20 Must-Know Web Hosting Facts and Definitions (2025)

If you feel overwhelmed while shopping for a web hosting service, you’re not alone. There are so many companies to choose from, with most offering similar features. What makes it even more daunting is the complex language.

My first web hosting experience was with GoDaddy, and as a novice (at the time), I felt like I needed a “tech dictionary” on hand to decipher the complicated terminology of web hosting.

I mean, terms like “99% uptime,” “NVMe storage,” and “unmetered bandwidth” seemed foreign to me. I almost abandoned my website. After a series of serious Google searches, I grasped the meaning behind the features I was purchasing.

Learning the ins and outs of web hosting may overwhelm you initially, but once you get a hang of things, it’s a breeze.

So, if web hosting terminology seems like a foreign language to you, I have you covered (humblebrag, I understand three languages). Below, is a glossary of eye-catching web hosting facts and terms I have compiled to help you find the perfect web hosting plan for your website.

Would you believe me if I said Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos as an online bookstore? Yes, the now “everything store” was originally called “Cadabra” and was founded out of a small garage in Bellevue, Washington.

In 2023, Amazon had a net revenue of more than $570 billion.³

Market Share of the Top 10 Largest Web Hosting Companies

I honestly thought either GoDaddy or Hostinger was the world’s largest web hosting provider but wasn’t surprised to learn Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds this title, with a market share of about 5.3%.

Shopify (4.7%) and Hostinger (3.4%) take silver and bronze respectively.⁴

What is AWS? If Amazon is the “everything store”, Amazon Web Services is the “everything cloud” — AWS is Amazon’s cloud computing platform. It offers numerous services, including scalable compute capacity, storage, and web hosting. You can think of it as your one-stop solution for cloud infrastructure.

If you think understanding web hosting terminology is difficult, selecting a web host is an even bigger headache, as there are more than 330,000 to choose from!²

Sure, you can use Google Search or AI chatbots to narrow it down to a handful of options. And while most of them offer similar features, choosing one is difficult, as each offers a unique twist or two.

For instance, one plan may offer adequate NVMe storage, while the other may offer more SSD storage and a free domain for a similar price. Which should you choose? Luckily, HostingAdvice makes it easy to pick the best web host for you. I’m not being biased — we’re simply the OG of hosting advice.

What is web hosting? Web hosting is a service that allows websites to be reachable online. Web hosts own servers and allow you to rent server space to host your website’s files for a monthly fee. It’s the power behind all the websites you visit on the internet.

The web hosting industry is like a Titan Arum flower — it’s been around since the ‘90s and is finally “blooming.” To put it into perspective, the industry created revenue of “just” $12.3 billion in its leading market, the U.S., in 2016.

In 2024, revenue is projected to amount to $58.3 billion! And this is just the start. Revenue is predicted to almost double by 2029 and reach an astronomical $127.2 billion.⁷

It’s time for you to build that dream website, especially if you’re an American!

What is web hosting revenue? Web hosting revenue is the income generated by web hosting providers. Increasing revenue indicates a growing customer base, higher demand for web hosting services, increased customer retention, and successful market expansion. So, even if you don’t live in the USA, I’m certain a web host near you offers a cracking web hosting plan!

GoDaddy might not have the title of the world’s largest web host, but it certainly leads the race in domain registrations. With more than 82 million registered domains, GoDaddy is the world’s largest domain registrar.⁵

Top 10 Largest Domain Registrars

With 29 million registered domains, the Tucows Domains family of OpenSRS, Enom, and Ascio takes second place.⁶

What is a domain registrar? If you’ve bought real estate or know what a real estate agent does, you can compare a domain registrar to a virtual real estate agent. They help you buy and manage your website’s address (domain name) and handle all the paperwork for you. All you have to do is choose a domain name and pay a registration fee.

More than 11,800 data centers worldwide are currently operational, and you guessed it — the U.S. has the highest concentration, accounting for around 45% of the world’s data centers.⁸

Choosing a good data center location is essential if you want to avoid high latency. Latency is the time it takes for data to travel from one point to another, and can be measured by the distance between a data center and your device.

What is a data center? A data center is a physical facility that houses the equipment and systems needed to run web hosting services and applications. These components include servers, storage systems, routers, and security solutions.

Shared hosting plans are the most affordable of the hosting types, and even its higher tiers usually aren’t expensive. To illustrate, a shared hosting plan typically costs between $2 and $10, so you could get by with an annual hosting budget of between $24 and $120.

More expensive plans come with additional storage space, bandwidth, and features such as marketing and SEO tools. No wonder the shared hosting segment is the most popular, with an estimated market share of a whopping 37.6%!⁹

What is shared hosting? Shared hosting is a hosting service where you share the same server and website resources with several website owners. With a shared server, web hosts can power multiple sites and offer cheaper plans.

Although shared hosting is more popular, and rightly so, VPS hosting is steadily gaining market share. It also happens to be my favorite hosting type.

VPS hosting has an impressive compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.2% and is forecasted to reach a revenue of $8.3 billion by 2026.¹⁰

If you have a few extra dollars to spare per month, take a look at a few managed VPS hosting plans.

What is VPS hosting? VPS stands for virtual private server. VPS hosting is when you share a single server with multiple users but receive dedicated resources. Web hosts use virtualization technology to isolate server space and give you access to your own resources.

Cloud hosting leverages cloud computing infrastructure and is a worthy alternative to shared hosting and VPS hosting.

Around 94% of businesses use the cloud, so it’s only a matter of time before cloud hosting becomes the new “it.”¹¹ Cloud hosting has seen significant adoption since the COVID-19 pandemic and doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

Its pay-as-you-go pricing model appeals to individuals and enterprises alike. You can pay as little as a few dollars each month for a basic cloud hosting plan, whereas enterprises with large websites will have to pay much more (happily).

What is cloud hosting? Cloud hosting uses a distributed network of virtual and physical servers to power websites or applications. This provides you with more scalability and flexibility for your resources.

There is no doubt WordPress is a powerful and popular choice among website owners. The CMS powers nearly half of the internet (approximately 43.7% to be precise).¹²

Of the top one million websites, around 28.7% use WordPress!¹³ It’s safe to say WordPress has moved past the days of being seen as only a blogging platform.

What is WordPress hosting? Since WordPress is a primary web-building operating system, many web hosting companies offer services dedicated to its platform. WordPress hosting is designed to optimize the hosting experience for WordPress use.

Domain names are an essential piece to your website’s brand recognition. The average length of a domain name is 15 to 18 characters on average (including the extension), so it’s a good practice to keep your name concise.

Most Popular Domain Extensions By Distribution

Speaking of extensions, “.com” is the most popular of the lot — around 38.7% of domain names have a .com extension.¹⁴ So if you want a memorable domain name, .com is the way to go.

What is a domain name? A domain name is a string of characters used to identify a website associated with an IP address. It’s also the part of a web address you mostly remember — because it showcases the brand’s name. The subdomain is another URL section that sometimes appears before the domain name. For instance, the word “blog” in blog.yourname.com would be the subdomain of the domain name “yourname.”

What were you doing in 1994? I wasn’t even born then! While you may know the 1990s for great movies like “Titanic”, “Jurassic Park”, and “Fight Club” (trust me, the list is endless), the biggest winner of the ‘90s was the World Wide Web (WWW).

While you were munching on popcorn (and I was drinking milk), the internet was making humongous strides. Web hosting was finding its roots and GeoCities was one of the most popular service providers of the time.

Launched in November 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet, GeoCities made it possible to build and host websites for free — In June 1995, it began offering a free web hosting plan with two megabytes of disk space.¹

The web host had a metaverse-like concept and wanted to give the youth a platform to express themselves on the internet. You can think of it as one of the forefathers of social media.

What is the World Wide Web? The World Wide Web is the internet as you see and use it. While people like you and me use the terms interchangeably, they’re not the same thing. You can think of the World Wide Web as the “public face” of the internet (and of course, your website). The internet is the underlying network that enables all online activities.

Never, I repeat never, access a website that doesn’t have a valid SSL certificate. Approximately 83% of websites use SSL certificates because they’re vital to security and are pretty easy to acquire.¹⁵

Let’s Encrypt, a nonprofit certificate authority, for example, issues free certificates for anyone who needs one for their site. An SSL certificate is a must if you want to establish trust between your website and your end user.

What is an SSL certificate? SSL certificates are digital certificates that authenticate a website’s identity and provide it with encryption. SSL stands for secure sockets layer and is crucial to website security. It encrypts sensitive information while in transmission for safe browsing and enables websites to use HTTPS.

I hope you’re a retro enthusiast, as I’m taking you back to the 1970s with this statistic. The first SSD, a 19-inch 2 MB drive, was released by Dataram in 1976.¹⁶

But it took quite some time for these drives to go commercial. Probably because, like many other technological products back then, it wasn’t so portable.

In 2006, Samsung released one of the first mass-market flash SSDs, a 2.5-inch 32 GB drive, followed by SanDisk in 2007.¹⁶ The rest is history.

What are SSDs? SSDs, or solid-state drives, store data permanently using flash memory. They’re responsible for reading and writing permanent data and can serve as secondary storage space. SSDs are also much faster than their predecessors, hard disk drives (HDDs).

Many web hosting companies offer unlimited bandwidth because they know 99% of websites only use five gigabytes of bandwidth monthly.¹⁷ It’s basically a clever marketing tactic, similar to an unlimited buffet — there are often hidden limits.

Reading the fine print can help you better understand how much bandwidth your web host truly offers and the regulations that come with it.

You can use this formula to calculate the bandwidth you need:
Visitors per Month x Page Size x Pages Per Visit = Bandwidth Needed

What is bandwidth? Bandwidth, also referred to as traffic, is the amount of data that can be sent from your server to a client’s browser.

Here’s another blast from the past: in 1966, Robert H. Dennard created the first dynamic random access memory (DRAM), which was later commercialized by Honeywell in 1969.¹⁸ The good old summer of ‘69.

Random access memory has a complex history, with various predecessors and inventors in the mix.

But to summarize, RAM descends from a lineage of bulky magnetic cores that could fill up a room (just like my personality, jk). Today, the technology has shrunk to become minuscule, pocket-sized hardware.

What is RAM? Unlike SSDs, Random Access Memory stores temporary data. It allows applications to store and access data on your computer for a short period of time. RAM can also read and write data instantly, making the retrieval process for your computer faster than SSDs and HDDs.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is a crippling cyberattack. These attacks attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a target server and can cause businesses financial damage of between $100,000 to $500,000 per hour.

You need to equip your infrastructure with DDoS protection, and luckily for you, most web hosting plans include it for free. Around 20 million DDoS attacks took place in 2024. I hope you didn’t fall victim to one.¹⁹

What is a DDoS attack? A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is when a hacker uses multiple machines to flood a server with malicious traffic. DDoS attacks overwhelm a server to the point of affecting the availability of that server, causing significant downtime. You can leverage DDoS protection to combat and shut down these threats.

I’m sure you’ve heard of hosting control panels like Plesk and cPanel. Before I did my research for this guide, I thought cPanel was the most popular control panel. I was right.

You may be wondering why I brought this up. Well, what I didn’t anticipate is that Plesk is used by almost the same number of websites: just over 1.29 million live websites use cPanel while just under 1.29 million websites use Plesk.^22,23 It’s literally neck and neck.

What is a control panel? A control panel is an interface or dashboard where users can manage their servers, track resource metrics, and complete other hosting-related duties. Two of the most popular control panels are Plesk and cPanel.

A content delivery network, or CDN, makes your website’s content load faster. In my opinion, you must use a CDN service like Cloudflare to speed up content delivery, especially if you have a global audience.

Many web hosts include a CDN service in their plans, so do keep an eye out for it. Around 47% of the top one million websites use a CDN, and I strongly believe you should too.²⁴

What is a CDN? A content delivery network (CDN) is a group of servers distributed across various geographical locations to cache content close to end users. CDNs allow a quick transfer of content to load pages and can help boost performance for website owners.

I hope to launch an eCommerce platform for my business soon, and I’ll probably use Shopify to build and run it. After all, Shopify is the biggest name in the eCommerce software market in the USA, with a market share of approximately 30%.²⁰

If you want to commence an online business as well, I recommend an eCommerce hosting plan with Shopify or WooCommerce.

What is eCommerce? eCommerce, or electronic commerce, is the buying and selling of goods and services over the internet with the transfer of funds included. Many web hosts offer eCommerce solutions and functionality with their plans to help users build online storefronts.

The industry standard for uptime is at least 99.9%.²¹ Some web hosts even claim to offer a 100% uptime guarantee.

Since it’s impossible to predict and prevent every potential downtime issue (like hardware failure, cyberattacks, or natural disasters), I recommend purchasing a hosting plan with an uptime promise of between 99.9% and 99.999%.

There’s no point wasting money on an improbable 100% uptime promise.

What is uptime? Uptime refers to the amount of time a website is available to end users. If a web host offers a 99% uptime guarantee, they promise your website will be up and running 99% of the time.

You’ve made it to the end! This guide covers everything you need to know when purchasing a hosting plan (and beyond, really). Now, you can pick a solution that fits your needs, whether that’s shared hosting with a CDN or managed VPS hosting.

Just know with these tidbits of web hosting knowledge, you’ll be ready to take on hosting in no time.

Happy web host hunting!

1. https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/web-design-history/geocities-1994
2. https://colorlib.com/wp/web-hosting-statistics/
3. https://www.statista.com/statistics/266282/annual-net-revenue-of-amazoncom/
4. https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/web_hosting
5. https://www.godaddy.com/en-ca/domains/
6. https://tucowsdomains.com/tucows-domain-promise/
7. https://www.statista.com/outlook/tmo/it-services/it-outsourcing/web-hosting/united-states/
8. https://www.statista.com/chart/24149/data-centers-per-country/
9. https://www.bluehost.com/blog/web-hosting-statistics-market-share/
10. https://www.scalahosting.com/blog/vps-hosting-statistics/
11. https://edgedelta.com/company/blog/how-many-companies-use-cloud-computing-in-2024/
12. https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress/
13. https://colorlib.com/wp/wordpress-statistics/
14. https://domainnamestat.com/statistics/overview/
15. https://www.ssldragon.com/blog/ssl-stats/
16. https://www.pcworld.com/article/472983/evolution-of-the-solid-state-drive.html/
17. https://www.bluehost.com/blog/what-is-web-hosting-bandwidth-a-guide-to-understanding-bandwidth-for-website-owners/
18. https://hybrid.co.id/post/history-of-random-access-memory/
19. https://www.sci-tech-today.com/stats/ddos-statistics/
20. https://www.statista.com/statistics/950591/united-states-ecommerce-platforms-market-share/
21. https://www.techradar.com/web-hosting/web-hosting-uptime-guarantee-what-does-it-really-mean
22. https://trends.builtwith.com/cms/CPanel/
23. https://trends.builtwith.com/cms/Plesk/
24. https://www.wix.com/encyclopedia/definition/content-delivery-network-cdn/