What is a Web Host with The Computer Gal: Missoula, Montana

A Web Host is a company that maintains and provides services on web servers. A web server is the computer that holds your web site where your viewers can get to it with their browsers. Your web site has to be stored on a web server or no one else, but you, can get to it. The web server is like the distribution warehouse for your web site. You build your web site on your own (or a designer's) computer and send a copy of it to the web server (which is run by your web hosting company.)

The term web server often refers to two different things: 1) a web server is the computer where your web site lives. 2) a web server is the program (software package) that lets the computer receive requests for web pages and that packages up those web pages and sends them out to your viewers. For this page the words web server will refer to the whole function of delivering your pages.

When you get a web host, what you are really doing is renting part of a computer to hold and deliver your web site. Your site might share the same computer with hundreds of other web sites that have nothing to do with you (this is called shared hosting.) It's like renting office space. Some services come with the office space and others don't. For example, you can build your own web site, or you can have someone else do it. Who builds it has nothing to do with the web server. Sometimes, however, the same company that owns your web server may have services to build your site too. Generally, if something is wrong with the design of your site - it's up to you or your designer to fix it, not your web host. If no one can get to your site through their browser, however, that might be a problem for the hosting company.

Web hosts provide many services. One service is the amount of space they allow for your account. You may be allowed to store 1 GB (gigabyte) of files in your server space. One GB is about 1 billion bytes. A byte is the equivalent to one character on your keyboard. If you figure that one web page should fit into about 75KB (kilobytes = about 1000 bytes) for short download time, that's enough storage for quite a lot of web pages. However, if you use email services, database services and other services of your web host, those will probably use part of your server space too.

Web hosting companies have many kinds of servers, including web servers, mail servers, and database servers. Your hosting account may or may not include one or more databases. However, most web hosting companies offer database hosting, even if you have to pay extra for it. Your web hosting company should also provide email as part of your package so that you can have email addresses that use your domain name.