Shared hosting is when multiple websites share a large server. By having multiple sites on the same server, web hosting companies can provide the service at much more affordable rates. This is by far the most economical option when it comes to web hosting. To put things in perspective, a dedicated web server starts at somewhere around $60 per month and can go into thousands of dollars per month whereas you can find shared web hosting for anywhere from $1.00 to $40.00 per month.
One of the biggest catch with most shared hosting companies is their marketing efforts. They boast unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited domains, and basically unlimited everything. If you live in this world, then you know the only unlimited thing we have is the amount of lies that will come out of people’s mouth. There is no such thing as unlimited when it comes to web hosting. Shared web hosting option is created for smaller websites which includes new bloggers, small businesses, etc. If every site used their quota, then shared hosting would not work. But since only very few do, it works out very nicely for everyone. Users get a very affordable deal, and hosting companies make a good profit. Long story short, it is the best option for people just starting out. But if your website starts to get popular and use up tons of server resource, then the companies will ask you to upgrade. Having dealt with numerous hosting companies, some of them don’t ask so politely. They simply suspend your account, and then send you an email. Others are not courteous enough to do that either. They would simply suspend your site and let you find out on your own. Yeah that’s why you should pick the shared hosting company that has a good reputation.
Reputation is by far the only thing you should look at when it comes to shared web hosting. Chances are that you don’t use most of the features they have available for you, so using the feature list to choose a web host doesn’t help you at all. Often hosting companies bloat up that features list by adding the most obvious of things. Because most people don’t understand the industry jargon, they look at the size of the feature list to make an uneducated decision. To choose a good shared web hosting company, the only thing you should look at is their reputation in the industry. That is the single most important factor because most shared hosting companies have the same offers.
Advantages of Shared Web Hosting
There is a huge cost advantage because the maintenance fees of the server is shared by thousands of websites. Our shared hosting fee is around $2.25 – $12.50 / month. Competition has led to improvements in technology. Most sharedweb hosting comes with easy to use admin panel like cPanel, Fantastico, etc. We employ highly skilled professionals. This allows you to peacefully concentrate on your business and not worry about maintenance and uptimes. As your site grow you can upgrade without any hassle.
Disadvantages of Shared Web Hosting
Compared to dedicated servers, you will notice a relatively slower server response times on shared web hosting servers. When companies get greedy, overselling can be a huge issue. This can cause regular site downtimes and lagging. Again this is where reputation of the web hosting company comes in play.
