When you type a web address into your browser, the website you see is delivered to you via servers for hosting websites that are hosted and maintained by a web hosting provider. But what exactly goes on behind the scenes when you click on a link?
This article will provide an overview of key web hosting concepts to help demystify the technical aspects of getting a website online.
What are Web Hosting Services?
It’s a service that makes your website accessible online. All of the files, pictures, videos, and code that comprise your website are stored there. Nobody would be able to access your website without web hosting.
Web hosting can be compared to renting a house for your website. Your website needs a place on the internet, just like you need a place to live. That space is made available to you by a hosting company on a specialised computer known as a server. Every time someone visits your website, the files are stored on that server securely and are prepared to load.
Types of Web Hosting Services
There are different types of web hosting services. Each one has its pros and cons.
1. Shared Hosting
With shared hosting, many websites share space on a single server. The websites split the server’s resources like RAM, storage space and processing power. This is an affordable option for personal websites or small businesses that don’t get much traffic.
However, since resources are shared, website performance can slow down as more sites use the server. There is also limited flexibility to customise the server.
2. VPS (Virtual Private Server) Hosting
It is a physical server is split into multiple “virtual” servers. Each website gets its own virtual server with dedicated resources allotted to it. This provides more flexibility and faster performance than shared hosting. Websites on VPS hosting can better handle spikes in traffic. However, VPS hosting costs more than shared hosting since the resources are not shared with other sites.
3. Dedicated Server Hosting
With dedicated hosting, a client rents an entire physical server just for their website. No other sites share the server. This gives complete control over the server and all its resources. Performance is high-speed since no resources are being shared.
However, dedicated hosting is expensive as clients pay for the whole server. It also requires technical expertise to manage the server.
4. Cloud Hosting
In cloud hosting, a site is not restricted to a single server; instead, multiple servers for hosting websites are present in a network. The cluster of servers may expand or contract in order to react to the traffic patterns. It is easy to expand or contract resources such as disk space and bandwidth. The site can remain online even when one of the servers malfunctions, since the other servers will handle it.
This makes cloud hosting flexible and reliable. However, it can be more complex to set up than regular dedicated hosting.
What Happens Behind the Scenes?
The moment someone opens your site, several things happen in the background, silently and within milliseconds.
Here’s a simplified view of what goes on:
- The browser sends a request to the Domain Name System (DNS)
- DNS matches your domain with the correct server IP
- The server receives the request and locates the right content
- That content is sent back to the user’s browser, which displays it
This exchange is fast and seamless, but it only works well if your hosting provider maintains a healthy backend setup – powerful servers, secure systems, and regular maintenance.
Conclusion
Now that you know what the behind-the-scenes of web hosting services look like, you can make well-informed hosting-related decisions for your online venture! Opting for a quality, reliable hosting provider lays the groundwork for your website or web application to thrive.