What is Shared Web Hosting?

The quintessential and most popular form of web hosting is the shared hosting service. It constitutes a way to host your website without having to understand about programming or administering a server. In addition, it's also the most inexpensive type of web hosting and it's quite affordable for everybody. Still, what is shared hosting?

What is shared hosting?

As the name denotes, the shared hosting service is a form of service where many users share the resources a single hosting server. This suggests that all web server elements like CPU, hard drives, RAM, network interface cards and so on, are split among the users whose accounts are on that very same server. This is mainly made achievable by setting up different accounts for the separate customers and setting specific restrictions and usage quotas for each of them. Those restrictions are applied so as to restrain the users from interfering with each other's accounts and, of course, to hinder the hosting server from being overloaded. Normally, shared hosting customers do not have root-level access to the server's configuration files, which essentially means that they do not have access to anything else on the web server aside from their very own web hosting account. The web hosting resources that each account may utilize are set by the hosting vendor that possesses the web server and by the respective web hosting plan. That brings on the second vital question:

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

Web hosting providers that offer shared hosting solutions commonly have diverse website hosting packages. Those plans include different amounts of web hosting resources and specifications, which actually define the limitations that a hosting account will have. The user may select between the different web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he believes will be the best fit. The web hosting plan will then determine what limits the client's account will involve, once set up. The costs and the specs of the hosting plans are determined by the web hosting provider. Based on the policy of the supplier, the shared hosting service can be divided into two types — the free hosting solution and the popular shared solution, currently very well-known among "cPanel hosting" suppliers as a cloud web hosting one. It is not possible to state definitively which is better, since they are quite different from one another and they indeed are dependent on the marketing strategy of the given company and, of course, the needs of the particular client.

What is the distinction between the free and the common shared hosting service?

Of course, the chief difference between the free of charge and the paid solution is in the amount of resources that they involve. Free hosting companies are not capable of keeping a great number of servers, therefore, they just host more customers on a single web server by lowering the quantity of system resources offered by the accounts. This will be effective only in case the hosting servers are kept under surveillance and handled appropriately, since the huge amount of accounts may make the web hosting server crash frequently. Most of the free website hosting corporations, though, overlook the quality of the service and as a result, it's very hard to stumble upon a free of cost web hosting service that's actually worth the time. The top free hosting firms typically provide free customer support even to the free web hosting customers, because they want their websites to grow bigger so that they subsequently move to a paid web hosting plan, which offers more web hosting features. Such vendor, for example, is FreeHostia.com, which is one of the largest and oldest free hosting firms in the world.

At the same time, established shared hosting distributors like us, can afford to keep numerous web hosting servers running. As a result, we are able to offer much more feature-rich web hosting plans. Of course, that affects the pricing of the hosting plans. Paying a higher fee for a website hosting account, though, does not necessarily denote that this account has a finer quality. The most advantageous solutions are the balanced ones, which involve a fee that corresponds to the real service which you're getting. Also, we also offer a free extra with the website hosting package, like the 1-click applications installer, accompanied by hundreds of free templates. As a hosting corporation, we do care about our reputation and this is the reason why if you go with us, you can be assured that you won't get duped into purchasing a solution that you cannot make effective use of.

What should I expect from a shared hosting service?

The shared hosting solution is best for those who desire to host an average web portal, which is going to swallow a small or medium amount of bandwidth every month. You should not expect though, that a shared hosting account will be sufficient for your needs indefinitely , since as your business expands, your website will become more and more demanding. You will likely have to ultimately upgrade to a more powerful hosting solution such as a semi-dedicated hosting, a VPS hosting (a.k.a. a virtual private hosting server, or VPS), or even a dedicated hosting. Therefore, when choosing a website hosting supplier, you should also consider scalability. The alternative might be migrating your domain manually to a different hosting provider, which can create website complications and even prolonged downtime for your website. If you select The Whole Internet as your hosting company, you can rest assured that we can supply you with the required domain name and hosting services as you grow, am essential consideration that will spare you inconvenience in the future.