An explanation of hosting
The most elemental and popularly used form of web hosting is the shared web hosting service. It's a means to host your web page without having to be much informed about programming and administrating a server. In addition to this, it's also the most inexpensive type of webspace hosting and it's indeed affordable for everyone. Still, what is shared hosting?
What is shared site hosting?
As the name indicates, the shared website hosting solution is a type of service where plenty of customers share the system reserves of one and the same hosting server. This indicates that all web hosting server elements such as CPU, hard disk drives, RAM, network interface cards etc. are divided among the customers whose accounts are on that same web hosting server. This is usually made feasible by setting up different accounts for the different users and setting given limitations and quotas for each of them. Those limitations are imposed so as to prevent the clients from meddling with each other's accounts and, of course, to hinder the web server from overburdening. Usually, shared web page hosting customers do not have root access to the server's config files, which essentially denotes that they cannot access anything else on the hosting server aside from their own shared website hosting account. The site hosting resources that each account may avail of are fixed by the web hosting corporation that possesses the server and by the given site hosting plan. That leads up to the second vital question:
How are the shared hosting web servers divided among the users?
Web hosting vendors that offer shared web space hosting packages typically have various site hosting plans. Those packages offer diverse quotas of hosting features and specs, which in fact set the limitations that a website hosting package will include. The client may pick between the different web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he believes will befit him best. The web site hosting package will then define what limitations the client's account will involve, once created. The costs and the specifications of the web space hosting packages are specified by the actual hosting company. Depending on the politics of the provider, the shared website hosting service falls into 2 categories - the free hosting service and the popular shared solution, currently very popular among "cPanel hosting" vendors as a cloud web hosting one. It's not possible to declare, which one is more preferable, since they are quite different from one another and they indeed depend on the business tactics of the specific supplier and, of course, the requirements of the given customer.
What is the contrast between the free and the regular shared web site hosting service?
Of course, the major difference between the free of cost and the paid service is in the quantity of resources that they contain. Free hosting providers are not able to maintain a great number of servers, therefore, they plainly host more customers on one single hosting server by lowering the quantity of system resources provided by the accounts. This will be efficient only in case the hosting servers are kept under surveillance and maintained properly, since the great number of accounts may causer the web server to crash frequently. Most of the free hosting providers, however, neglect the quality of the service and hence, it's very tough to come across a free web hosting service that's in fact worth the effort. The top free hosting suppliers typically provide free customer support even to the free site hosting customers, because they want their sites to enlarge so that they eventually upgrade to a paid webspace hosting plan, which offers more website hosting features. Such firm, for instance, is FreeHostia.com, which is one of the biggest and eldest free web site hosting corporations worldwide.
At the same time, established shared web hosting companies like Joomla CMS Hosting, for example, are able to keep multiple web servers and hence, they are able to provide much more feature-rich webspace hosting packages. Of course, that influences the pricing of the hosting packages. Paying a higher fee for a web site hosting solution, however, does not automatically imply that this account has a finer quality. The best services are the balanced ones, which offer a price that matches the concrete service which you're getting. The first-rate webspace hosting vendors that have been around for quite some time are listing their prices and package features in a realistic way, so that the client may know what indeed he is obtaining. Also, some of them give a free extra with the webspace hosting package, such as the 1-click applications installer, complemented with 100's of free-of-cost web templates that are offered by 'Joomla CMS Hosting'. Such web site hosting distributors do worry about their reputation and this is the reason why if you pick them, you can rest calm that you won't get beguiled into purchasing a package that you cannot actually use.
What should I expect from a shared site hosting solution?
The shared site hosting solution is best for persons who are looking to host a standard web page, which is going to generate a small or medium amount of web traffic each month. You cannot expect, though, that a shared website hosting account will be sufficient for your needs, since as your business grows bigger, your web portal will become more and more demanding. Therefore, you will have to ultimately upgrade to a more feature-rich site hosting solution such as a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (also known as a private virtual server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. Therefore, when selecting a web hosting distributor, you should also think about how they can be of service to you, or else you might end up relocating your domain name manually to a separate supplier, which can cause web site troubles and even prolonged downtime for your web page. So, selecting a website hosting provider such as 'Joomla CMS Hosting', which can present you with the needed domain name and hosting services as you get bigger, is essential and will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.