If you’ve ever browsed the World Wide Web and
wondered how you could stake your claim on the Internet, like the
millions of others that have done so already, then web hosting can
provide you with the services to do just that. The Internet is a great
way of sharing information and it is possible for you to take a portion
of the web and make it your own. This article introduces the term “web
hosting” and provides some useful tips for web development once you’ve
obtained some web space.
What is the World Wide Web?
The
“World Wide Web” is the network of computers from all over the world
that communicate with each other using the HTTP protocol, a language
that allows the transmission of web documents. Be careful as this term
is not synonymous with the “Internet” because it is defined as a network
of networks, where the computers communicate with protocols other than
HTTP. The web is what you see on your Internet browser, the web pages
complete with graphics, sound and other information. All this has got to
come from somewhere, and this is where web hosting comes in.
Web Hosting
The
information that you see from your web browser is contained in web
pages. These web pages are kept on computers called web servers. Web
hosting is about the storage of the web pages so that people can access
them. It is possible to host your own websites yourself but the reasons
stopping most people doing this is that there are issues to consider
with having the right hardware and software to successfully host your
web pages. Your web pages will take a certain amount of space, users
will need to download each page to view them and your Internet
connection needs to be fast to offer good performance to your viewers.
Using specialised companies that offer web hosting capabilities on their
web servers will take most of these worries away from you but you will
need to choose wisely and weigh up the costs and your needs. In addition
to having access to a web server, you will also need to register a
domain name (for a cost) that uniquely identifies your website.
What Web Hosting Can Do For You
The
most basic service that web hosting offers is that it exposes your web
pages for others to see. The other services are: email capabilities that
allow for email to be received and sent from your server; database
capabilities that allow for large amounts of information to be updated
and accessed on the web; and dynamic content which allows for users to
interact with the web pages you’ve made.
