Shared Website Hosting Definition
The most elemental and regularly used variety of web hosting is the shared hosting solution. It constitutes a way to host your website without having to know much about programming and administrating a web server. Besides, it's also the most inexpensive type of web hosting and it's indeed affordable for everyone. Still, what is shared hosting?
What is shared hosting?
As the name signifies, the shared hosting solution is a form of service where multiple clients share the reserves of the same web server. This indicates that all hosting server elements like CPU, hard disk drives, RAM, NICs and so on, are allocated among the customers whose accounts are on that very same web hosting server. This is mainly made achievable by creating separate accounts for the different customers and assigning some limitations and quotas for each of them. Those limitations are assigned so as to restrain the customers from meddling with each other's accounts and, of course, to hinder the web server from overloading. Normally, shared hosting clients do not have full root-level access to the server's config files, which principally means that they do not have access to anything else on the web server apart from their own personal website hosting account. The web hosting features that each account may resort to are set by the hosting company that possesses the hosting server and by the particular website hosting package. That leads to the second important question:
How are the shared web hosting servers split among the users?
Hosting distributors that supply shared hosting accounts normally have different web hosting plans. Those packages contain diverse amounts of web hosting resources and specifications, which in fact define the limits that a web hosting account will have. The user may choose between the individual web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he deems will suit him best. The hosting plan will then define what restrictions the user's account will include, once opened. The prices and the features of the website hosting plans are determined by the actual web hosting provider. Depending on the policy of the distributor, the shared hosting solution can be divided into two groups - the free hosting service and the common shared service, currently very popular among "cPanel hosting" merchants as a cloud web hosting one. It's impossible to assert, which one is more preferable, since they are very different from one another and they actually are subject to the business strategy of the given corporation and, of course, the needs of the particular customer.
What is the contrast between the free of cost and the classic shared hosting service?
Of course, the primary difference between the free of charge and the paid service is in the amount of features that they offer. Free web hosting suppliers are not capable of keeping a large number of hosting servers, therefore, they simply accommodate more users on a single server by reducing the quantity of resources provided by the accounts. This will be effective only on condition that the web servers are kept under surveillance and maintained properly, because the great amount of accounts may make the web hosting server crash again and again. The majority of the free web hosting providers, however, overlook the quality of the service and therefore, it's quite tough to come across a free hosting service that's actually worth the effort. The top free hosting corporations typically offer free client support even to the free web hosting clients, because they want their web portals to enlarge so that they subsequently migrate to a paid website hosting plan, which includes more web hosting features. Such vendor, for example, is FreeHostia.com, which is among the biggest and eldest free web hosting corporations worldwide.
On the other hand, established shared hosting providers like us, are able to maintain many servers and as a result, we may afford to provide much more feature-rich website hosting plans. Of course, that affects the cost of the website hosting plans. Paying a higher fee for a web hosting account, though, does not automatically denote that this service has a finer quality. The most advantageous services are the balanced ones, which involve a fee that matches the real service which you're obtaining. Furthermore, we also give a free extra with the hosting plan, like the 1-click applications installer, accompanied by 100's of free web page skins. As a web hosting provider, we do look after our reputation and this is the reason why if you go with us, you can be confident that you won't get deceived into buying a package that you cannot actually avail of.
What should I expect from a shared hosting solution?
The shared hosting service is best for those who want to host an average web page, which is going to use a small or medium amount of traffic each month. You cannot expect, though, that a shared hosting account will be sufficient for your needs, since as your business enlarges, your web site will become more and more demanding. So, you will have to eventually migrate to a more feature-rich web hosting service such as a semi-dedicated servers, a virtual private servers (aka a virtual web server, or VPS), or even a dedicated server. Therefore, when selecting a web hosting company, you should also consider scalability, otherwise you might end up transferring your domain manually to a different provider, which can bring about web site complications and even continued downtime for your website. If you pick as your web hosting company, you can rest safe that we can present you with the needed domain name and hosting services as you grow, is vital and will save you lots of frustrations in the future.