How does Web Hosting Work? [A Step by Step Complete Guide]

March 13, 2023

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Today, every business is focusing on having an excellent online presence. A reputed online presence is a must and provides several benefits to small and large enterprises.

As businesses understand the immense benefits of an excellent online presence, they are looking for a better platform to achieve this. Having the most suitable web hosting for your website is the best way to create an influential image within the market and the competition.

We have several web hosting options available in the market. Choosing the right web host provider can immensely benefit your business in the long run. Hosting your website on the web hosting server provides you with various features like excellent performance, resource availability, and high uptime.

Before getting into which hosting to choose and how web hosting works, we need first to understand our website’s business perspective. The business should have a clear understanding of the web hosting provider options. This will enable users and businesses to choose the right provider and plan accordingly.

The below article will help you understand web hosting, its works, why a business needs web hosting, and its expected features.

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is a service that helps a business to host their website or any web-based application on the Internet and to make it accessible to the users. Web host providers offer various tools, services, and resources your website requires in the long run.

Web hosting uses servers to host a website that is just storage spaces available on cloud or physical data centers. Web hosting providers allow you to create a domain name for users to search and/or access your website.

All the relevant files and information stored on the server will get loaded on the user’s system once they hit your website domain name on the browser.

You will get various web hosting options for different business types and needs. Some are dedicated to your website, and some are shared with other websites on the network. You can set your expectations and choose a suitable plan accordingly.

The right web hosting will help decrease the loading time of your website, increase the uptime, and allow you to replicate data on various servers to avoid downtime.

How Does Web Hosting Work?

Many things work together in the back end to host a website perfectly on the Internet. They are mentioned below:

Servers – To host a website, we need servers that will store the website-related files and documents that must be uploaded to the website. Depending on your business needs, a server can be a physical system, a large data center, or a cloud. They need to be robust and powerful to handle your website.
Server OS – The OS is an interface for users, applications, and the physical system.
Web Server – It will handle the incoming user’s request. When you hit the URL, it will be translated to a request routed to the hosting system. Now, the web server will handle the request, read it, process it, and send back a suitable browser response.

Types of Web Hosting

The website hosting service you need depends on the size of your following and the specifications you need.

The kind of website hosting service you’ll require is based on your following size and specifications.

1. Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the most affordable type of hosting service. This type of website is simple but the least powerful. This kind of website hosting comprises one host that handles many websites and their files. This type of hosting is suitable for:

Bloggers
Small to medium companies
Small tech businesses

When websites on a shared host platform get more traffic, other websites on the server may start experiencing unexplained lagging or downtime. Also, when your website gains more traction, it may even crash. Therefore, this type of hosting is not good for growing your website or handling heavy traffic.

2. Dedicated Hosting

This type of hosting is the most expensive. Dedicated hosting is ideal for larger organizations with a server administrator on standby. Equipped with more power, dedicated hosting allows users more freedom for their websites. However, as it is more powerful, its management also is more complicated.

The dedicated hosting server gives direct access to the website owner as only one website will be on the server. However, the website owner will be solely responsible for the upkeep and updates of the server.

3. VPS Hosting

Virtual Private Servers, or VPS hosting, combines the best aspects of shared and dedicated website hosting. The VPS host gives the website owner a dedicated “virtual” server with complete control over the environment.

This type of website hosting gives access to additional resources than you would get with a shared server while being a shared hosting service. There are fewer websites on this type of server, which ensures you have more bandwidth and power.

Essential Features to Look For in Website Hosting Services

Below are some features you should expect from your web hosting provider:

1. Domain name registration

Most web hosting providers allow you to create unique domain names as a part of their package. Ensure that your hosting provider comes with this facility, and you can save money while making a domain name with another party other than your web hosting.

2. Storage amount

Whether you are a small or large enterprise, you must have some data that tends to increase with the business. You must ensure that your host provider offers enough storage to store all your files, databases, and media. Always go for the plan that gives more space than you are required to.

3. Bandwidth

For any website, we need to upload files that the users use. If you do not have enough bandwidth, it may impact your website’s incoming traffic. So make sure that your host provider offers you enough or unlimited bandwidth. If you are opting for a limited bandwidth plan, it will cost you once the limit is over.

4. Scalability

Another essential feature of the website hosting service that you should consider is scalability. If you are worried about storage and bandwidth in the future when your business grows, make sure your web host offers increased resources or different types of hosting to meet your requirements at that time.

5. Uptime

It defines the time for which the server is in use. To make your website available and accessible all the time, you must ensure that your host provider guarantees the maximum uptime rate. Before choosing the host, you can use various online tools to calculate the uptime.

6. Technical support

This is one of the essential features to have. If your host provider is ensuring tech support, it will be an add-on, as their team will work on your issues, so you do not have to maintain a separate IT staff.

7. Database and language support

Websites have different databases and language platforms. You must look for the specified and other languages and database support from your host provider. If they support multiple databases and languages, it will be easy for you to migrate from one platform to another.

8. Backup

There may be chances that your host may also be vulnerable to data loss. The hosting provider must ensure regular data backups to keep the data consistent in case of failure.

How Can My Website Benefit from a Web Hosting Service?

Irrespective of your business size, small or large, you will need a web hosting provider to make an online presence for your website. Below are some benefits that a website can receive.

You do not have to worry about having an in-house technical support team, as the host provider’s professional team will handle every issue. They will be available 24X7. As such, you can get instant help in case anything goes wrong.
If you are hosting your website on the cloud, then in that case, you do not have to maintain the physical data centers for the servers and be supported by the host providers; instead, include regular backup to avoid any failures.
You do not have to worry about making your website up and running. It will all be handled by the hosting provider, and you can easily focus on what new content will go up there on your website.
If everything is maintained and supported by the web host provider, you can focus on the more effective development of your website.

Why Do I Need Hosting?

It is a common thought of every business that if hosting a website only requires a few servers, why cannot they host their website? There is no problem in doing so until or unless you are an experienced webmaster.

There are so many things that you need to take care of. Below are some reasons that you wouldn’t risk hosting your website:

You will be solely responsible for any power outage due to any reason as you are the one handling your website, and it may come with some consequences.
You may encounter Internet-related problems, even with a good-quality Internet connection. It may impact your brand and customers if you cannot upload the content to your website.
Running and maintaining servers alone is not an easy task. If you interfere with the server working, you will be distracted in creating quality for your website and vice versa, as servers are equally essential to manage. If your server breaks for any reason, it will create hours of downtime.
A home Internet connection will not provide you with a static IP address due to its dynamic nature. The web hosting providers offer a static IP address.

The web host providers can quickly sort out the problems mentioned above. They will offer you consistent power backup, high-quality upload and download speed, a dedicated IT team for resolving issues within time, and you will get a static IP address for your website.

Conclusion

Web hosting is prevalent among website owners. It helps businesses create their brand image within the market and the competition. They will handle your website throughout the selected plan and span.

With a great web host provider by your side, you do not need to worry much about your website’s back-end support. You can completely concentrate on your website content and make it more attractive and/or profitable for the end-users.

With this article, you get to learn how a web host provider works. It is not that complicated and will translate the user’s request to process it at the server end and send back what the user requires. Yes, it’s that simple!

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