A definition of web hosting
The most principal and regularly used variety of web hosting is the shared web hosting solution. It represents a way to host your website without having to understand much about programming and managing a hosting server. Moreover, it's also the most inexpensive form of site hosting and it's very affordable for everyone. Still, what is shared hosting?
What is shared hosting?
As the name hints, the shared hosting solution is a type of service where lots of customers share the system reserves of one and the same web hosting server. This goes to say that all web hosting server components 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 normally made achievable by setting up separate accounts for the different customers and imposing certain limits and resource usage quotas for each of them. Those limitations are set so as to hinder the users from intervening with each other's accounts and, of course, to prevent the web server from overloading. Normally, shared web page hosting users do not have complete root access to the web server's configuration files, which primarily means that they cannot access anything else on the server aside from their own personal shared web hosting account. The web site hosting features that each account may resort to are determined by the hosting corporation that owns the web hosting server and by the given web hosting plan. That predetermines the second essential question:
How are the shared hosting servers divided among the users?
Hosting vendors that offer shared webspace hosting plans commonly have different web space hosting packages. Those plans provide different quotas of web site hosting features and specs, which in fact set the limits that a web space hosting account will have. The user may select between the different web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he thinks will befit him best. The web space hosting plan will then determine what restrictions the user's account will have, once created. The costs and the specs of the webspace hosting packages are determined by the particular web hosting firm. Based on the politics of the firm, the shared website hosting solution can be divided into 2 groups - the free hosting solution and the standard shared service, most recently very popular among "cPanel hosting" distributors as a cloud web hosting one. It's impossible to state, which one is more preferable, since they are very different from one another and they indeed are subject to the business tactics of the specific firm and, of course, the requirements of the particular client.
What is the contrast between the free and the common shared site hosting solution?
Of course, the principal difference between the free of charge and the paid solution is in the quantity of features that they involve. Free web space hosting firms are not capable of keeping a great number of web hosting servers, therefore, they plainly host more customers on one web server by reducing the quantity of system resources offered by the accounts. This will be efficient only if the web hosting servers are supervised and administered appropriately, since the huge amount of accounts may cause the web hosting server to crash again and again. The majority of the free website hosting vendors, though, overlook the quality of the service and therefore, it's quite hard to come across a free of charge web hosting solution that's actually worth the effort. The top free hosting vendors commonly provide free client support even to the free web site hosting customers, because they want their web sites to enlarge so that they eventually migrate to a paid site hosting plan, which includes more website hosting resources. One such corporation, for instance, is FreeHostia.com, which is among the largest and oldest free website hosting firms in the world.
At the same time, established shared web hosting companies like Blue Grape Designs Web Host, for instance, are able to maintain numerous servers and hence, they may afford to provide much more feature-rich hosting packages. Of course, that affects the pricing of the hosting packages. Paying a higher price for a web hosting package, however, does not automatically signify that this solution has a better quality. The best solutions are the balanced ones, which involve a price that matches the actual service which you're getting. The first-class web site hosting corporations that have been around for quite some time are listing their prices and plan features in an objective fashion, so that the client may be aware of what exactly he is getting. What's more, some of them give a free bonus with the web space hosting plan, such as the 1-click applications installer, accompanied by hundreds of free-of-charge skins that are offered by 'Blue Grape Designs Web Host'. Such hosting distributors do look after their reputation and that's why if you choose them, you can rest calm that you won't get tricked into buying a plan that you cannot in fact utilize.
What should I anticipate from a shared web hosting solution?
The shared site hosting solution is best for persons who are looking to host a basic site, which is going to use a small or medium amount of web traffic every month. You cannot anticipate, though, that a shared web site hosting account will last you a lifetime, since as your business grows bigger, your website will become more and more demanding. Therefore, you will have to ultimately migrate to a more powerful web space hosting service such as a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (aka a virtual server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. So, when selecting a site hosting distributor, you should also reflect about how they can be of service to you, otherwise you might end up moving your domain name manually to a different distributor, which can bring about website problems and even prolonged downtime for your web page. Hence, selecting a website hosting provider like 'Blue Grape Designs Web Host', which can supply you with the required domain name and hosting services as you get bigger, is crucial and will spare you a lot of hassles in the future.