🌏 Hosting Basics

New to hosting? Learn about domain names, shared hosting, FTP and how to get your website online — no technical background needed.

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📂 Managing Your Site

How to upload files, use cPanel and deploy changes live.

→ 6 questions

🌍 Domain Names

Q1What is a domain name and how does it work?Beginner▼

A domain name is the human-readable address of a website (e.g. google.com, mysite.com). It maps to an IP address via DNS so you don't have to remember numbers.

A domain has two parts:

Second-level domain — the name you choose (e.g. mysite)
Top-level domain (TLD) — the extension (e.g. .com, .net, .org)

When you buy a domain from a registrar (e.g. GoDaddy, Namecheap), you point its DNS to your hosting server's IP address. When visitors type your domain, DNS resolves it to your server.

💡 Buying a domain and buying hosting are two separate things. You can buy them from the same provider or different ones.

Q2What is the difference between shared, VPS and dedicated hosting?Beginner▼

These are the three main types of web hosting:

Shared Hosting — Your website shares a server with hundreds of others. Cheapest option (~$3–10/month). Good for beginners and small sites. Limited performance.
VPS (Virtual Private Server) — A virtual machine on a shared physical server, but with dedicated resources. More control, better performance (~$10–50/month).
Dedicated Server — An entire physical server just for you. Maximum performance and control, most expensive (~$80–400+/month). Used by large sites.

💡 For a beginner starting out with a learning/Q&A site, shared hosting is perfectly fine and very affordable. You can always upgrade later.

📁 FTP — File Transfer Protocol

Q3What is FTP and how do I use it?Beginner▼

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) lets you transfer files between your computer and your web hosting server. It's how you upload your HTML, CSS and JS files to make your website live.

Steps to use FTP:

Download a free FTP client like FileZilla
Get your FTP credentials from your hosting control panel (host, username, password, port)
Connect — you'll see your local files on the left and server files on the right
Drag and drop files from local to server

💡 Your hosting provider's cPanel usually has an "FTP Accounts" section where you can find or create FTP credentials. The default FTP port is 21; SFTP (secure FTP) uses port 22.

Q4Where do I upload my website files on my hosting server?Beginner▼

On most shared hosting plans, your website files go inside the public_html folder (sometimes called www or htdocs). This is the web root — whatever is here is accessible via your domain.

public_html/
├── index.html      ← Your homepage (yourdomain.com)
├── style.css
├── main.js
├── about.html      ← yourdomain.com/about.html
└── images/
    └── logo.png

⚠️ Make sure your homepage is named index.html (or index.php) — the server looks for this file automatically when someone visits your domain root.

Q5What is cPanel and why do hosting companies use it?Beginner▼

cPanel is a web-based control panel that most shared hosting providers offer. It gives you a graphical interface to manage everything about your hosting account without using the command line.

Common things you can do in cPanel:

📁 Manage files (File Manager — upload/edit/delete files in browser)
📧 Create email accounts
🗄️ Manage databases (MySQL)
🔒 Install SSL certificates
🌍 Manage domains and subdomains
📊 View visitor statistics

💡 For uploading HTML files, you can use cPanel's built-in File Manager instead of FTP — just drag and drop in your browser. No extra software needed!