Websites live in a network of computers, or servers, called the internet. We can think of websites as houses, the servers that they live in as plots of land, and the connections that run between them as roads and highways.
A website can live on a server with other websites, or on a server by itself, or even span several servers. A building that manages thousands of servers is called a "server farm".
What you choose for your website will be determined by many factors. A large factor in this decision is usually cost and convenience. You might not be able to afford to run your own server or server farm for your website and may choose to rent space on someone else's server. This is where hosting companies come in.
A hosting company will own hundreds or thousands of servers and will rent out space on their servers for your website, depending on your website's needs and how much you are willing to spend.
In Shared Hosting, your website will live on a server with several other websites and share resources, such as the RAM (Random Access Memory) and CPU (Central Processing Unit - the "brain" of the computer).
Think of this like an apartment complex where you have a shared space for recreation and a community pool. Since you're renting, a lot of the maintenance is handled by the landowner.
This is the cheapest option, but comes with some potential drawbacks.
- The more websites that share the same server, the more you will have to compete for the shared resources
- If a website engages in some shady activity, or introduces a malicious script, it could affect every website around it
- Security risks that enter the server can get the introducing website, and every website on the server, "blacklisted", and have some resources blocked
If you don't want to deal with some of the hassels of sharing resources and responsibility with other website owners, you may choose to rent an entire server all to yourself. This is called Dedicated Hosting, since the server is "dedicated" to you and your website's needs alone. This gives you complete control, but comes at a much higher price.
Think of this as renting a house on a piece of land, and being given administrative permissions from the landowner.
If you want even more control, and you have the money to do it, you can own your own server or server farm and host your site on one or several "boxes". There's no renting at this level. You own everything. The only drawback here is that you are now responsible for every bit of maintenance required on your server(s).
After you have selected where your website will live, the next step is to determine the home address of your website.
<-- Home: Website House Tutorial
Step 1: Renter, Buyer, or Landowner?