A definition of website hosting
The most basic and commonly used type of web hosting is the shared web hosting solution. It represents a means to host your site without having to understand much about programming and administrating a server. In addition to this, it's also the cheapest type of webspace hosting and it's very affordable for anybody. Nevertheless, what is shared web page hosting?
What is shared web space hosting?
As the name hints, the shared web space hosting solution is a type of service where plenty of clients share the system reserves of one and the same web server. This suggests that all web hosting server ingredients like CPU, hard disks, RAM, network interface cards and so on, are allotted among the customers whose accounts are on that very same hosting server. This is normally rendered achievable by setting up different accounts for the different clients and applying some restrictions and quotas for each of them. Those limits are imposed so as to restrain the users from intervening with each other's accounts and, of course, to prevent the web server from overburdening. Normally, shared website hosting users do not have root-level access to the web hosting server's config files, which principally goes to say that they cannot access anything else on the web hosting server beside their very own shared hosting account. The site hosting resources that each account may avail of are fixed by the hosting corporation that owns the hosting server and by the respective web space hosting package. That leads to the second vital question:
How are the shared hosting web servers divided among the clients?
Web hosting companies that deliver shared web site hosting accounts normally have diverse website hosting plans. Those packages involve diverse quotas of hosting resources and specs, which actually determine the limitations that a web hosting account will have. The customer may choose between the separate web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he deems will suit him best. The web space hosting package will then determine what limits the client's account will involve, once set up. The costs and the specs of the web space hosting packages are fixed by the actual hosting company. Depending on the policy of the vendor, the shared hosting solution can be divided into 2 groups - the free hosting solution and the common shared service, most recently very famous among "cPanel hosting" firms as a cloud web hosting one. It's not possible to assert, which one is better, since they are quite different from each other and they indeed are subject to the business policy of the given distributor and, of course, the needs of the given client.
What is the difference between the free of charge and the standard shared web page hosting solution?
Of course, the major difference between the free and the paid service is in the quantity of features that they contain. Free website hosting providers are not capable of maintaining an enormous number of web servers, hence, they merely accommodate more users on one web server by decreasing the quantity of resources provided by the accounts. This will be efficient only if the servers are monitored and maintained properly, since the great amount of accounts may make the hosting server crash over and over again. Most of the free web site hosting companies, however, ignore the quality of the service and therefore, it's very tough to stumble upon a free of cost hosting solution that's actually worth the time. The top free hosting companies typically offer free client support even to the free web site hosting clients, since they want their web portals to enlarge so that they eventually migrate to a paid site hosting plan, which offers more website hosting features. Such vendor, for example, is FreeHostia.com, which is one of the largest and oldest free website hosting vendors worldwide.
On the other hand, established shared web hosting vendors like Gymjims - Jargon-free IT, for example, are able to maintain many web servers and hence, they are able to offer much more powerful web hosting plans. Of course, that reflects on the pricing of the hosting packages. Paying a higher price for a web hosting plan, though, does not necessarily signify that this account has a finer quality. The most advantageous solutions are the balanced ones, which offer a fee that corresponds to the real service which you're getting. The top-notch web space hosting corporations that have been around for quite a while are listing their price tags and plan features in a realistic way, so that the client may know what in fact he is obtaining. In addition, some of these offer a free extra with the site hosting plan, like the 1-click applications installer, complemented with 100's of charge-free web design skins that are offered by 'Gymjims - Jargon-free IT'. Such site hosting firms do care about their good name and this is the reason why if you pick them, you can rest calm that you won't get duped into purchasing a service that you cannot actually avail of.
What should I anticipate from a shared site hosting service?
The shared website hosting solution is best for people who want to host an average site, which is going to consume a small or medium amount of web traffic every month. You cannot expect, though, that a shared web site hosting account will last you a lifetime, because as your business develops, your web site will become more and more resource consuming. Therefore, you will have to eventually upgrade to a more powerful hosting solution like a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (also known as a private virtual server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. Therefore, when selecting a web hosting provider, you should also ponder 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 web site problems and even extended downtime for your web site. Hence, picking a website hosting provider such as 'Gymjims - Jargon-free IT', which can provide you with the required domain name and hosting services as you grow, is crucial and will save you lots of problems in the long run.