The web world may lead you into terms like domain names, web hosting and secure certificates. Confused yet? If you are new to this you probably are. What are the main ingredients a web site absolutely needs to be up and running. Two items exist that are essential for any web site to be up and running – a domain name and web site hosting. Basically your name like “facebook.com” and a storage container to keep your files that your visitor will see.
The domain name is easier to understand, as every day you are typing in domain names. What about the web hosting side of things? Well let’s explain what you are doing when you buy website hosting. Your web site files need to be stored in a public place, a container, that will display your files. These files may include Code files (HTML, CSS, PHP, ASP) or Visual Files (Images, Flash, Video). Your web site requires a server for web hosting, that is basically a computer designed to display your web site pages. Basically a web hosting package is a service provided by a Company that allows anybody with access to the internet the ability to view your web site files.
Now that we understand what web hosting actually is, when you look to purchase web hosting what do all these features mean? For smaller sites, you will be mainly looking at two main features – disk space and bandwidth. The former translates to the size of files you can store on the web hosting server. The latter means how much data your server can transfer when web site visitors visit your web page. As you want to grow with your site and use more advanced features like for a Blogging system, you will want to look into language support (ASP or PHP) and database support (mySQL). Language support means the Server language the code was written in, while the storage container for your web data is placed in a database.
To summarize, web site hosting is a server that displays your code and visual files to users of your site. The needs and requirements of your site will then determine what you need to look for in terms of disk space, bandwith, language support and database support.