In simple terms web hosting is renting space on the internet to store your website. We need physical space in our homes to store belongings, and a website needs a space on the internet to keep data like pictures and text so it can exist and be accessible to others.
When someone types your website’s address (like www.simplydigitalworld.com) into their web browser, the hosting service shows your website’s files to their computer, allowing them to see your site.
This is how any functioning website is accessible to anyone with an internet connection, 24/7.
Oh, you’re asking what is the story of web hosting? Let’s take a brief dive, luckily it all started not that long ago (yet!)
In the early 1990s, the World Wide Web (WWW) began to develop as a platform for sharing information using hypertext and hyperlinks.
Initially, websites were simple and consisted mainly of static HTML pages with basic text and images.
Many early websites were self-hosted by individuals or organizations running their own servers. This required technical expertise and infrastructure.
As websites grew in complexity and popularity, the demand for professional web hosting services increased in the late 1990s – early 2000s.
Shared hosting emerged as a popular option, where multiple websites were hosted on the same server, sharing resources like CPU, memory, and disk space.
Hosting providers started offering control panels (like cPanel) to simplify server management and website administration for users without technical expertise.
In the mid-2000s dedicated hosting became available, offering entire servers dedicated to a single customer’s website(s). VPS hosting emerged as a cost-effective alternative, providing virtualized servers with dedicated resources.
Cloud computing technologies revolutionized web hosting by offering scalability, flexibility, and reliability through virtualized resources across multiple servers. This allowed websites to handle fluctuating traffic more efficiently.
Managed hosting services became popular, where hosting providers manage server maintenance, security, and technical support for customers. Specialized hosting services for specific platforms (like WordPress hosting) also became widespread.
With growing environmental awareness, some hosting providers offer “green hosting” options, using renewable energy sources to power data centers.