Website Hosting

What is web hosting?

Every website that you visit consists of a domain name and a web host. The easiest way to picture it is to think of the domain name as the address and the web hosting as the physical building.

your web browser basically queries that domain name (i.e. securemetechnologies.com) and asks where the website is hosted. The browser then loads up the contents that are stored there.

Web hosting is effectively the process of using a server to host a website, and there are all sorts of different types of web hosting available out there on the market.  just like most web hosts offer different packages so that their customers can pay for just the resources that they need. The more popular the website is, the more resources it’s likely to need to function effectively.

Yes! Web hosting comes in all different shapes and sizes, with different setups suitable for different types of webmaster. In general hosting can be broken up into the following categories:

Shared Hosting: This is usually the cheapest form of website hosting because it’s the most economical when it comes to the use of hardware. Shared hosting means that multiple different websites are all hosted on the same server, with each user being allocated a certain amount of storage space and a certain amount of resources. This is often the best option for hobbyists and bloggers.

VPS Hosting: A virtual private server (VPS) setup is like a shared hosting setup on steroids. It generally uses more powerful hardware and takes its name from the fact that while multiple websites are being stored on the same physical hardware, each uses virtualisation software to allow them to operate independently as though they were dedicated mini-servers.

Dedicated Hosting: Dedicated hosting is a good choice for the pros, and like its name suggests, it involves the use of a server that’s dedicated to a single website. In other words, unlike shared and VPS hosting, the user doesn’t have to share storage space and resources with other people and they have a physical piece of hardware all to themselves.

Good question! A virtual private server (VPS) is a little bit like a cross between shared hosting and a dedicated server. It’s not quite the best of both worlds, but it is a good compromise and it can help you to keep costs down. Some people compare shared hosting to living in an apartment complex and VPS hosting to living in a condo.

With shared hosting, you’re sharing a server and that server’s resources with a bunch of other websites. With a VPS, you’re still sharing some resources because that’s determined by the hardware, but the software itself is set up in such a way that one machine acts like multiple different servers, providing a different virtual server for every user.

For webmasters, using a VPS means that they get the administrative power of a dedicated hosting setup, including the ability to customize their server to suit them.

You might already be familiar with the term ‘bandwidth’ from your broadband provider. At its most simple level, bandwidth is a term that refers to how much data can pass along an internet connection.

When a user accesses your website, they send a request to the server and the server responds by literally serving up your website. Think of it as like turning on a tap. The more that people visit your website, the more water is flowing along the pipe, until you reach a point at which the pipe is full of water and it’s running at full capacity.

The same idea applies to your website. If too many people are trying to access it at the same time, the pipe is filled up and the site starts to slow down and even to stop working altogether. And your hosting bandwidth is what determines the width of that pipe.

Of course! We’re all about helping our customers to get their businesses off the ground, and that means that we support e-commerce sites on any of our plans. You can also take advantage of our auto-installers to set up a range of content management systems (CMS) and e-commerce platforms.