A definition of hosting
The most elemental and frequently availed of type of web hosting is the shared web hosting service. It's a means to host your site without having to be much informed about programming and operating a web server. Moreover, it's also the cheapest form of site hosting and it's indeed affordable for everybody. Still, what is shared hosting?
What is shared web hosting?
As the name implies, the shared web site hosting service is a kind of service where plenty of customers share the reserves of one and the same web server. This goes to say that all web server elements such as CPU, hard disk drives, RAM, network interface cards etc. are shared among the customers whose accounts are on that same hosting server. This is usually rendered feasible by creating different accounts for the different clients and assigning some limits and usage quotas for each of them. Those restrictions are assigned so as to hinder the clients from intervening with each other's accounts and, of course, to hinder the web server from overburdening. Typically, shared website hosting clients do not have complete root access to the web server's configuration files, which principally means that they cannot access anything else on the server aside from their own personal shared web hosting account. The web site hosting features that each account may utilize are determined by the web hosting provider that owns the server and by the particular site hosting plan. That brings about the second essential question:
How are the shared hosting servers split among the users?
Web hosting providers that offer shared web space hosting packages usually have different webspace hosting plans. Those plans offer different quotas of web site hosting resources and specs, which in fact set the restrictions that a web hosting package will have. The user may pick between the individual web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he believes will suit him best. The webspace hosting plan will then determine what limitations the customer's account will include, once set up. The prices and the specifications of the hosting plans are determined by the particular web hosting company. Depending on the politics of the provider, the shared hosting service falls into 2 categories - the free hosting service and the popular shared solution, currently very popular among "cPanel hosting" firms as a cloud web hosting one. It's impossible to claim, which one is better, since they are quite different from each other and they really are determined by the marketing strategy of the specific firm and, of course, the requirements of the specific customer.
What is the difference between the free of charge and the normal shared web space hosting solution?
Of course, the primary difference between the free of charge and the paid solution is in the quantity of resources that they provide. Free web hosting firms are not able to keep a huge number of hosting servers, hence, they merely accommodate more customers on one server by reducing the quantity of system resources provided by the accounts. This will be efficient only in case the servers are monitored and tackled appropriately, since the enormous amount of accounts may cause the server to crash repeatedly. Most of the free web hosting firms, however, neglect the quality of the service and as a result, it's very tough to find a free website hosting solution that's in fact worth the effort. The top free hosting providers usually offer free customer support even to the free website hosting users, because they want their web pages to grow so that they eventually move to a paid webspace hosting package, which offers more site hosting features. Such supplier, for instance, is FreeHostia.com, which is among the biggest and oldest free hosting distributors in the world.
On the other hand, established shared web hosting companies like Free Hostia, for example, are able to keep plenty of web servers and so, they are able to provide much more feature-rich site hosting packages. Of course, that influences the pricing of the web site hosting packages. Paying a higher price for a web space hosting account, though, does not automatically signify that this account has a better quality. The most optimal services are the balanced ones, which involve a fee that corresponds to the actual service which you're obtaining. The first-rate web space hosting providers that have been around for quite some time are showing their prices and package specs in a realistic way, so that the client may know what indeed he is receiving. Additionally, some of these offer a free extra with the site hosting plan, like the 1-click applications installer, complemented with hundreds of charge-free skins that are provided by 'Free Hostia'. Such webspace hosting firms do look after their reputation and that is the reason why if you select them, you can be calm that you won't get duped into purchasing a plan that you cannot actually make use of.
What should I expect from a shared web page hosting solution?
The shared website hosting solution is best for persons who want to host a normal web site, which is going to generate a small or medium amount of traffic each month. You cannot anticipate, however, that a shared web space hosting account will last you a lifetime, because as your business develops, your site will become more and more resource consuming. Hence, you will have to ultimately move to a more feature-rich web site hosting solution such as a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (aka a virtual private web hosting server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. Therefore, when picking a site 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 distributor, which can cause website problems and even extended downtime for your web portal. So, going with a web site hosting provider such as 'Free Hostia', which can present you with the needed domain name and hosting services as you grow, is essential and will spare you a lot of predicaments in the future.