A definition of website hosting

The most elemental and widely availed of variety of web hosting is the shared web hosting service. It represents a way to host your site without having to understand much about programming and running a web server. In addition to that, it's also the most inexpensive form of web hosting and it's indeed affordable for everyone. Nonetheless, what is shared web hosting?

What is shared website hosting?

As the name indicates, the shared webspace hosting service is a sort of service where many customers share the reserves of one and the same web server. This indicates that all hosting server ingredients like CPU, hard drives, RAM, NICs and so on, are apportioned among the customers whose accounts are on that same web server. This is typically made attainable by creating different accounts for the different clients and fixing specific restrictions and quotas for each of them. Those limitations are fixed so as to restrain the users from intervening with each other's accounts and, of course, to prevent the server from overburdening. Normally, shared web hosting customers do not have complete root-level access to the server's config files, which principally implies that they do not have access to anything else on the hosting server beside their own personal hosting account. The web space hosting resources that each account may resort to are determined by the web hosting distributor that owns the web hosting server and by the respective webspace hosting plan. That brings about the second important question:

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

Hosting firms that offer shared webspace hosting packages commonly have different hosting packages. Those packages offer diverse quotas of website hosting features and specs, which in fact fix the restrictions that a web space hosting plan will have. The customer may choose between the different web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he deems will fit him best. The site hosting package will then define what limitations the customer's account will include, once set up. The prices and the specifications of the webspace hosting plans are chosen by the very hosting company. Depending on the policy of the distributor, the shared web page hosting service falls into 2 categories - the free hosting service and the classic shared solution, currently very popular among "cPanel hosting" providers as a cloud web hosting one. It's not possible to judge, which one is more preferable, since they are quite different from one another and they indeed are dependent on the marketing tactics of the particular provider and, of course, the needs of the given user.

What is the difference between the free of charge and the typical shared web site hosting solution?

Of course, the chief difference between the free and the paid service is in the amount of resources that they include. Free web hosting distributors are not capable of maintaining an immense number of web hosting servers, hence, they plainly accommodate more users on one hosting server by lowering the amount of resources offered by the accounts. This will be effective only if the web servers are kept under surveillance and maintained appropriately, because the large number of accounts may cause the web hosting server to crash over and over again. Most of the free hosting companies, though, overlook the quality of the service and therefore, it's quite tough to stumble upon a free web hosting solution that's in fact worth the effort. The top free hosting suppliers commonly provide free client support even to the free web space hosting clients, since they want their web pages to get bigger so that they subsequently migrate to a paid web hosting account, which includes more site hosting resources. One such company, for example, is FreeHostia.com, which is one of the biggest and oldest free site hosting companies in the world.

On the other hand, established shared web hosting providers like Castle Host, for example, are able to keep lots of web servers and therefore, they are able to provide much more powerful webspace hosting plans. Of course, that reflects on the cost of the web hosting plans. Paying a higher price for a web site hosting service, though, does not necessarily signify that this service has a better quality. The best services are the balanced ones, which involve a fee that corresponds to the real service which you're getting. The best website hosting suppliers that have been around for quite a while are listing their prices and package configurations in a realistic way, so that the client may be aware of what indeed he is getting. What's more, some of them give a free bonus with the web space hosting plan, like the 1-click applications installer, complemented with 100's of fee-free themes that are furnished by 'Castle Host'. Such web space hosting distributors do care about their reputation and this is the reason why if you choose them, you can be certain that you won't get swindled into buying an account that you cannot in fact use.

What should I anticipate from a shared web site hosting solution?

The shared web site hosting solution is best for individuals who wish to host a normal website, which is going to consume a small or medium amount of bandwidth each month. You cannot anticipate, though, that a shared web site hosting account will be sufficient for your needs, since as your business gets bigger, your web site will become more and more demanding. So, you will have to eventually upgrade to a more feature-rich webspace hosting service such as a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (also known as a virtual web hosting server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. So, when selecting a web site hosting company, you should also ponder about how they can be of service to you, or else you might end up moving your domain name manually to a separate provider, which can bring about website predicaments and even prolonged downtime for your website. Therefore, selecting a hosting distributor such as 'Castle Host', which can supply you with the needed domain name and hosting services as you grow bigger, is crucial and will save you lots of inconveniences in the long run.