What is hosting? How to choose hosting for your website and what it costs (2026)

Hosting is the space you rent on a server where your website's files are stored and which is open to the internet around the clock. If the domain is the website's address, hosting is the building at that address: the visitor types the address and the server sends the page to them. If hosting is weak, even the best-designed website opens slowly, goes down often and loses positions on Google.

Key takeaways:

• Hosting is space rented on a server; the domain is the address. A website needs both, and they are bought separately.
• For a small business website, shared hosting or a managed platform is usually suitable; for online stores and high-traffic projects, a VPS or cloud hosting.
• Selection criteria: speed, server location, uptime, daily backups, free SSL, support and resource limits.
• An SSL certificate is mandatory: without one, the browser shows a "Not secure" warning next to the website.
• The hosting account must be opened in your name and with your email; the contractor is only given access.

What is hosting and why do you need it?

Hosting is the place where a website "lives". A website is really a collection of files: texts, images, code and a database. These files must be stored on a computer that is always running and connected to the internet, a server, so that anyone can open the website at any time. A hosting company maintains such servers and rents out space on them.

Three concepts are often confused:

This is what happens when a visitor types an address into the browser: the domain system finds which server the address belongs to, the server sends the page to the browser, and the browser displays it on screen. This chain should take less than a second. We explain separately how a domain works and how to buy one in what is a domain and how do you get one.

Types of hosting: what is the difference between shared, VPS, cloud and dedicated?

Types of hosting differ in who you share the server's resources with. By analogy with housing: shared hosting is a room in a dormitory, a VPS is a flat, a dedicated server is a house of your own, and cloud is a flat that grows and shrinks as needed.

For websites written in modern code, there is one more option: managed platforms. On them, server settings, SSL and updates are the platform's responsibility, and the team deals only with the website itself.

A simple rule: choose not the "most powerful" option but the one that fits your website. A separate server for a five-page brochure website is wasted money; the cheapest shared package for a store that gets hundreds of orders a day means lost sales. We show how hosting changes depending on the platform in the comparison Tilda, WordPress or a custom website.

How do you choose hosting for a website?

Choose hosting on eight criteria, not on price. When comparing offers, ask every provider the same questions.

1. Speed. The shorter the server's response time to a request (TTFB), the faster the page opens. According to Google's web.dev guide, a good TTFB is 0.8 seconds or less (web.dev).
2. Server location. The closer the server is to the visitor, the faster the response arrives. If your audience is in Azerbaijan, it is an advantage for the server to be in the country or a nearby region, or to use a CDN.
3. Uptime. Look at the uptime percentage the provider promises and whether it is written into the contract. 99.9% uptime means roughly 9 hours of downtime a year.
4. Backups. Is a copy taken automatically every day, how many days is it kept, and is restoring free of charge? If the answer to this question is "we don't know", look for another provider.
5. SSL certificate. Is free SSL included and does it renew automatically?
6. Support. During what hours, in what language and through what channel (phone, chat, ticket) does support work? If the website goes down on a Saturday night, who will you write to?
7. Resource limits. Disk space, monthly traffic, how many visitors at once. The terms of packages advertised as "unlimited" usually contain restrictions.
8. Management and access. In whose name is the account, who has access to the control panel, and how easy is it to upgrade the package or move?

We show the impact of speed on a business and how to measure it, with a PageSpeed example, in website loads slowly.

What is an SSL certificate and why is it mandatory?

An SSL certificate is a digital document that encrypts the data passing between a website and the visitor's browser. When it is installed, the website's address starts with https:// instead of http:// and a padlock icon appears in the browser.

A website without SSL has three problems:

• The browser issues a warning. Chrome shows "Not secure" in the address bar of pages without SSL (Chromium Blog). Google has also announced a stricter step: in new versions of Chrome, a warning before opening a website without HTTPS becomes the default mode (Google). When visitors see such a warning, they do not fill in the form or make a payment.
• Data travels in the clear. The name, phone number and password entered in a form are transmitted unencrypted and can be intercepted.
• Google rates it negatively. Google has used HTTPS as a ranking signal since as early as 2014 (Google Search Central).

The good news: you often do not need to pay separately for SSL. The organisation Let's Encrypt issues certificates free of charge, and most hosting companies enable it with one click (Let's Encrypt). These certificates are short-lived: currently they are valid for 90 days, being reduced to 64 days from February 2027 and to 45 days from February 2028 (Let's Encrypt). So the certificate must renew automatically; ask the hosting company whether this is active. Paid certificates are needed only for special requirements, for example, showing the company's legal name in the certificate.

If you want to accept online payments, SSL is a precondition: banks and payment providers will not connect a website without it. We explain this process step by step in how to add online payments to a website.

How much does hosting cost?

In October 2026, providers' websites in Azerbaijan show entry-level packages of shared hosting from roughly 1.50 AZN (manat) to 11 AZN a month, and entry-level VPS at roughly 13–40 AZN a month. The figures below are as shown on the providers' websites and are not a ranking:

When comparing these figures, watch for four things:

• Packages are not equal. One provider's cheapest package gives 150 MB of space, another's 5 GB. Compare what you get for the price, not the price itself.
• VAT. Some providers show the price without VAT; ask for the final amount.
• Payment term. The lowest monthly price in the advertising often applies only with one or two years paid in advance.
• Renewal price. When the first-year discount ends, the package may become more expensive.

For a small business website, a domain and shared hosting together usually cost around 50–150 AZN a year. Hosting is a small line in a website's total cost, so it is not worth sacrificing speed and backups to save a few manat here. We show the remaining website costs in a table in website development prices.

Local or foreign hosting: which should you choose?

If your audience is in Azerbaijan, the main criterion is not where the server is located but how fast the website opens for a visitor in Azerbaijan. Both options have their own advantages:

If your website collects personal data, for example if it has a registration form, take one more legal point into account: the Law "On Personal Data" restricts the transfer of such data abroad in certain cases. Before using a foreign server, check this point with a lawyer.

Before choosing, check the speed yourself: ask the provider for the address of a website running on its server and measure it in Google PageSpeed Insights. A measurement, not a promise, should decide.

Whose name should the hosting be in?

The hosting account must be opened in the company's name and with the company's email; the contractor who builds the website is only given access. This is not a formality: if the account is in the contractor's name, you can lose access to your website when the cooperation ends.

When taking over the website, check five things:

• The hosting account is tied to your email and you know the password.
• Payment comes from your card or your account, and you know the date of the next payment.
• Automatic backup is active and you know where the copy is stored.
• SSL is enabled and renews automatically.
• The contractor's access has been given as a separate user and closing it is in your hands.

You can see how ownership of the domain, hosting and code is written into a contract in the example in ordering a website: technical brief and contract. We explain why this clause is so often "forgotten" in cheap offers in why a cheap website ends up costing more.

When and how should you change hosting?

It is time to change hosting if the website often goes down, opens slowly even after images have been optimised, support takes days to reply, or the package is too small for your traffic. When a migration is done properly, visitors notice nothing.

1. Take a full backup: files, the database and mailboxes.
2. Set up the website on the new hosting and test it at a temporary address: pages, forms, payment, language versions.
3. Point the domain at the new server. To do this, the domain's DNS records are changed; it can take from a few hours to a day or two for the change to spread around the world.
4. Enable SSL on the new server and check that the website opens over https.
5. Do not close the old hosting immediately. Keep it for a week or two so that, if anything has been forgotten, you can go back.

If the pages' addresses do not change during the migration, positions on Google are also preserved. If the addresses do change, redirects from the old addresses to the new ones must be set up; otherwise the website may become invisible on Google.

How does Advertol host websites?

On Advertol's website projects, hosting and the server are registered in the client's name, and SSL and backups are checked before launch. For example, in the Assistance Group project, two websites are updated from a single admin panel, and the scope of work includes the server, SSL certificates and technical support.

Speed does not depend on hosting alone: in an audit Advertol carried out on its own website in September 2026, the home page's mobile PageSpeed score was raised from 72 to 91 without changing the server, by fixing the code and the order in which scripts load. In other words, measure the website itself first, then blame the hosting.

Advertol is an agency based in Baku: website and mobile app development, Meta and Google advertising, SMM, CRM and AI automation are handled by one team. If you want to decide on the hosting for a new website together, based on the scope of the project, see the website and app development service.

Frequently asked questions

Are hosting and a domain the same thing?

No. A domain is the website's address, while hosting is the server where the website's files are stored. They are separate services and can be bought from different companies; what matters is that the domain is connected to the hosting through DNS records. Both are usually renewed with an annual payment.

Can you keep a business website on free hosting?

For testing and education, yes; for business, it is not recommended. Free packages usually have limited speed and traffic, offer no support or backups, and sometimes place third-party advertising on the website. If the website is supposed to bring in customers, the annual cost of reliable hosting is far less than the enquiries you lose.

Does hosting affect a website's position on Google?

Indirectly, yes. Google takes page speed and usability into account in ranking, and the server is one of the main parts of speed. Google's crawler also cannot open a website that is often down, and its pages may drop out of the index.

What happens when hosting expires?

If payment is not made on time, the website does not open, and after some time the files may be deleted from the server. So enable automatic renewal and make sure notifications reach your email. If the account is in the contractor's name, the warning goes to them too, and you find out about the problem when the website is taken down.

Will you lose your position on Google when you move a website to different hosting?

If the pages' addresses stay the same and the website is not down for long during the migration, positions are preserved. The risk arises when addresses change or when SSL, redirects and robots.txt are set up wrongly on the new server. After the migration, look at the indexing report in Search Console.

Should company email also be on the hosting?

It is not mandatory. Small companies often use the email included in the hosting package, but in that case, when you change hosting you also have to move the mailboxes. A separate email service is more reliable and does not depend on the website's operation.

Conclusion

Hosting is the invisible but daily-working foundation of a website. Choose a package that suits the type of website, compare offers on the eight criteria, treat free SSL and daily backups as mandatory conditions, and open the account in your own name. If the website opens slowly, measure the cause before changing hosting: most often the problem is not the server but the website itself.

If you want to assess your website's speed and hosting, or choose the right infrastructure for a new website, book a free strategy call or write to the Advertol team.

Sources

• web.dev — Time to First Byte (TTFB)
• Google Search Central Blog — HTTPS as a ranking signal, 06.08.2014
• Let's Encrypt — free SSL/TLS certificates
• Let's Encrypt — reducing certificate lifetimes from 90 days to 45 days, 02.12.2025
• Chromium Blog — A secure web is here to stay, 08.02.2018
• Google — HTTPS by default, 28.10.2025
• Intrans — hosting plans
• smarthost.az — hosting plans
• hostinq.az — hosting plans
• Delta Telecom — hosting plans