Establishing a website is a crucial step in creating an online presence. The success of building and maintaining a website would depend on several factors, including domain, web design, content, website development, marketing, and web hosting service.
Choosing the web host provider that best caters to your website’s needs can be tricky, especially that web hosting landscape changes just as quickly as new technologies emerge.
Top Trends in Web Hosting
Let us look at the top trends this year and what we can look forward to in web hosting.
1. Green Website Hosting
Web hosting allows users to eliminate the need to use paper and plastic-based products that harm the environment. Instead, we rely on software, digital tools, and the internet to stream data and exchange information. That makes web-hosting eco-friendly, right? Well, not necessarily.
A study reveals that digital technologies account for 4 percent of the 39.9 billion tons of global greenhouse gas emissions annually. That is twice as much what the air travel industry produces.
So, how did that happen? Technology companies contribute to carbon emissions through manufacturing and shipping products, such as the servers and computers that we use. That’s not all. Every page view on an average website produces 4.61 grams of Carbon dioxide.
Hence, every 100,000 page views per month would already produce 553 kilos of CO2 annually.
Web hosting sites do recognize these startling facts. And so, they now actively participate in efforts to mitigate the internet’s impact on the environment. Companies can either buy renewable energy certificates (REC) and verified emission reduction (VER).
A website hosting company gets REC certification for supporting companies specializing in renewable energy. Meanwhile, a VER certificate is issued to a hosting company for voluntarily compensating for their carbon emissions.
2. Cloud-based Web Hosting
Cloud has become a viable alternative for many companies and individuals who look for more cost-effective solutions to their web hosting requirements. The cloud eliminates the need to set up physical servers. Instead, the hosting service is delivered by way of network connection.
The cloud hosting allows for unlimited storage space and the ability to access resources from multiple virtual servers. Hence, a more reliable and flexible way to scale one’s business.
3. Web Hosting Using SSD
No doubt, Solid State Disk (SSD) allows for a better web hosting experience than its conventional counterpart — Hard Disk Drive (HDD). SSDs offer faster transfer rates and lower latency. They are far more durable as well.
4. HTTPS Implementation
In 2018, Google began tagging websites bearing HTTP in its URL as “Not Secure” server. Since then, HTTPS has become the norm. To have HTTPS in one’s URL, a website must secure an SSL security to be considered a secure server. Simply skipping on this procedure can greatly affect a website’s overall performance.
How does HTTPS help a website exactly? HTTPS makes your website secure and safe from cyber threats. Being certified as a secure server helps boost a website’s ranking. And that can also have a tremendous impact on the website that relies on visitor traffic to generate sales. A good ranking and secure website also help build customer trust. This is because they are assured that they are doing business with an organization that values their data privacy.
5. Managed Web Hosting
Another example of web hosting solutions that has been gaining popularity is managed web hosting services. It is a good alternative for organizations and small businesses that want to do away with the complexities of traditional hosting solutions while meeting regulatory requirements at the same time.
How does a business benefit from these services? Through this setup, a web hosting provider makes website management less of a burden so clients can concentrate on growing their business. They perform tasks concerned on website management’s technical side, such as backups, system updates, and support services.
6. Price Competition
Competition helps drive prices down. And this is also true with web hosting. The web hosting service industry has become more competitive than ever. And this greatly benefits the end-users as they get to enjoy perks like specialized tools and features, but most importantly, lower prices.
Businesses have many types of web hosting options to choose from: shared hosting, virtual private server (VPS), dedicated server, cloud hosting, managed hosting, and colocation. Among these types of web hosting services, shared hosting is generally the most affordable.
However, more than just the prices, there are other things to consider when choosing a hosting software or provider. The web hosting service should also match the needs, resources, and goals of the business.
What is the future of web hosting?
The web hosting industries projected to grow to $321.5 billion by 2027. And despite the pandemic, the industry’s global market size is estimated to be at $101.2 billion in 2020. eCommerce, social media, blogs, video sharing, are expected to spur the growth of demand for web hosting services.
Consumers will also be more demanding in that they will look for complete solutions. Specifically, hosting offerings may be paired with other solutions such as eCommerce, email, and SEO. Decentralization will also be the norm allowing users to store data and access resources both on their devices and central services.
VernalWeb is a hosting service that offers various solutions for different needs, such as shared hosting, cloud VPS, dedicated hosting and reseller hosting. This service ensures your website is fast, always live and secure. If you are interested, get in touch with us.
