Web Hosting:
Why do you need a web host provider in the first place?
Web hosting is actually quite a simple concept. But...let's step back a moment and explain right from the start...
So, you've had your site designed and it's all ready to roll. You might even have registered your domain name or started thinking about the type of name you want for your site. With the help of today's technology, even technically inexperienced people can design and create their own web site and register a domain name. So, can we take this whole internet thing one step further and host our site ourselves on our own PC? Well, the basic answer is no! To get your site live and kicking on the internet you'll need the services of a web host provider.
Web hosting involves, quite simply, taking a site and a domain name and leasing space on a web server from your chosen provider.
Alternatively, you may even lease a server to yourself if you have large volumes of traffic or run the operation in-house. Most of us, however, will opt for a shared server deal with a hosting business. The company will lodge your site on a web server, make the necessary connections between your domain name and their server configurations and then you're up and running. Your site is out there on the internet for all to see (hopefully!). Click here to read more about virtual web hosting!
But, behind the simplicity of this concept there is actually a lot of quite hard core technology. The fact that you can connect to the internet via your PC does not make it suitable to act as your web hosting option even if it is technically powerful enough to do the job. Web servers are complex machines that need to be connected to the internet ALL of the time to do their job properly. They are ideally stored in secure environments that are climate-controlled to maintain optimum performance and for security reasons. They also need specialist software and expert technical expertise and the cost of owning and running one will run into thousands and thousands of dollars.
All of which goes some way to explain just why most of us will opt to use the facilities and the expertise of a specialist web hosting operation. It's just far cheaper and easier for the individual or small- to medium-sized business to cut their costs and outsource their web host services to a web host provider.
