Here at HostHuski, we get asked this question a lot. What’s the difference between domain hosting and web hosting? They sound the same, but they are very different and you need both to run a website. But what do they actually do? Well, let me go over them.
How The Internet Works
Every website has an IP Address, which is a series of number sets that tell internet browsers what website you’re looking for. It looks a little something like this: 123.45.67.890. In the early days of the internet, if you wanted to visit a website, you’d have to punch in the IP address, which meant remembering it. Obviously, this wasn’t easy. That’s where Domain Name Services came in.
Domain Hosting
Domain hosting is a service that associates a website name with the IP address. That way, when you want to look up a website, you just have to remember the URL. A domain name will be something like: www.yourwebsite.com. The part in the middle is the domain name. Anything that features that domain name will be associated with the IP address as well, so www.yourwebsite.com/thispage, or www.secondarybusiness.yourwebsite.com will also be pointed to that IP address. This makes it easier for your customers and visitors to access your site because they don’t have to remember the IP address. This has made it the foundation of modern web browsing.
What Am I Paying for With Domain Hosting?
When you buy domain hosting, you are buying access to the domain name. This allows you exclusive access to that domain and everything associated with it. No one else can use your website’s URL for their own purposes, or any variant of your URL that contains the primary domain name. It ensures protection against other website owners fraudulently imitating your website, or using your domain name for their own purposes. Without it, only your website’s IP address correctly identifies you. Since most major search engines will refuse to index and display results for webpages that only have IP addresses, it is essential to being seen and found on the internet today.
Domain hosting will get you exclusive access to your domain for as long as you continue to pay for it, but it’s useless without web hosting.
Web Hosting
Web hosting is a service that offers you server memory to store the files that control the appearance and function of your website. The HTML files that layout the text and images, the CSS files that manage the style consistency of each web-page, the javascript and PHP files that control the function and run apps and programs on your page: each of these are stored in folders on a server. Web hosting provides that server for you, letting browsers access those files for reading when they enter in your site’s domain name.
What Am I Paying For With Web Hosting?
With web hosting, you’re paying to be able to use a server. You don’t necessarily need to buy web hosting, as you can get your own server and host yourself. Many giant companies do this. The problem, however, is that owning, programming, and maintaining a server are all expensive and time consuming. This is especially true if you aren’t familiar with Linux, or other technical requirements of server administration.
Servers also require a lot of memory to run, so you can’t just have one on your main computer. They also need to be constantly online to allow continual access to everyone who visits your website. This takes a lot of electricity. Running your own web server is an expensive process that is only viable for the most profitable businesses.
Managed Hosting
Managed hosting is a valuable web hosting service add-on. Managed hosting provides an additional suite of tools to help you install and run WordPress, manage files and email, and troubleshoot problems. Managed hosting also gives you access to a tech team to help you solve problems should anything go wrong. While managed hosting does add to the overall cost, the amount of time and stress you save not having to worry about problems makes it well worth it for most people.
Splitting Up Your Hosting
Many web designers recommend keeping your domain and web hosting separated. There are a couple of reasons why you might want to do this. For one, separating the hosting means that if someone gets unauthorized access to one, they don’t get access to the other. It gives you some additional protection against hackers. Another can help prevent domain name loss when your subscription expires.
At HostHuski we offer both services, but we understand if you want to separate the two. That’s why we offer them as separate packages. If you’ve already bought your domain hosting, we can provide you with the web hosting to store your content. On the other hand, if you’ve got your web hosting set up, but need domain hosting, we can also hook you up with a good service.
Not All Hosting Is Made Equal
Many hosting companies offer a variety of deals. Some will offer “unlimited hosting” as a deal, but this is one of the great not-quite-truths that hosting companies tell people. In truth, hosting is always going to have some limitations to it. No server has unlimited space. These plans create an illusion of unlimited usage, but slow down your websites, enabling hosting companies to upsell you “better” plans.
Here at HostHuski, we are dedicated to providing reliable hosting services for your websites. We won’t try to trick you with plans that will slow down your website, but instead focus on giving you the best, most consistent quality.
We Give You What You Want
So, now that you know what the difference between web and domain hosting is, you know what you need from us. HostHuski provides both services at reasonable prices! We’ll help you buy up and maintain your domain hosting so you always have your website’s name for exclusive use, and we can also provide you with the server access for web hosting so you don’t need to shoulder all of those costs and concerns yourself. Whichever service you need, you can get it from us!
Take a look at our services for yourself and see how HostHuski helps you build and maintain a strong website! Then get in touch and we’ll help you get started!