What is Web Hosting?

What Is A Server?

A web server is a piece of equipment that runs and stores the information for one or more web sites. The servers share the information from the websites it houses with other servers around the world via the internet.

Every server on the Internet has a unique numerical IP (Internet Protocol) address. Imagine it like this: There is a huge storage facility and you rent a unit for all the extra furniture in your house. That storage unit has a unique number on it. So in this example, the storage unit is equal to your website and the identifying number on it is your computer IP address.

It is very easy to find your IP address at sites dedicated to providing that information for free.

What Is Web Hosting?

A Web Host is a company that offers individuals and organizations space on high-powered computers (web servers) to store (host) their website. It also makes the websites available to the world through the internet.

Simplistically, it works like this…

Person “A” has a free blog through Blogger.

All the information on the blog is stored on the Blogger servers.

Blogger is the web hosting company.

When Person “A” publishes a new post, the Blogger server makes the information available for reading to the World Wide Web.

So when Person “B” types in the URL of the blog of Person “A”, the request for information is sent to Blogger’s (web host) servers.

The servers, in turn, send the information on your blog to to Person “B”.

Price Of Web Hosting

Web hosting companies’ prices range from free to thousands of dollars each year. The variation is determined by the needs of the site. When considering a web host, it is important to research and understand:

• RAM
• Bandwidth
• Server CPU usage
• Database Connection

It is also possible to find the host of any website as well as the IP of the web host.