What is Web Hosting?
Hi, I’m Tony Messer & in this video I’m going to explain everything you need to know about web hosting.
At the end of this video you’ll have all the information you need to make an informed decision when you come to buy a hosting service.
OK, so the basics. Web Hosting is the home of your website. If you want a website you’ll need somewhere to host it. That’s exactly what a hosting service is.
There are different types of web hosting like shared hosting , reselle hostingr, Virtual Private Servers & Dedicated Servers.
But in this video I’ll cover shared hosting which is the most popular & most affordable type of hosting.
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So hosting is basically the computer & network infrastructure that keeps your website available across the internet.
It also provides other key services like email for you.
So how does it all work?
Well it all starts with a server. A server is basically a powerful computer that is kept in a highly secure, purpose built, multi-million pound facility called a datacentre.
The datacentre provides the necessary power and network connectivity with temperature control, backup & fire suppression systems and high levels of physical security.
Security is also important at the server level so the server is built with things like dual parts for critical components like hard disks so there is no single point of failure.
This is so that your website will always be available.
So when you order a hosting service what you’re ordering is the physical disk space on one of the servers as well as the bandwidth which is the network connection to the server.
Most of the time you will see hosting advertised in terms of Disk space and Bandwidth and is measured in GigaBytes like 5GB of space and 100GB of bandwidth.
The diskspace covers your website files including things like databases as well as your emails.
The monthly bandwidth is the network traffic to and from your web hosting and most of this will be email traffic that you send and receive but it will also include traffic to your website.
In order to manage your web hosting you’ll need a user friendly interface called a Control Panel. One of the most popular is called cPanel and this allows you to manage all aspects of your hosting such as setting up email addresses, managing domains, databases and loads of other stuff with an easy to use interface.
If you want to build your own website then you can use a Website Builder tool which is included and this allows non technical people to build a website using pre-made templates.
For more advanced users or if you have a web designer there is also a ton of pre-installed software for building more advanced websites as well as databases such as MySQL.
These free tools include popular applications like WordPress as well as advanced ecommerce tools like Prestashop & Magento so you can sell online.
Other security features are things like anti spam and data back up. These ensure that your emails always get through as well as keeping your data safe.
If you’re with one hosting company & you want to switch this is a very straightforward process called migration. Your files just need to be copied over & some small changes need to be made to your domain name.
So there you have it. That’s a quick overview of hosting.
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I hope you found this video useful on what web hosting is.
If you’ve got any questions or comments just leave them below – I always read them & I will get back to you.
