If you stay at someone’s house, like in a VRBO or AirBNB, they are your host. They give you a space to stay, with a bed and bathroom. Depending on the place you’re staying and the terms, they might give you access to their washing machine and dryer, and they may even provide you with food and drink.
Different hosts will provide different things in their homes, and will have different terms for you staying in their home. Can I bring the dog? Is there WiFi? How many days can I stay? How many people can stay with me? Am I getting the entire house for a week or a month, or am I just getting a room to stay in overnight?
And so forth.
Someone being a host to you in their house has similarities to a company being a host to your website.
A website host is just someone–usually a company–who has computers that are designed to store and share websites.
Website hosts give your website a place to stay, and–like someone hosting you in their house–they have different terms, different amenities, different facilities available. Those facilities can be things like including email with your hosting, or automatically installing WordPress for you. Just like how many rooms are you renting, the same idea with hosting might be how much file storage space do you get for your website, and how many megabytes of data going out are you allowed.
I hope this metaphor–of hosting being like renting a physical space–helps you to picture website hosting. Coming next I will use a different metaphor to help you understand website hosting even more!
Follow Us!