What is the definition of shared hosting?

There are numerous types of website hosting or web hosting with a variety of categories that cover different needs and functions. These definitions can vary from the operating systems used – so Linux/ UNIX based Hosting and Windows based Hosting, to broader categories such as ‘Shared Web Hosting’, ‘VPS Hosting’, ‘VDS hosting’, or ‘Dedicated Hosting’.

Shared hosting, whether free or paid is hosting where the service provider hosts pages for multiple Web sites, each with their own Internet domain name(s) all from a single web server.

Free shared hosting plans are a great way for trying out new ideas without paying for them. They function mostly by sharing the domain name and subjecting your site’s visitors to targeted advertising.

Paid for shared hosting allows you to have your own domain name, and such essential features as multiple personalized emails, and the support of programming languages like MySQL and PHP. With a Windows Shared Hosting platform you would also be able to use other programs like .NET and SQL. The more advanced shared hosting platforms offer a user interface for their clients such as, Plesk or Cpanel that create user friendly GUI interfaces to help you get the most out of your shared hosting platform.

Shared hosting platforms are ideal for hosting low to medium traffic informationa sites or hosting small e-commerce sites.

What are the Pros and Cons of Shared Hosting?

Benefits of shared hosting

• Firstly the low cost – after all your sharing and spreading the cost of using a server
• Use of your own domain names
• Ability to utilise most non specialist software packages (e.g. PHP, MySQL, .Net etc.)
• Use of your own email accounts
• Good server administration
• No specialist web site and server administration knowledge required
• Allowing some one else the hassle of looking after the server!

Drawbacks of shared hosting

• Resource limitation -everybody uses the same memory, CPU, memory, Hard Drive and IP address
• You can use only the software provided by your hosting company, and naturally can't install your own
• Lower security levels – don’t have your own firewalls and specialist
• Some available ports and connections can be limited because of security policy.

So in a nut shell, what are the major characteristics; well you get some one else to look after the server and worry about its performance and whether its up, by having multiple people on the servers you get to utilize more advanced systems than you may have the budget for yourself, and most of all for those individuals whose sites do not receive large amounts of traffic and have no high bandwidth requirements it is a cost affective way for your site to be hosted.