What is web hosting and a web server?

To make your web site available to the public, you need a web server to essentially host or house your web site. Web hosting is a service where a web hosting provider grants you space on a web server that houses your website and makes it available for viewing on the web.

A website has to be placed on a web server that has a dedicated connection to the web so that web users can successfully view it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

What is a web server you might ask; A web server is simply a computer that has web server software installed. Web server software communicates with web browsers (Internet Explorer/Google Chrome) and delivers the webpages that web users request when they type in the domain name of a website (www.mywebsite.com) or click on a link to go to another web page.

There are a few free web server software packages and also some paid ones that you’ll be able to find on the web, however if choose to host your own website yourself by installing your own web server in-house, you would definitely require some technical knowledge to set up and configure your own web server.

Alternatively there are many web hosting services available that offers you web hosting services at very affordable rates.

Web publishing is that action of placing your completed website on a web server and integrating it with your domain name (www.mywebsite.com) so that web users can type in your web site domain name and arrive at your web site homepage. Web publishing is usually done by the web designer or web developer that created your website.

Web publishing also requires knowing some technical details regarding how to connect to web servers and place the final web site’s pages and associated files on the web server for viewing by the general public.

Some of the web hosting providers that we know of include; Lunerpages, Host Monster, Godaddy, HostGator and Globat. Each of the providers offers different web hosting packages and we always recommend consulting a professional web design company before you decide which web hosting service you want to host your web site on.

We receive compensation from one of the web hosting services listed in this tutorial.

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