What it is
Hosting is the service of storing a website's files on a server that's permanently connected to the internet, so the site is reachable to visitors 24/7. A domain gives a site its address; hosting is the physical place where the code, images, and database actually live. Without hosting, a browser has nowhere to load the page from, even if the domain is already bought. The shortest answer to what is hosting: it's renting space for your site, usually paid once a year.
Types of hosting
- Shared hosting. One server handles dozens or hundreds of sites at once. The cheapest option, good for simple sites with low traffic.
- VPS (virtual private server). Dedicated resources within a shared physical server — more speed and control, suited to sites with growing traffic.
- Cloud hosting / CDN network. Files are served from a network of servers across different countries (e.g. Netlify) — the site loads fast from anywhere in the world and automatically handles traffic spikes.
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What hosting affects
The quality of your hosting directly affects site loading speed (which affects both Google rankings and whether a visitor waits for the page), reliability (how often the site goes down), and security (SSL certificate, regular backups). Picking a plan once is only the first step — ongoing monitoring and updates are usually part of website support.
How to choose web hosting
The choice depends less on the plan than on what kind of site you have. A simple one-page site gets by on the cheapest plan — paying for capacity nobody uses buys nothing. A store with a catalog and a cart already needs dedicated resources: slow page delivery eats into the number of orders.
Beyond the price, look at whether daily backups exist — and more importantly, whether you can roll back yourself without opening a support ticket. Server location matters too: closer to your visitors means faster loading. And separately, how fast support actually replies; you only feel that when the site is already down, and then the gap between a 10-minute reply and a next-day one gets expensive.
How much does web hosting cost
Price follows the type: shared plans are the cheapest entry, VPS costs several times more, and cloud platforms for small static sites often have a free tier and only start charging as traffic grows.
The cheapest plan isn't always cheaper in the end. If a page takes four seconds to load instead of one, some visitors leave before they ever see the offer — and the savings are easily outweighed by the enquiries you never got. So web hosting price is worth counting together with what speed gives you.