Introduction to Web Hosting
In the most basic sense, a web host is a computer where web pages of a website are uploaded so that they show up on the internet. This 24-hour running computer is also known as a server. To make any website visible to online users, it has to be hosted by this web server. Your own computer can act as a web server if it’s connected to a network, but it’s more common for website publishers to copy their work to an Internet Service Provider, or ISP. An ISP can provide web hosting for your website pages, which includes storing your web site on a public server, and may also include email services and domain name registration.
It is wise to do research on different hosting providers before choosing one, because they provide multiple hosting plans at different prices. Any good web host will allow you to upgrade a plan if later needed, so don’t feel pressure to start off with an expensive plan that includes services you may or may not end up using. The website server is kind of a space that you lease for your online business or organization. Without a website server you don’t have that space for your web pages or files to reside, which means your clients have no pages to download and view upon entering your domain name in their browser.
The web pages that are stored in the server are what your clients see when they visit your website. The site files are the same as any other file you normally use, like a .jpg photograph, but they also include website files like .php (PHP scripts) or .html files (html pages). The web hosting server knows how to read these files which is important because they describe how the web page or website looks. The web hosting server does this by instructing the server to do a series of computations like understanding what blog article it’s supposed to send back to the viewer.
When we design and make a website for our customers, we also offer them the maintenance and hosting of the website. For the customers who want to host their website by themselves buying a hosting service through a web hosting company, we suggest Hostgator.com where we can even offer a coupon code, ArpiDesign994 which will save you $9.94 or ArpiDesign25 to save 25% upon signing up for their web hosting services.