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Websites

Web Hosting

Hosting

Portrait of Robert Klimant, co-founder of Roelu Studio
Robert KlimantCo-founder

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is the service of storing a website's files on a server connected to the internet so visitors can access them. When someone visits your domain, the host delivers the HTML, images, scripts, and assets that make up the site. Hosting types range from shared servers to dedicated machines to modern edge platforms like Vercel and Cloudflare that distribute content globally.

Why it matters

Cheap web hosting is the silent killer of conversion rates. A two-dollar-a-month shared server sounds clever until your site takes four seconds to load, Google demotes you, and visitors bounce before reading the headline. Modern edge platforms cost a little more but cache your pages in dozens of locations worldwide, so a visitor in Sydney gets the same speed as one in Berlin. The math is simple. If your site exists to generate pipeline, host it like it matters. The savings on a bargain server show up as lost revenue everywhere else.

How it works

You sign up for a host, point your domain's DNS records at their servers, and upload your site — or connect a Git repository so the host builds and deploys automatically on every push to the main branch. Traditional hosts run a single server in a single data center. Edge platforms like Vercel and Cloudflare replicate your site across a global network and serve it from the location closest to each visitor. Most modern hosts also handle SSL certificates, automatic scaling for traffic spikes, and instant rollbacks if a deploy breaks. You manage the whole thing from a dashboard, not a server room.

Related terms

  • Domain Name

    Websites

    The human-readable address visitors type to reach your website — like roelu.com — instead of the string of numbers the internet actually uses to find the…

  • DNS

    Websites

    The internet's phone book — DNS translates the domain name you type into the numeric address computers use to find the right server, and it does so in…

  • Vercel

    Development

    The hosting and deployment platform built by the same team that builds Next.js. It runs the build pipeline, the global CDN, the preview URLs, and the analytics…

  • SSL Certificate

    Websites

    A small file installed on your server that encrypts traffic between the visitor's browser and your site — the reason a padlock shows up next to your URL and…

  • Content Delivery Network

    Performance

    A global network of servers that stores copies of your site close to visitors, so pages load fast in São Paulo, Sydney, and Stockholm without every request…

  • Staging Environment

    Websites

    A private copy of your website where the team can preview changes, test new features, and catch problems before pushing them live to real visitors. Also called…

  • Caching

    Performance

    Storing a copy of a page, image, or piece of data so it can be served instantly the next time it's requested — instead of regenerating it from scratch on every…