What Actually is Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is a service that web hosting service providers provide so that you can upload your site to the web.

How can people access your web site?

When you set up a website and you want other people to see it, you will have to copy (or upload) it to a server. If you attempt to render the site visible on the World Wide Web by shared hosting it on your own computer, there is no way for you to keep it constantly online, which is why website hosting services came into existence.

How does shared hosting work?

Web hosting vendors provide you with hard drive space for your site on their high-power computers (web servers) and ensure continuous Internet access. When someone types your domain (for instance www.my-best-domain.com) in their web browser's address bar, they will be connected to the hosting server where they can explore the content of your website.

Types of web hosting

With the progress of web technologies, several types of web hosting services have come into existence to match the different requirements of website proprietors, including shared website hosting services, VPS web server hosting services and dedicated web hosting services.

Shared hosting

Shared website hosting is the most popular type of hosting, and is also the easiest to begin with. It is a service where one server is divided between numerous web hosting users who are restricted by the CPU, traffic and web server storage space quotas that they have been assigned. This form of website hosting is typically cheaper - you don't have to purchase the entire web hosting server in advance, since it is shared among a lot of hosting customers, and the hosting distributor can afford to offer much more moderate prices. It is also much easier to use - the hosting server is pre-configured with all the necessary software and the web hosting solutions provider handles all server maintenance procedures and software updates on your behalf.

The setback of the shared website hosting solution is that you share the hosting server's system resources with other web hosting account owners and if a given site becomes very popular it may affect (and slow down) all the other websites on that server, but the majority of hosting providers, including us at Kiaran IT Services, have protection systems in place that impede that from taking place.

A description of a hosting service

Since shared web hosting is the most common form of web hosting, most hosting companies and web hosting users simply refer to it as hosting or website hosting. As there is an enormous rivalry on the web hosting marketplace, most web hosting service providers strive to provide modest prices and gifts with their hosting services. We, for instance, offer different website hosting plans and two billing options - monthly and yearly, based on your funds. If you choose the annual invoicing cycle, you will get a present - one cost-free domain registration.

VPS hosting

VPS is an abbreviation of Virtual Private Server. The VPS hosting solution is basically the middle ground between the shared hosting solution and the dedicated hosting solution. If your site outgrows the resources offered by your shared website hosting account, a VPS web server hosting package is a possible solution. VPS web server hosting users still share the hardware resources of the physical server with other VPS web server hosting clients, but the server is split up using special virtualization software so that each partition has its own dedicated resources and can be configured almost like a full-fledged dedicated web server. The advantage is that the CPU and the memory on a VPS web hosting server are not shared. In addition, the virtualization technology offers you much more autonomy to configure your VPS web server, but it also presupposes a higher level of technical expertise.

Dedicated Server

With the Dedicated Server solution, the customer gets a whole web hosting server and can use all its system resources. The dedicated web hosting solution is the most robust of all website hosting solutions and offers a myriad of configuration options - the dedicated hosting users can pick the hardware and software specifications that will answer their demands. Dedicated system resources and no-holds-barred performance are among the reasons why a dedicated web server hosting package is a perfect solution for a high resource-absorbing corporate site, for instance - you will not share the server's resources with anyone else and will obtain root privileges. You will have full authority over the machine, which will allow you to make any configuration changes that you might require. The drawback of the dedicated hosting solution is that a more advanced degree of technical proficiency is needed - unless you employ an Information Technology specialist, it will be your responsibility to manage and configure the dedicated web server. The dedicated web server hosting solution is also much more high-priced, since the cost of the dedicated server isn't shared among any other users.

A website hosting advice for beginners

If you are just starting to build your website and are searching for a hosting solution to start out with, the shared website hosting solution persists to be the most appropriate option. If your site grows beyond your hosting account's resources, you can normally upgrade. With us, for example, this is extremely easy and does not necessitate migration of your files, because only the features of your website hosting account change. You can also upgrade your website hosting package to a more advanced one at any particular moment without worrying about the number of days left until the expiration date. Additionally, if you eventually reach the most powerful shared website hosting package and still need more resources (which is great sometimes - it suggests that your site's popularity has increased!), there always is the option to switch to a VPS server hosting platform or a dedicated hosting platform without the need to switch hosting service providers.