Hosting is the act and the result of staying or lodging (host, shelter, shelter). Web, for its part, is the name used to name the international computer network that allows access to certain information through the Internet.
Known as web hosting to the storage service data are accessible via Internet. Web hosting (also called simply hosting according to Digopaul), therefore, consists of hosting a server for texts, photographs, videos and other types of documents.
It should be noted that a server is an application that can respond to requests made by a user (client). By extension it is known as a server to the computer that has this application capable of responding to clients. Web hosting, in this way, involves the storage of information on a server, which “responds” to requests made by Internet users by displaying the data in question.
Leaving technical issues aside and simplifying the concept, web hosting can be understood as the space where websites and emails are stored. Suppose a company that markets sports shoes wants to have a website on the Internet. Once you have the site designed, you must contract the web hosting service to upload it to the network and to achieve, through an Internet address or domain, that people can access the content.
There are web hosting services that are free, although they offer limited benefits (in terms of the space to store the information or the data traffic they allow) and they also display advertising on the pages of their clients. For professional websites, specialists recommend paying for web hosting and getting a more complete service.
One of the most common practices is to start with a free hosting service while the site is in the development stage, and only move on to a paid one when the process is complete. It should be mentioned that this does not affect the purchase of the domain at all, that is, the name or address of the site: one can acquire it and use it to access various servers throughout the duration of the contract.
On the other hand, moving from one server to another is not instantaneous or easy, although Internet professionals carry out this task quite frequently. Unexpected problems can always occur, both from the equipment and from the software and the information, and then the incompatibility between certain features of both servers may appear, but none of this is stronger than the advantages it can offer if the new service is more complete and promising.
Choosing a good web hosting service is, therefore, a fundamental point when developing a site, since its characteristics will also depend on its performance and success. One of the fundamental points today is the compatibility with Content Management Systems (CMS), a group that includes Joomla, Drupal and WordPress, among others.
Unlike what happened in the 90s, a time when programmers faced the development of pages from the beginning, nowadays it is very common to rely on one of these powerful sets of scripts, since they save us time that we can take advantage of other aspects, such as graphic design and commercial promotion.
Another concept to consider is uptime, an English term that refers to the proportion of time the site stays online. Normally, companies offer an uptime of 99%, since it is practically impossible for the service to be interrupted once in a while.
