A definition of web space hosting

The most primary and commonly utilized form of web hosting is the shared web hosting service. It represents a way to host your web portal without having to understand much about programming and administrating a server. In addition, it's also the cheapest type of web site hosting and it's in fact affordable for anybody. However, what is shared web hosting?

What is shared hosting?

As the name signifies, the shared web site hosting service is a type of service where numerous users share the system resources of the same server. This means that all web hosting server elements like CPU, hard disk drives, RAM, NICs etc. are divided among the clients whose accounts are on that very same server. This is usually made accomplishable by creating separate accounts for the separate customers and fixing some restrictions and resource usage quotas for each of them. Those restrictions are fixed in order to prevent the users from intervening with each other's accounts and, of course, to prevent the hosting server from overburdening. Usually, shared web site hosting customers do not have full root-level access to the hosting server's config files, which principally implies that they cannot access anything else on the server apart from their very own website page hosting account. The site hosting features that each account may avail of are fixed by the hosting corporation that possesses the hosting server and by the given website hosting plan. That brings on the second important question:

How are the shared hosting web servers divided among the clients?

Web hosting companies that supply shared web hosting plans usually have diverse web space hosting packages. Those packages offer diverse amounts of webspace hosting resources and specs, which actually define the limitations that a web hosting plan will have. The client may select between the different web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he believes will suit him best. The hosting package will then determine what limits the client's account will involve, once opened. The costs and the features of the webspace hosting plans are chosen by the particular hosting distributor. Based on the policy of the firm, the shared hosting service can be divided into two groups - the free hosting solution and the classic shared solution, currently very popular among "cPanel hosting" sellers as a cloud web hosting one. It's not possible to judge, which one is better, since they are very different from one another and they actually depend on the marketing tactics of the particular provider and, of course, the demands of the particular client.

What is the difference between the free and the regular shared web site hosting service?

Of course, the main difference between the free and the paid service is in the quantity of features that they provide. Free hosting providers are not able to keep a great number of hosting servers, therefore, they just host more clients on one web server by decreasing the amount of system resources provided by the accounts. This will be efficient only if the web hosting servers are kept under surveillance and handled appropriately, because the big number of accounts may make the server crash time and time again. The majority of the free web site hosting providers, however, overlook the quality of the service and hence, it's quite difficult to discover a free of cost web space hosting service that's actually worth the time. The top free hosting providers typically provide free customer support even to the free website hosting clients, because they want their web portals to grow bigger so that they eventually migrate to a paid webspace hosting package, which offers more website hosting resources. One such firm, for instance, is FreeHostia.com, which is among the largest and eldest free hosting companies worldwide.

At the same time, traditional shared web hosting firms such as ipsi, for example, are able to maintain a lot of servers and so, they are able to provide much more powerful web site hosting plans. Of course, that reflects on the cost of the web site hosting packages. Paying a higher fee for a webspace hosting service, though, does not necessarily signify that this solution has a finer quality. The most advantageous solutions are the balanced ones, which involve a price that matches the concrete service which you're getting. The best web site hosting providers that have been around for a long time are exhibiting their price tags and package features in a realistic way, so that the customer may familiar with what indeed he is obtaining. Also, some of these provide a free extra with the site hosting plan, such as the 1-click applications installer, accompanied by hundreds of cost-free website layouts that are offered by 'ipsi'. Such web site hosting corporations do look after their reputation and that's why if you go with them, you can be calm that you won't get swindled into buying an account that you cannot in fact use.

What should I anticipate from a shared webspace hosting service?

The shared webspace hosting service is best for those who want to host an average web site, which is going to consume a small or medium amount of web traffic each month. You cannot expect, though, that a shared web page hosting account will last you a lifetime, because as your business gets bigger, your web portal will become more and more resource consuming. Therefore, you will have to ultimately upgrade to a more feature-rich website hosting solution such as a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (also known as a virtual web hosting server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. So, when choosing a site hosting provider, 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 different company, which can create web site predicaments and even continuous downtime for your web page. Hence, going with a web space hosting provider such as 'ipsi', which can supply you with the required domain name and hosting services as you get bigger, is vital and will spare you a lot of nuisances in the long run.