Definition of Shared Web Hosting

Shared web hosting is a service that hosting companies provide so that you can put your website online.

How can people observe your site?

When you build a site and you would like other individuals to observe it, you will need to publish (or upload) it to a hosting server. If you attempt to make the web site discoverable on the Internet by shared web hosting it on your own PC, there is no way for you to keep it always online, which is why web hosting services exist.

How does shared web hosting work?

Hosting vendors provide you with hard disk storage space for your website on their high-end computers (servers) and guarantee continuous Internet connection. When somebody writes your domain (for instance www.my-best-domain.com) in their web browser's URL bar, they will be connected to the server where they can take a glimpse at the content of your site.

Types of hosting

With the advancement of online technologies, different types of web hosting services have come into being to match the various requirements of website proprietors, among them shared website hosting services, VPS web hosting services and dedicated hosting services.

Shared website hosting

Shared web hosting is the most commonly used type of hosting, and is also the easiest to begin with. It is a service where one web server is divided among plenty of shared hosting account owners who are restricted by the CPU, traffic and web server disk drive space quotas that they have been allocated. This form of website hosting is generally less expensive - you don't have to purchase the entire server upfront, since it is shared between many customers, and the hosting company can afford to provide much more modest prices. It is also easier to use - the web hosting server is pre-installed with all the required software and the hosting solutions provider takes care of all server maintenance procedures and software updates for you.

The drawback of the shared hosting solution is that you share the web hosting server's resources with other hosting users and if one site becomes really busy it may influence (and slow down) all the other sites on that hosting server, but the majority of hosting service providers, including us at viawebcloud, have security systems at work that hinder that from occurring.

A definition of a website hosting service

Because shared website hosting is the most widely used form of web hosting, most hosting companies and web hosting customers simply refer to it as web hosting or website hosting. As there is an extensive competition on the web hosting market, the majority of hosting providers try to provide affordable prices and bonuses with their services. We, for instance, offer different website hosting plans and two billing options - monthly and annual, based on your finances. If you pick the yearly invoicing cycle, you will obtain a gift - one free-of-charge domain name registration.

VPS web hosting

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. The VPS web hosting solution is basically the middle ground between the shared web hosting solution and the dedicated web hosting solution. If your website outgrows the resources offered by your shared website hosting plan, a VPS web server plan is a good option. VPS server hosting users still share the hardware resources of the physical machine with other private virtual web server hosting users, but the hard disk is split up using special virtualization software so that each partition has its own guaranteed resources and can be configured practically like a real dedicated hosting server. The advantage is that the CPU and the memory on a virtual hosting server are not shared. Moreover, the virtualization technology offers you much more freedom to configure your virtual private web server, but it also presupposes a higher degree of technical competence.

Dedicated Server Web Hosting

With the Dedicated Server Web Hosting solution, the customer obtains a whole physical server and can use all its system resources. The dedicated web hosting solution is the most reliable of all hosting solutions and offers a myriad of customization possibilities - the dedicated server hosting clients can select the hardware and software specs that will answer their demands. Dedicated system resources and guaranteed performance are among the reasons why a dedicated server web hosting plan is a perfect option for a high resource-requiring business site, for instance - you will not share the dedicated hosting server's system resources with anyone else and will get complete server root access. You will exert full authority over the web server, which will enable you to implement any server configuration modifications that you might need. The setback of the dedicated web hosting solution is that a more advanced level of technical expertise is needed - unless you engage an Information Technology pro, you will be responsible for administering and configuring the dedicated web hosting server. The dedicated web server hosting solution is also far more high-priced, because the cost of the dedicated hosting web server isn't shared between any other clients.

A website hosting recommendation for beginner users

If you are just starting to set up your website and are looking for a hosting solution to start with, the shared website hosting solution remains the best choice. If your web site outgrows your web hosting account's resources, you can normally upgrade. With us, for example, this is extremely easy and does not involve migration of your web site files, since only the features of your hosting account change. You can also upgrade your web hosting plan to a more advanced one at any particular moment without having to worry about the number of days remaining before expiration. Additionally, if you finally reach the most advanced shared hosting plan and still need more resources (which is great sometimes - it indicates that your website's popularity has grown!), there always is the possibility to move to a private virtual server web hosting platform or a dedicated server web hosting solution without the need to switch hosting service providers.