Shared hosting is the most common and affordable kind of website hosting.
Shared Hosting Definition: Shared hosting is a type of web hosting service where one server connects multiple websites to the internet. Multiple websites share one web server. Shared hosting is the most common type of web hosting. Shared hosting is also known as virtual shared hosting.
A web hosting provider has multiple, on-site servers. Several partitions are created on each server, those are allocated to individual websites or domain names, hence the term “shared hosting”.
You can picture it as a huge block of apartments (the main building representing the server) with hundreds of units that function as websites. There are rules that every apartment/website owner has to obey, everything has to be balanced. In general, it is called a fair usage policy. For example, if one apartment gets flooded the neighbors won’t be happy. Or if one uses too much water or heat the others will be impacted as well. The same analogy applies to websites using a shared host server.
Types of Shared Hosting
There are two different types of shared hosting: IP-based shared hosting and name-based shared hosting.
IP-Based Shared Hosting
IP-based shared hosting is also known as IP hosting or IP-based virtual hosting. IP based hosting is where each website has its own IP address. IP-based shared hosting is the best choice if you want more power and control over your website and its hosting resources.
Name-Based Shared Hosting
Name-based shared hosting is where the websites share a single IP address. So, there could be 3,000 websites on one server, all with the same IP address. The server uses names to decipher one website from another. With name-based shared hosting the websites that share an IP address must also share the same digital SSL certificate. Learn more about name servers here.
Shared Hosting Pros
- Affordable: It is the cheapest web hosting out there! Get the best value by signing up for a year instead of buying a monthly plan. The host will offer a discount for paying for a year in advance.
- Convenient: Shared hosting is convenient because it is so easy to set up a new website. In a few clicks your website is up and running.
- New: Perfect for new websites with little or no traffic. Shared hosting is the perfect fit for newbies. When your website traffic explodes, (we’re routing for you!) your web host will have you upgrade to VPS or dedicated hosting.
- Easy: Shared hosting is great for beginners. You don’t need any technical knowledge to use it. The hosting company is responsible for the administrative tasks and maintenance of your website.
Shared Hosting Cons
- High Traffic: Websites with a high amount of traffic (more than 5,000 visits per day) cannot use shared hosting. These websites must use either dedicated or VPS hosting.
- Sharing: It’s in the name: up to 3,000 websites share a server and all of the resources that offers. The server resources are split up between the different websites using it.
- Customization: You won’t be able to customize your server environment.
How to Get the Most Out of Shared Hosting
Make sure you aren’t going to be competing with other websites for the server’s resources. Some websites will see a spike in traffic, and when that happens, you could see some of those resources taken from your website temporarily until that website upgrades to VPS or dedicated hosting.
Top 5 Shared Hosting Companies
Getting your website set up with shared hosting is easy and affordable. Click one of the links above to get started now, and have your website up and running today.
Shared hosting is good for newbie not for high traffic sites. For high traffic sites dedicated server hosting is best not that?
Well, for a vast majority of website owners shared hosting is sufficient and effective enough. Look at our webhostingsun site, at the time of writing we are still on a shared host (at Siteground) and it works very well for us!
Websites that get more than 5,000 visits per day do need to switch to dedicated server hosting, as stated above. That’s a high amount of traffic for any website, so most of us, even if we’re not newbies, get along just fine with shared hosting.
Thank you for describing what shared hosting is. I have been wanting to make some websites, and someone suggested I look into shared hosting. That is really nice that shared hosting allows you to have multiple websites on one web server. That sounds like the exact thing I need!
Hi Deb! I’m thrilled you like my post and that you’re looking into shared hosting. It’s well worth it! Let me know if you have any questions.
My sister will be launching her start-up tech company and she wants everything to be perfect. It was discussed here that there are types of shared hosting that can help her business. Furthermore, it’s advisable to consult professionals for quality hosted servers.
I have purchased a new domain name for my website. But now i’m confused in hosting plans. I have planned to buy Shared Server.. Is it good.. Because one of my fellow suggested me that i have to purchase VPS Hosting.. should i go for it or not.. please help.. i’m confused right now ?
There are pros and cons to VPS hosting. Remember you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to! Check out this article: https://www.webhostingsun.com/hosting-servers/dedicated-servers-virtual-private-servers-vps/
We hope this helps!
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