What is web hosting?

Think about the files and folders on your computer. They are stored on the hard disk of your desktop or laptop computer, ready for you to access them whenever you like. A web page is a file, just like your word processing documents. Just as your word processing documents require your computer to store them, all web pages require a computer to store them. The difference is that web pages are generally intended to be seen by the general public. To enable this, the computer on which they must be stored must be of a much higher specification than your desktop PC, and must be connected to the Internet through a very powerful link.

A computer on which web pages are stored is called a web server (because it serves pages, on request, to users on the Internet). Collectively a bunch of web pages is a web site, and collectively all the web pages in the world form the World Wide Web (WWW).

The job of making web sites and web pages available to many users is called web hosting. We sometimes like to call the product we offer web space, because we are selling “space” on the Internet for you to host your web site. Web space is measured in megabytes, in exactly the same way as the space on your own computer is measured.

Why do I need web hosting?

It is technically possible to connect your own PC or Mac to the Internet and have it serve pages. But it is not practical since usually a home-based Internet connection is not powerful enough to serve many users at the same time.

For this reason, web hosting companies exist. They own and maintain very powerful web servers which store your web pages. They connect these web servers to the Internet by very powerful connections, enabling many web users to access your web pages at the same time.

If you want to run a web site you need web hosting because unless you’ve got unlimited funds you would not be able to afford the web servers and connections necessary.