What’s a web hosting?

Web hosting is a place where you place your website. Physically, a web hosting is nothing more than a computer server with high speed Internet connection. However when we talk about web hosting, we normally refer it as web hosting service that allows website owner to store web content (HTML files, PHP files, pdf files, etc) and allow others (web users) to access these files via Internet connection.

Learning The Basics: World Wide Web in Plain English

To learn more about world wide web, web browsing, web servers, and so on; check out this video presentation by Common Craft.

Web hosting vs domain name

Web hosting shouldn’t be confused with domain name as they are two different things. In brief, a web hosting is your house where you can store furniture (in case of web hosting – web files) in it; while a domain name is the address of the house. Web hosting is the “storage space”; while domain name refers to the “location” of your website.

Subdomains, top level domains, and addon domains

Google.com is a domain name, the extension ‘.com’ is known as Top Level Domain (TLD). Some TLDs are opened and free to be registered by the publics – like .com, .net, and .info; while some TLDs however are governed by strict rules and regulations – for example .gov can be only used by government organization and .co.jp can be only used by websites located in Japan. Some TLDs are intended for certain special purpose, for example .org is intended for organizations’ website (but it’s widely misused by personal websites).

Subdomain is the name in front of a domain name. For example ‘mail.google.com’, the word ‘mail’ is a subdomain. Subdomain is often confused with an addon domain. An addon domain is the second, third, fourth… independent domain name added in a single hosting account; a subdomain, on the other hand, is a secondary domain appears in front of a domain name. Addon domain requires the owner to renew its registration; while creating subdomains require no cost at all.

Types of web hosting

Moving on, we’ll take a look on the tyoes of web hosting. Web hosting comes in different forms and shapes, generally these are the common ones:

Shared Web Hosting

As the name refers, a shared hosting server is shared by multiple websites. Typically, websites on a shared hosting share the same server resources (such as CPU and RAM) and IP address.

Virtual Dedicated Hosting

A virtual dedicated hosting is also known as Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting. Virtual dedicated hosting separates the server into several smaller independent servers. Each website hosted on VPS hosting will have its own isolated hosting environment (hence own root folder) and unique hosting features (such as firewalls and SSH access).

Dedicated Hosting

The entire server is used by only single website (or customer) in a dedicated hosting. A dedicated hosted website enjoys better flexibility and web security. Users get full control over the server including bandwidth allocation, server operating system, and other customer web server features.

Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting services allow users to become a web host themselves. The server in reseller hosting is parted into smaller pieces (shared hosting) and can be sold to others.

Cluster Hosting

Cluster hosting is also known as cloud hosting. A cluster hosting is the perfect solution for websites that require massive amount of processing power (such as complex web applications or huge web traffics) as a cluster-hosted website has access to a number of connected servers’ resources.

Unix Hosting vs Windows Hosting

Unix hosting normally refers to web host running on Linux or FreeBSD operating system; Windows hosting on the other hand normally runs on Windows Server 2003 and 2008. There are both pros and cons running a website on Unix or Windows hosting – Unix OS is open-source software, thus it’s free and tested widely; Windows OS on the other hand is critical if you need to run Microsoft web applications (such as asp.net).

Who should you go for: Unix or Windows?

You should always go with Unix Hosting whenever it’s possible – mainly because Unix hosting is a lot more cheaper (as the OS is free of charge) and personally we think it provides a more powerful and secured hosting environment.

Why pay when we can get web hosting for free?

While being free sounds like a great advantage; free hosting services often impose various limitations that drive serious webmasters away. Such limitations include such as undesired banner advertisement, limited domain variation (only on subdomain like example.freeservers.net), limited or no database access, limited use of PHP files (if any), and risks of hosting on the same server with spammy/buggy websites.

Free hosting is most recommended for first-timers and non-profit website owners; while a paid hosting is for anyone who is serious with his/her websites. The price of paid hosting depends on the type of services you needed. Dedicated hosting services are most expensive; while shared hosting services are often the cheapest.

There are lots of paid hosting providers around the Internet and without doubts some of these merchants are scams. In case you are searching for a good web host, make sure that the hosting provider is reliable. Read as much reviews as you can and to be safe, it’s always good to go with hosting companies with clear refund policy.