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Shared hosting is a type of web hosting. Web hosting service providers offer various types of hosting. Shared hosting is the most common one among them. As the name suggests, shared hosting is a situation where many websites are hosted on the same server. Shared hosting is a cost-friendly way of hosting websites.
In the sections below, we will explore various aspects of shared hosting, in a bid to help you determine whether it would be a good option for hosting your website. We’ll look at the pros and cons of shared hosting, and which are the instances in which it would be best to opt for shared hosting.
We’ll start by exploring the benefits of shared hosting.
Benefits of Shared Hosting
Affordability
The most immediate benefit of shared hosting is the cost. Shared hosting allows the various website ownership to share among themselves the cost of running and maintain the server. That not only reduces the hosting costs for website owners, but also for the hosting company. When a server is financed by many clients, maintain and service the serves becomes pocket-friendly for the hosting serving provider as well.
Shared servers allow the clients to share disk space, bandwidth, and other networking resources efficiently. All this means that you will be able to put up a high-quality website without having to dig too much into your pockets.
Easy Website Maintenance
Shared hosting means you have paid someone else to take care of your hosting needs. That means you do not need to have the expertise to maintain servers. You can focus on the other aspects of your business as your web host worries about the serves.
Keep in mind that web hosts employ highly skilled technical personnel to maintain the shared servers’ hardware, software, and many other components of hosting. That means that the chances of downtimes are significantly reduced.
Shared hosting also means that a problem in one section of the server will affect other parts of the server. As such, web hosts always have their technical support on standby in case anything happens. You can contact the support team of your web host and get any issues you might be having solved within a very short while.
Quick Set-up and Customization
Shared hosting makes it incredibly easy to set-up and customizes your website. Once you have been given the login details to your C-panel, you’ll just need to upload your website’s details and it will be up and running. Many web hosts are compatible with customization apps. This makes it easy for you to complete setting up your website within a short while, even if you are not a technology expert.
The C-panel for shared hosting is also quite easy to use. It makes it easy for you to upload data and information on your website. Shared hosting makes it easy for you to update your website whenever you need to. Even if you were to pay for the website set-up services, it would not cost you too much because the process is fairly simple.
The benefits discussed above are quite impressive. However, there are are some downsides to shared hosting that you should know about before opting for it. They are;
Demerits of Shared Hosting
Security
As compared to all the other types of hosting, shared hosting is the most insecure. As we explained above, shared hosting involves hosting many websites in one server. It takes one infiltration through one website to compromise the whole server. Infiltrators could easily steal information or stall your website under such circumstances.
Shared hosting makes it difficult for you to be guaranteed of the security of your website since you are not in control of how the other websites on the server are handled. Web hosts spend a lot of resources to secure their servers though. There are many trustworthy web hosts on the market today, and they have very robust security protocols. You should not shy away from shared hosting because of the security issues. You just need to ensure you are working with a reputable web host.
Small Disk Space
Shared hosting is designed for light websites only. Heavy websites, or websites that receiver a lot of traffic would not do well with shared hosting. It would be unwise to host a company’s portal in a shared server. Not only would that put company data at serious risk, but it would also make the website very slow.
Despite the demerits highlighted above, shared hosting is still a great option in many situations. You just need to explore your hosting needs and ensure that shared hosting is the best option for you.
What kinds of websites should you host in a shared server?
- New Blogs – If you are launching a new blog, it will not have a lot of data or traffic. There is no point in paying too much for hosting services for such a blog. It does not need a lot of space. It doesn’t need a lot of bandwidth as well. Shared hosting would just be ideal for such a website.
- Light Business Websites – If you just need a light landing page for your business, shared hosting is a great option. Such websites should not have any private data or sensitive information. You do not need to dig deep to pay for hosting for such a website either.
Basically, any website that is light and does not carry any sensitive data or information should be hosted in a shared server.
Conclusion
At this juncture, you should have a good perspective of whether shared hosting is ideal for your website. Shared hosting main aim is to make it easy and cheap for people to set up websites. As we’ve already mentioned, there are many web hosts in the industry today. A majority of them, if not all offer shared hosting. You just need to take your time and explore which one among them would be the best option for your hosting needs. We recommend Blue host. Blue host is a popular web host that provides stellar web hosting services.
