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Web Hosting Defined |
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If you want to take part in the internet as a business, information resource, directory, or as a hobbyist wanting to share data, information and knowledge with the many people and communities on the internet, you have to contain this in a central spot on the internet. You have to own a piece of space in cyberspace. In order to own a piece of cyberspace you will need to find a reliable web host.
A web host is a company that has computers that are hooked up to the internet 24/7. These computers are called servers and they are assigned IP numbers in order that they may be found by other computers hooked up to the internet. It is on these servers that all your web files are stored, be they HTML files (web pages), graphic files, CSS files, Javascripts or whatever. |
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Basically what happens is when you type a web address into the address bar of your browser and then hit Go, your browser sends out a request to 'get' that web page. The request travels across the internet to the appropriate web server and attempts to locate the web page on that server. If the request is successful (web page exists) then that web page will load (or download) into your web browser.
The web hosting servers that store and serve the web pages to the internet cost money to set up, configure and maintain and thus web hosting providers that own these servers typically charge you a monthly or yearly fee to, at the very least: 1. Allow you to save your web files to their web server (called uploading) 2. Perpetually be ready to serve them up to the internet (make available for downloading)
Compare The Top Web Hosting Companies Here
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