Web hosting is an Internet service that provides the servers, storage and connections needed to publish websites on the World Wide Web. A company that sells this service is called a web host. The site files sit on a Server that the host owns or rents, and the site stays online while that server answers requests.
History of Web hosting
Creator: No single creator; early free hosts included GeoCities, Angelfire and Tripod. Year: 1995.
Until 1991 the Internet was only for research and education. It was used for science and engineering. It carried Email, telnet, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Usenet traffic. Only a few web pages existed. A graphical browser for Mac or Windows was not ready until the end of 1993.
A company once needed its own computer to host a site. It also needed its own link to the Internet. Not every firm had the money. Not every firm had the skill. Hosting services began to post sites on their own servers. The site owner, called a webmaster, built the site. The host put it on the web.
More firms wanted a web presence as Web use grew. By 1995, GeoCities, Angelfire and Tripod gave free hosting. Many Internet service providers (ISPs) gave page hosting to users at no charge. Others bought hosting from other firms.
Later packages added database support. They also added app platforms, such as PHP, ASP.NET and Ruby on Rails. Some hosts were built for WordPress and other content management systems. These hosts also handle updates, backups and security for their users.
Changelog and latest update
Static page hosting became a common form of the service. Services such as GitHub Pages and Cloudflare Pages build sites straight from source control. Static site generators, such as 11ty, prepare the files. The files reach the Web as they are, or with little processing.
Cloud hosting spreads a website over clustered servers. The servers share the load. When one machine fails, other machines in the cloud can take over its work. Providers bill for the resources a customer uses. They do not charge a flat fee.
Uptime is the percentage of a year in which a website can be reached on the Internet. It differs from system uptime. System uptime only shows whether a machine is running. A provider's service level agreement (SLA) can exclude scheduled maintenance. It can also promise a partial refund if availability falls below the agreed level.
Security became a larger concern for hosts. A customer who uses a host gives up direct control of site security to the host. Attackers upload malware to hosted sites. They steal credit card data. They launch Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. They send spam from hosted accounts.
Latest update: RFC 9110, HTTP Semantics, 2022-06
RFC 9110 defines the semantics of the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It includes the Host header field. The web server reads this field to choose which website to answer. The RFC Editor page gives its publication date as June 2022. Hosting servers use this field to serve many websites from one address.
Usage examples
Web hosting uses Domain Name System (DNS) records, HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests and file uploads. The examples show a DNS address record. They show a curl check of the response headers and a file upload with rsync. They also show the folder layout of a cPanel hosting account.
example.com. 3600 IN A 203.0.113.80
www.example.com. 3600 IN A 203.0.113.80
example.com. 3600 IN TXT "v=spf1 mx -all"An A record points a name to an Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address. Here it is the address of the hosting server. The www name and the bare domain both point to the same server. The TXT line publishes a sender policy for email. The address shown is reserved for documentation examples. Replace it with the server address from the host.
curl -I https://www.example.com/
# sample output
HTTP/2 200
server: Apache
content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8The curl command requests the page and prints only the response headers. The status line HTTP/2 200 means the server answered the request. The server header names the web server software. The content-type header tells the browser the file format.
rsync -avz --delete ./public_html/ example_user@server.example.com:public_html/The rsync command copies the local public_html folder to the hosting account over Secure Shell (SSH). The -a option keeps file permissions and dates. The -v option prints each file. The -z option compresses the data. The --delete option removes remote files that are missing locally. Check the source folder first.
/home/example_user/
public_html/ web root for example.com
mail/ email accounts
etc/ mail and login settings
logs/ access and error logsA cPanel hosting account keeps the public site in the public_html folder. Files placed there are served at the domain name. The other folders hold email data, settings and logs. Site files placed outside public_html stay unpublished on the web.
References
These sources are outside Websnoogie and were checked on 2026-10-12.
Web hosting service
Wikipedia
The encyclopedia article on web hosting. It covers the history from the early Internet, the types of hosting such as shared, dedicated, cloud and colocation, the requirements for a hosted site, uptime measures and security. It is the main reference for the hosting types listed in the usage section.
HTTP Semantics (RFC 9110)
IETF, RFC Editor
The standard that defines HTTP semantics, including requests, responses, status codes and the Host header field. A hosting server reads the Host field to select the correct website when many sites share one address. The page is used here for the rule that a Host header names the site.
Domain names: concepts and facilities (RFC 1034)
IETF, RFC Editor
The RFC that introduces the Domain Name System and its name space. It describes how names map to records such as address records. Web hosts rely on these concepts when they point a domain name to a hosting server. The page is cited here for the names that point to a hosting server.
cPanel products
cPanel
The product page for cPanel and WHM, the control panels that many web hosts install on their servers. The page describes how servers and sites are set up and managed through the panel, and it shows a publication date of 2022. The page is cited here for the control panel named in the usage section.
Where your website lives, and who keeps it online
Do you know which computer holds your website right now? Web hosting is the service that keeps your pages, images and forms on a server connected to the internet. When hosting fails, the site goes dark, and every visitor sees an error. That is why we choose hosting for stability before we look at its price.
We run two kinds of hosting. CMS hosting costs $149 a year and suits a site you update yourself in WordPress. Non-CMS hosting costs $129 a year for plain HTML or PHP pages with no database. Free SSL, daily backups, security monitoring and 99.999% uptime come with both. Choose the plan that matches how often you plan to change your pages.
If your site lives somewhere else now, we can move it. Normal-size WordPress websites move for free, and larger sites cost $199 one time. A new site from us is a $300 payment with up to five pages and a form for questions. Most builds take 3 to 5 days.
Describe what your site does today. We will suggest the right plan and quote the price. You can reach us at 402-813-4034 from 7 am until 10 pm each day.
