According to Market Watch, the global web hosting market is forecasted to grow to USD 154 billion by 2022, which represents a capital adjusted growth rate (CAGR) of around 16 percent between 2016 and 2022. Over the last decade or so, advancements in web hosting have made it easier for anyone to run a blog or website of their own. Organizations have taken advantage of these advancements to grow in size and in the diversity of products and services they offer.
Web hosting has now become a necessity for every business that cares about its online brand. If you have experience using web hosting solutions, you understand that things are constantly changing. Keeping track of the advancements in the space is therefore important to ensure that you are always hosted on the newest and fastest technology and platform. According to HostInspection, hanging on the old can immensely harm your site’s performance, search engine rankings and ultimately the reputation of your brand. Stay put as this write-up takes you through 4 key future expectations of the web hosting industry.
1. Solutions-based shift
Users are continually changing their attitudes toward web hosting. Today, they prefer complete solutions over separate hosting services. Evidence of this shift is the reducing use of the term hosting. Analysis of Google Trends shows that the prevalence of web hosting has gone down by 60 percent over the last decade.
Instead of searching for hosting services alone, users are more likely to search for full solutions for running their websites or emails efficiently. Thus, hosting is expected to move from standalone services to a solutions focus combining aspects like email, e-commerce, and SEO to ensure that user needs and expectations are met.
2. Web hosting will become decentralized
Have you been thinking of hosting as an operation in a centralized high-tech warehouse, with massive amounts of redundant wires of network and power? So has everyone until lately. Just as the world is becoming increasingly decentralized, web hosting is utilizing computer power outside centralized architecture.
As much computing data can now be stored on a client’s device as on central servers. Web hosting will change significantly with the increasing power of decentralized computing systems. This change will also mandate an architectural shift especially in how software is written.
3. Cloud computing web hosting resellers will grow
Today, almost all IT managers are using cloud infrastructure as opposed to corporate data centers. Providers of cloud computing services like Google, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have experienced huge growth in the recent quarters. It is estimated that by 2028, there won’t be any need for in-house data centers or web hosting infrastructure.
As the internet becomes even more widely used and more individuals and companies adopt cloud computing, we expect more consolidation of cloud computing and web hosting companies. Also, the practice of hosting websites on single servers is diminishing as consumers of applications and content demand higher availability and performance of hosting services. Consumers will have less tolerance for downtime or slowness.
4. Big web hosting providers will dominate while other existing hosting services will prosper in specialized support
In 10 to 15 years almost all internet traffic will come from only ten or so of the biggest hosting services the likes of Google Cloud, AWS and Azure, John Enright, CTO at Hostway Corporation predicts. All other smaller hosting services will grow in providing consulting services and specialized support to companies that run their applications on the bigger platforms.
However, this might result in reduced innovation by the big hosting service providers once they attain a dominant position. This may be followed by a period of price gouging and low service quality levels. Startups and non-profit oriented organizations will find it difficult to compete. Anti-trust laws will then intervene and force the big companies to spin-out their infrastructure divisions into completely independent entities, which will once again open doors for startups and other existing hosting providers to disrupt the market.
A number of things are inevitable in the web hosting industry in the next decade. Consolidation of web hosting with other website management services is key to the future development of the industry. Hosting customers will want a one-stop shop for domain registration, hosting, email services, SEO services, security add-ons, social media tools, and so on. The future of web hosting is also decentralized, businesses will focus more on uptime, performance, and availability and hosting services will work together in the face of the increasing popularity of multi-server hosting.
