A definition of hosting

The most principal and commonly used form of web hosting is the shared web hosting service. It represents a way to host your web portal without having to be much informed about programming and operating a web server. In addition to this, it's also the most inexpensive type of webspace hosting and it's indeed affordable for anybody. Nonetheless, what is shared site hosting?

What is shared hosting?

As the name implies, the shared web space hosting service is a type of service where plenty of customers share the system resources of the same server. This denotes that all web hosting server ingredients such as CPU, hard drives, RAM, network cards and so on, are distributed among the customers whose accounts are on that very same web server. This is normally rendered possible by creating separate accounts for the different clients and appointing specific limitations and quotas for each of them. Those restrictions are imposed so as to prevent the users from meddling with each other's accounts and, of course, to hinder the web hosting server from overburdening. Usually, shared webspace hosting users do not have root access to the server's configuration files, which basically goes to say that they cannot access anything else on the server apart from their own shared hosting account. The site hosting resources that each account may resort to are fixed by the hosting distributor that possesses the hosting server and by the particular web site hosting plan. That results in the second essential question:

How are the shared hosting servers divided among the users?

Hosting companies that deliver shared site hosting services normally have diverse site hosting plans. Those packages provide different quotas of hosting resources and specifications, which in fact fix the limits that a web space hosting account will have. The user may choose between the separate web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he deems will suit him best. The site hosting package will then determine what restrictions the user's account will include, once set up. The prices and the specs of the hosting packages are fixed by the particular hosting company. Based on the politics of the company, the shared web site hosting solution can be divided into two types - the free hosting service and the normal shared service, currently very famous among "cPanel hosting" providers as a cloud web hosting one. It's impossible to declare, which one is more preferable, since they are quite different from one another and they really are dependent on the business policy of the particular provider and, of course, the demands of the given client.

What is the distinction between the free of charge and the typical shared webspace hosting solution?

Of course, the main difference between the free of charge and the paid solution is in the quantity of resources that they offer. Free hosting firms are not able to keep a large number of web servers, hence, they plainly host more customers on a single web server by reducing the amount of resources offered by the accounts. This will be efficient only on condition that the servers are kept under surveillance and tackled appropriately, because the big number of accounts may make the web server crash again and again. Most of the free site hosting companies, however, overlook the quality of the service and therefore, it's very hard to discover a free of charge web site hosting solution that's actually worth the effort. The top free hosting vendors normally provide free technical support even to the free website hosting clients, since they want their sites to grow so that they subsequently move to a paid web space hosting account, which offers more site hosting resources. Such provider, for instance, is FreeHostia.com, which is among the biggest and oldest free web space hosting firms in the world.

On the other hand, established shared web hosting vendors such as Duo Servers, for instance, may afford to maintain a lot of web hosting servers and as a result, they may afford to provide much more feature-rich hosting plans. Of course, that reflects on the pricing of the webspace hosting plans. Paying a higher fee for a website hosting solution, though, does not necessarily mean that this account has a finer quality. The best solutions are the balanced ones, which involve a fee that corresponds to the concrete service which you're getting. The best site hosting companies that have been around for quite a while are presenting their prices and plan features in an objective way, so that the customer may know what exactly he is getting. Also, some of them offer a free extra with the hosting package, such as the 1-click applications installer, accompanied by hundreds of charge-free web page skins that are offered by 'Duo Servers'. Such site hosting firms do worry about their reputation and this is the reason why if you pick them, you can be assured that you won't get hoaxed into buying an account that you cannot actually avail of.

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

The shared hosting service is best for individuals who want to host a basic website, which is going to swallow a small or medium amount of web traffic every month. You cannot anticipate, though, that a shared website hosting account will be sufficient for your needs, since as your business grows, your website will become more and more resource consuming. Hence, you will have to eventually move to a more powerful website hosting solution such as a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (a.k.a. a private virtual web server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. So, when picking a website hosting distributor, you should also reflect about how they can be of service to you, otherwise you might end up transferring your domain name manually to a different supplier, which can cause site predicaments and even continuous downtime for your site. Hence, selecting a web hosting vendor such as 'Duo Servers', 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 future.