Simple Definition of a Web Hosting Company 🧠
Typical Web hosting companies offer website or email hosting services. These subscription internet-based businesses give you a foundation to build websites or manage emails for yourself or clients.
This works as the web hosting company has “slots” of space on their servers that allow websites and emails to be housed here. The Majority of web hosting packages that are often are primarily shared hosting, dedicated packages, VPS, or reseller hosting. Read more here how to find out how to pick the best web hosting company.
Keep this definition in mind of renting out slots on a server. This slot as mentioned has allocated space for you to do whatever you need on the Internet. From creating WordPress Websites, HTML Websites, or any type of website and managing emails.
These services are often very user friendly and intuitive with great customer support teams. What Are Web Hosting Servers? You might ask, well in short these are computers with large amounts of storage capable of helping connect users to websites. You get a slice of this server storage to house whatever you feel. Another thing to consider is how big your website is, as there are packages that fit all users needs from the small food blog to a massive corporation. Smaller websites tend to stick with the basic Shared Hosting packages. With bigger websites the other web hosting packages such as Dedicated hosting, Cloud Hosting, Virtual Private Servers (VPS) are the route to take to handle all the files on your website.
Bare in mind that most packages often times have limitations to how many domains you can have. Or even how much storage the web hosting company will allow you to have on their servers.
Another awesome thing about most web hosting companies is the capability to store your domains. Paired with the storage capability. Majority of the time you’re able to purchase your domains here as well. One of the better places to house domains is Namecheap. Namecheap has incredible first time buyer deals when it comes to buying your first domains. Also the renewal rates are pretty fair as the market changes.
Another place to look is GoDaddy. They do an incredible job at being one of the biggest powerhouses in domain reselling and giving a place for domain resellers to sell domains with a broker system in-between to mitigate losses.
How Do Web Hosting Services Work? 🤔
These work when someone uploads or creates something such as a website on the web hostings servers. Then these servers take the information you uploaded and allocate memory (storage, bandwidth & RAM) to these files pushing them live however you set them up.
As for the server memory that gets allocated this is completely dependent on the package you choose when signing up to your web hosting company. To decide which package is the best for you and your projects ahead, it really isn’t rocket science. Most people tend to prefer the most bang for their buck when starting up, which is ideal in most cases. Deciding what’s best for you is really up to you. Here’s some questions to ask to make this decision easier.
Some things to ask yourself when deciding what web hosting package to choose: ❓
- How many Websites do you plan to have in the future?
- Does the web hosting company have expensive domain renewal prices?
- How does this web hosting companies servers perform?
- Is Email Hosting included in my package?
- What Am I Building My Website With? (WordPress, HTML, CSS, etc.)
The Different Types Of Web Hosting Services 📖
- Shared Hosting
- Dedicated Hosting
- Virtual Private Server Hosting (VPS)
- Reseller Hosting
- Cloud Hosting
Shared Hosting🥧
Shared hosting is for relatively smaller websites or standalone portfolio type websites. This type of hosting is perfect for small to medium sized websites or businesses. Traffic limitations to your websites may apply since there is less memory allocated to shared hosting packages. When you hear about shared hosting think of it as a pie and people who purchase this package get to share the storage that this “pie” has allocated on the server.
For the more serious websites/business owners this is definitely something to be aware of. You wouldn’t want to miss out on traffic or visitors that are incoming to the website. Especially if you have promotions or marketing campaigns running. Talk to your current web hosting provider if you have any questions about limitations you might have on traffic or storage.
Dedicated Hosting💾
Dedicated hosting is as the name implies. You’re able to completely rent out sections of web hosting servers. You can relatively do anything you’d like on these servers as well. Although with the cavate that it is more expensive that the average Shared Web Hosting or VPS packages. Dedicated web hosting is primarily meant for large websites that cannot afford even 1 second of down time.
Dedicated web hosting is similar to VPS in the vein that you get access to the server itself. Which allows you to have able to manage server settings. Although with dedicated servers you can get more granular and even manage the server security, the software used and everything in between. These are for the technically advanced kind of users as you have to completely manage everything alone.
Virtual Private Servers (VPS)💽
Virtual private Servers (VPS) are much larger packages that web hosting companies offer. These are also much higher in price most times. Although the capabilities you have with a VPS are endless. Think of a Virtual Private server as owning your own server. Since the way that web hosting companies work, they have dedicated sections of these servers for their VPS clients that allow you to mange the server yourself. Giving you full freedom to change server settings at will to function however you need them to.
These services are more for the advanced Web user. That wants more access but doesn’t want the higher premium rates that purchasing dedicated web hosting has.
Reseller 🏘️
Think of reseller hosting as renting out a room in a house. Users on this web hosting service have a plot of land so to speak and can rent out allotted space on their account. This is beneficial for those kind of users that have a larger web hosting package than needed and are looking to share with someone or want more streams of income.
Reseller Hosting is different than affiliate programs that are often offered by most hosting companies. You would need to purchase or have an existing package with your web hosting company to participate in reseller hosting.
Cloud Hosting ☁️
Web Hosting Companies Review To Help Decide:
- BlueHost: Visit BlueHost Here
- HostGator: Visit HostGator Here
- NameCheap: Visit NameCheap Here
- SiteGround: Visit SiteGround Here
- Kinsta: Visit Kinsta Here
- iPage: Visit iPage Here
- WP Engine: Visit WP Engine Here
- inMotion Hosting: Visit inMotion Hosting Here
Domains And Web Hosting Go Hand In Hand 🌎
The main question people have when learning about domains is, “how do I store my domain?” then the next question is “how do I get a website built on this?” And these are some great questions to ask when first getting started.
Domain purchases last 1 year at a time when you buy them. Most web hosting company offer discounts on pricing when you buy more years in advance. If you plan on building a life long project on the domain you purchase. It’s ideal to buy more years up front so the renewal rates dont climb up over the years as they often do.
Bare in mind that domains are often sold separately. There are companies such as iPage & Bluehost that offer free domains when you buy yearly packages. If you end up purchasing shared hosting at a monthly rate they don’t offer this and will charge you for the domain.
The best place to go for cheap domain is Namecheap. They have the best introductory pricing and competitive renewal prices. Although if you’re looking to see domain evaluations and sell domains GoDaddy is the place you want to be.