How does the hosting of a website work?

Have you decided to create a website to develop your business? You will therefore have to choose a host for your site.

To successfully pass this step, it is recommended to compare the different web hosting services with each other and ask yourself the right questions to make the right choice.

Here are the topics that we will cover in this article:

1. What is web hosting?
2. The different solutions to host your professional website
3. Five criteria for choosing the right site hosting

WHAT IS WEB HOSTING?

In computer terminology, the web host is a company that owns servers. The servers are sort of big computers that will store all the information and files of your website (texts, images, design, etc.) into “Database” systems. Thanks to this hosting service, your site will subsequently be accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Choosing your host is building the foundations of your professional website. If it is efficient and solid, then you will start on a healthy basis.

These hosting companies offer various more or less efficient and expensive services depending on your needs. For example, the bandwidth quality that influences the speed of loading of the pages of a site will depend on this site’s size. If you have an e-commerce site with more than 1000 pages, it will be necessary to ensure that the loading speed is optimal to ensure your visitors’ smooth navigation. To do this, you will then need to choose a web host offering a full service with excellent bandwidth.

Likewise, remember to look at the quality of customer service because if the tech support team is quick to resolve a hosting-related issue, there will be little or no impact on your site. It is a major asset to the credibility and notoriety of your site.

THE DIFFERENT SOLUTIONS TO HOST YOUR PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE

It’s important to understand how the different web hosting types work to choose the right for you, based on your current and future needs.

Shared hosting

Your website is stored with other websites on the same web server. It is the ideal solution for a professional showcase site. In terms of quality/price, it is the solution to choose when you are an independent professional, a VSE, or an SME with less than 10,000 visitors/month on its site.

Accommodation on a dedicated server

Here, your site is on a server that you have rented or purchased. If you plan a very large site with more than 10,000 visitors/month, this solution is ideal but is very expensive. If you have several sites, you can put them on the same server. This hosting is often preferred by large companies with a team dedicated to hosting the site.

VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting

The server is shared, but this is limited to 20 sites. All sites on the same server have the same memory capacity and disk space. It is an egalitarian solution, unlike the shared server. You are therefore limited in the development capacities of your site. This solution is preferred for test sites or small sites that will not change or very little.

Cloud hosting

The server that hosts the data can access resources outside the server used. In the example where one of them goes down, other dedicated servers intervene to make everything work, unlike other solutions that only use one server. This type of accommodation is, however, more fragile in terms of security.

Hosting one or more websites for free is possible: part of a server is lent to you free of charge. In return, the host has advertising space on your site, and the money collected by these advertisements goes to him. Technical support and regular updates are not always guaranteed in the event of a problem.

For creating your website, we recommend that you choose a turnkey service like that of Simplébo, which ensures you complete your web hosting by a professional.

5 CRITERIA FOR CHOOSING THE RIGHT WEBSITE HOSTING

Thinking about what you need is essential to find the right shoe for you. From a simple web page to a high traffic e-commerce site, hosting solutions have very different features and costs.

However, pay close attention to these criteria when making your choice:

1. Your allocated storage space is the current and future amount of data needed to run your site. We cannot give you a minimum since it depends on the size of your site. However, we consider that it takes an average high 500MB for a showcase site of ten pages without counting backups’ storage.
2. Bandwidth. For this, you must have a good estimate of the number of visitors to the site. In all cases, you must have sufficient bandwidth to ensure optimal access to your website. Often, web hosts offer unlimited bandwidth service but compensate with limited storage space.
3. Access to a messaging service. Some web hosts offer you an email service that can be useful to you. For example, if you are creating your law firm’s website, you might need a professional email address.
4. The SSL certificate. It guarantees the security of the hosted content and fights against data piracy. Hosts tend to offer it automatically in all their subscriptions. Please do not ignore it; it is imperative to check it before choosing your host. The SSL certificate on your site is materialized by the word HTTPS and a padlock located to the left of your site name in the URL bar of your web browser.
5. The ecological footprint of the webserver. For your content to be hosted, large computers store your files. These big machines need electricity to run. Also, to prevent overheating and fires, air conditioners run at full speed 24 hours a day. For example, a data center consumes as much electricity as 30,000 European inhabitants. This is called digital pollution. If you also want to limit your site’s ecological impact, start by choosing a host from your country with a clear ecological charter and recognized labels, as we do with ours. At Simplébo, we do everything to limit our websites’ ecological impact and make our customers aware of these environmental issues, as you can read in our CSR charter.

Thanks to the host, your website is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Based on this observation, making a comparison of hosting providers is not a step to be taken lightly, even before creating a website.

To do this, it is essential to take stock of your needs. So if you are building your professional site on your own, we recommend paying attention to all technical and environmental aspects before you start.

Suppose you have decided to hire a professional to build your website. In that case, we offer a web design and development service, including full hosting of your site with a dedicated technical team in the event of a problem.

In the case of a site redesign, we take care (if you wish) of the migration of your site on our servers for more agility.