A definition of web hosting
The most archetypal and popularly used type of web hosting is the shared web hosting solution. It constitutes a way to host your web portal without having to understand much about programming and handling a hosting server. In addition to this, it's also the most economical form of web space hosting and it's quite affordable for anybody. Still, what is shared website hosting?
What is shared website hosting?
As the name denotes, the shared hosting solution is a type of service where many customers share the reserves of the same web hosting server. This implies that all server components such as CPU, hard disk drives, RAM, NICs etc. are divided among the clients whose accounts are on that same web hosting server. This is usually made possible by setting up separate accounts for the different clients and applying specific limits and usage quotas for each of them. Those limitations are imposed so as to restrain the clients from meddling with each other's accounts and, of course, to hinder the web server from overburdening. Normally, shared website hosting users do not have complete root access to the web server's config files, which principally signifies that they cannot access anything else on the server aside from their own personal shared web hosting account. The web page hosting features that each account may avail of are determined by the web hosting provider that owns the 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 clients?
Web hosting vendors that offer shared site hosting solutions normally have different webspace hosting packages. Those packages provide different quotas of webspace hosting resources and specifications, which actually set the limits that a web site hosting plan will include. The customer may pick between the different web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he thinks will befit him best. The web hosting package will then define what limits the user's account will include, once opened. The costs and the specifications of the web hosting packages are specified by the specific hosting vendor. Based on the politics of the company, the shared web page hosting solution can be divided into two groups - the free hosting solution and the normal shared solution, currently very popular among "cPanel hosting" retailers as a cloud web hosting one. It's not possible to allege, which one is better, since they are very different from each other and they indeed depend on the marketing tactics of the given corporation and, of course, the demands of the particular customer.
What is the distinction between the free and the standard shared web page hosting solution?
Of course, the primary difference between the free of charge and the paid solution is in the quantity of features that they offer. Free web hosting suppliers are not able to keep a great amount of web hosting servers, therefore, they simply accommodate more users on one web hosting server by lowering the amount of system resources provided by the accounts. This will be efficient only in case the servers are supervised and dealt with properly, since the immense amount of accounts may make the web server crash over and over again. Most of the free webspace hosting vendors, however, neglect the quality of the service and therefore, it's very hard to discover a free of cost webspace hosting solution that's actually worth the time. The top free hosting suppliers typically offer free customer support even to the free hosting clients, since they want their web sites to grow so that they subsequently migrate to a paid web space hosting plan, which offers more site hosting features. Such distributor, for instance, is FreeHostia.com, which is among the largest and oldest free hosting providers worldwide.
At the same time, traditional shared web hosting suppliers like AIDA Host, for instance, may afford to maintain multiple web servers and hence, they are able to provide much more feature-rich web hosting plans. Of course, that influences the pricing of the site hosting packages. Paying a higher price for a site hosting solution, however, does not automatically mean that this package has a finer quality. The most advantageous services are the balanced ones, which involve a price that corresponds to the actual service which you're getting. The top-notch webspace hosting companies that have been around for quite a while are showing their price tags and package specs in an objective manner, so that the customer may familiar with what exactly he is getting. Additionally, some of these give a free extra with the web hosting package, like the 1-click applications installer, accompanied by hundreds of cost-free site layouts that are furnished by 'AIDA Host'. Such hosting companies do care about their reputation and that's why if you go with them, you can rest assured that you won't get deluded into paying for a package that you cannot in fact make use of.
What should I anticipate from a shared web page hosting solution?
The shared web hosting solution is best for individuals who wish to host a normal web page, which is going to use a small or medium amount of bandwidth every month. You cannot anticipate, though, that a shared web site hosting account will last you a lifetime, since as your business grows, your web site will become more and more resource consuming. Therefore, you will have to ultimately migrate to a more feature-rich web hosting solution like a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (a.k.a. a private virtual web hosting server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. Therefore, when selecting a web space hosting supplier, you should also ponder about how they can be of service to you, otherwise you might end up relocating your domain name manually to a separate provider, which can bring about web site complications and even extended downtime for your web portal. So, going with a web space hosting vendor such as 'AIDA Host', which can present you with the required domain name and hosting services as you grow bigger, is vital and will spare you lots of troubles in the long run.