A definition of hosting

The most fundamental and frequently used type of web hosting is the shared web hosting solution. It represents a way to host your web site without having to understand much about programming and running a web server. In addition to that, it's also the most economical form of web hosting and it's indeed affordable for everyone. Nevertheless, what is shared web space hosting?

What is shared web site hosting?

As the name signifies, the shared site hosting solution is a sort of service where many clients share the resources of one and the same web hosting server. This means that all hosting server ingredients like CPU, hard disks, RAM, NICs and so on, are distributed among the users whose accounts are on that very same server. This is normally rendered viable by opening different accounts for the separate customers and allocating specific limits and quotas for each of them. Those limitations are imposed so as to restrain the users from interfering with each other's accounts and, of course, to hinder the server from overburdening. Typically, shared site hosting customers do not have complete root access to the server's config files, which principally indicates that they cannot access anything else on the web hosting server apart from their very own shared hosting account. The web site hosting resources that each account may use are set by the web hosting corporation that owns the server and by the particular web space hosting plan. That predetermines the second important question:

How are the shared hosting web servers split among the clients?

Hosting providers that furnish shared hosting plans commonly have different website hosting plans. Those plans contain diverse amounts of web site hosting features and specs, which in fact set the limits that a web hosting package will include. The user may choose between the different web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he deems will befit him best. The hosting plan will then define what restrictions the user's account will have, once set up. The costs and the features of the site hosting plans are specified by the given web hosting provider. Based on the politics of the distributor, the shared website hosting solution falls into two categories - the free hosting service and the normal shared service, currently very famous among "cPanel hosting" sellers as a cloud web hosting one. It's not possible to allege, which one is more preferable, since they are quite different from one another and they indeed are determined by the marketing tactics of the given company and, of course, the needs of the particular client.

What is the difference between the free and the typical shared web page hosting service?

Of course, the main difference between the free of cost and the paid service is in the quantity of features that they contain. Free site hosting suppliers are not capable of maintaining a big number of hosting servers, therefore, they merely host more users on one single web hosting server by reducing the quantity of resources offered by the accounts. This will be efficient only in case the servers are supervised and tackled appropriately, since the enormous number of accounts may cause the web hosting server to crash regularly. The majority of the free hosting companies, however, ignore the quality of the service and hence, it's very difficult to discover a free of cost hosting service that's actually worth the time. The top free hosting vendors commonly provide free customer support even to the free webspace hosting users, because they want their web pages to grow bigger so that they subsequently migrate to a paid site hosting package, which offers more hosting features. One such distributor, for example, is FreeHostia.com, which is among the largest and oldest free webspace hosting firms worldwide.

At the same time, traditional shared web hosting corporations such as My hosting company, for instance, are able to maintain numerous web servers and therefore, they are able to provide much more feature-rich site hosting plans. Of course, that influences the cost of the web space hosting plans. Paying a higher price for a web space hosting service, however, does not automatically mean that this service has a finer quality. The best services are the balanced ones, which involve a price that corresponds to the actual service which you're getting. The first-class site hosting distributors that have been around for a long time are showing their prices and plan specifications in an objective manner, so that the client may be aware of what exactly he is getting. What's more, some of these provide a free extra with the website hosting plan, like the 1-click applications installer, complemented with hundreds of complimentary web skins that are furnished by 'My hosting company'. Such hosting distributors do look after their reputation and that is the reason why if you choose them, you can be certain that you won't get tricked into purchasing a service that you cannot in fact utilize.

What should I anticipate from a shared web hosting solution?

The shared website hosting service is best for people who are looking to host an average web page, which is going to use a small or medium amount of bandwidth each month. You cannot anticipate, however, that a shared website hosting account will be sufficient for your needs, because as your business gets bigger, your web site will become more and more demanding. Therefore, you will have to eventually upgrade to a more powerful website hosting service like a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (also known as a virtual web server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. Therefore, when choosing a web site hosting provider, you should also think about how they can be of service to you, or else you might end up transferring your domain name manually to a separate distributor, which can bring about site complications and even continuous downtime for your web site. Therefore, choosing a web hosting vendor such as 'My hosting company', which can supply you with the required domain name and hosting services as you get bigger, is vital and will save you lots of inconveniences in the future.