Every website on the internet is powered by web hosting. There are many different types of website hosting, but they all have the same purpose; to deliver websites and information when users request them. No matter what type of web hosting is used, they are all set up in similar ways. But how exactly does web hosting work, and why is it so important?
Different types of Web Hosting
Every website that we see on the internet will be stored on a server in a data centre which are all located around the world. For a server to function it needs a connection to the internet (like our own devices are) and plenty of electricity. When you type in a web address (like https://google.com), that is the unique domain name of that website, think of this as a digital address to where that website lives. Any business or individual can buy web hosting services. Let’s explore the different types of web hosting:
1. Shared Hosting
This is the most common and affordable type of web hosting. Shared hosting is where your website is shared on a server with other websites, sharing the same resources. Imagine your home computer with your photos and other files on it. With a shared server this is set up the same way, but instead of your files, there are website files. Every customer has an allocated account and server resources (i.e disk space, memory, etc), which is perfect for smaller websites. If you have a larger website, the chances are that you will need another web hosting solution.
2. VPS (Virtual Private Server)
A VPS or Virtual Private Server allows customers to have their own virtual server within a shared physical server. Unlike shared web hosting, a VPS allows more flexibility and access to its own operating system and environment. This solution is perfect for those who have outgrown shared hosting, but are not yet ready to go to the next bigger solution.
3. Dedicated Servers
Dedicated Servers are for huge websites that need a very high amount of resources. The difference between a VPS and a Dedicated Server is that instead of having a portion of the server, you would have the whole server to yourself. These can be very costly and only recommended if you need them and have a huge website with a high amount of traffic.
Why is Web Hosting so important?
Now that we have gone through the main different types of web hosting, let’s find out why web hosting is so important. As mentioned at the start of this article, every single website on the internet is powered by web hosting. Without data centres and servers housing our website content, there would be nothing to look at online and therefore, the internet would be a very different place to what it is today.
Of course, any household computer with access to the internet would be capable of hosting website content, but that would mean you would need to do everything yourself, and have your computer on 24/7. Would you want to pay that electricity bill? I certainly wouldn’t, especially in the current cost of living crisis.
Sustainable Web Hosting
Powering a data centre is huge! In 2017 a report revealed that the entire data centre industry uses over 90 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year!
This is a huge problem and has a massive impact on the environment and the planet. Sustainable web hosting is the solution to this. Using renewable energy resources (such as wind, solar and hydro energy) allows data centres to use clean energy to power them. This in turn emits much less carbon than using dirty energy from fossil fuels.
Sadly, not many web hosting companies are following the sustainable approach. The Green Hosting directory lists every web host that offers sustainable web hosting. Our sustainable host of choice is Krystal. They have planted over 1 million trees and were the first to reach this mark in the Million Tree Pledge.
At N0BS Agency, we want to do everything we can to be more sustainable, including creating low-carbon websites. We’ve even rebuilt our website to practice what we preach and to show everyone that it is possible to have an exciting and attractive website without emitting huge amounts of carbon.
Summary
To summarize, web hosting is the key to viewing every website online. Without it, we wouldn’t have the internet that we know today to connect and find information online. No matter what solution you need, we always highly recommend you choose a sustainable web hosting provider to help make our planet cleaner and greener.