Web hosting is a service which allows websites to be published to the internet making them accessible by anyone around the world via the World Wide Web. Web hosting companies buy or lease many servers in a data center which are connected to the internet, and sell partitioned space on the server, typically called Shared web hosting. This allows website owners to pay a small monthly fee for the hosting space as the cost is spread across many other websites hosted on the same server.
Website hosting providers usually offer far more than just space on a server. Many web hosts provide a full package to allow the website owner all the tools they require for their website. Most shared hosting plans come with a control panel which gives the user a simple to use interface to setup email address, add databases, FTP access to upload their website, backups, statistics, ecommerce shopping carts, and many scripts like WordPress blogging, or Joomla CMS. Many web hosting services also give you a free domain name, free advertising credits and a few other free bonuses so you choose their service.
With shared web hosting you do not need to have any system administrator skills, as the web host will provide you with full technical support and they will aim to keep your website up 100% of the time. So web hosting shouldn’t just be seen as space on a server, you should consider many other things when choosing a website hosting service.