As a 27-year web design veteran, and de facto tech support for many of my clients, I’m often asked to explain what’s going on with some aspect of the internet when things crop up. I wrote this foundational description of how websites work today as I answered a customer’s specific request.
After receiving a “sorry for zero notice, your hosting server changed” email from their hosting company, a very nice person was worried and wanted for me to check that everything is okay. This was my response:
A website is simply a set of digital files and data being “hosted” on a computer (called a “server”) that stays on and connected 24/7 for anyone to call on it for the information it represents.
You can think of a website’s files like books, magazines, bookends, knickknacks, and maybe even a lamp and speakers— all on a nice little bookshelf (in your case, a shared Dreamhost server).
Dreamhost may have discovered the bookshelf was corroded and about to fall, so they moved your stuff to another one. All the books should be in the same order as before. But, if you also had also had a little lamp or wired speakers, their functioning might be different, because new shelf’s outlets are in a different spot.
Fortunately for you, all you had was books on your bookshelf.
So, all is well, nothing to do.
