A description of web site hosting
The most archetypal and widely used variety of web hosting is the shared web hosting service. It constitutes a way to host your site without having to understand much about programming and managing a web server. What's more, it's also the cheapest form of web hosting and it's very affordable for anybody. Nevertheless, what is shared hosting?
What is shared web site hosting?
As the name implies, the shared web space hosting service is a type of service where multiple customers share the system reserves of the same hosting server. This means that all hosting server elements such as CPU, hard disks, RAM, NICs etc. are apportioned among the users whose accounts are on that very same web server. This is typically rendered attainable by creating separate accounts for the separate users and applying specific limitations and resource usage quotas for each of them. Those limitations are appointed in order to restrain the clients from interfering with each other's accounts and, of course, to hinder the server from overloading. Usually, shared hosting customers do not have full root-level access to the server's configuration files, which basically implies that they cannot access anything else on the web hosting server beside their very own hosting account. The web site hosting features that each account may use are set by the web hosting provider that possesses the web server and by the respective hosting plan. That necessitates the second important question:
How are the shared hosting web servers shared among the clients?
Hosting providers that distribute shared web page hosting solutions commonly have different hosting plans. Those plans provide different amounts of web space hosting resources and specifications, which actually determine the limits that a website hosting package will have. The user may choose between the separate web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he thinks will suit him best. The web hosting plan will then determine what limitations the customer's account will involve, once set up. The prices and the specifications of the hosting plans are defined by the very web hosting vendor. Depending on the policy of the distributor, the shared website hosting service can be divided into 2 categories - the free hosting solution and the standard shared service, most recently very famous among "cPanel hosting" wholesalers as a cloud web hosting one. It's not possible to say, which one is more preferable, since they are very different from each other and they indeed are subject to the business policy of the particular company and, of course, the demands of the given customer.
What is the difference between the free of cost and the common shared web hosting solution?
Of course, the primary difference between the free and the paid service is in the quantity of resources that they provide. Free web space hosting vendors are not able to keep a great amount of web hosting servers, hence, they simply host more users on one web hosting server by reducing the quantity of resources provided by the accounts. This will be efficient only if the servers are monitored and handled properly, because the big number of accounts may make the server crash on a regular basis. The majority of the free site hosting suppliers, however, overlook the quality of the service and therefore, it's quite difficult to come across a free of cost web site hosting service that's actually worth the effort. The top free hosting corporations normally offer free technical support even to the free website hosting customers, since they want their web portals to expand so that they eventually move to a paid web hosting account, which offers more hosting features. Such provider, for example, is FreeHostia.com, which is among the largest and eldest free web site hosting vendors worldwide.
On the other hand, established shared web hosting providers such as Free Hostia, for example, are able to keep plenty of hosting servers and therefore, they may afford to offer much more powerful web space hosting packages. Of course, that affects the cost of the web site hosting plans. Paying a higher price for a website hosting service, though, does not necessarily imply that this account has a better quality. The best services are the balanced ones, which offer a fee that corresponds to the real service which you're obtaining. The best web site hosting companies that have been around for a long time are listing their prices and package configurations in a realistic fashion, so that the customer may familiar with what exactly he is obtaining. Also, some of these provide a free bonus with the web space hosting package, such as the 1-click applications installer, accompanied by hundreds of complimentary website skins that are supplied by 'Free Hostia'. Such website hosting firms do worry about their reputation and this is the reason why if you choose them, you can be confident that you won't get deluded into purchasing a package that you cannot in fact utilize.
What should I anticipate from a shared web site hosting solution?
The shared site hosting solution is best for persons who are looking to host an average web page, which is going to utilize a small or medium amount of traffic each month. You cannot anticipate, though, that a shared web hosting account will be sufficient for your needs, because as your business gets bigger, your site will become more and more demanding. So, you will have to eventually upgrade to a more powerful hosting service such as a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (aka a private virtual hosting server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. So, when picking a web space hosting company, you should also think about how they can be of service to you, or else you might end up moving your domain name manually to a separate company, which can create web site complications and even continued downtime for your web site. Hence, going with a web space hosting distributor such as 'Free Hostia', which can supply you with the required domain name and hosting services as you get bigger, is essential and will save you lots of nuisances in the long run.