Web Hosting History

The advent of the Internet has created many new opportunities for business and information gathering. An example of this is web hosting that allows people to distribute content and communicate with each other globally. Web hosting development is an important part of Internet history, and periodic developments in web hosting show how the Internet has progressed over the years.

Here is a timeline of all the major events in web hosting history.

1965 - Scientists at MIT laid the foundation for the Internet by enabling two computers to successfully communicate with each other.

1973 - The birth of the Internet begins as two European organizations are able to connect to the US Department of Defense's predecessor ARPANET.

1974 - First Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Telenet became the first ISP by presenting a version of ARPANET to the public. Also, Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn are making their designs for the Transmission Control Protocol or TCP public.

1979 - Network Solutions
Despite being founded as an engineering consulting firm, Network Solutions eventually became the first company to handle the Domain Name System (DNS) and distribute domain names to websites.

1983 - TCP / IP
ARPANET continues to use the Internet protocol suite, or TCP / IP, which is still used today to connect networks over the Internet.

1983 - DNS
DNS (Domain Name System) is introduced which sets the standard method for finding where websites are located.

1984 - Cisco
Future tech giant Cisco Systems, Inc. was founded by staff from Stanford University. By 1987, Cisco gained the rights to sell its routers after signing a copyright agreement with Stanford University.

1985 - The first domain name (symbolics.com) was registered.

1987 - There are approximately 30,000 servers on the Internet so far.

1988 - Hosting Companies Emerge
1 & 1 Internet (now known as 1 & 1 IONOS) was established in Germany. This 1 & 1 is one of the first web hosting companies.

1989 - The World Wide Web Is Invented
Tim Berners-Lee develops a global, interconnected "World Wide Web" while working at CERN.

1989 - First Commercial Dial-up, such as World.std.com in America and DIALix and Pegasus Networks in Australia
Network Services ISPs begin offering commercial dial-up Internet.

1990 - HTML
Berners-Lee developed HTML, a programming language that allows documents to be viewed in web browsers. Today, HTML is still one of the building blocks of the web.

1991 - Linux
TheLinux operating system was launched, providing a cheaper, almost identical alternative to Unix. This allowed Linux hosting providers to offer their services cheaper than previous Unix hosting providers.

1992 - Start of Colocation Web Hosting
Metropolitan Fiber Systems (MFS) pioneers the hosting colocation web through its own internet exchange points known as MAE-East. Several ISPs decide to connect their networks via MAE-East and MFS provides colocation facilities for them.

1993 - There are now 623 websites on the Internet, and government agencies such as the UN now have their own websites.

1993 - Mosaic
Marc Andreesen and Eric created and released the Mosaic web browser, which was a key part of the '90s Internet boom.

1994 - Launch of Register.com, Netscape and EarthLink
Peter Forman founded Forman Interactive. Forman Interactive eventually evolved into a major web hosting provider and domain registrar, changing the company name to Register.com. ISP and ultimate web hosting provider EarthLink were also established this year. Under the name Netscape, Mosaic Communications Corporation and the Netscape web browser are launched.

1995 - Free Web Hosting, AIT, Inc. and
The Launch of Internet Explorer Sites like Geocities and Tripod introduced free web hosting, hoping to generate revenue from banner ads. Advanced Internet Technologies, Inc. AIT is known to be one of the largest private web hosting companies in the world to develop and offer VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting (not to be confused with virtual hosting) software. .

1996 - Verio
Verio Inc. established It has become one of the oldest and most important hosting companies. Verio collects resources and infrastructure by purchasing smaller ISPs and hosting companies and consolidating them under the Verio brand.

1996 - Microsoft Launches ASP
Microsoft publishes server-side scripting engine ASP (Active Server Pages), which allows users to create impressive interactive pages.

1997 - GoDaddy Started
Domain registrar and web hosting company GoDaddy Inc. was founded under the name Jomax Technologies. By 2019, they became the world's largest web hosting provider.

1997 - Virtual Web Hosting
LexiConn was one of the first companies to offer virtual web hosting.

1998 - Launch of Content Delivery Networks (CDN), Rackspace and Hostway
Akamai Technologies, Inc. was established. Akamai, the world's first and largest content delivery network (CDN) provider

It is one of them. Rackspace, one of the biggest giants of the cloud computing industry, was also established this year.

1999 - Yahoo! Geocities buys.

2000 - Domain Name Registrars
More domain registrars begin to appear. Domain.com starts doing business and continues to be another key player in domain name registrations and web hosting. Namecheap, Inc. was established this year. Namecheap in the 2010s, top domain name registrars and web hosting companies.

2001 - Linux VPS Hosting
RoseHosting was founded and became the first company to offer commercial Linux VPS hosting to the masses.

2001-2002 - Launch of new TLDs, including .info and .biz
During this time, seven new top-level domains (TLDs) have entered our lives, including ICANN, .biz, .info, .name and .pro. These are intended to give users more options due to the widespread use of the .com domain name.

2002 - HostGator
Launches HostGator, one of the world's leading shared, virtual and private web hosting providers, founded by Brent Oxley in Florida.

2003 - Launch of WordPress, Name.com and BlueHost
WordPress was launched by developers Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress was developed to host blog sites, but would continue to be a hosting service for other types of sites as well. Name.com and BlueHost, the other two major web hosting services, were also founded in 2003.

2004 - Launch of SquareSpace and Flickr
Anthony Casalena developed his software for website hosting and founded Squarespace, which is now the fifth largest web hosting company in the world. and many bloggers use Flickr to host images they post on their blog.

2005 - Yahoo! He bought Ludicorp and took control of Flickr.

2006 - Cloud Hosting
Amazon Web Services has been launched. AWS popularizes cloud computing with Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud, or EC2.

2007 - Hostway buys Affinity Internet and all affiliate hosting brands such as ValueWeb, Gate.com and BigStep.com.

2008 - Google Cloud Platform Launched:
Google launched App Engine, which was further developed over the decade and renamed Google Cloud Platform. Google Cloud Platform allows users to access cloud hosting service in one of the world's largest networks.

2008 - Rackspace Acquires Small Hosting Companies
Rackspace acquired cloud storage company Jungle Disk and VPS provider SliceHost.

2009 - Geocities closes on October 26th.

2010 - Hostwinds established
Hostwinds will be named PC Magazine's Editor's Choice for the best website hosting in 2018 and FindMyHost.com's Editor's Choice for customer support.

2011 - SOPA (Online Piracy Stop Act) Bill of Law
US Representative Lamar Smith is proposing a law that would allow copyright owners and the US Department of Justice to take court orders against copyright infringing websites. A number of major web hosting companies spoke out against the bill for a variety of reasons. The bill required them to monitor all the sites they host, exposing them to many unfair lawsuits and allowing their domains to be removed based on offensive content.

2011 - Acquired Web.com Network Solutions.

2012 - A New Generic Top Level Domain System
Created The new system allows users to submit new gTLDs for approval. These new TLD names tended to be very specific, like .bike, .clothing or .plumbing. By the end of the year, 1,930 applications were made for new domain names. Also, HostGator was acquired by Endurance International Group and under the same management as Bluehost.

2013 - Snowden NSA Surveillance Documentation
Leaked American whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals the surveillance of the NSA from civilians and the collection of private data. Some web hosting providers felt that the Snowden leaks became more difficult because potential customers are more concerned with privacy and transparency when dealing with US-based companies, as a result looking for web hosting providers abroad.

2014 -
The FCC is Considering New Rules for the Net Neutrality Dispute, while the Federal Communications Commission has announced plans to allow broadband ISPs to give higher connection speeds to certain companies or customers who want to pay a higher price. Web hosting providers like DreamHost opposed these plans as they would make the Internet less open and interfere with the business, as more censorship of hosted sites would mean more expensive web services and unwanted variance in site speeds. The rules surrounding net neutrality have changed since 2014, and the current FCC makes no regulations preventing ISPs from opting for certain types of traffic.

2015 - North American IPv4 Addresses
Ends USA, Canada and several islands in the Caribbean and North Atlantic Ocean I

The American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN) IPv4 addresses that allocate P addresses are running out. IPv4 has been the dominant Internet Protocol since 1983, and the depletion of IPv4 address has marked the transition to more widespread use of IPv6 addresses.

2016 - End of ICANN's Agreement with the US Government
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which has played a vital role in coordinating the Domain Name System and IP address numbers since 1998, ends its contract with the US government. The private sector is now responsible for ICANN's IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) functions such as IP address allocation and DNS root zone management.

2017 - Rackspace signs an agreement to acquire Datapipe, the world leader in cloud computing, colocation and managed hosting industries.