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Website hosting is essential for getting a website live on the internet. It is a service offered by companies for storing the files of the website which can be easily accessed through a web browser. The website files are stored on a server which is maintained by the website hosting company. For a better understanding of the functioning of websites, let us first understand what is web hosting and how does it work.

What is Website Hosting?

A company which offers services and technologies required for viewing the website on the internet is called a web host or web hosting service provider. They provide storage for hosting or storing all the files of the website on specialized giant computers called servers. Each time an internet user types your website address in the browser, your computer will connect to the server and your web pages will be delivered on the user’s computer or phone through the browser.

Purchasing a website hosting service means buying a storage space for storing your website files which can be accessed anytime through a web browser to view the website live on the internet. Most businesses do not own servers, so they prefer renting out the server space from web hosting companies.

What is a Server?

A server is a physical computer which is very huge in size. It runs nonstop, 24/7 enabling uninterrupted file access for your website. All the required hardware and software for running a website are preloaded on the servers. The website hosting company takes care of the maintenance and security of the server. It installs and runs the software which helps in ready access of the website files by website browsers, like Google Chrome or Firefox or Internet Explorer.

How does Web Hosting Work?

As you know that a website is nothing but a compilation of different files. When a website is developed, a storage place is required for storing all these files together so that they can be easily accessed when a user types your website address to visit it.  This storage place where all website files are stored is the hosting company’s server.

All the media, files, databases etc. of the website are stored on the server. How much storage space is available for your website is dependent on the hosting plan you have chosen. If you have just launched a website then maybe you will be required to rent only a portion of the server, but as your web traffic increases and the content and data on the websites increase, you can upgrade to higher storage space or rent an entire server. If you’re just getting started online, then you’ll probably just be renting a portion of a server that you’re sharing with other websites.

On signing up for a web hosting package your website will get access to the server through a solution like cPanel, which makes uploading of your files very easy. Or one can use a CMS like Joomla or WordPress for easy building of your site. Check out this article on Joomla VS Wordpress.

To have a fully running website first you will need to register a domain name. On purchasing the domain name you need to point it towards your server, this will let the web browsers know that the files for this specific domain name are located at the said server. This is called domain hosting.

Once the domain hosting is completed whenever an individual will type your domain name or click on a link to reach your website, the web browser procures the files from the server and displays it on the viewer's screen. This whole process should not take more than a few seconds, if it is taking longer than that then you may either need to work on your website speed or you may need to change your website host.  

What are the types of Web Hosting and how do they work?

Most of the website hosting companies offer various types of web hosting services in order to meet the requirements of different clients. The most popular types of Website hosting are:

• Shared hosting

The shared type of hosting is an excellent solution for meeting the hosting needs of small businesses and personal blog websites. Under the shared hosting, one server is shared by many clients or many websites or web pages. Websites which opt for shared hosting have to share all the servers’ resources like the memory, computing power, disk space etc.

• VPS hosting

VPS Hosting means Virtual Private Server hosting. Under this service similar to shared hosting the website shares the server with other users.  However, the main difference is that in VPS hosting the host assigns separate partitions for your website and data on that server. Which means though sharing the server, you will be able assigned a dedicated server space along with a specific amount of resources and memory. VPS hosting is ideal for medium-sized businesses that are rapidly growing both in business and inbound web traffic.

• Cloud hosting

Presently Cloud hosting is considered the most reliable hosting solution. Under cloud hosting, your hosting company will provide you with a group of servers, and all your resources and files are replicated and stored on each server.

This is very useful if one of the cloud servers is having some issue or has a lot of traffic, the traffic is automatically routed to another server in your cluster. This helps in avoiding any downtime. This type of hosting is ideal for websites having huge web traffic.

• WordPress hosting

WordPress hosting is a type of shared hosting which has been specifically created for WordPress site owners. The server is dedicated only for WordPress website and it comes with pre-installed plugins for critical tasks, like caching and security.

• Dedicated hosting

Dedicated hosting means owning a physical server that is solely dedicated to your website. This gives you incredible flexibility in managing the website. The server can be configured as per your requirement, you also have the choice to choose the operating system and software whereby setting up the complete hosting environment as per your needs. Dedicated hosting is ideal for large businesses dealing in heavy web traffic. Renting a dedicated server is like owning your own personal server.

It is difficult for an entrepreneur to manage and perfectly allocate budgets for different aspects of the business. Therefore we at QuickChilli have been working towards providing top class cheap web hosting and web designing services to our clients.

Over the years we have designed and hosted hundreds of websites for our clients. We offer web hosting services on shared, virtual or dedicated cloud-based servers according to our client’s requirements

Customers who are looking for web hosting services can contact us at +44 (0)7956 264460 or +44 (0)208 979 4898, we would like to assist you.