A web host is a company that has computers that are hooked up to the internet 24/7. These computers are called servers and they are assigned IP numbers in order that they may be found by other computers hooked up to the internet. It is on these servers that all your web files are stored, be they HTML files (web pages), graphic files, CSS files, Javascripts or whatever.

Basically what happens is when you type a web address into the address bar of your browser and then hit Go, your browser sends out a request to 'get' that web page. The request travels across the internet to the appropriate web server and attempts to locate the web page on that server. If the request is successful (web page exists) then that web page will load (or download) into your web browser.

These web hosting servers that store and serve up web pages to the internet cost money to set up, configure and maintain and thus web hosting providers that own these servers typically charge you a monthly or yearly fee to, at the very least:

1. Allow you to save your web files to their web server (called uploading)

2. Perpetually be ready to serve them up to the internet (make available for downloading)

 

And How Much Will It Cost?

With regards to cost, if you're just doing a little experimenting with hosting a website, you may want to consider trying some free web hosting (not reliable and you end up paying more).

On the other hand, if you want to do it the right way the first time around (and not be bothered with having to relocate your site after your free web host tanks) you'll be much more interested in paying a small monthly fee to have your site hosted professionally. At RedWire Host we provide industrial strength Web hosting, our servers are readily available across the net to serve your website