A definition of hosting

The most archetypal and popularly used form of web hosting is the shared web hosting solution. It represents a means to host your web page without having to be much informed about programming and handling a hosting server. Besides, it's also the most inexpensive form of webspace hosting and it's quite affordable for everyone. However, what is shared web page hosting?

What is shared web site hosting?

As the name hints, the shared web hosting solution is a kind of service where multiple clients share the system reserves of one and the same hosting server. This signifies that all web hosting server components like CPU, hard disks, RAM, network interface cards and so on, are allocated among the customers whose accounts are on that same web hosting server. This is usually rendered accomplishable by setting up separate accounts for the different customers and allocating certain limitations and usage quotas for each of them. Those limits are applied so as to restrain the users from interfering with each other's accounts and, of course, to prevent the web server from overloading. Typically, shared web site hosting users do not have complete root-level access to the web hosting server's configuration files, which principally means that they cannot access anything else on the server beside their own personal website page hosting account. The webspace hosting features that each account may avail of are determined by the web hosting corporation that owns the web server and by the respective web space hosting plan. That predetermines the second essential question:

How are the shared hosting servers split among the users?

Hosting vendors that supply shared web site hosting services usually have diverse webspace hosting packages. Those packages offer diverse amounts of webspace hosting features and specs, which actually define the limitations that a web space hosting account will have. The customer may choose between the separate web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he deems will fit him best. The web site hosting plan will then determine what limits the user's account will involve, once set up. The costs and the specs of the site hosting packages are specified by the particular web hosting supplier. Based on the politics of the distributor, the shared web space hosting solution falls into 2 categories - the free hosting solution and the standard shared service, most recently very famous among "cPanel hosting" merchants as a cloud web hosting one. It's impossible to claim, which one is better, since they are very different from one another and they actually are dependent on the business policy of the specific corporation and, of course, the requirements of the specific customer.

What is the difference between the free and the classic shared web space hosting solution?

Of course, the main difference between the free and the paid service is in the amount of resources that they provide. Free web space hosting distributors are not capable of keeping a large amount of web servers, therefore, they plainly host more clients on one single server by lowering the amount of resources offered by the accounts. This will be effective only on condition that the hosting servers are supervised and handled properly, since the great amount of accounts may cause the server to crash frequently. Most of the free site hosting providers, however, neglect the quality of the service and hence, it's quite hard to discover a free of cost web hosting solution that's actually worth the effort. The top free hosting providers normally offer free technical support even to the free hosting customers, because they want their web pages to get bigger so that they eventually upgrade to a paid web space hosting account, which offers more web space hosting features. One such supplier, for example, is FreeHostia.com, which is among the biggest and eldest free hosting providers worldwide.

At the same time, traditional shared web hosting corporations like LivingstoneIT Hosting, for instance, may afford to maintain plenty of web hosting servers and so, they are able to offer much more feature-rich webspace hosting plans. Of course, that reflects on the cost of the webspace hosting packages. Paying a higher price for a web space hosting package, however, does not necessarily signify that this service has a finer quality. The best solutions are the balanced ones, which involve a price that corresponds to the concrete service which you're receiving. The first-rate hosting companies that have been around for quite a while are listing their price tags and package specifications in an objective manner, so that the client may know what indeed he is obtaining. What's more, some of them provide a free extra with the site hosting package, like the 1-click applications installer, complemented with hundreds of free-of-charge templates that are provided by 'LivingstoneIT Hosting'. Such web site hosting firms do look after their reputation and this is the reason why if you go with them, you can be confident that you won't get tricked into purchasing a plan that you cannot actually use.

What should I anticipate from a shared hosting solution?

The shared webspace hosting solution is best for persons who desire to host a standard web portal, which is going to devour a small or medium amount of traffic each month. You cannot expect, however, that a shared web hosting account will be sufficient for your needs, since as your business grows bigger, your web page will become more and more resource consuming. So, you will have to ultimately upgrade to a more powerful site hosting service 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 selecting a web hosting distributor, 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 supplier, which can cause website predicaments and even extended downtime for your web portal. So, choosing a web space hosting distributor like 'LivingstoneIT Hosting', which can supply you with the required domain name and hosting services as you grow bigger, is essential and will spare you a lot of headaches in the future.