Web hosting, domain, web server, and related terms may look confusing to any beginner at the first glance. But these are very important terms and are used almost every second all over the world. This is the base of entire internet and the web. Everyone must know the what and how of it so that they can understand and know whenever they require any web hosting service. So, let’s understand what web hosting actually means and how it works.
What is Web Hosting?
Web hosting is a platform where users store all the data of their websites so that it can be accessed by everyone all over the world on the World Wide Web (www). It is kind of a service which people or organizations buy for making their website visible to viewers.
This was basically started because not everyone could understand the infrastructure behind a server and also couldn’t afford it. So, some people started creating these web hosting sites so that clients could use it to save their data.
Some popular sites that have been offering best web hosting services since years to their clients are Bluehost, Startlogic, GoDaddy and many more. The most recent one which offers free web hosting services and has become quite popular is WordPress.
Types of Web Hosting
There’s not just one site providing web hosting services but there are hundreds of them to choose from. It all depends on the kind of service you want and your budget. In simple words, if you’re a big business website and will require daily millions of viewers, shared web hosting will not work for you and you require a dedicated server hosting or VSPs.
There are smaller hosting services for a single web page or personal web blogs which is usually free or inexpensive. And then there’s large hosting services which include shared web hosting if your website doesn’t have that much traffic and dedicated server hosting if you want a server for your website only.
Web Hosting Uptime
Web Hosting uptime is defined as the measure of how good a web hosting site is. It is calculated in percentages and it is the amount of time in which a web server is active and running. In other words, if a web hosting provider site has 99% uptime then it means its servers are running always and so will your website when you host it on it.
All web host providers try to maintain almost 100% uptime to offer their clients the best services. But not all of them are able to do so easily. GoDaddy is the largest domain registrar in the whole world. It serves 17 million clients and even more and is a US-based company. GoDaddy offers a lot of services but there are a few interesting facts about godaddy uptime which will make you understand what actually happens with the uptime of a web hosting provider.
How to Decide a Web Hosting Provider?
It’s not easy to choose the best web host among all those hundreds of them in the market. Another difficulty people face is they don’t know about web hosting and just choose instantly and regret later. So, it’s always important to research well and weigh different options and select the best one for you. You need to first know what type of web hosting you need. If your site is small to medium, you can go for shared web hosting with minimal costs. But if you’re a big business, then you must go for the dedicated web server.
Also, if you’re wishing to start personal blogs, you can get many free web hosting services like WordPress and many others. So, always know your type and search well before investing in these services.
Scott Crone has been writing on tech subjects and SEO for over 6 years.