Difference between web hosting and web publishing?

Answer 1

Web Hosting typically refers to a hosting services provider that provides server hosting space for websites of various types. Web Publishing refers to an individual or organization that designs and then deploys (publishes) websites/web content to the hosting server.

Publishing is also more commonly associated with Website content, as opposed to Website design, though the two are commonly linked under the singular definition. It is similar to publishing a book or magazine, where both the layout and content are "published" as one item and delivered to the masses. The difference with Web content is that as hosting server is needed to publish the content to.

Many companies (my own is one example) provide Hosting, Design and Publishing services. Some companies or individuals may only do Design, but leave the Publishing up to the owner or another company. Companies that do Web Publishing also tend to be the site administrators, since they are normally responsible for content update.

Larger companies have their own in-house staff that does all of these elements - an example would be Hewlett-Packard, IBM, etc. where the company has the resources to hire the IT staff needed to administer the hosting server/s, and another staff department to perform both design and publishing tasks.

While hosting a website can be done by an individual or even a small company, the changes in the industry over the last 10 years have led to the need for full time server management and control of access to certain information. This is primarily the case with E-Commerce sites, where information control is subject to industry and State/Federal regulations and laws. For example, the Card Service Industry in 2005 introduced the Payment Card Industry Security Standard (PCI Standard), which outlines requirements to be met by all merchants who use credit cards for E-Commerce. The standard was initiated after a major survey found that of all users who owned cards and could potentially buy goods and services online, only 30% were actually doing so. The other 70% were not because of valid concerns over ID theft and personal/financial information security after reports of major security breaches into banks and other merchants made big headlines.

The PCI standard has significantly raised the stakes and put the cost of doing card based E-commerce squarely on the Merchant. The standard uses a 4 tier system, the highest level including major players like Amazon and other major card merchants doing online business. They are required to have many controls in place where their hosting servers and systems containing customer and financial records are stored, including limited and controlled access. Though level 1-3 merchants were supposed to be compliant by June '05, many have not yet reached compliance. They run the risk of being put out of business; the card industry has made it clear that if a company's financial and customer information is breached and they are not compliant, temporary or permanent suspension of all merchant card privileges can happen.

A recent case narrowly missed one of my main clients; against my objections, they secured the services of Heartland Financial as their merchant bank for E-commerce. A couple of months ago, HFS's systems were breached and customer information was stolen. Their card privileges have since been revoked, and HFS is now being used as an example of what NOT to do. Fortunately for my client, none of their customers were involved, and they have since severed their ties with HFS, as many others have done. I will be surprised if they survive at all. I dont know about all of the above, simply put Web Hosting is the parking of your website content on a web hosting server.

Web publishing can be many things including, the whole process of developing a website, hosting it and then maintaining it. It could also mean, blogging, social bookmarking or starting a profile on myspace or facebook. Web hosting and web publishing are completely different and should not be confused with each other. helpful resources: http://www.wordpress-profits.com and http://www.webseo.com.au