Shared Hosting Explanation

You have a concept that you want to transform into a site? Your very first move should be to sustain your enthusiasm and discover a place for your site online so that it will be always available for the whole world to see.

Where should you host your web site?

Since the number of web pages on the World Wide Web has grown rapidly during the last several years, the demand for web hosting services has also lead to the birth of innumerable shared hosting distributors. These are companies that offer you hard disk space for your own site on their web servers.

Sorts of web hosting services

The ambit of web hosting services fluctuates hugely, so do the demands of the website proprietors. The most basic type of web hosting is the small-scale file hosting solution, where files can be uploaded using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a web-based hosting Control Panel. Lots of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) deliver this service for free. Personal web page proprietors and companies can also get web hosting services from various web hosting suppliers. Personal web hosting services are usually either free, ad-supported, or cheap. Business web hosting services usually cost more, but due to the gigantic rivalry on the hosting market, an increasing number of web hosting service providers, like us at Mad Dog Web Hosting, provide business website hosting services at reduced prices and with flexible invoicing cycles.

Kinds of websites and their requirements

The free-of-charge hosting platform is generally sufficient for personal websites like portfolios or weblogs. A more frequently visited website, such as a community website or a corporate web site, needs a more advanced website hosting platform that offers database support and web application development platforms (for example PHP). If you would like to host an e-commerce portal, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) must be supported by the web hosting services provider of your choosing. At present, Secure Sockets Layer certificates are offered by the majority of hosting vendors.

The web hosting Control Panel

The web hosting supplier typically also offers a Control Panel GUI for administering your website files, electronic mail addresses, mailbox aliases, domains, DNS records, and so on.

Service uptime

When choosing a hosting services provider, network uptime is a very vital factor. The availability of a web site is calculated on a yearly basis by taking into account the time when the website is publicly available and visible online. Network and service availability guarantees, therefore, should be carefully considered when ordering a hosting plan. You should re-examine the SLAs and the Terms of Service of the hosting provider of your choosing in advance. Finding reviews from existing clients is also a quite reasonable move before you choose to sign up.

The shared web hosting solution

The most popular and modestly priced type of web hosting service is the shared web hosting solution. It offers 24x7 client support, which is a big advantage for customers who do not wish to deal with server maintenance tasks, but could also obstruct clients who would like to exert more control over the web hosting server. For such clients, a virtual private servers or a dedicated servers would be more suitable. Most standard apps and scripts work alright on a shared server. What's more, the shared hosting solution costs less than other types of hosting solutions, such as the dedicated servers hosting, since the hosting vendor splits the shared web server among lots of customers. The shared web hosting platform typically includes usage limits that guarantee that the different customers do not meddle with each other and that the shared web server remains stable.

Administering your shared website hosting account

Shared hosting plans usually offer a web-based Control Panel graphical user interface, such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, etc. The majority of the large-sized web hosting suppliers, again like us at Mad Dog Web Hosting, utilize their own personal custom-made web hosting Control Panel user interface.

Server maintenance

With the shared web hosting platform, the hosting supplier is responsible for administering the web and mail servers, for installing server software, software updates and patches, and for providing tech support to its clients. The majority of servers are based on the Linux OS. The hosting provider's system administrators are responsible for maintaining the OS up to date, unless you have a dedicated web hosting server and full server root privileges.