running all the time, which is why hosting services appeared.

How does web hosting work?

Hosting suppliers offer you disk drive space for your web site on their high-end computers (web hosting servers) and guarantee uninterrupted website accessibility. When someone types your domain (for example www.my-best-domain.com) in their web browser's address bar, they will be connected to the web server where they can take a peek at the content of your site.

Types of hosting

With the advancement of web technologies, different types of web hosting services have come into being to match the various requirements of website proprietors, among them shared hosting services, virtual web server hosting services and dedicated hosting services.

Shared web hosting

Shared website hosting is the most popular form of hosting, and is also the easiest to start with. It is a service where one web hosting server is shared between lots of web hosting clients who are limited by the CPU, bandwidth and web server disk drive storage space quotas that they have been allocated. This form of website hosting is normally less expensive - you don't need to pay for the whole web hosting server upfront, since it is divided between lots of hosting customers, and the hosting vendor can afford to offer much lower prices. It is also much easier to use - the hosting server is pre-configured with all the necessary software and the hosting company takes care of all server maintenance procedures and software updates on your behalf.

The weakness of the shared hosting solution is that you share the hosting server's resources with other web hosting clients and if one site becomes really busy it may influence (and slow down) the rest of the sites on that web server, but most web hosting distributors, including us at Hostingam, have security systems at work that impede that from taking place.

A definition of a website hosting service

Because shared website hosting is the most popular form of web hosting, the majority of web hosting service providers and web hosting clients simply call it web hosting or website hosting. As there is an immense competition on the website hosting marketplace, most web hosting providers endeavor to offer modest prices and gifts with their hosting services. We, for example, provide different hosting plans and two billing options - monthly and yearly, based on your funds. If you pick the yearly invoicing cycle, you will obtain a present - one free-of-charge domain registration.

VPS web hosting

VPS is an abbreviation of Virtual Private Server. The VPS web hosting solution is basically the middle ground between the shared hosting solution and the dedicated web server hosting solution. If your website grows beyond the resources offered by your shared web hosting package, a virtual server hosting package is an excellent choice. Virtual Private Server web hosting account owners still share the hardware resources of the physical server with other private virtual server web hosting customers, but the hard drive is split up using a special virtualization technology so that each partition has its own dedicated resources and can be configured practically like a real dedicated hosting server. The upside is that the CPU and the RAM memory on a virtual web hosting server are not shared. Besides, the virtualization software offers you much more autonomy to configure your private virtual web hosting server, but it also presupposes a higher level of technical competence.

Dedicated Web Hosting

With the Dedicated Web Hosting solution, the user gets a whole hosting server and can utilize all its system resources. The dedicated server web hosting solution is the most powerful of all website hosting solutions and offers a myriad of customization options - the dedicated web server hosting customers can pick the hardware and software specs that will meet their requirements. Dedicated system resources and no-holds-barred performance are two reasons why a dedicated server hosting plan is an excellent option for a heavy resource-swallowing business portal, for instance - you will not share the physical server's resources with anyone else and will have full root access. You will exert full authority over the server, which will enable you to make any configuration modifications that you might need. The weak side of the dedicated server hosting solution is that a higher level of technical expertise is required - unless you employ an IT pro, it will be your responsibility to administer and configure the dedicated web server. The dedicated web server hosting solution also costs far more, since the cost of the physical server isn't shared between any other clients.

A hosting recommendation for beginner users

If you are just starting to build your web site and are searching for a website hosting solution to start with, the shared hosting solution persists to be the most suitable choice. If your web site grows beyond your website hosting account's resources, you can normally upgrade. With us, for example, this is extremely easy and does not necessitate migration of your data, since only the features of your account change. You can also upgrade your website hosting plan to a more powerful one at any particular moment without worrying about the time left until expiration. Also, if you finally reach the most powerful shared web hosting package and still need more resources (which is a good thing sometimes - it signifies that your web site's popularity has expanded!), there always is the option to migrate to a private virtual server web hosting solution or a dedicated web server hosting platform without needing to change web hosting providers.