What Is Web Hosting?
A description of web hosting and its use
Web hosting is a vital part of the system that allows you to access a web page. A web host provides a website owner with disk space on a special computer called a web server. This web server is located in a data center, where it is hooked into super fast connections, and protected with immense cooling systems, backup generators, and 24/7 monitoring.
By placing files on a web server, a website owner is making those files available to anyone who types in the website address such as "yourname.com". When a person types in the website address, the person is sending a request to the web server for the files that make up that website. The web server then sends the files back to the website visitor's browser, which displays them accordingly. The files sent back to the website visitor typically include images and HTML files (HTML files are a type of web page coding).
Thus, without web hosting a website cannot exist, because people can't access the files that make up that website. This makes choosing a good web host all the more important, because if the web server isn't very good and crashes a lot, the files that make up your website will many times be unavailable, and people will be unable to access it. This can lead to a loss in business, and other problems.
One thing to look out for is web hosts that oversell their services, because these types of web hosts tend to be less reliable. You can read more about overselling here: What Is Overselling?.
