The web hosting sector is experiencing interesting times. The conventional methods of website hosting are changing as a result of a variety of technological advancements and societal movements. We’ll briefly discuss some of these in this piece, along with what you may anticipate from hosts going forward.
First, e-commerce-focused hosting will probably continue to rise. The Covid-19 pandemic increased e-commerce and made online shopping accessible to millions of people. As more consumers feel comfortable making purchases online, the growth rate has slowed somewhat in 2022, but it is still rising. Additionally, it appears that remote employment is here to stay, which means that e-commerce will continue to exist in order to serve a scattered workforce.
Because there are more security threats when conducting business online, security is another major trend. Almost every day brings news of a bank, website, or company being hacked. Unfortunately, many websites have neglected security for a long time (and still do), therefore you should anticipate an increase in attacks and data leaks, especially for websites using outdated hosting platforms. As a result, hosts are paying closer attention to making sure that the websites of their clients are protected and secure.
A surge in “full-service” hosting plans has also been attributed to the complexity of managing an e-commerce website, particularly keeping it secure. Since hosting is already low, price is no longer a distinction. Instead, hosts are beginning to provide additional services and features, courses, and other special advantages beyond free email, storage space, and other technical specifications. Everything you may imagine, from the cannabis sector to highly popular viral events, is the focus of new web hosts.
Similar to how influencers and live commerce streamers are targeted, hosting firms are doing the same. In the past, these kinds of companies had to manage every aspect of website development themselves. They’ll all link into prebuilt infrastructure provided by cutting-edge web providers in the future.
Additionally, hosts are beginning to give environmental concerns more attention. Most significant web hosts now have rules in place to cut back on electricity use and CO2 emissions. This was a distinctive differentiator a decade ago, but as businesses demand more from their hosts, it’s quickly turning into an industry standard.
By using artificial intelligence, hosts can improve their environmental efficiency (AI). Despite the fact that AI has become somewhat of a buzzword, the advancements it has made are genuine. Hosting companies are able to reduce their overall energy output by using AI to automatically provide, configure, and optimise servers and resources.
In addition to security, support, and product suggestions, AI is also utilised to tackle problems before they result in downtime. AI can be applied in different layers of security, such as at the perimeter (for example, bot detection and spam protection), by analysing traffic patterns, or by simply scanning the site for malware. All of this can lead to better client experiences, therefore you can anticipate AI technologies to gradually advance.
Software platforms like Docker and Kubernetes that enable the usage of “containers,” which are compact, standalone replicas of websites, are another innovation that is gaining traction. The thing that makes containers special is that they come equipped with everything needed to run a piece of software—in this case, a website. Because extra containers can easily be “spun up,” scaling a website to manage more incoming traffic is made easy.
You should anticipate further innovation in this area because containers are substantially more efficient, effective, and scalable than older hosting technology. To do the same task, they employ fewer CPUs, humans, and resources in general. Containers can also help hosts run resources more efficiently by allowing them to be scaled only when absolutely necessary rather than continuously.
Finally, you can count on established players like Shopify and WordPress to keep expanding and adding cutting-edge features to their product lines. With over 40% of all websites utilising it, WordPress is still one of the most popular ways to build a website despite being almost 20 years old. In the future, website creation platforms like WordPress, Wix, SquareSpace, and others will veer further in the direction of a page builder paradigm and away from the open-ended, “code everything yourself” method used in traditional web development.
The outlook for web hosting is positive. You can anticipate fascinating new technology advancements, as well as social and economic factors, to continue influencing how businesses use the internet throughout the ensuing ten years.