A definition of web site hosting
The most archetypal and frequently availed of type of web hosting is the shared web hosting solution. It's a way to host your web portal without having to know much about programming and managing a server. In addition, it's also the most inexpensive form of hosting and it's in fact affordable for anybody. Nonetheless, what is shared site hosting?
What is shared web space hosting?
As the name hints, the shared website hosting solution is a kind of service where plenty of users share the system resources of one and the same server. This suggests that all hosting server components such as CPU, hard disks, RAM, network interface cards and so on, are apportioned among the clients whose accounts are on that very same hosting server. This is mostly rendered feasible by setting up different accounts for the separate customers and setting specific limitations and resource usage quotas for each of them. Those limits are appointed in order to hinder the customers from meddling with each other's accounts and, of course, to prevent the web hosting server from overloading. Normally, shared web hosting users do not have full root-level access to the hosting server's configuration files, which primarily implies that they cannot access anything else on the server apart from their very own web hosting account. The web site hosting features that each account may use are determined by the web hosting distributor that possesses the hosting server and by the particular hosting package. That predetermines the second important question:
How are the shared web hosting servers split among the users?
Hosting providers that supply shared web page hosting plans normally have diverse web space hosting packages. Those packages involve different amounts of webspace hosting features and specs, which in fact fix the limits that a webspace hosting account will include. The client may select between the separate web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he thinks will fit him best. The web hosting plan will then determine what limits the user's account will involve, once opened. The costs and the specifications of the web site hosting plans are set by the actual web hosting company. Depending on the politics of the vendor, the shared website hosting solution can be divided into 2 groups - the free hosting service and the popular shared solution, currently very famous among "cPanel hosting" merchants as a cloud web hosting one. It's impossible to say, which one is more preferable, since they are very different from one another and they actually are determined by the marketing tactics of the particular distributor and, of course, the requirements of the given client.
What is the difference between the free of charge and the classic shared web page hosting solution?
Of course, the essential difference between the free of charge and the paid service is in the amount of features that they offer. Free web site hosting firms are not capable of keeping a great number of servers, therefore, they plainly host more customers on one web server by decreasing the amount of resources offered by the accounts. This will be effective only on condition that the web hosting servers are monitored and administered properly, since the enormous amount of accounts may make the web server crash regularly. Most of the free web hosting companies, however, neglect the quality of the service and as a result, it's very hard to come across a free of charge web space hosting service that's actually worth the effort. The top free hosting providers normally offer free technical support even to the free web hosting clients, since they want their web pages to grow bigger so that they eventually migrate to a paid web space hosting plan, which offers more website hosting resources. Such corporation, for instance, is FreeHostia.com, which is one of the biggest and eldest free website hosting suppliers in the world.
At the same time, established shared web hosting vendors such as Free Hostia, for example, are able to maintain a lot of web servers and as a result, they may afford to provide much more powerful web site hosting plans. Of course, that reflects on the cost of the hosting packages. Paying a higher fee for a webspace hosting account, though, does not necessarily signify that this service has a better quality. The most optimal services are the balanced ones, which involve a price that matches the real service which you're getting. The top webspace hosting providers that have been around for a long time are listing their prices and package specs in a realistic way, so that the client may be aware of what in fact he is receiving. What's more, some of these provide a free bonus with the hosting package, such as the 1-click applications installer, accompanied by 100's of cost-free web design layouts that are furnished by 'Free Hostia'. Such web site hosting companies do look after their reputation and that is the reason why if you choose them, you can rest assured that you won't get tricked into paying for a package that you cannot in fact avail of.
What should I anticipate from a shared website hosting solution?
The shared web hosting solution is best for those who wish to host a standard web page, which is going to swallow a small or medium amount of bandwidth every month. You cannot anticipate, however, that a shared website hosting account will be sufficient for your needs, because as your business grows bigger, your site will become more and more resource consuming. Therefore, you will have to ultimately migrate to a more powerful web site hosting solution such as a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (aka a virtual private web server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. So, when choosing a site hosting company, you should also reflect about how they can be of service to you, or else you might end up migrating your domain name manually to a separate distributor, which can create site complications and even continuous downtime for your web page. Therefore, choosing a web space hosting distributor like 'Free Hostia', which can provide you with the needed domain name and hosting services as you grow, is crucial and will save you a lot of problems in the future.