What is Web Hosting? And what are its types?

website on the Internet needs to have a domain name and web hosting in order to be accessible to visitors on the Internet.

Web hosting is a service that provides you with a place to store all your website files, and the domain is the address that users type in the browser to easily access this place instead of writing its IP address .

So, if you intend to create your own website, you must understand what web hosting is and choose a hosting that is suitable for your website’s needs. In this article, we will provide you with complete information about the concept of web hosting, how it works, its different types, and how to choose the best hosting for your website or blog on the Internet.

What is web hosting?

Web Hosting is an online service that enables you to publish your website or web application on the Internet.

Your site needs its own place on the Internet for people to visit it and view its contents, including texts, images, video clips, files, etc., and the web hosting service provides this place for you.

When you register for a web hosting service, you are essentially renting space on a physical server owned by this service, called a web server.

The server stores all the website content, such as HTML and CSS files, and all other content, such as images and videos, necessary for your website to be displayed correctly on the Internet.

Web hosting companies usually own several servers and provide website hosting services. Web hosting is responsible for the continued operation of this server, protecting it from malicious attacks, and transferring your content such as articles, images, files, etc. from the server to the visitor’s browser.

What is a web server?

A web server or server is a physical computer that has special specifications and software that enable web users to access your site or application from anywhere in the world, where web servers are used to host data for web sites and applications.

The server uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and other protocols to respond to requests received from clients over the Internet and display website content to them. SMTP is also used for email and FTP is used for email .

The server is accessed through its own address on the Internet. Every place on the Internet has its own unique address that distinguishes it from others. When you open a web browser and type a URL into a bar, the domain name in the URL will be connected to the IP address.

The IP address directs this domain to the server where all the contents of the website are stored and opened in the browser and the client can see the website he requested.

Types of web hosting.

There are different types of hosting services, and choosing the type of web hosting is very important for the website you want to create. These types are:

Shared Hosting
Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
Dedicated Server Hosting
Cloud Hosting
Reseller Hosting
WordPress Hosting.

Choosing the wrong type of web hosting may cause problems for your site, so you must understand the difference between each of these types and choose the most appropriate one among them.

The first four types are generally the basic types of hosting. While WordPress hosting and reseller hosting are special types of hosting. In the following paragraphs, we provide you with a brief explanation of each of these six types so that you can know the basic differences between them.

1.Shared web hosting

This type of hosting can be likened to a shared residence rented by several people, who share its resources and share the cost of paying the rent among them.

In shared web hosting, several websites share the same server resources such as memory, disk space, etc. between them. In other words, many websites are stored on one shared hosting server.

Although most beginners and emerging website owners resort to this type of hosting in the beginning because of its low cost, it will not serve them well when their site grows, attracts a larger number of visitors, and witnesses high traffic.

As the number of visitors to the site increases, the demand for resources from the server will increase, and its speed will not be sufficient to serve all this number. For this reason, the entire site will become slower and it will take a long time to load its pages.

In addition, the shared hosting option is not suitable for large sites with high traffic. If your website uses a lot of resources, it may crash completely.

Increased traffic to other websites sharing your hosting can slow down your website as well.

2. Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

This type of hosting is similar to apartments in a large shared building, but each person has his own independent apartment that only he uses and pays the full rent for it. No one shares money with him and no other owner can come and live in it.

In virtual private server (VPS) hosting. Each client’s virtual server appears as their own, even if the primary server serves several other websites.

By default, the primary physical server is divided into several partitions. Each section represents a dedicated server for a site, but it is not a physical server, but rather a virtual server.

Although all sites are on the same physical server, they are stored in separate spaces that are different from each other, and no site can use the space allocated to another site.

VPS style hosting is a compromise between shared hosting and dedicated hosting. When you use a virtual private server, you are still sharing the same server with other users. But at the same time you will have a completely separate section dedicated to your site on this server.

Since you get resources, memory, and dedicated space on the server. Even if the number of visitors to your site increases and it sees more traffic, it will maintain its performance and speed.

VPS are often used by small websites, enterprises, and mid-sized businesses that experience rapidly increasing traffic and that want the flexibility to manage and configure their own server without paying a high cost.

3.Dedicated server hosting

A dedicated server can be likened to your own private home. It is entirely yours, and you have the right to access and benefit from all its resources alone.

In dedicated server hosting, the physical server is entirely dedicated to one website only, so that it stores all the contents of this website, such as images, videos, and documents, and serves visitors to this website only.

Therefore, the site’s performance will be very fast and it will accommodate a large number of visitors. There are no other sites sharing the server with the site, and it is completely at its disposal. This of course costs a higher fee than other types of hosting. Some dedicated servers may cost around $2000 per month.

Dedicated servers are available with different management levels. You can rely on a hosting provider to manage your dedicated server or you can manage it yourself if you have technical knowledge of server management. In this case you will be responsible for installing updates to your site, performing backups, and resolving any issues or errors yourself.

If your website witnesses a very large number of visitors, such as a large business site, a site that requires the highest levels of security, such as websites that store financial data or sensitive medical information. This type of hosting is suitable, reliable, and ensures high performance for these sites.

4.Cloud web hosting

Cloud hosting is the newest type of web hosting and has been seeing great popularity recently. This type of hosting hosts your website files on several interconnected web servers that form a cloud that serves one website and provides the best service.

In this type of hosting, you only pay for what you use, and it is characterized by scalability and expansion with great ease. Cloud hosting plans allow you to expand the scope of your resources on demand.

The most important advantage provided by cloud hosting is that it copies your site’s files and resources to more than one server. Therefore, when the cloud server is busy or faces a technical problem, your site visitors are automatically directed to another server in the cloud, which means your site is saved from crashing. A server failure has no effect on your website. Isn’t that great!

Although this type of hosting is considered more expensive than previous types of hosting, some companies today provide cloud hosting with a very cheap plan, as some companies such as Digital Ocean, the Cloudways platform , and Linode have begun providing cloud hosting plans at acceptable prices and suitable for beginners (starting from $5-10 per month)

That’s why many business websites and large mega sites are turning to this type of hosting in recent years as it is efficient for running a huge and growing content website. It is also suitable for websites that receive an unexpected increase in visitors.

5- Reseller hosting

If you are planning to sell your web hosting services to other websites then this type of hosting is for you. You buy hosting – in bulk – from a provider and then resell that service to your customers. You can choose the pricing options you want for your customers and achieve great profit margins.

If you are a web developer or own a website and application development company, you will have a lot of clients who need hosting for their websites, and you can sell this service to them as part of the website development service instead of making them search for web hosting for their websites themselves.

For example, A2 Hosting sells a hosting reseller service if you want to obtain it. But you should not think about this unless you plan to host at least ten websites for it to be feasible.

This guarantees you continuous profits. If you develop a website for a client only, this person will not need your services forever. But if you can convince this business to buy hosting service from you, you will receive a fixed monthly profit throughout the period of hosting your website.

6- WordPress hosting

Since there are a large number of users who use the WordPress system to create their websites, many web hosting providers have offered a special type of hosting for the WordPress content management system. It is available in several forms such as:

Shared orPress Hosting

Shared WordPress hosting works in the same way as regular shared hosting, except that WordPress may be pre-installed on your hosting server.

Managed WordPress Hosting

Managed WordPress hosting allows hosting of WordPress-based websites and provides the features of one-click WordPress installation, automatic WordPress updates, and additional features such as enhanced security, caching , and faster loading speeds. It may also provide you with advice about some additions that negatively affect the site.

For example, WPEngine hosting is a professional managed WordPress hosting that provides WordPress website owners with fast hosting servers with high capabilities and provides them with protection from hackers and hackers.

Therefore, if you do not have the skills or sufficient time to deal with the technical side of a WordPress site and manage it on the server, and you want fast and hassle-free hosting to manage your WordPress site and provide high-quality support from a hosting provider familiar with the WordPress system, then WordPress hosting plans are an ideal option for you in this case.

Good web hosting standards

There are many web hosting providers that offer different types of hosting, and it may be difficult to choose the good hosting that provides the best level of service for your website.

Below are the most important criteria that you should pay attention to when choosing web hosting

Hard disk space

The hard disk space that the hosting provides you is important to know whether it will accommodate storing the contents of your site or not. If there is not a lot of content on the site, you may not need much disk space.

The opposite is true. If the content of your site increases steadily, you must secure enough disk space for that, or you can choose a hosting that provides unlimited storage, such as Digital Ocean, Hostgator, and Blue Host.

Scalability

What is meant by the scalability of the hosting company is that the hosting service provider provides you with the option to upgrade the hosting plan or reduce its size easily and flexibly according to your site’s requirements.

bandwidth

Bandwidth is the amount of data accessed per second. It is preferable to choose a hosting company that provides unlimited bandwidth. Otherwise, when there are more visitors on the site, the site will be slow.

If the rate of sending data per second is low or limited, the server will not be able to send more data when the number of visitors increases, and the site will not be able to download content for each visitor at the same time, and the site will in turn become very slow, and the visitor will not want to return to it.

Data backup

There are several cases in which you may need to have a backup copy of your site, such as a failure in the hosting server’s hard disk, a database failure, or your site being hacked. Here the importance of providing periodic backups of your website by the hosting provider to fully restore your website emerges.

Runtime

The time that a website remains online or available is called uptime . The hosting company must guarantee you an uptime for your website of no less than 99.5%, which is an important factor when choosing hosting. If the website stops working, it will negatively affect your business, sales, and income, and shake confidence in your website.

control Board

You should look for a hosting service provider that provides you with an easy-to-use hosting control panel so that you can manage your site through it easily and without any complications.

The best reliable cPanel web hosting control panel alternatives

Hosting cost and additional fees

Cost is an important factor so make sure you are not being charged hidden fees by hosting providers for additional features such as bandwidth, renewals and upgrades. Compare multiple hosting package plans to see how you can save money and not use features you don’t need on your site.

Provides good customer service

The availability of technical support is an important factor in helping you overcome any problems with your site. There is no doubt that every hosting company markets itself as providing 24/7 customer service. So personal experiences and opinions of other users will help you judge the level of technical support provided by any hosting company.

The geographic location of the server

The more remote the geographical location of your hosting server, the slower your website will be, so you must make sure to host your website in the same location as your target audience to ensure a faster response.

Additional features

You may have additional web hosting needs for your site, such as providing several domains that can be hosted on one account, installing an SSL certificate if you want to sell goods or services online, and other features. So, determine the beginning of your site’s needs and make sure that the web hosting you choose for your site provides it for you. .

Summary

In this article, we learned about the concept of web hosting, explained the different types of hosting, and showed you how to choose the best hosting for your site.

It is very important to have a good web hosting service for your website, and not to ignore this matter as it is one of the main factors for every successful website and because it mainly contributes to improving the site’s SEO and increasing its ranking in search engines.

If you want to start with a limited hosting service at a cheap price, you can do so, but only at the beginning of launching your site. But when the number of visitors to your site increases and traffic becomes high, you should upgrade your hosting plan to suit your site.

What hosting do you use for your website? Are you satisfied with its performance or do you have problems dealing with it? We are happy to share your experience in the comments.