Shared web hosting service is strictly defined as a type of web hosting service that provides many websites to "live" on one web server that is connected and has constant connection to the internet. Shared web hosting has many other derivatives such as "virtual hosting service", and is also known as budget web hosting.
Those who share in the web server would have their own "partition" or section. Try to picture your office with several cubicles for each employee. Your web hosting server would also appear like this, having different "users" have their own section in the web hosting server, so although they belong to one server, they have their own site, separate from the others. Generally speaking, it is the most cost-effective alternative for web hosting, since many are sharing the overall costs. Cost would include server maintenance and other features that a web hosting service would be offering as part of its service.
Having a system administrationis a must for shared web hosting service. Because there are many users, some would consider this an advantage, but then again, if you are a technical user, and you wish to have more control in the system, this might not be a good idea. The general idea of shared hosting environment would have many different customers who share the same server and, essential the same type of resources and features by the web server. Each customer would have their own limitation on specific features, which would include a storage space, allowed FTP accounts, allowed bandwidth per month, allowed email accounts. They would, of course, have similar Apache server, physical memory, and, since there is a single system administrator for one web server, you would also expect only one MySQL server. Shared hosting, in a nutshell, has usage limitation and an extensive reliability feature offered by web hosting providers in place.
Going for shared web hosting might not be appropriate for those types of users who entail extensive software development that is not quite included in the services offered by the shared web hosting provider. What you need to know is that all applications that are basic for a standard web server would work well using a shared web hosting service. So, with this in mind, shared web hosting is economical compared to other types of web hosting, especially that of having a dedicated server hosting.
When do you know what type of hosting needs is suitable for you?
If you are starting out, having limited resources would be the first place starting up small business should start to look. ?An economical price of a shared web hosting plan would be a very good option when getting started with web hosting. When you are uncertain of the needs you should have when, like the number of visitors you will get, or start getting when your business starts, like how big your storage space should be, then a shared web hosting account that you would probably look into should start out slow. If you see that business is good with several visitors checking out your site then you can do an upgrade to your web hosting plan if this feature and option are offered by your web hosting provider. You need to make sure your company is always able to meet your needs as you go up.
As your needs grow, as your company grows, and as your website becomes more visited, and more popular, make sure you are with a web hosting service that could help you develop and get bigger.
Remember, not all starting up small business need to start small. Not all small businesses need to go through the whole process and have to start with this shared web hosting business. If you know what you want, and you know what you need with the funds, then you can always go direct to the other alternative of shared web hosting, and that is the dedicated server web hosting.
|