Shared Web Hosting Clarified

You have an idea that you would like to turn into a website? Your very first move should be to retain your enthusiasm and discover a place for your website on the web so that it will be constantly accessible to the whole world.

Where should you host your website?

Because the number of websites on the World Wide Web has risen rapidly in the last couple of years, the need for web hosting services has also lead to the emergence of countless shared web hosting providers. These are companies that offer you hard disk space for your own site on their web hosting servers.

Varieties of hosting services

The reach of web hosting services fluctuates greatly, so do the necessities of the web site proprietors. The most basic web hosting type is the small-size file hosting solution, where files can be uploaded using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a web interface. Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) deliver this service for free. Personal web site proprietors and companies can also get website hosting services from various web hosting providers. Personal web hosting services are typically either free, ad-financed, or inexpensive. Business website hosting services often cost more, but because of the gigantic rivalry on the hosting marketplace, an increasing number of hosting firms, like us at HostPlenty.com, supply business website hosting services at cut-rate prices and with flexible invoicing periods.

Kinds of websites and their requirements

The free-of-charge hosting solution is generally sufficient for personal web sites like portfolios or blogs. A more regularly visited site, such as a community web portal or a corporate web portal, needs a more advanced website hosting package that offers database support and application development platforms (for example PHP). If you wish to create an online store, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) must be supported by the web hosting solutions provider of your choice. Nowadays, Secure Sockets Layer certificates are offered by most web hosting distributors.

The hosting Control Panel

The hosting provider usually also offers a web hosting Control Panel graphical user interface for handling your web content, e-mail accounts, e-mail aliases, domain names, DNS records, etc.

Service dependability

When picking a hosting solution, website availability is a very vital criterion. The accessibility of a web site is measured on a yearly basis by taking into account the time when the web site is publicly accessible and reachable on the Internet. Network and service availability guarantees, therefore, should be mindfully taken into consideration when signing up for a website hosting service. You should double-check the SLAs and the ToS of the hosting packages provider of your choosing in advance. Finding online reviews from existing customers is also a quite smart step before you decide to subscribe.

The shared web hosting solution

The most famous and affordable type of web hosting service is the shared web hosting solution. It offers 24-7-365 client support, which is a great advantage for clients who would not like to cope with server maintenance procedures, but could also obstruct users who wish to exert more authority over the server. For such customers, a virtual private servers or a dedicated server web hosting would be more suitable. Most popular apps and scripts work okay on a shared hosting server. Besides, the shared web hosting solution is cheaper than other types of hosting solutions, such as the dedicated servers web hosting, since the hosting packages provider divides the hosting server among multiple clients. The shared web hosting platform normally involves usage limits that ensure that the separate users do not interfere with each other and that the web hosting server stays stable.

Administering your shared hosting account

Shared website hosting packages usually include a web-based hosting Control Panel GUI, such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, etc. Most of the large-size hosting firms, again like us at HostPlenty.com, use their own custom-made hosting Control Panel interface.

Web server maintenance

With the shared website hosting platform, the web hosting provider is responsible for administering the web and electronic mail servers, for installing web server software, software updates and patches, and for providing tech support to its customers. Most web servers are based on the Linux OS. The hosting service provider's sysadmins are responsible for keeping the Operating System up to date, unless you have a dedicated server and full root privileges.