If you are thinking of buying a web hosting plan or running a website, this article could answer some of your basic questions on web hosting. This article is suitable for absolute beginners.
For a person who is new to running websites, the web hosting concept can be very confusing at first. In this article, I have tried to describe the terminologies regarding web hosting in very simple way with hopefully lots of details in it.
What is Web Host/web hosting?
A web host is a service provider (or a web hosting company) who provides space for your website on their computer (A Web Server). Their computers are connected to the internet to provide access to your website to the people who surf the internet.
The web hosting companies are hosting websites for thousands of customers on many servers. To serve the requests coming from millions of web surfers for these websites, the web host uses powerful servers and extremely fast internet connection speed.
The web host is basically renting out some space on their server to allow you to place your website on the web.
What is Datacenter?
Most of the larger web hosting companies operates their own datacenters.
According to Wikipedia, “A data center or data centre (also datacenter or datacentre) is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. It generally includes redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls (e.g., air conditioning, fire suppression) and security devices.”
The high speed, reliable (365/7/24) internet connection, HVAC (Heating, ventilation and Air conditioning), security and backup power supplies facilities in the datacenters makes it very expensive to own and operate.
Only large web hosting companies have their own data centers. Smaller web hosting company rent a server from a larger web hosting company and then resell the web space under their own name.
Webpage and Website
Webpage can be defined as basic building blocks of World Wide Web (WWW). These are documents written in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and are translated by Web browsers to show the actual contents to the web surfers.
Web pages are either designed to show the same content each time they are viewed(Static web pages) or to show contents that changes each time they are accessed (Dynamic web pages) Dynamic web pages are written in scripting languages such as PHP, Perl, ASP, or JSP.
Similarly, a website is a collection of related webpages containing texts, audio, video or images All websites include a beginning page known as homepage using which other pages are navigated A website is hosted on at least one web server.
Web pages on a website are accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet address known as a Uniform Resource Locator.(URL) Each website is owned by an individual, company or organization
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