Web hosting is one of the basic technologies of the Internet – no websites without web hosting. Business owners used to mostly use their own servers for hosting. But nowadays, business users are increasingly faced with the decision of whether alternative models should be considered. After all, the best cost-benefit balance is to be achieved. And even private website operators cannot avoid a basic understanding of web hosting if they want to choose a suitable provider and the right product.
Web hosting: definition of a basic element of the Internet
What does hosting mean? In a nutshell: Web hosting refers to the provision of storage space (web space) for publishing websites.
Websites are similar to text documents in this respect. In order to be able to call up documents again and again, they can be stored on the hard disk of the computer. To ensure that website content can be accessed at any time and from anywhere in the world, it must also be stored – not on a local computer, however, but on a powerful server that is connected to the Internet around the clock. In this way, the website created is available online at all times and the content can be accessed by users worldwide. Such servers are usually provided by professional web hosting providers.
Who needs web hosting?
Anyone who wants to publish a website on the Internet must – in whatever form – make use of web hosting. Whether it’s a blog, a corporate website with CMS, an online store or an online magazine – web hosting is part of the technological basis for publishing content on the web.
It does not matter whether it is a private or professional online project. For companies, it can make economic sense to operate their own server through which they place their website on the Internet. For private individuals, the costs of operating their own server are usually too high, so they rent web space from a provider. For companies, too, it can be worthwhile in the overall view to use external web hosting.