If you’re planning to set up your first website and need web hosting services, it can all be a little confusing. You probably know that ‘ web hosting’ is where your site ‘lives’ online. There are all kinds of web hosting, such as shared hosting, dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, and even self-hosting. Shared hosting is one of the most popular forms of web hosting. This article will take a look at why this is so popular, along with some of the drawbacks, so you can decide if it’s right for you.

Before we get into the pros and cons of shared hosting, we’re going to start by explaining how it works. A ‘server’ is where your site is stored off-line so it can exist online. Hosting companies have gigantic servers. These gigantic servers can handle millions of people a minute, which is more than the average website needs. Many of these servers are shared servers. That means instead of putting a single website on a single server, they’re actually putting lots of websites on one server, with everyone sharing the server’s resources.

Because there are so many websites using a single server, many people are sharing the cost of the server, which means shared hosting is usually an inexpensive hosting solution.

Now we reach the biggest drawback of this type of web hosting services: overloading the site with too many processes, too many visitors, and sudden spikes in traffic. If you’ve ever gone to a website that wasn’t there one day but then returned a day or so later, then you’ve most likely seen a website whose server has crashed. This is due to the fact that there is only so much space on a shared server. While many businesses don’t come anywhere near their allotted space, a few do. Websites that attract thousands of people a day have very complicated sites, or sudden spikes in traffic (such as when they run a promotion), can overload the servers and cause it to crash.

When the server crashes, it not only brings down the offending site, it brings down all the sites on the server as well. That means your site can go down even if you had nothing to do with overloading the server. Many hosting companies monitor their servers and actually ‘shut off’ the offending site before this can happen. After all, if their servers are down too often then people would start looking for another host.

Fortunately, there are ways to protect yourself from this. If you expect a large spike in traffic, you can actually upgrade your hosting package. Better shared hosting is when you’re on a server with a lot fewer people, like a stacked parking lot that’s only half-full of cars instead of completely full. This allows you to have more space to run your business. The advantages of upgrading your hosting are that not only do you have more space; the price is still kept in the affordable range. If you are still causing your web server to crash even after upgrading shared hosting, then a dedicated server is probably the best choice. However, many large websites are run quite successfully with shared hosting.

Shared hosting is one of the least expensive and easiest ways to handle hosting. If you’re new to the online world or don’t expect millions of visitors an hour, then shared hosting is the way to go. Your website and your wallet will thank you!

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