What is web hosting?
I’ll talk about how to actually choose a web host in a future post, but first - what is a web host and why do you need one?
In a previous post I talked about domain names and URLs. To further the analogy of a house started there …
If a domain name is your actual name/name of your business and the URL is the actual address (123 Main St.), the host is the actual physical house. That is, where you actually have your stuff (in this case the files that make up your website).
The reason you need a web host to house your files versus just having them on your computer is that in order for other people to find your website (your house) it needs to be part of the world wide system of addressing and finding sites which is known as the Domain Name System (DNS). The DNS is actually the big ole phone book of the Internet. It associates the domain names with actual IP Addresses (which is a unique street address for a given computer on the Internet).
Your host has a set of IP addresses which then often go through another filtering process to ultimately find and display your particular set of files which make up your website. This is because a web host might have many many sites (domain names) hosted on one particular computer (IP Address) and it needs to find your particular subaddress so it can display the right files. It wouldn’t make sense to have one computer for each site on the web, right? We wouldn’t even have space to walk the planet if that were the case! That is why this secondary filtering needs to happen.
The other reason you need a web host besides this all important phone book and addressing dance is that a web host is 1) always on and available and 2) equipped with software and hardware that enables all this to happen. It is also set up in such a way to handle the inherent security risks that come with being on the web and open for business.
So, having a web host for your site is a “must-have” regardless of who you are (unless of course you’re getting into the business of becoming your own web host but heck even some of the largest companies in the world don’t want to do that so they hire the experts to do it for them). In my next article I’ll give you some tips on what to look for in a web host.
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