What is Shared Web Hosting?
What is Shared Web Hosting?
For businesses, organizations, or people looking
to host a website the most popular and cost
effective choice is usually shared web hosting.
For many websites shared web hosting is the
ideal solution. Shared webhosting has it's
advantages and disadvantages, you should be
aware of before making your decision to use it.
Hosting companies offer shared hosting to
customers with websites that have small or
moderate traffic levels. These packages are
offered at a very modest and reasonable cost. By
allowing different customers to share computer
hardware resources, maintenance and operating
costs are spread over a larger number of clients
which reduce costs. Customers may be on the same
physical computer but hard drive space is
separated so no one else has access to your
files or data.
The most attractive aspect of shared hosting for
most people is its low cost. Customers can
choose the amount of disk space and bandwidth
they need. If you are willing to sign up for a
longer term contract (6, 12, or 24 months) the
prices will be lower than paying at the end of
each month. As shared hosting is managed by
hosting company, all security, and software
updates and performed by their staff. Shared
hosting packages usually come with a simple to
use client management interface, that allows
them to set up file and FTP access,manage email
accounts and other basic functions, giving you
control over your website. For customers who
want more features such as shopping carts,
automated backups, and security certificates
shared hosting packages offer them as extras to
your account.
While there are many advantages to shared
hosting there are some disadvantages as well.
Shared hosting often means you are on the same
computer as hundreds or thousands of other
websites. This sharing of resources means your
response time may be less than optimal. For
example if you are on the same webserver as
several other high volume websites you may
notice a performance lag. Hosting companies
monitor shared servers for abuse and resource
hogging, sometimes malicious scripts or bad code
can cause it to stop functioning, shutting down
every website on the server. Limitations on disk
space and bandwidth is another concern. If you
have a busy traffic spike you may exceed your
disk space or bandwidth allowance. Which means
overage fees or your website gets shut down.
While not the perfect solution for everyone, for
many people
shared web hosting is an attractive
option to consider. It allows them to start
small and manage costs, costs time and people
resources and have access to the technical
expertise of the web hosting company all on a
limited budget.
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About the Author
Eric Fazio runs Webhosting-Advisor.com where he
publishes articles about web hosting and reviews
web hosting services.