A definition of web hosting
The most principal and universally used form of web hosting is the shared web hosting solution. It represents a means to host your site without having to be much informed about programming and managing a web server. In addition, it's also the cheapest type of hosting and it's quite affordable for everybody. However, what is shared hosting?
What is shared site hosting?
As the name denotes, the shared hosting solution is a sort of service where numerous customers share the system reserves of one and the same web hosting server. This indicates that all web server constituents such as CPU, hard drives, RAM, NICs and so on, are split among the customers whose accounts are on that very same web server. This is mainly made attainable by setting up different accounts for the separate clients and assigning some restrictions and resource usage quotas for each of them. Those limits are imposed in order to restrain the users from interfering with each other's accounts and, of course, to prevent the web server from overloading. Typically, shared web hosting users do not have root-level access to the server's configuration files, which principally indicates that they do not have access to anything else on the hosting server apart from their own hosting account. The web site hosting features that each account may resort to are set by the web hosting corporation that possesses the web hosting server and by the respective web hosting package. That predetermines the second vital question:
How are the shared hosting servers shared among the customers?
Hosting providers that deliver shared site hosting accounts usually have diverse web space hosting packages. Those plans offer different amounts of web space hosting resources and specs, which in fact fix the restrictions that a web hosting plan will include. The client may pick between the individual web hosting plans and sign up for the one that he believes will befit him best. The site hosting plan will then define what limitations the client's account will have, once set up. The prices and the specs of the website hosting plans are determined by the given web hosting provider. Depending on the politics of the corporation, the shared webspace hosting service falls into 2 groups - the free hosting service and the classic shared service, most recently very popular among "cPanel hosting" distributors as a cloud web hosting one. It's not possible to claim, which one is better, since they are quite different from one another and they actually are determined by the business strategy of the particular provider and, of course, the requirements of the given client.
What is the contrast between the free of charge and the normal shared webspace hosting solution?
Of course, the principal difference between the free and the paid solution is in the amount of features that they involve. Free hosting providers are not capable of keeping a large number of web hosting servers, therefore, they plainly host more customers on a single web server by decreasing the amount of resources offered by the accounts. This will be effective only in case the web hosting servers are monitored and tackled properly, since the large number of accounts may make the server crash repeatedly. The majority of the free website hosting distributors, however, overlook the quality of the service and hence, it's very hard to stumble upon a free of cost web space hosting service that's actually worth the effort. The top free hosting corporations normally offer free customer support even to the free web hosting users, because they want their web pages to grow bigger so that they eventually move to a paid site hosting plan, which offers more web space hosting features. One such firm, for example, is FreeHostia.com, which is one of the biggest and eldest free webspace hosting firms in the world.
At the same time, established shared web hosting suppliers like NTC Hosting, for example, may afford to maintain numerous web servers and therefore, they are able to offer much more powerful website hosting plans. Of course, that influences the cost of the site hosting packages. Paying a higher fee for a site hosting solution, though, does not necessarily signify that this service has a finer quality. The most optimal services are the balanced ones, which offer a price that corresponds to the real service which you're getting. The top webspace hosting distributors that have been around for a long time are listing their price tags and package features in an objective way, so that the customer may acquainted with what exactly he is getting. What's more, some of these provide a free bonus with the webspace hosting package, like the 1-click applications installer, accompanied by 100's of complimentary web page skins that are furnished by 'NTC Hosting'. Such web space hosting suppliers do look after their good name and that's why if you select them, you can rest confident that you won't get fooled into purchasing a service that you cannot in fact make use of.
What should I expect from a shared web site hosting solution?
The shared hosting service is best for individuals who would like to host a basic web site, which is going to devour a small or medium amount of web traffic each month. You cannot expect, though, that a shared web space hosting account will be sufficient for your needs, because as your business expands, your web page will become more and more demanding. Therefore, you will have to ultimately move to a more powerful hosting service like a semi-dedicated server, a VPS (a.k.a. a virtual web hosting server, or VPS), or why not a dedicated server. Therefore, when choosing a web space hosting provider, you should also ponder about how they can be of service to you, otherwise you might end up moving your domain name manually to a separate distributor, which can create website problems and even extended downtime for your web site. So, selecting a web space hosting company such as 'NTC Hosting', which can provide you with the required domain name and hosting services as you grow bigger, is crucial and will spare you lots of inconveniences in the long run.