Friends, if you are thinking of creating a professional blog or website on WordPress or Blogger, then you must have knowledge about hosting – What is hosting? How Hosting works? From where to purchase the best hosting for your WordPress blog etc.
A lot of questions must be there in your mind on this topic.
But Friends, before proceeding with the topic “Hosting”, I want you to have a clear understanding of the Domain. Most of the readers who are currently going through this article must have been knowing this.
But my major concern is for the newbies / the beginners who have just entered into this internet world – which is a virtual one – not real.
So to help you, I have already published an article on Domain name previously in this blog with a subject line –
What is a Domain Name? How to get a best domain for your first blog in 2021!
You can go through the above article to have a better knowledge of the Domain Name that is required as a beginner.
So let’s get into our current topic .
After going through this article, you will have a better understanding of hosting. If you are also building a website, then what web hosting will you prefer?
Confused !!! Let me help you in this regard through this article. Make sure to complete this article by the end for a better understanding.
What is hosting ?
Suppose you do a business and there you need to store your goods. Because for doing any physical business, you need to have someplace where you will store your stock/goods that you will sell.
In the same way, when you upload a file on the Internet, it is saved somewhere else on the internet. And you or your readers access those files in the future.
Generally, we upload a lot of images on google or we upload videos to our YouTube channels. Just think, those videos and photos are being stored somewhere in some other computers for our future use.
Right !
And these photos and videos are being saved on different computers which are called Host Computers. The companies who are providing us different services related to storing, securing, and using our uploaded files through these host computers are generally called Web Hosting Companies.
Similarly, the services that are provided by the hosting companies are called WEB HOSTING
You will find easy if I name some of the popular hosting providers currently.
Hostgator
Hostinger
Siteground
A2 Hosting
And many more . But I have just taken the name of some popular ones.
Concept of Hosting Service
For getting uninterrupted hosting services, we need computers – rather I call them supercomputers. The hosting computers must have to be connected to the internet and uninterrupted power supply 24 X 7 for 365 days.
Friends Internet is the largest network in the world. All computers, devices including your mobile phones are all connected to the Internet.
You must have seen that when you connect two computers in your home or office through the internet or wires, you are able to share files between those computers. So this type of file sharing is being done in a private mode.
But when we talk about web hosting where your website is being hosted then this type of hosting is done through a public hosting mode. Here anyone can access the uploaded files on that hosting.
For example, now you can access all pages, posts, images of my website – www.bloggingtweet.com from anywhere in the world through any IP address. It’s because this website is being hosted through a hosting service-providing company.
So the content of my website is being uploaded to a public network. For that reason, you are able to access and see all things present on my website very easily. This is not at all private but public.
These networking computers are called WEB SERVER. These servers are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Now let’s understand how this hosting service works.
How does hosting service work ?
The prime work of a web hosting service provider / Company is to upload your data to a very high-speed computer.
Now when you are typing a URL of a particular website (For Ex – www.bloggingtweet.com) sitting at any corner of the globe, the same request reaches the hosting company (with whom the typed address is being hosted) through the server.
And from there, whatever page of that website you have searching there, the hosting company sends a copy of that page to your computer.
In this way you are able to get your search result in the search engine through internet.
In this context, now some people will ask if my computer can become a host computer? Can I make it a web server?
The simple answer is YES of course , you can make it.
Then my question will be
Will you be able to make its power on for 24 hours continuously? Will you be able to keep your computer connected to the Internet for 24 hours.
If you can do this, then you can make your computer a web server. And there you may face a lot of problems – such as if the operating system of your computer gets corrupted due to some reason then the data that is present there will be destroyed. And by chance, if your computer is shut down due to any reason, then the people whose website is running on your computer may be closed.
So making your computer a web host might not be right.
The best way is to purchase the best hosting service from a web hosting company and host your website there.
Types of WEB HOSTING ?
There are different types of hosting are available according to different platform.
A) Based on Operating System :
There are two types of hosting available as far as operating systems are concerned.
1) Windows and Linux
We have already discussed that the files that we generally upload to our websites /YouTube channels have been hosted through some of the other hosting providers. Hosting providers store these files at some supercomputers having continuous power and internet supply.
We all know that a computer cannot run without an operating system. And the computers that are being used by the hosting companies run through some operating systems also.
The Computers where the windows operating system is being installed are called Windows-operated hosting services.
And the Computers where the Linux operating system is being installed are called Linux-operated hosting services.
Let’s understand what is the major difference between Windows and Linux now.
Then what is the difference between these two?
Answer – the difference is between these two operating system based hosting service is “ PRICE”.
Linux is open software. It can be used by anyone easily for free of cost. It’s just like Android which is again free to use.
So the hosting service that is available with Linux Hosting Service is less expensive than Windows.
Whereas the hosting company has to buy Windows to operate their supercomputers. As there is a cost involved in purchasing the Windows software license, the price of the Windows hosting service increases. Then it becomes more expensive than that of your Linux hosting service.
That’s why a lot of hosting services are based on Linux hosting.
B) Based on Website Support
Now let’s talk about types of hosting depending on the website support that the hosting companies provide.
There are three types of hosting available based on this category.
Let’s understand the fact that on a webserver a lot of websites work simultaneously. The website here uses the resources of the supercomputer (discussed earlier above), such as its processor RAM. And the space that the supercomputer has.
If more than one website will work together on the same computer, then the server will be called Shared Hosting.
For example, during our student period, three to four students used to take a room on rent nearby our university. Then we share the monthly rent among us for having less monthly rent expense per person. When one more friend comes to join us in the same room, we also allow them to share the room and rent as well.
Likewise shared hosting is also having an advantage. If you are having more traffic then your shared hosting won’t handle this. Again if no websites are being hosted in shared hosting then your site may become slow resulting in high page load time and low rank in Google’s SERPs.
ii)Virtual Private Server
It is also called VPS. Here it happens that here the main server is divided into several virtual pieces of servers. It’s just like you have different rooms in your house.
the part which is a part of the website is given to you. But what is here The main server is the same but it can handle much more traffic than the Shared Hosting.
iii) Dedicated Server/Hosting
This type of web hosting is the most expensive. Because here a web server is available only to handle your website only.
That is, when you pay for it, then all these resources from the Computer are for you alone. Your website itself is handled exclusively. Here you can handle enormous traffic with must faster server.
Big websites like Flipkart, Amazon use this type of dedicated servers.
Similarly, it is highly expensive due to its exclusive service for your website only. If you are having such big websites having high traffic footfall then you can have this type of web hosting.
iv) Cloud Hosting
In cloud hosting, a group is made taking multiple servers. Here the combined server is called Cloud Server.
In a normal server, when someone is in the US and your website is loaded on a server in India. Suppose that person is requesting for your website sitting at America, then it will take a lot of time as the request will come to the Indian server and after that, it will again go back to the American server.
But in the cloud server, there will be many servers working together and they keep the data of your website synced to it. Now if someone searches for your website URL sitting from the US, then it will reach it directly from the American server.
It has a very good speed compared to others. If a server is down, then your website will not be down as your website will be connected to other servers in the group. Cloud hosting will be accessible immediately from other servers. Cloud hosting can also handle a lot of traffic and these people are also using it.
So cloud hosting is becoming very popular now-a days.
Conclusion
If you are new to blogging and already purchased a domain and are in search of a reliable hosting service then I will definitely help you out in this case.
I will name some trustworthy hosting providers that I had already tested on the different websites of mine and found a safer place for our website to be hosted. After-sales customer service also a main deciding factor while choosing a hosting for our website/blog. In some cases, you can find a money-back guarantee you won’t get satisfied with the service after using it for some period of time.
So let’s checkout some popular , reliable and budget friendly hosting providers
1.Bluehost
2.Hostinger
3.Hostgator
4.Siteground
5.A2 Hosting