Website Hosting Directory and Information
Shared Hosting ExplainedSetting up your website can be a very exciting process. So you have spent a great deal of time working out your content, designing the look of your site, and perhaps even generating images for links or various other aspects of the site. What's next? If your site is ready to go, the next step will be to finally place it online for the world to see. There are a couple of major options when it comes to web hosting. They are shared hosting and dedicated hosting. They both have various pros and cons depending on your needs. The first difference most people see when they are in the market for a hosting solution is price. A shared host can generally be secured for $10 per month or even less. On the other hand, a solid dedicated host will usually average $80 per month or more depending on the services they offer to their customers. So what is it exactly that merits such a considerable difference in monthly rates between shared hosting and dedicated hosting? It all comes down to how and where your website is stored. With a shared hosting solution, as the name implies, your site shares a server with several other customers and their websites. The number of sites hosted per server can vary widely from 10 to 100 or more. Think of the server as being a neighborhood and each site is a resident in that neighborhood. A dedicated host, on the other hand, means that your website is the only resident on that server and that your website has a unique IP address (or “Internet Protocol” address). Whether or not you require a dedicated host for your website is really up to you. The advantage of the shared host is obviously the considerable savings per month. Most personal sites will find shared hosting more than adequate. Even small to medium businesses will be able to get by without a hitch if they go with shared, or virtual, hosting. The downside of sharing a server box with other websites can be problematic, however. |
Let's take a look at the neighborhood analogy again. We have all had less than perfect neighbors before in our real living situations. Sometimes they are too noisy or maybe they don't maintain their front yard adequately and it brings the property value of your home down. Perhaps their crazy dog keeps coming into your yard and making a mess. As you can see, neighbors can cause a multitude of problems. The same goes for a shared host. Your neighbors on the server can adversely affect your site. If one site is getting large amounts of traffic, it will take up a considerable amount of the server's resources, thus slowing it down. If the server slows down, so does your site and everybody else's site on the server. Your page may run slowly and cause your customers to lose patience when surfing your pages, compelling them to move on to one of your competitors. Another problem that can occur is a server crash. Say, for example, that someone on the server is testing out a new script and he places it online. For whatever reason, the script could run amuck and end up bringing down the server. Not only does his site go down, but so does yours and everybody else living on the server. If your hosting provider does not have a good IT team to fix the problem, there is no telling how long the server will be down. This is especially so if the host does not have a maintenance team working at night and your server crashes at 2 in the morning.
If you feel that you still need to go with a shared host, there are some things you can do to avoid these problems. Just like when you move into any neighborhood, you'll want to check out the neighbors. See if you can ask the host what kind of traffic sites on a specific server are getting and what kind of processing loads the servers are under. It's not sufficient to just find out how many sites are hosted on a specific server. Sometimes a server with just 10 sites will get more traffic than a server with 100 sites. Those 100 sites may only get a few hits per day while the server with the 10 sites may get much more. Additionally, those 10 sites may be using complicated databases or CGI scripts that eat up server resources. Hence, you'll want to make sure that you end up on a server with “quiet neighbors.”
Again, most websites will be able to do just fine on a shared host. Most people probably would not even notice the difference if their website was hosted on a shared host or on a dedicated host, granted that your shared host provider doesn't have you on an overflowing server with poor technical support. The only sites that really require a dedicated host are those that require high levels of bandwith, a large amount of storage space, and software flexibility. Sites like this are generally high volume e-commerce and shopping sites that have complicated infrastructures. If you are just posting your personal site about kittens, then you can probably save a pretty good amount of money and just go with a shared host. Many large corporations have budgets and IT teams set aside for the sole purpose of putting their business site on a dedicated server.
Feel free to compare hosts and see what each one offers. With all the options
out there, you are sure to find one that suits you perfectly. Make sure
that you read all the fine print and assure that you are getting exactly
what you need. You might end up with more or less than you had anticipated.
In most of these cases, you can usually switch plans or options if you are
not under contract with your host. Also, don't forget to ask questions if
a company is not clear on their services, especially if you will be locked
into a contract. We hope you find the web hosting solution that is right
for you!
For further reading we recommend Hercules
Hosting.