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Web Hosting FAQ
Web hosting is a service that allows customers to publish their own website online without the need to run their own servers. Because running and maintaining a server is costly, it is not viable for small businesses, much less simple individuals, to own and run their own servers. So these businesses and individuals just pay for the service of having their websites hosted by a web host.
Web hosts are companies that offer web hosting services. They usually own or lease the servers they use for web hosting. These servers are typically located in large data centers containing hundreds of computers and telecommunication devices. These centers have their own back-up power and redundant systems to ensure that their servers are always running and connected to the internet all the time.
Free web hosting – most internet service providers (ISPs) provide free web page and small-scale file hosting to their subscribers. Other web hosts may also provide free hosting to users. Free web hosting has limited services, and is often supported by ads.
Shared web hosting – this is the most common type of web hosting that small businesses and individuals obtain. In shared web hosting, everyone shares the costs of server maintenance, thereby making the service cheaper.
Dedicated web hosting – for large businesses and companies that require large amount of bandwidth, dedicated web hosting is the preferred method of hosting. In this type of hosting, the customer gains full control and usage of a server. While they don’t own the physical servers, they’re the only ones who can use it, so they pay for the use of the entire server, making this type of web hosting a lot more expensive than shared web hosting.
Cloud web hosting – this is a new type of web hosting platform that does not rely on a single data center but instead has a decentralized system of servers that provide hosting. Because the system of servers is decentralized, cloud hosting is more reliable than traditional web hosting. Even if one computer in the cloud goes down, others can pick up the slack. This eliminates the need for redundant power systems, as the different computers in the cloud all have their own power sources independent from each other. Cloud hosting also allows users to pay only for the resources they use instead of paying a flat fee.
You can obtain free web hosting from your ISP or from a different provider if your website only contains a basic web page and gets little traffic. However, if you’d like to put up a more complex website, supporting file hosting and a shopping cart software, you’d need to obtain paid hosting services. You also need paid hosting if your website is getting a lot of traffic since your bandwidth needs cannot be sufficiently covered by free hosting. Once you have a web host, all you need to do is upload your website via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a web interface to your web host’s servers.
Depending on the type of web hosting you choose, you can spend anywhere from as low as $3 per month to as high as $200 monthly. The cost would also depend on how much bandwidth you consume. While most web hosts offer unlimited bandwidth packages, what this usually means is that they give you a high enough ceiling on your bandwidth limit, high enough that you won’t exceed it. This means that this ceiling is usually based on the average consumer bandwidth usage. If you do exceed it, your contract usually includes an additional charge for that consumption.
Most websites consume just a small amount of their allotted bandwidth so there’s no real worry of exceeding this limit. This goes the same for disk space. While most web hosts will offer “unlimited disk space,” what this usually means is that the customer is given a big enough disk space that that they aren’t expected to use it all up. There may be limitations in the terms of service such as having types of files you can’t upload, or having only a limited file size allowed. In any case, web hosts usually don’t prevent you from exceeding their allowed bandwidth usage and disk space, they just charge you an additional fee for your excess consumption on top of the flat rate you are paying for the unlimited plan.
A domain name is a label that identifies your website’s address in the internet. Domain names provide an easy way of recalling and recognizing internet addresses which in reality are numerical points such as 199.0.0.2, these numbers are also called IP addresses. So instead of typing 199.0.0.2, you can just use the domain name of the website such as www.mywebsite.com and it will point to the corresponding IP address. In order to use a domain name, you need to register it with a domain name registrar accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN. Aside from web hosting, you will also need to have a domain name registered. Most domain name registrars offer web hosting as part of their services, and most web host providers also provide domain name registration assistance.
Uptime refers to the amount of time a web host is accessible via the internet. This number is usually indicated in percentage and is an indicator of a web host’s reliability. For example, an uptime of 99.9% means the web host is fully available except for 45 hours a month, which is its downtime.