It’s actually quite simple. When you view a website in a browser, you can do so because the browser has downloaded a number of files filled with code and converted the markup into something you can actually see. Just like on your computer, these files were stored somewhere so you could access them. However, instead of your hard drive, they were on another computer, a so called server.

Servers are more powerful than your laptop (so they can manage many people accessing the website at the same time), however, it is made up of the same things as a CPU, memory and other components. It even has an operating system, Linux based or windows based. The owner of the server rents it out to the person owning the website you are viewing and also provides some other services like server management, support, malware scanning, backups and so on. The process of providing this infrastructure for others is called web hosting. The person who does it is called a hosting provider.