What is Web Hosting?

A website or web page can be published on the Internet with the help of a web hosting service. A company that offers the technology and services required for a website or webpage to be seen on the Internet is known as a web host or web hosting service provider.

A website is hosted when a hosting company allots space on a web server for it to keep its files. Code, photos, and other website-related assets are made internet accessible through web hosting. A server hosts every website you’ve ever visited.

Reliable web hosting is crucial if you want to have an online presence. Nowadays, there are literally hundreds of web hosts offering tens of thousands of different web hosting services. Plans range from inexpensive web hosting packages tailored for businesses to free ones with few possibilities. The strategy you go for will mostly rely on how you want to utilize your website and how much money you have set up for hosting.

Types of Web Hosting

Shared Hosting

A website collaborates with other websites to share a web server and its resources. For small sites with little traffic, it’s a reasonably priced choice.

For novices or small business website owners who would rather avoid dealing with the technical aspect of server management, shared web hosting is a great option. In this case, the hosting company handles server maintenance such as backups and updates.

Virtual Private Servers Hosting

This type of hosting operates by making a virtual server serve numerous websites while appearing to be a single dedicated server for each client. Because of this, VPS hosting is regarded as the intermediate step before purchasing your own dedicated computer. The key distinction between VPS and shared hosting is that clients can fully customize their VPS, which is much more similar to dedicated hosting.

Smaller websites and companies who want the flexibility of a dedicated server without the hefty fees associated with it frequently choose VPS.

Cloud Server Hosting

This kind of hosting utilizes numerous connected web servers to provide a cost-effective, scalable, and stable web infrastructure. The reason why so many huge enterprises are moving to the cloud is that cloud hosting plans often offer unmetered, dependable bandwidth and an indefinite quantity of disk space for unlimited domains. It’s a good way to manage a website that uses a lot of resources or has a lot of content assets, like photographs, but the cost can be very high.

Dedicated Server Hosting

Dedicated hosting, also known as managed hosting or a dedicated server, offers full servers for hire. When compared to shared hosting plans, this sort of hosting is rather pricey; as a result, it is typically only utilized when a website experiences high levels of traffic or when more server management is necessary.

One website has access to the entire server and all of its resources. It is a costly, high-performance solution for particularly large or well-known sites with devoted technical staff.

It enables more self-service server administration capabilities. The fact that you have complete control over the server, its software, and its security systems makes this configuration more adaptable. However, you must also have the necessary technical knowledge on hand in order to run the platform yourself.

WordPress Hosting

WordPress Hosting is a subcategory of web hosting that is specifically designed to support WordPress sites. With 42.5% of all websites utilizing it, WordPress is the most widely used CMS worldwide. For this reason, a lot of web hosting providers provide managed WordPress hosting services.

WordPress hosting may come under one of several web hosting categories, depending on the web host. Examples include shared WordPress hosting, VPS WordPress hosting, and cloud WordPress hosting, which are all offered by various hosting companies.

You may get a ton of tools and services designed especially for WordPress blogs by using a WordPress host. These may vary depending on the WP hosting provider you pick for, but generally include features such as one-click-install, automatic software upgrades, and a team of support personnel who specialize in WordPress to provide you with tailored help.

Differences Between Web Hosting and WordPress Hosting

Any hosting service that saves a site’s data on a server in order to make the site live on the Internet is referred to as web hosting. The websites stored on one of their servers may be running on thousands of different platforms, and a web host will serve a wide variety of site builders.

On the other hand, WordPress hosting fills a particular void in the web hosting industry. Although unlike web hosting, every website on a shared server will be a WordPress site, WordPress hosting can also employ shared servers to host several websites simultaneously.

To sum up the difference, keep in mind that while web hosting refers to a broad category, WordPress hosting is a particular type of hosting.

If you wish to build a WordPress website, you can go with either hosting option. Your managed WordPress hosting provides WordPress features like pre-installed plugins and optimized web servers, which is the main distinction.

Domain Hosting Vs Web Hosting

Visitors can discover you by typing in a domain name provided by a domain host (like www.newdomain.com). While a domain name serves as a map of your website’s location, it does not represent the information that users will find there.

Hosting companies for domains keep track of them and help with registration. You’ll manage your domain through them if you use one that was registered with a third-party service provider. While most WordPress hosting services provide domain name and domain hosting as part of their plans, you may use a third-party domain name and integrate it into your WordPress/web hosting.

When you purchase a domain name on your own, you can only use it for a limited time (usually one year). To store the files for your website, you need web hosting. You must alter the settings for your domain name to point to your web hosting company once you have hosting.

Advantages of WordPress Hosting

Optimal Site Speed

A server that has been specially set up for WordPress sites will be used by websites on WordPress hosting plans. To guarantee quick loading times, built-in caching software is frequently also included.

In order for WordPress Hosting to operate well, the hardware, firmware, and software setup must be extremely compatible. Having a compatible system prevents performance difficulties and system freezes. The hosted website could crash or briefly go offline if the system isn’t working properly, which would have a negative impact on the legitimacy of the website and the user experience.

WordPress Pre-installed

You don’t have to spend time downloading and setting up the CMS on the server because WordPress is already installed. You simply buy the plan and start building the website. This eliminates the need to worry about compatibility concerns and saves a ton of time.

Automatic WordPress Updates

Automatic WordPress updates are a key advantage of WordPress hosting. Every version that is made available includes numerous enhancements and bug fixes. Not only will you miss out on these crucial updates and bug fixes if your WordPress hosting instance is out-of-date, but you will also be more vulnerable to outside security threats. WP Hosting’s automatic update tool makes sure you are protected on this front.

Managed Services

The WP Hosting team handles all of your website maintenance needs. Without managed services, it falls to you, the website owner, to maintain the resource-intensive WordPress maintenance. The scalability of hosting resources like CPU, RAM, and storage space is just one of the several tasks that are included in managed services.

You will require additional hosting resources when your website gets more traffic, so plan accordingly. The managed team can handle this without you having to worry about the details.

Features of a Good Web/WordPress Hosting

Disk Space

You can use the provided disk space in all hosting accounts to store your website files. You need space for user-submitted material in addition to the files necessary for the website’s functionality. For instance, you require additional storage space for databases, emails, and other files. You can more accurately determine how much space you need by breaking out your usage.

FTP

FTP is a well-liked way for moving files, including web pages, from a local computer to a web host’s computer (servers), where they can be seen by users everywhere. Some servers only forbid you from creating and uploading your own pages.

They prefer that you create and submit your pages using their online site builder. Make sure you have FTP access or at the very least the capability to upload your pages via email or browser unless you are a complete newbie and intend to create a fairly simple site.

Uptime

Nothing is more annoying than a website that frequently goes offline. It detracts from the user experience on your website, lowers your search engine rating, and decreases sales. This may occur if other users on the server have an impact on your shared hosting, or if the servers are old and require ongoing maintenance. Look for a host that promises an uptime of at least 99.95% when selecting shared hosting.

The best hosting services provide great uptime by backing up your website in multiple server locations. A second server in the same data centre won’t keep your website up in the event of a natural disaster. But let’s say there are duplicate servers in numerous data centres on various continents or corners of the country. Your website has a considerably better chance of remaining up and accessible in that scenario.

Control Panel

A control panel’s function is to give you the freedom to handle different facets of your website hosting account on your own. A commercial host should provide you with a control panel so you can do routine maintenance without having to wait for technical support to carry out straightforward adjustments.

To manage email addresses, account passwords, and fundamental server setups, a Control Panel (cPanel) offers a straightforward dashboard. Going via a technical support representative or being required to pay an additional cost each time you need to complete routine administrative chores can be time-consuming.

Any cybercriminal can browse through millions of websites and networks each day in search of security holes thanks to sophisticated hacking software. Every website and system is impacted. The hacker will attempt to exploit whatever weaknesses they find.

Because of this, you require a web host who can offer a wide variety of tools to protect you from various threats. Strong firewalls, intrusion prevention, email scanning, spam eradication, SSL encryption, and other security measures are required. Weak security has terrifying repercussions. Your website could be hacked, used to spread malware, and your data stolen.

Support

Since problems might arise at the most inopportune times, it is vital to confirm that your host offers competent support around-the-clock. When you push the S.O.S. button, you’ll need someone to throw you a lifeline, and you’ll want to know that whoever answers the phone is technically qualified to assist you right away. Read internet testimonials from actual customers to get a sense of this.

The best web hosting providers provide 24/7 customer support through multiple channels, such as:

• Knowledge bases
• Forums
• Live chat
• Chatbots
• Email support
• Calls

Email Services

The majority of web hosting services provide email; nevertheless, you require more than just send and receive functionality. A trustworthy host will regularly ensure that your email server is not banned and will scan emails for spam and harmful software.

Check to see if your provider supports integration with programs like Outlook, offers enough storage, file sharing, mobile, and webmail access, as well as tools like calendars and tasks that are crucial for today’s organizations. There are three types of email accounts provided by hosting services

POP3 account: These are standard email accounts. The server has room for you to keep your emails. You can download your mail using an email application.

Forwarding emails: useful if you are using the email filtering services of another organization. Your emails are forwarded to another email address rather than being stored on your mail server.

Alias accounts: similar to setting up mail accounts for forwarding. Some servers let you set up a catch-all alias, which is frequently used to gather emails sent to addresses that your mail server doesn’t recognize.

SSL Certificates

You must ensure that customer transactions are secure if you sell anything online. To accomplish this, you should use an SSL certificate, which the majority of web servers will give you. If your website lacks SSL, Google will flag it as “not secure,” and payment gateways may forbid you from using their services to sell goods directly from your website; instead, you may have to divert customers to another website to process their payments.

Additionally, antivirus vendors have advised their clients to only use websites with SSL certificates due to the current Wi-Fi vulnerability known as KRACK (i.e. those that have addresses beginning with HTTPS). Make sure your site server offers SSL certificates if you are conducting online sales.

Backup Solution

A reliable host should offer a remote backup solution. What would happen if you lost all of your data, including the content of your website, emails, client information, financial information, and inventory records? This kind of catastrophe has the potential to bankrupt numerous businesses.

You require a web host that offers a backup service that satisfies your needs in order to safeguard yourself. For instance, you need ongoing backups if you sell things regularly to ensure that you do not lose any information about recent transactions.

Ensure that remote backups are kept on servers other than the ones where you are hosted. In this manner, even if your server crashes, your backups remain accessible.

There is a WordPress hosting company that will meet your demands, whether you want fast loading speeds, 24/7 support, managed or shared hosting, or daily backups.

We hope you learnt a lot about Web Hosting and WordPress Hosting. If you have any more questions, let us know in the comments!