Web Hosting guide for beginners-all the basics explained

If you are just starting out with blogging, web hosting will seem difficult and technical. However, take it easy, once you understand a few basics, you will no longer feel that way.

After reading this article, you will know everything a blogger needs to know about web hosting.

So, let's get started:

What is web hosting?

Simply put, a web provider (web hosting company) helps to link and accessorize your website to the public.

Here's what you can do with a web provider:

Provides space for storing files, images, and other media (disk space).

Allows people to access stored files/images/media on demand (bandwidth).

To do so, web providers use what we refer to as 'servers'.

What is server web hosting?

A Server is a computer that stores files/media and serves files / media when requested.

The Server stays online 24/7 (UpTime) and can serve requests from multiple visitors (known as 'clients') simultaneously.

So, if there are 100 visitors visiting your blog at the same time, everyone can still see your blog.

When you write a blog post, you save the file to your web provider's server and it can now be accessed by anyone who visits your blog.

Server operating system - what does it mean?

Since a server is similar to a computer, it runs with an operating system known as Server OS. In general, there are two popular operating systems as follows:

Windows operating system-IIS (used only if you need to run ASP or ASP.Net on your site).

Linux-based operating system (Open source so free) (CentOS is the most popular)

As you might expect, the Linux operating system is the most popular of the two systems due to its open source nature.

Of all the Linux-based programs available, CentOS is the most popular. Most, if not all web hosting companies use CentOS.

Linux supports PHP which is the programming language used by WordPress and many other free CMS (content management systems) such as Joomla and Drupal. That is why you need a Linux-based server to run these systems.

So starting from this section, we will only focus on Linux-based servers.

Web server software - what is it?

A web server Program is installed on top of the operating system (OS) to make the system behave like a server. So, to explain clearly, the server runs on a Linux operating system such as CentOS on it installed server programs.

The most popular web server programs are as follows:

Apache HTTP server software (open source)

Litespeed

Nginx

lighttpd

It is beyond the reach of this article to discuss the differences between these types of software.

Simply said that for your blogging journey, it's best to stick with

Bandwidth: every time a visitor accesses your website, he or she is using server resources. This is caused by a server that needs to send all files/images/media to its computer.

The resources used to serve these files are counted as'bandwidth'.

The more visitors you have, the more server resources will be required, and therefore you will need more bandwidth.

When comparing web hosting, it makes sense to check how much bandwidth each service provides and at what cost.

Bandwidth is measured in Bytes and the value is generally given in GB (gigabytes) or TB (terabytes).

How much tape width do I need?

Bandwidth requirements vary based on the type of content you have on your blog.

For example, if your blog post contains only plain text, your byte width usage will be less. On the other hand, if your blog features high-resolution images (self-hosted images), your bandwidth requirements will be very high. If your blog has a self-hosted video, your byte width will jump. Therefore, a good idea is to host your videos using services such as Youtube.com or Vimeo.

You cannot calculate your byte width requirement in advance. Only after hosting your site can you find out how much byte width You are using and whether you need more.

However, don't worry, for a regular blog, The Byte width requirements are usually well within what the web host offers you.

What is server response time?

'Server response time' is the time taken by the server to respond to a request. In other words, the time taken by the server to load a website in the client's browser.

A faster response time is an indication of a good hosting company.

You can check the response time of your website using tools such as bitcatcha.com or Pingdom.com.

Note: remember that this is different from 'site load time' which is also known as Page Speed. Site load time depends on server response time plus the size/design of your web pages. If your web page has a lot of unoptimized media (such as unoptimized images), it will take longer to load.

You can check the page speed details of your site using the Google Page Speed Insights tool.

Is server location important?

Some hosts will have servers in different locations/countries and will give you the option to choose a location.

Always choose a location where you think most of your website visitors will be nearby.

If your blog is aimed at a global audience, you shouldn't worry too much about this

Inactivity time monitoring: it is not possible to monitor inactivity time manually, therefore you can use services such as uptimerobot.com or Statuscake.com.

These services will monitor your site and send you an email whenever your website experiences downtime. Then, you can contact your web hosting provider to let them know about it and have them fix the problem so they can fix it right away.

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