A definition of web site hosting

The most elemental and widely availed of type of web hosting is the shared web hosting service. It constitutes a way to host your site without having to be much informed about programming and administering a server. Furthermore, it's also the cheapest form of hosting and it's very affordable for everybody. Nevertheless, what is shared web hosting?

What is shared web hosting?

As the name signifies, the shared site hosting solution is a kind of service where lots of users share the system resources of the same web server. This implies that all hosting server elements such as CPU, hard disk drives, RAM, NICs etc. are apportioned among the users whose accounts are on that same web hosting server. This is mostly rendered viable by creating different accounts for the separate clients and imposing some limits and resource usage quotas for each of them. Those limitations are set in order to restrain the clients from intervening with each other's accounts and, of course, to hinder the web server from overloading. Usually, shared website hosting users do not have complete root-level access to the web hosting server's config files, which primarily indicates that they do not have access to anything else on the web server apart from their very own website hosting account. The web site hosting features that each account may resort to are set by the web hosting firm that possesses the hosting server and by the respective site hosting plan. That necessitates the second vital question:

How are the shared hosting web servers shared among the users?

Hosting firms that distribute shared web hosting accounts commonly have various webspace hosting packages. Those packages offer diverse quotas of web site hosting resources and specs, which in fact define the limits that a web site hosting account will include. The customer may select between the individual web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he deems will befit him best. The web site hosting package will then define what limits the customer's account will include, once opened. The costs and the specs of the web hosting plans are chosen by the specific web hosting firm. Depending on the policy of the vendor, the shared web page hosting service falls into two types - the free hosting solution and the typical shared solution, currently very famous among "cPanel hosting" vendors as a cloud web hosting one. It's not possible to claim, which one is better, since they are very different from each other and they actually are subject to the marketing policy of the specific supplier and, of course, the needs of the specific client.

What is the distinction between the free and the common shared hosting service?

Of course, the essential difference between the free and the paid service is in the quantity of features that they offer. Free web space hosting corporations are not capable of maintaining a big amount of servers, hence, they plainly accommodate more clients on one single server by reducing the quantity of resources provided by the accounts. This will be efficient only on condition that the servers are monitored and handled properly, since the large amount of accounts may make the server crash on a regular basis. Most of the free hosting vendors, though, overlook the quality of the service and therefore, it's very tough to come across a free of charge web site hosting solution that's in fact worth the effort. The top free hosting distributors usually offer free technical support even to the free webspace hosting users, since they want their web pages to get bigger so that they subsequently migrate to a paid web space hosting plan, which offers more hosting features. One such provider, for example, is FreeHostia.com, which is one of the biggest and oldest free web site hosting vendors in the world.

At the same time, established shared web hosting suppliers such as Lonex, for instance, may afford to maintain many web servers and hence, they are able to offer much more feature-rich web space hosting packages. Of course, that influences the cost of the website hosting packages. Paying a higher fee for a web space hosting plan, though, does not automatically signify that this solution has a better quality. The most advantageous solutions are the balanced ones, which offer a price that corresponds to the real service which you're receiving. The best webspace hosting companies that have been around for quite a while are displaying their price tags and package features in an objective manner, so that the client may be aware of what exactly he is getting. Moreover, some of them give a free extra with the site hosting package, like the 1-click applications installer, complemented with hundreds of cost-free web design templates that are offered by 'Lonex'. Such webspace hosting corporations do look after their reputation and that's why if you go with them, you can be confident that you won't get hoaxed into purchasing a package that you cannot actually use.

What should I expect from a shared web site hosting service?

The shared site hosting service is best for those who would like to host a normal web portal, which is going to consume a small or medium amount of traffic each month. You cannot expect, however, that a shared site hosting account will last you a lifetime, since as your business gets bigger, your web page will become more and more resource consuming. Hence, you will have to eventually migrate to a more feature-rich web site hosting solution such as a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (a.k.a. a virtual hosting server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. Therefore, when choosing a hosting supplier, you should also reflect about how they can be of service to you, otherwise you might end up migrating your domain name manually to a different provider, which can bring about site problems and even extended downtime for your web site. Therefore, choosing a web site hosting provider such as 'Lonex', which can present you with the needed domain name and hosting services as you grow, is vital and will save you a lot of problems in the long run.