What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting definition

To make a website functional you need to do two things — register a domain name and purchase a hosting plan. These are both essential and your website will not be possible without them.

When your website is only stored on your computer, Internet users don’t have access to it. Web hosting is the service that allows you to rent a space on the Internet for your website content (HTML, CSS, and image files), so it’s made available to the world. All websites need to be hosted on a server to be viewable online.

When a hosting provider allocates space on a web server for a website to store its files, it’s hosting the website. All websites are hosted on a certain kind of server.

So what is a server? It’s a device that connects other web users to your site from anywhere in the world. 

Web hosting service providers have the servers, connectivity, and associated services to host websites. By offering different hosting plans, they cover a range of hosting needs from small personal blogs to business websites.

The amount of space allocated on a server to a website depends on the type of hosting. The main types of website hosting are shared, dedicated, virtual private server (VPS), and reseller hosting. They are differentiated by the kind of technology used for the server, technical characteristics, the level of management provided, and additional services provided. 

Shared hosting is easy to manage even for beginners, and it usually comes at low prices. If you need root access to the server and the chance to install certain software and perform specific changes, a dedicated server may be the best choice.

If you’re planning to create an online presence, you need your web hosting to be reliable. There are now hundreds of web hosts available, providing hosting services in the thousands. There are plans ranging from those that are free with limited options to expensive web hosting services specialized for businesses. The plan you choose will depend primarily on how you plan to use your website, what basic and additional features you need for the website, and how much you have budgeted for hosting.

Choosing the right hosting plan will mean having access to the right allocation of resources to keep your website loading quickly and reliably for your visitors. Carefully consider the web hosting solution you need. 

Many businesses now operate primarily online, with their sales and business leads coming directly from their website. Whenever a potential customer lands on a website and there's a problem, such as it takes too long to load, they probably won't wait around. It’s easy to find another option that works correctly and can deliver what they are looking for.

If you’re new to operating a website, web hosting and all related lingo can be a puzzling topic. Many inexperienced website owners have used the cheapest option or anything bundled with their domain registration under the mistaken belief that all hosting options are essentially the same.

This can be a costly mistake.

This article includes everything you need to know about web hosting and how choosing the right plan is essential to the success of your website.

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How does web hosting work?

Once you’ve registered 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. 

Think of a restaurant business — consumers use web browsers to search for information or visit a website similar to diners going to restaurants of their choice. The server is a powerful computer run by the web hosting company in the same way that restaurant kitchens provide different types of food for customers. 

The server stores the website's files and applications in a similar way that meals offer delicious content, except that it’s text, images, and videos that make up websites for visitors to access.

Web hosting provides the server for the website to operate, just like kitchens make restaurants possible. You enter a website's address (domain name) into your browser. Domain names are more user-friendly website addresses, as computers communicate using numerical IP addresses, such as 142.250.184.196. The Domain Name System (DNS) acts like a phonebook, translating the domain name you entered into the corresponding IP address, and directing your request to the right server.

Recommended reading: What is DNS? →

The web hosting company's server receives your request, retrieves the website's files, and prepares them for delivery. The server then sends the website data back to your browser. Finally, your browser interprets the data and displays the website on your screen.

Web hosting happens when the files that make up a website are uploaded from a local computer to a web server and published online. The server’s resources, including CPU, RAM, hard drive space, and bandwidth, are allocated to the websites that it hosts.

Each hosting account on a server gets a fraction of the server resources. The size of this fraction, i.e., the amount of server resources provided to a particular hosting account, is usually defined by the hosting plan. In order to keep the websites running 24/7, a sufficient amount of resources have to be allocated to the server and to each hosting account.

To find a suitable hosting plan, you first need to differentiate between the available plans. For readers who are not so tech-savvy, let’s use the simple analogy of how choosing web hosting is similar to searching for a rented property.

How do you decide which house is right for your needs? Would you consider renting an entire house or would just a room be enough?

Aside from the property type, there are many other considerations. The size, comforts, household features (appliances, balcony, shower, garden, etc.), location and overall cost. These considerations will determine your needs and help decide the dwelling that’s right for you. Let’s compare this selection process to deciding how web hosting fits.

• Shared Hosting is similar to staying at a hotel, where all guests share the same space and most things can’t be changed for any one guest. You can’t do any makeovers to the house such as installing additional furniture etc. This is a popular option for launching small websites and is not appropriate for large-scale commercial projects.
• A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a nice step up from shared hosting. It is like an apartment in an apartment house - you have your own space and, as a benefit, you can organize it in almost any way possible. With VPS, multiple users are isolated from each other. You have neighbors, but you are not so affected by them, and you can carry out any makeovers and customizations as you like and organize your apartment in your own way.
• Renting a detached house is comparable to hosting on a Dedicated Server. You have a lot of space and you can do whatever you want with it. It’s a more expensive option and best for website owners 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 don’t use that space.

Now let’s look at each type of website hosting in more detail.

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Types of web hosting

As technology has progressed, different types of web hosting have been introduced to meet the different needs of websites and customers. These include:

• Shared web hosting
• Dedicated hosting
• VPS hosting
• Cloud hosting
• Reseller hosting

Let's look into the most popular web hosting services and their benefits in more detail.

Shared web hosting

When a single physical server hosts multiple websites, it’s known as Shared Hosting. Most web hosting companies provide shared hosting plans. It’s relatively cheap and easy to set up and manage as you don’t need to change server configurations. This makes it a good fit for new sites that don’t expect a lot of traffic in the short term. It’s also suited to personal websites and small to medium-sized business websites.

Those serious about digital marketing or running an online business should carefully review their shared hosting options and make sure that the provider can offer the services required. Namecheap’s Stellar Business hosting is suitable for e-commerce website hosting, which calls for more than just storing your website files, but providing a platform to sell products online. 

This means prioritizing factors crucial for both large and small businesses: speed, robust security, and additional features that can offer a seamless customer experience and secure transactions. It is recommended to pay attention to the features and functionality related to shopping carts and payment gateways, as these are vital for online stores.

A shopping cart allows customers to browse products, add them to their cart, and proceed to checkout. Payment gateways secure transactions and connect your store to various payment processors, such as PayPal or Stripe. Your web host should facilitate integration with the gateways you need.

But shared hosting isn’t the best choice for large sites with high traffic. These sites need a dedicated server to accommodate a suitable amount of resources to guarantee decent website performance. Another point is that with shared hosting, server software, and configurations are already set up and cannot be changed. Since server resources are shared and root server access is not provided, a certain set of limits is applied to every shared hosting account. For example, it may only be possible to host websites based on specific programming languages. 

VPS hosting

Virtual private server (VPS) is the hosting type where a physical server is divided by virtualization software and allocated to different customers. This means each user has a virtual server that is isolated from the others.

With VPS hosting you get full (root) access to the virtual server with the chance to install any software compatible with the installed operating system you chose (OS). This may be used for almost any project — such as websites, databases, and game servers. VPS hosting is more expensive than shared hosting, but it’s cheaper than a dedicated server. 

At the same time, it requires good technical knowledge for server management, which may be difficult for an entry-level user.

Virtual private server hosting is often used by smaller websites and organizations that want the flexibility of having a dedicated server without the high costs.

Dedicated hosting

Also referred to as dedicated server hosting, Dedicated hosting is the most powerful and efficient hosting option. A whole physical server and all its resources are allocated to a single customer. The main benefit is that the user has root access to the server with the possibility to install any OS or software and perform any changes, including major ones that impact the whole server. Dedicated hosting can be used for any project: intensive websites, databases, game servers, VPN, and much more.

This type of hosting is relatively expensive when compared with shared hosting plans. For this reason, it's only really used when a website has high traffic or when more server control is required.

There is more to dedicated hosting than providing a single website with entire server equipment housed in a data center. 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 systems. At the same time, however, you need to have the technical expertise to manage the platform yourself.

Cloud hosting

This is the latest hosting type to hit the market, and it’s become extremely popular in recent years. Cloud technology involves spreading data across several virtual servers that form the cloud. Hosting with cloud technology makes any web application or website accessible through a cloud network, which means greater flexibility, performance, and speed. 

Cloud hosting plans typically offer unmetered, reliable bandwidth and an infinite amount of disk space for unlimited domains, which explains why so many large businesses are turning to the cloud. Cloud hosting is an effective method of running a website with resource-intensive applications or a large number of content assets such as images, but it can have a much higher cost.

Reseller hosting

Web hosting where the account owner can offer their hard drive space and bandwidth to host third-party websites is known as Reseller Hosting. The original hosting account owner is the “reseller”. 

Reseller hosting is convenient when an amount of space purchased isn’t required, and some of the allocated resources can be shared with others for extra profit. Users share disk space, bandwidth, CPU, etc. while getting a recurring source of income. 

Reseller servers allow users to have more resources and greater control over the server than shared servers, so they are usually more expensive.

Web hosting providers offer personalized reseller hosting plans to accommodate entrepreneurs interested in this business practice. Buying a reseller hosting plan is also helpful for anyone with multiple domains. You may design your own hosting packages for your websites or clients giving the resources allocated to the reseller hosting account.

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How to pick a web host

Your selection of an appropriate and reliable web hosting service provider is an important step in going online, especially if you are launching a business website. Web hosts not only make your site available to others, but they also offer services related to managing these web servers and their software, support, bandwidth, speed, and other services. Let’s look at the key factors to consider when choosing a web host.

Uptime (reliability)

Reliability is vital for quality hosting services as this ensures that your website remains accessible to visitors. You’ll probably 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, be sure to check its uptime history. You can read reviews and look at advertised uptime guarantees. Choose a web host that guarantees a high uptime percentage — ideally 99.9% or higher.

When a site is hard to reach or frequently down, it loses visitors and customers, which will hit revenue hard. If someone finds your site and tries to access it only to find that it’s unavailable, they’ll probably go straight to a competitor's site. Slow access is very frustrating for dedicated visitors, and also for the website owner, when they want to upload new content.

Speed and performance

Good performance is important for user experience and search engine optimization (SEO), which is the Internet’s way of making website pages easily findable, more relevant, and ensuring user search queries are handled better by search engines. Choose a web host that provides fast loading times for your website. How can you check it before purchasing? Contact a hosting provider and ask whether and how you can test the server speed and performance.

Apart from the server performance opportunities, there are some useful tips to boost your website's speed: 

• Optimize images by compressing them (without compromising quality).
• Implement browser caching to store static assets locally on visitor devices.
• Choose a lightweight, speed-optimized theme for your website.
• Regularly clean up and optimize your website databases to improve efficiency. 
• Use a CDN service, which can store cached versions of your site content closer to users, reducing latency and improving load times (especially for global audiences) to distribute your content across multiple servers worldwide. 
• Enable GZIP compression on your server to compress files before sending them to the browser.

Implementing these practical tips can significantly improve your website's performance and provide a faster, more responsive user experience.

Security features

Nowadays security is one of the top priorities for most users and web hosting companies. Websites often store valuable and secure information which needs to be protected. Unfortunately, online threats are constantly looking for vulnerabilities to exploit. Let’s look at some of the most common website security threats:

• Hackers. In attacks, hackers can steal sensitive information like passwords, customer data, and credit card details from your website. In order to prevent this, SSL certificates should be used. These are like a digital lock on the ‘door of your website’, encrypting all communication between your website and visitors. This makes it impossible for hackers to intercept and steal data in transit. Think of it as having a secure line between your website and its visitors. In addition, firewalls can help by blocking unauthorized access to your website. These act as a barrier, identifying and stopping suspicious traffic before it can cause harm.
• Malware & viruses. These can infect your website, corrupt your data, and even make your website unusable for visitors. Usually hosting providers regularly scan or provide tools for running scans for signs of malware and viruses. This is like a security check to ensure your website is safe and free from harmful software.
• Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. This type of attack aims to overwhelm your website with traffic, making it slow or inaccessible to your visitors. Sometimes web hosting providers offer specialized services to prevent DDoS attacks. If not, you can always look for DDoS protection and set it up for your website. This protection acts like a barrier, filtering out malicious traffic and ensuring your website remains online and available to users. 
• Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. These attacks exploit website vulnerabilities to inject malicious scripts into your website, potentially stealing user data or hijacking user sessions. To avoid this, ensure your website software (like WordPress) and other components are up-to-date with the latest security patches, plugging any known vulnerabilities.
• Brute-force attacks. Brute-force attacks involve trying countless passwords until website access is achieved. These attacks can be mitigated by setting strong passwords. Also, hosting providers often implement security features that prevent brute-force attacks.

Hosting providers can act as the guardian of your online presence, offering a variety of security features to protect your website from threats. Their solutions help ensure the safety and integrity of your website, data, and visitors.  

But remember that security is an ongoing process. Your website's safety is a shared responsibility, so keep your website software updated, and choose a reliable hosting provider with strong security measures. Then you can create a secure and enjoyable online experience for both your visitors and yourself.

Customer support

Things can go wrong at the most inconvenient times, so it’s always best to check your host offers 24/7/365 professional support. You’ll want someone there to throw you a lifeline when it’s needed, and to know that your support personnel is technically equipped to help you out with all requests. To find out more about the quality of support in your potential hosting providers, read online reviews and accounts of real customer experiences.

There will be times when you have a non-urgent query. You might want to solve it in your own time while getting a better handle on your server settings. For these times, does your host have a knowledge base or FAQs that you can browse to advance your understanding? Whether you prefer to chat over the phone or rather have comprehensive documentation at hand to solve problems yourself — it’s best to check these are available.

Cost

With web hosting (as with many other things) you often get what you pay for. If you have a basic website not expecting a large amount of traffic, you can expect to pay between $10 and $150 per year for shared hosting. Higher capacity hosting plans can start from $150 per year.

Most commercial hosts offer the flexibility to choose how you pay with monthly and annual payment plans. The latter usually offers a slightly lower price. It’s usually also possible to switch to cheaper annual payments after trying out a service, or you can switch hosts if they don't meet your expectations.

Finally, let’s discuss renewals. If you’re satisfied with the price of a package, make sure you check the renewal prices. It’s common to offer low signup prices but then charge higher when the contract renews. Unless you are comfortable switching hosts every few years, renewal prices are unavoidable.

Multiple domains hosting

It’s common to own more than one domain, as they’re now very affordable and it’s difficult to resist picking up a few options. If you have multiple domains, you need to accommodate them with extra hosting space. But to keep this simple, 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 web hosting providers allow addon domains. It’s advisable to check in advance how they charge for it.

Email

If you want to host email accounts alongside your website, check that your host allows you to have the custom email addresses you want for your domain setup. It doesn’t look very professional to have an email address not associated with your domain.

But in the case that emails are provided, there are other ways to get your hands on an email account with your own domain name.

Upgrade options

Scalability refers to a system's ability to handle increasing workloads and user traffic without compromising performance. If you imagine your website as a city then scalability is like the ability of the city roads to handle more traffic. A website with low scalability is like a two-lane highway. It can handle a normal amount of traffic, but during rush hour or with unexpected spikes in visitors, congestion is caused. A highly scalable website is like a multi-lane highway that can easily expand to accommodate increased traffic volume. This means minimal disruption even during peak periods, which ensures a smooth flow of visitors to your website.

It’s important to consider this when choosing quality hosting for a website or application that's expected to grow. Most new sites start on shared hosting, which can be quite powerful. However, as you plan websites to grow over the years, you might need to consider a more powerful server, such as a VPS or dedicated server, that offers more resources. Ensure your host offers plans that you can upgrade to and that the process will be as straightforward as possible.

In addition, regularly monitor your website traffic, resource usage, and performance to identify any bottlenecks or areas for optimization. Remember to optimize your website for the best possible performance. And consider how your hosting plan can adapt to your future needs and budget so you have a precise plan for future scaling.

Control panel

The purpose of a control panel is to allow you to manage various aspects of your website’s 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 control panel provides a simple dashboard to perform tasks like managing email addresses and account passwords, and configuring basic server settings. Otherwise, it can be time-consuming to go through a technical support operator or be obliged to pay an additional fee for simple admin tasks.

Website creation tools

Hosting providers now offer various ways to build your website, depending on different levels of project needs and technical expertise. The most popular ones are website builders and content management systems (CMS).

Website builders allow you to use an intuitive drag-and-drop editor, and there is no need for programming skills, as they include design templates and themes. However, this means there may be limited customization options, they may be less flexible for complex designs, and there’s more potential for recurring subscription fees. 

See what the Namecheap Website Builder can do for your project. 

Content management systems are highly customizable, offer a wide range of plugins and themes, and are suitable for dynamic websites and blogs. One drawback may be that they require basic technical knowledge and regular updates.

One of the most popular CMSs right now is WordPress, which is known for its user-friendly interface. Even beginners with no coding experience can create and manage a website using WordPress. It offers a visual editor that allows you to add content, edit pages, and customize the layout without writing code.

The best option depends on your specific needs and preferences. So, carefully research different hosting providers and their offerings to find the most suitable solution for your website project.

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Free vs. paid web hosting

Free web hosting: is it worth it?

Free web hosting can be a tempting option for beginners on a budget, but it's important to understand the limitations and risks involved. 

Bandwidth allowance

Free hosting providers usually place many websites on a single server, which leads to limited resources and poor website performance. Consider 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 bandwidth allowance or amount of traffic your website can receive. 

Imagine your website is a house, and the data you transfer is like water flowing through pipes. Bandwidth is the diameter of those pipes, so low bandwidth is like having narrow pipes. It takes a long time for a lot of water (or data) to flow through. This means downloading large files or receiving many visitors at once would put a strain on the system and slow things down. High bandwidth is like having wide pipes, so data can flow through quickly and efficiently. You can download large files faster and support many visitors without a significant slowdown.

If your content includes images or videos that are over the agreed amount of visitors per day, week, or month, the host is within its rights to disable your website for breach of contract. Otherwise they might bill you for the extra.

Another consideration before using free hosting providers is that they frequently impose a maximum size on the files you upload. If you want to distribute software or high-resolution imagery, a paid host offers you the ability to load larger file sizes.

Security 

Free hosting providers might not have the resources to invest in top-notch security measures. This can make your site more vulnerable so hackers might be able to easily break into your site and steal data or inject malware. Also, free web servers tend to have more crashes and outages, leaving your website inaccessible to visitors.

Advertising

Many free hosts impose advertising on hosted websites to cover the costs of providing free web space. Visitors can be put off by commercial banners and pop-ups — sites littered with adverts are generally considered low quality and even spammy. Moreover, these ads can be intrusive, unprofessional, and potentially damage your brand image. To be on the safe side, before you sign up check the fine print to see if adverts are expected in exchange for free hosting.

All things considered, free web hosting can be a good starting point for a personal blog or simple website with minimal traffic. But if you have any serious plans for your website, it's better to invest in a paid hosting plan where you can get better performance, security, and greater control over your site's development.

Why pay for web hosting?

If you have or plan to start a professional, growing website, the limitations of free web hosting can hold you back. Then it might be worth considering a paid but affordable quality hosting service that offers the reliability, robust security, features, and comprehensive support you need to build a professional online presence and achieve your website's goals.

Reliability

Paid hosting providers allocate dedicated resources to your websites. This means faster website loading times, smoother operation, and, as a result, a happier audience. Pay attention to the resources your website will need and consider what your hosting plan can offer. And always keep in mind that as your business grows, a hosting plan upgrade will also be needed.

Traffic/bandwidth

Take notice of any limitations placed on bandwidth and choose the plan that fits your requirements. If your site will incorporate video, audio, or other elements that require a higher level of bandwidth, you will need a plan that covers it.

Security measures

Paid hosting prioritizes security and offers measures like firewalls, malware protection, and regular backups to keep your website safe from online threats. This means peace of mind for you and trust for your visitors.

PHP, SSH, MySQL, FTP, .htaccess

There are some key features you encounter when choosing a web hosting plan. You’ll need these for managing your website effectively and ensuring you have all the tools to implement various functionalities. Let’s take a look at these features.

• 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 approval before you can implement a feature on your site.
• If you want to customize your error pages (the messages displayed when visitors land on an extinct page on your site), protect your site from bandwidth theft/hotlinking, and password-protect your folders, you'll need to be able 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 way of transferring web pages and other files from a local computer to a web host computer (server), so that it can be viewed online. Some hosts don’t allow users to design and upload your own files and pages, but require this to be done using their online site builder. Unless you’re a beginner and plan a basic site, it’s better to make sure you have FTP access or the ability to upload your pages by email or browser.

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In summary, there are different types of web hosting plans available, each suited for different needs and budgets. Shared hosting is the most affordable option, ideal for beginners with low-traffic websites. virtual private server hosting offers more power and control than shared hosting, while dedicated hosting provides the ultimate control and resources but comes with a higher price tag. Cloud hosting is a popular option for its scalability and flexibility.

Choosing the right web hosting plan is important for the performance, security, and growth of your website. When making your decision, consider factors like uptime reliability, speed, security features, customer support, and cost, and be sure to research different providers and plans to find the one that best suits your specific needs.

Don’t underestimate the importance of a good web hosting service! By investing in the right plan, you're laying the foundation for a winning online presence.

Web Hosting by Namecheap

Namecheap believes in the right to get your ideas online. That’s why all our hosting products, from single-page websites to dedicated servers, come with all the tools for performance, security, flexibility, and usability that you need.

Take a look at our affordable web hosting plans to find out which is the best for you. 

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