Web hosting is one of the basic technologies of the Internet . Without hosting, there would be no websites. In the past, businesses typically used their own server to host their website. Nowadays, more and more professional users are wondering whether it would not be more advantageous to use other models. Ultimately, the goal is obviously to obtain the best possible cost-benefit balance. Likewise, individuals operating a website will also need to have basic knowledge of web hosting if they want to be able to choose a suitable provider and the right product.
What is web hosting?
In this sense, websites are comparable to text documents. In order to be able to consult documents on a recurring basis, you can save them on the hard drive of a computer. Likewise, to be able to consult the content of Internet sites at any time and throughout the world, this content must be recorded, not on a local computer but on a powerful server connected to the Internet 24 hours a day. The created website is thus available online at any time and the contents can be consulted by users all over the world. Such servers are generally made available by professional hosting providers.
Who Uses Web Hosting?
If you want to publish a website on the web, you will need to use some form of web hosting. Whether for a blog, a business website with a CMS, an online store or an online magazine, web hosting is one of the basic technologies for publishing content on the Internet .
In this context, it does not matter whether it is a private or professional online project. From an economic point of view, companies may find it more advantageous to operate their own server which will take care of publishing the website on the web. For individuals, the costs of maintaining a personal server are generally too high, so they prefer to rent web space from a service provider. However, using external web hosting can also prove beneficial for a business.
IONOS offers flexible and secure web hosting for individuals and businesses of all sizes. If your needs change, you will only need a few clicks to upgrade to a larger offer.
How does web hosting work?
Web hosting is the technology that allows users to enter a domain name into their browser in order to display the content of the corresponding website. First, the website creator must register a domain name and then place the content on the server of a web hosting provider. The domain name system(DNS) allows the connection between the domain name and the server to be established. In this context, name servers indicate under which IP address a specific domain can be found. If a user views a URL, the domain name is resolved to an IP address and the corresponding address is searched on the Internet. If successful, the website is displayed to the user.
As hardware failures are not excluded, many hosting providers use several servers for the same domain (high availability). Query resolution can thus take place even if a server is offline. Increased performance can be achieved with a content delivery network (CDN): the latter duplicates content across several computing centers which can then be distributed around the world. Users who are geographically very far from the hosting provider can thus achieve fast loading times .
Usually, web hosting plans also include a database , PHP installation as well as an SSL certificate . Without these basic technologies , no website would be accessible today. This is why many providers include them by default in their hosting packages.
What types of web hosting are there?
If you want to publish a website, you have the choice between different types of web hosting. Here is an overview of the most relevant accommodation options in a professional context:
Free/ad-supported hosting: This hosting, which is the least expensive, is only cited here for completeness. Ad-supported hosting is certainly free, but users will face significant restrictions on freedom of configuration and performance. Since it is economically unthinkable for companies to display third-party advertisements on their own website, this possibility is not relevant in a professional context.
Shared hosting: this form of hosting is among the most widespread. Multiple web hosting accounts (websites) are hosted on a server. They share hardware resources and system bandwidth. In this context, however, the operators of an account do not have direct access to the data of other accounts. This form of hosting is suitable for both professional and private users and is inexpensive. Shared hostingposes security problems. In fact, the data is recorded on a common server with the data of third party companies. Performance is also limited since resources are used collectively. If you operate a site with a lot of traffic and want to ensure fast loading times, you should instead opt for hosting on a dedicated server.
Virtual Dedicated Server: Dedicated virtual servers provide greater security. In this solution, companies share server hardware, but accounts are created separately as individual virtual systems. In general, users have more extensive configuration possibilities in this case than with shared hosting.
