What is a shared web hosting ?
Shared web hosting service refers to a web hosting service where many websites reside on one web server connected to the Internet. This is generally the most economical option for hosting, as the overall cost of server maintenance is amortized over many customers.
By choosing shared hosting, the website will share a physical server with one or different other websites. With shared hosting, a server will store different other files and would be responsible for serving up the information about them.
In a shared hosting environment, your and other website owners shared one server. This includes sharing the physical server and the software applications within the server. Shared hosting services are affordable because the cost to operate the server is shared between you and these other owners. There are, however, a number of down sides, such as being slower.
The service must include system administration since it is shared by many users; this is a benefit for users who do not want to deal with it, but a hindrance to power users who want more control. In general shared hosting will be inappropriate for users who require extensive software development outside what the hosting provider supports.
Almost all applications intended to be on a standard web server work fine with a shared web hosting service. But on the other hand, shared hosting is cheaper than other types of hosting such as dedicated server hosting. Shared hosting usually has usage limits and hosting providers should have extensive reliability features in place.
Shared hosting services typically offer basic web statistics support, email and webmail services, auto script installations, updated PHP and MySQL, basic after-sale technical support that is included with a monthly subscription. It also typically uses a web-based control panel system.
Most of the large hosting companies use their own custom developed control panel. Control panels and web interfaces can cause controversy however since web hosting companies sometimes sell the right to use their control panel system to others. Attempting to recreate the functionality of a specific control panel is common, which leads to many lawsuits over patent infringement.
In shared hosting, the provider is generally responsible for managing servers, installing server software, security updates, technical support, and other aspects of the service. Most servers are based on the Linux operating system and LAMP (software bundle). Some providers offer Microsoft Windows-based or FreeBSD-based solutions.
Server-side facilities for either operating system (OS) have similar functionality (for example: MySQL (database) and many server-side programming languages (such as the widely used PHP programming language) under Linux, or the proprietary SQL Server (database) and ASP.NET programming language under Microsoft Windows.
Shared web hosting can also be done privately by sharing the cost of running a server in a colocation centre; this is called cooperative hosting.
What is the advantages and distanges of share web hosting ?
Shared Hosting advantages
- full features – Shared web hosting is the most commonly used method of hosting, Shared web hosting has an economic advantage, You can handle your website easily without special skill set, you can ask for the extra storage space, Every sort of software can be installed.You need to upload the website or the web-based system and configure it to work, You can create email accounts and a database, although some websites share the same resources, most shared hosting plans offer the supervision, maintenance & technical support.
- Cheap – Shared hosting service means that a number of websites are hosted in a single server, It is called shared hosting plan, It is cheaper than the dedicated hosting and VPS, You can have multiple email accounts at your own domain, and You can have more than one database.
- Easy to manage – Shared Web Hosting Hosting provider takes care of the administration and maintenance. It solves the technical issues of the server. You can get MySQL and PHP support. You can get cPanel or other user-friendly application which are designed to make the website management easy.
- No server maintenance – Shared web hosting is cheap will fit your needs depends on the size of the web sites hosted. You don’t need to perform the technical maintenance on the server when you run the programs. It saves time and the headaches because another one takes care of the server maintenance. It is the best choice for the small to medium websites.
- Easy to use – It is easy to set up and manage the websites, and you do not have to configure the server by yourself. Shared hosting service providers can set up the shared server, and they will install and upgrade the necessary software, and they will monitor the servers to avoid downtime. They will also fix all the security issues to ensure the safety of the server and the website uptime.
- Website Setup instantly – there are lots of control panel and billing software such as cpanel, plesk and whcm can set up the websites instantly right after payment verification.
Disadvantages of Shared Web Hosting
Shared hosting sounds pretty good: it’s affordable, has a solid uptime, and is easy to manage. But, it does come with certain drawbacks.
- The load time can be a lot slower than dedicated servers.
- The server can become overburdened by other sites that are sharing the server.
- As your site begins to receive higher levels of traffic you’ll begin to notice that your site might begin to perform much worse.
- You never quite know who your neighbors are. Although rare, it is possible for other sites on the server to pose a risk to your own site.
- There’s a lack of customization options to truly get the highest level of performance from your website.
- Bad neighbor websites will make your website Search Engine Rank very low
For most people just getting started online the advantages of shared hosting will greatly outweigh the disadvantages, especially if you’re trying to get a site up and running as quickly as possible and have little tech skills. It’s also important to note that a responsible web host will let you know when your traffic hits a level that it’s time to upgrade, and will monitor and shut down any sites that pose a risk to the others on the server.