What is Shared Hosting?
If you’ve ever lived in an apartment, you already have a basic idea of what shared hosting is and how it works. You have your own space within a larger area, just like your neighbors. You have access to utilities and amenities, but you do have to share some resources with the rest of the complex. It’s for these reasons, though, that shared hosting is one of the more cost-effective and affordable Web hosting options.
How Does Shared Hosting Work?
Shared hosting is very much like apartment living. When you select a shared hosting plan, your site will live on a server with hundreds, possibly thousands of other sites. It will share resources such as bandwidth. This can have negative effects such as decreasing page-load speed, and can also make your site a little more vulnerable to security issues.
However, because you’re sharing space, and don’t have resources dedicated just to your site, the cost of hosting is reduced. In addition, just as apartment complex management takes care of things like landscaping and the community pool, you don’t have to worry about any kind of hardware maintenance or repair. The hosting provider takes care of all that for you, and what you and your server neighbors pay for hosting also goes toward those shared maintenance costs.
A shared hosting plan will offer everyone who selects that plan a set of basic features. But many hosting providers will offer additional amenities if you’re willing to pay extra fees. To use the same analogy of apartment living, this is sort of like paying a bit more in rent to have an apartment with a fireplace or washer-dryer hookups.
Adding services and features to your shared hosting plan also means your site will be using more resources on that shared server. Conversely, if other residents on that server select additional services, then they’re using up more resources, which leaves fewer resources for you and your site.
Of course, differences like this may not be noticeable on smaller sites. However, if you put a large, e-commerce site that sees thousands of visits per day on a shared server, a few things happen.
Your Site May Use Too Many Resources
Basic sharing principles apply in shared hosting. When you’re sharing space and resources with other people, you must be considerate of others, and not use more than your fair share of bandwidth and storage space. If you do, the other sites on that server may begin to experience slower load times, and difficulties in functioning.
Your Site’s Performance May Suffer
Because a shared server is set up to house thousands of sites, and share resources on a roughly equal basis, your site may be denied the resources it needs to load quickly and perform efficiently. If you’re running an e-commerce site, this can affect your sales and revenue because the more difficult it is for your customers to use your site, the less likely they’ll be to stick around and spend money on your products and services.
You May be Required to Upgrade
If your site, either through sheer size or traffic volume, begins hogging shared hosting resources, and it starts having a negative effect on the other sites that share your server, the hosting provider may require that you upgrade your hosting plan to one that will better accommodate your large site.
If you choose shared hosting, keep an eye on your usage and your traffic so you can upgrade your account if and when it becomes necessary. This will help you avoid any site performance issues, and will keep your site running at optimal levels.
How to Set up Shared Hosting
The process for setting up a hosting account is pretty similar regardless of the type of hosting you choose. The first step is to find a host you like. This is often going to be a very subjective decision because what you may feel is important in a host may differ entirely from what other site publishers think. Every site and site owner has different needs.
Once you’ve found a host that offers the features you need at your desired price, you simply sign up, connect your domain name to your hosting account, and you can begin building your website.
How to Choose Shared Hosting
You’re probably familiar with some hosts, either through their advertising, or by word of mouth. You can also perform a few basic Internet searches for phrases such as “shared hosting,” “affordable shared hosting,” and the like, which can bring a few more shared hosting providers to your attention.
Most hosting providers will list their features in easy-to-use tables, allowing you to compare plans based on the features they include, and how much they cost.
Find the hosts that offer the features you need and want in their shared hosting plans, and narrow the field down to a few options. Once you’ve decided on a host, it’s simply a matter of signing up for their service, and paying the fee.
Hosting—shared or otherwise—is usually advertised at per-month rates, but requires that you pay for at least one year at a time, in full and in advance, so be prepared.
Shared Hosting Features
Knowing what you’ll get with your shared hosting plan is an important to be able to choose the right host. If you sign up and pay for hosting, and then find out afterward that you’re unable to perform some function you need, you may be able to get out of the contract, but not without some hassle. Some hosts do offer full money-back guarantees, but also place time limits on those guarantees, so make sure you know what you’re getting before you sign up.
Most hosting providers offer similar shared hosting packages with features including, but not limited to:
- Web-based control panel system – This makes it easy to install scripts, set up domain-based email, and do much more with your site without having to be a programmer.
- Multiple operating system options – Many hosts offer the ability to choose between Linux and Windows operating systems, as well as a few others.
- Programming language support – Your shared hosting plan may automatically support programming languages such as PHP, Perl, etc.
- Databases – A lot of software requires that your site have access to a database such as MySQL.
- Support – As you have less access to the server where your site resides, you may need to depend on your host’s support for assistance in uploading and installing software.
Shared Hosting Limitations
You may have to make a few trade-offs in order to take advantage of lower-cost shared hosting. Some shared hosting plans may have limitations including, but not limited to:
- Limited storage space – Remember the apartment analogy. You get a certain amount of space to store your data, although you may be able to upgrade for additional fees.
- No access to the root – If you need to upload and install custom software, you need access to the root domain, and this may not be available to you with shared hosting.
- Limited bandwidth – This may not be an issue if your site is small, but if it begins to outgrow your bandwidth, page load times can slow down, and cause issues for your users.
- Limited number of email accounts – If, for some reason, you need numerous domain-based email accounts, check to see whether your shared hosting plan limits them. Some do, while others don’t.*
*It’s not uncommon for hosting providers to offer “unlimited” features—email accounts, disk space, bandwidth, etc. However, these features are only unlimited insofar as your usage does not put an unreasonable burden on shared resources, and you do not abuse these “unlimited” features.
Shared hosting is where many site publishers start due to its affordability, and because it doesn’t make sense to pay high hosting costs for features and resources your small site won’t use. However, if you’re looking for a new host for a large, existing site rather than building a new site from the ground up, shared hosting will probably not be your best option.