That's actually a really good question

Once your website has been built, it's basically a set of files like a Word document. It looks great on your computer, but in order to allow anyone to see it, it needs to be on a computer connected to the Internet all the time. Simple enough, just buy a cheap computer, turn it on, put the website on it, and don't touch it - bang, you're hosting your website! The problem is, computers have problems, the Internet has problems (especially normal home/office Internet connections that tend to have slow upload speeds), bad guys (hackers) want to break in, and if that computer happens to turn off or the Internet goes down, the website will break for everyone in the world instantly. The solution? Get a really fancy computer that is made to stay on and stable all the time (heck, get several in case something goes wrong), get a super-fast Internet line (better get a few), add hardware to keep things cool and secure, and find a guy willing to stare at that stuff all night just in case something goes wrong (nobody wants to be that guy, but unless you want to risk your website going down until you wake up, you need him).

Enter web hosting providers - some really are just a guy staring at a computer in his basement, and others are multi-million dollar data centers with teams of technicians (that's us by the way). Hosting services isolate the potential problems and solve them with expensive stuff that you can then rent for your website at just a fraction of the cost.

Let's break down the pieces:

There you go - that's hosting. Now your next question should be, how do I know a good hosting provider when I see one?

Well the short answer is, you're looking at one - we're awesome. We have a whole page describing all of the ways that we are different than other hosting providers, but the best reason is the page you're reading now. We are the only hosting provider in the entire world with a page that explains what hosting is. Isn't that incredible? Here's the reason - hosting providers are run by technical people that like to talk technical. They make assumptions about your level of knowledge, and in the process they inadvertantly make you feel dumb. Well you aren't dumb, you've just got better things to do than learn hosting terms like VPS, DNS, SSL, nameservers, "A" records, and kernels. We won't use technical terms like that if we can avoid it, and if we need to use them, we'll explain them. You may already know what they are, and then in that case you'll feel good about yourself, and that's what it's all about.