What Is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is a service provided by a web host that allows individuals or organizations to publish their website on the World Wide Web.

In order to make a website available on the World Wide Web, its documents must reside on a computer called a webserver. This webserver is connected to the Internet 24 hours a day so that your website is always accessible.

I will not go into details about creating and hosting a website here but I will try to illustrate the global concept.

Step 1 : Creating A Website

In its most basic form, a website is made of webpages. These webpages are documents that contain the instructions that are sent to your web browser in order describe the structure of the information such as headings, lists, paragraphs, embedded images, interactive forms, etc.

The programming language used to provide these instructions to your web browser is called HTML (HyperText Markup Language). Here are a few HTML editors:

• Microsoft Web Expressions (previously know as Microsoft Frontpage)
• Adobe Dreamweaver
• XSitePro

Step 2 : Getting A Domain Name

A domain name is the “web address” through which visitors will access your website. For example, the domain name for this very website is “thewebhostinghero.com”.

This “web address” is called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). So for example, let’s take this URL: http://www.thewebhostinghero.com/articles/different-hosting-types.html

• http://www.thewebhostinghero.com: this is the domain name to access the root (or homepage) of the website.
• articles: this is the directory (or folder) in which resides HTML documents.
• different-hosting-types.html: the HTML document.

Step 3 : Getting A Web Hosting Account

Once you’ve got a domain name, you need to get a web hosting account.

Please take note that a domain name can also be bought at the same time (and place) you buy your web hosting account.

There are several web hosts to choose from. If you are unfamiliar with web hosting, I suggest you use HostGator or Bluehost. This is a great web host to start with and it will cost you only $4.95 a month for their entry-level package.

Step 4 : Uploading Your Website To Your Webserver

You now need to put your website online. That means that you need to transfer your website (i.e. HTML documents) to your webserver.

Uploading your website from your home computer to your webserver is done through a File Transfer Protocol commonly known as FTP. While most HTML editor gives you the possibility to upload your files through FTP, there are also numerous clients available.

My favorite FTP client is Filezilla. It is free and easy to use.

What Else Do I Need To Know About Web Hosting?

There are different types of web hosting: shared hosting, VPS, collocation and dedicated servers. If you’re starting out, a shared hosting account is probably enough. Just make sure your web hosting package include PHP support and at least one MySQL database which may come handy someday.

Stay tuned as I’ll post more tutorials to help you get your website online. Subscribe here to receive instant notifications.

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