It's the line that surprises anyone who has never had a website: «if I already paid to have it built, why do I keep paying every year?».
Premises, not furniture
Your website is a pile of files, and those files have to live on a computer that's switched on so people can see them. That computer is run by another company, with its electricity, its connection and someone watching that it doesn't go down. That's what you're renting. You didn't buy the website the way you buy a table: you rent the premises it sits in.
It isn't the same as the domain
The domain is the address; hosting is the premises. They're paid separately and often to different companies, which is why two invoices sometimes turn up looking like the same thing. It's worth knowing which is which: they're two services you can move independently.
What decent hosting includes
- 01Your site staying available at busy times too.
- 02Backups, so you can go back if something breaks.
- 03The certificate that shows a padlock instead of a «not secure» warning.
- 04Someone to write to when something goes wrong.
What happens if you stop paying
Your site disappears from the internet. It isn't deleted instantly, but it stops being visible — and if the domain lapses too, you can lose it: released domains get snapped up by people who do that for a living. It's the one cost on this list you shouldn't leave to the last minute.