What is website hosting?
It's the service that stores your website's files and sends them to visitors when they arrive. Every website needs it. Your domain name points visitors to the host; the host serves the pages.
Hosting is separate from your domain and, usually, from your email. You can buy all three from one company, but you don't have to.
What types of website hosting are there?
Five main types. Each suits a different kind of site.
- Shared hosting: your site shares a server with many others. Cheap, but a busy neighbour can slow you down.
- VPS (virtual private server): your own slice of a server. More control and capacity, but someone has to manage it.
- Managed WordPress hosting: tuned for WordPress, often with updates, caching and backups included.
- Cloud hosting: runs across many servers, scaling up when traffic grows. Flexible, often technical to set up.
- Static hosting on a global network: pre-built pages served from locations close to each visitor. Very fast and has little to attack, but suits sites built that way.
What should a UK business look for in a host?
Use this website hosting UK guide checklist. Work through it in order.
- Speed: a content delivery network, quick server responses and caching. Test a site already on the host with PageSpeed Insights.
- Security: SSL included and renewed automatically, software kept patched, and protection against common attacks.
- Backups: how often, stored where, and how quickly a restore can be done.
- Monitoring: who notices if the site goes down, and how fast they act.
- Support: can you reach a person quickly, in your working hours?
- Data terms: a written processing contract, and clarity on where personal data from forms is stored.
- Ownership: your domain registered in your name, and a clear way to move the site if you leave.
Does UK hosting have to be in the UK?
No, but it needs to meet UK data protection law. If your host stores personal data for you, such as form submissions, it's acting as your processor, and UK GDPR requires a written contract with specific terms. Most hosts provide one as a data processing agreement.
Storing personal data outside the UK is a restricted transfer under UK GDPR. It's allowed where the UK recognises the destination as adequate (the EEA countries are) or other safeguards are in place. The ICO's guidance on international transfers explains the options. For visitors, physical location matters less than a content delivery network serving pages from nearby.
What about domains and email?
Register your domain in your own business name, with an account you control. .uk domains are run by Nominet, and you buy them through a registrar. If an agency registers it for you, make sure it's in your name.
For email, a dedicated business email service such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 is usually more reliable than email bundled with cheap hosting, and keeps working if you move hosts.
When should you move hosts?
When the site is slow because of the server, support takes days, you've had outages or security problems, or you're rebuilding the site anyway. Plan the move: copy everything, test on the new host, then switch the domain over at a quiet time, with redirects and forms checked straight after.