Are you finding it difficult to choose the right type of web hosting service for your business? Are you feeling confused by numerous different opinions? Are you feeling that the wrong decision can have large scale implications on your business? If the answer to these questions is yes then this article is meant exactly for you.
For a small business owner who is not well versed in computer terminology, it can be a bit difficult to cut through all the marketing jargon and select the best web hosting service. The question gets compounded even further when you are faced with choosing the right type of web hosting. Most people choose either shared web hosting or dedicated web hosting. This article will explain the concept, advantages and disadvantages of shared web hosting.
- What is shared web hosting?
As the name implies, it is shared. You upload your website on a web server that is shared by many other websites. It’s quite common for large web servers to host more than a thousand websites at a time. In shared web hosting you are allocated some web space on a storage system connected to a web server. The storage space allocated to you is meant explicitly for your website but not the entire storage system.
The same storage system also houses many other websites. Think of it as a hard disk on your computer, you create many folders on your hard disk and then you create multiple folders in which you store different data, shared web hosting is same as this concept.
- What about performance?
Under normal circumstances you won’t have any issues with the performance. But when web traffic spikes up, you can experience some delays. In the worst case scenario when the traffic is exceptionally high, the server might crash down. All this time during which the web server is down, your website will be inaccessible. But servers are robust computer systems and crashing is not that common.
It basically depends upon the hardware employed by the service provider. Good quality hardware like Dell servers can effectively handle large web traffic easily.
- The cost factor:
Shared web hosting is the cheapest type of web hosting. Both dedicated and virtual web hosting are much more expensive than shared web hosting services. You must have seen advertisements that claim to host your website for as low as $1.99 per month. Such services are shared web hosting services. Because the same server is used for hosting multiple websites, the cost of server maintenance is significantly less as compared to dedicated web hosting.
- Is shared web hosting scalable:
The simple answer would be no, shared web hosting service is not scalable. In fact it is not meant for large business organization that might need their web hosting to scale up in future. Shared web hosting is targeted towards small businesses that run on a tight budget. Furthermore, you must not expect much functionality; due to excessive work load shared web servers are not capable of handling advanced operations.
Jonathan Griffin is the editor of Best Host News, a site dedicated to reporting on web hosting and w3 cache related consumer news. He is particularly keen to provide a place where people can find honest and up to date information on hosting providers.