A definition of web space hosting
The most principal and widely used variety of web hosting is the shared web hosting service. It represents a way to host your web site without having to know much about programming and handling a server. Besides, it's also the most economical form of hosting and it's quite affordable for everyone. Nonetheless, what is shared hosting?
What is shared website hosting?
As the name suggests, the shared webspace hosting solution is a kind of service where a lot of users share the reserves of one and the same web hosting server. This denotes that all server constituents such as CPU, hard drives, RAM, network interface cards and so on, are distributed among the users whose accounts are on that same server. This is usually rendered feasible by creating separate accounts for the separate customers and assigning some limitations and resource usage quotas for each of them. Those limitations are appointed in order to prevent the users from meddling with each other's accounts and, of course, to hinder the server from overburdening. Usually, shared site hosting customers do not have complete root-level access to the hosting server's configuration files, which primarily goes to say that they cannot access anything else on the web server aside from their own web hosting account. The web site hosting resources that each account may use are fixed by the hosting distributor that possesses the server and by the given web hosting plan. That entails the second important question:
How are the shared hosting web servers shared among the users?
Hosting firms that supply shared web page hosting plans normally have diverse web site hosting packages. Those packages include diverse amounts of web site hosting resources and specs, which in fact define the restrictions that a web hosting plan will have. The client may select between the individual web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he thinks will suit him best. The web space hosting package will then define what limits the customer's account will include, once set up. The costs and the specifications of the website hosting plans are set by the specific web hosting firm. Depending on the policy of the vendor, the shared site hosting service can be divided into 2 groups - the free hosting service and the standard shared service, currently very famous among "cPanel hosting" distributors as a cloud web hosting one. It's impossible to claim, which one is more preferable, since they are very different from each other and they indeed depend on the business policy of the given corporation and, of course, the demands of the specific user.
What is the contrast between the free and the regular shared web space hosting service?
Of course, the major difference between the free and the paid solution is in the amount of resources that they include. Free webspace hosting companies are not capable of maintaining a great amount of hosting servers, hence, they simply accommodate more customers on one web hosting server by reducing the amount of system resources offered by the accounts. This will be effective only in case the servers are kept under surveillance and handled appropriately, since the huge number of accounts may cause the web hosting server to crash regularly. Most of the free webspace hosting providers, however, ignore the quality of the service and as a result, it's very difficult to stumble upon a free web site hosting solution that's actually worth the effort. The top free hosting companies commonly offer free client support even to the free web hosting customers, since they want their web portals to enlarge so that they subsequently upgrade to a paid site hosting package, which offers more web space hosting features. Such distributor, for example, is FreeHostia.com, which is among the largest and oldest free site hosting companies in the world.
On the other hand, traditional shared web hosting providers like The Gate, for example, are able to keep lots of web servers and as a result, they are able to provide much more feature-rich hosting plans. Of course, that influences the pricing of the website hosting plans. Paying a higher price for a web space hosting plan, however, does not automatically mean that this account has a finer quality. The most optimal solutions are the balanced ones, which offer a price that corresponds to the real service which you're obtaining. The first-rate site hosting firms that have been around for quite a while are revealing their price tags and package specs in a realistic fashion, so that the client may familiar with what exactly he is obtaining. What's more, some of them provide a free extra with the webspace hosting package, like the 1-click applications installer, complemented with hundreds of free web design layouts that are offered by 'The Gate'. Such site hosting companies do care about their good name and this is the reason why if you pick them, you can rest confident that you won't get fooled into buying a solution that you cannot actually avail of.
What should I expect from a shared web space hosting service?
The shared web page hosting solution is best for individuals who want to host a normal web portal, which is going to devour a small or medium amount of web traffic each month. You cannot expect, however, that a shared webspace hosting account will last you a lifetime, because as your business grows, your web site will become more and more demanding. Hence, you will have to ultimately upgrade to a more powerful web hosting solution such as a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (also known as a virtual private web server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. Therefore, when choosing a web site hosting vendor, you should also think about how they can be of service to you, or else you might end up transferring your domain name manually to a separate provider, which can cause website problems and even continued downtime for your website. Hence, going with a web space hosting company such as 'The Gate', which can supply you with the needed domain name and hosting services as you grow, is essential and will save you a lot of difficulties in the future.