subject: Find Affordable Website Hosting That's Within Your Grasp Today [print this page] This is the most common form of Web Hosting available. In this set up, a company will possess one or more servers that they will set up to provide web hosting and their customers will pay them to have access to portions of the server which they share with other customers. In this scheme, a server will have to be able to run hundreds of web sites all at once.
Using shared hosting comes with multiple benefits. This is almost always the cheapest type of hosting that is commercially available as the cost of the server space is usually made up for by sheer number of customers. They don't require advanced technical knowledge to use and you only need to administer your account - at no point do you have anything to do with the server. Since this is a paid service, you will of course have access to customer support and contracts as well as official guarantees of space and uptime performance.
Perhaps the biggest drawback to using shared hosting is that because you share your space with other customers, you also share the resources of that server with other customers. If other clients utilize the server too heavily, or if this Web Host has oversubscribed their server, or because the server really is not so expeditious to begin with, since it is similar to a home personal computer, this server only contains so much CPU, disk space, and memory in total! - you may well find that your web site appears to be slow.
Using shared hosting options may also prevent you from using some of the more high-tech, advanced features which a dedicated server can offer you. There is a slight increase in security risk, too, as you can never be sure how secure your 'neighbours' are - but bear in mind that the server will be very secure in the first place, and the risk is not something to be alarmed about.
For most websites and customers, shared hosting can be an ideal opportunity - especially when you are just starting out. Unless you are an individual who has a specific need to have dominion over an entire server and control its operation, there are very few exceptions to the effectiveness of shared hosting.
