Once you have a good understanding of how the web works you will better understand how web hosting fits into the picture.

The Basics
All websites reside on a server somewhere in the world. When you browse the web you use a client (your PC running Explorer or Netscape) which requests data from the correct server and then displays it on your screen. On a basic level this is how it works.

A web server is typically nothing different than your home PC, the only difference being that the software running on the PC is setup to serve web pages. Your PC is running browser software like Internet Explorer or Netscape, which converts the web page to what you see on the screen.

Some More Detail
When you type in the URL of a web page, or click on a link that requests the URL of a web page the following events occur. For example when you requested this page http://www.findmyhosting.com/how-the-web-works.htm

The browser splits the URL into 3 different sections

• The protocol (http://)
• The name of the server (www.findmyhosting.com)
• The name of the file on the server (how-the-web-works.htm)

The browser then sends the server name to a name server to look up the real address of where www.findmyhosting.com resides. The name server translates the name into an IP address and connects to that IP address on the web.

The browser then sends a request for the file (how-the-web-works.htm) and the web server sends back the file over the net to your browser.

Your browser then converts the HTML web page to what you see on the screen.

When You Want To Have Your Own Website You Need

• Some space on a web server (this is what a web hosting account is)
• You need a domain name (like www.yournewsite.com) to point to the server
• And of course you need to create your website to place on the server

Static Web Pages vs. Dynamic Pages
Your web browser converts HTML to the pages you see on the page. HTML is not a programming language, it is just a way to format information. Browsers can also understand Javascript which allows your web page to do some extra things. Javascript is sent as part of the page and is run in the browser.

If you want a page that contains dynamic information (fed by a database) then the web server has to add this to the web page before it sends it to the client (the client is your web browser). This is achieved by using server side scripting like PHP or ASP code. This code gets written into the web page and the web server runs the code and sends the output as HTML to the browser together with the other HTML in the web page.

If you have a simple web site that contains static information then it is simple to create HTML web pages using editors like FrontPage or Dreamweaver. With a static page - to update the information you make changes to the page and re-upload the page to server. If you want real time dynamic information in your web pages then you have to use some server side scripting than runs on the server when the page is requested by a web browser.

Use the Web Resources section to learn more about creating a website.