What Exactly is Shared Hosting?

If you have decided to set up your own website, but are not very certain about what a website is and are unfamiliar with the term "shared hosting", this article is dedicated to clarifying these notions in simple terms.

What exactly is a website?

A web site is a collection of web pages assembled systematically. It has a unique web address, also referred to as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). A website may be comprised of just one single web page and sometimes may even include as many as 1000 webpages.

What is a hosting server?

A web hosting server permits you to upload your website onto it. In some cases, there might be even thousands of web sites on a single web hosting server. The web hosting server essentially is a computer with special hardware, which is situated in a datacenter with special cooling systems, whose mission is to ensure the seamless functioning of the server and all the websites located on it.

In short, a web hosting server will be really a launch pad when the time comes for you to launch your web site. It could be any sort of website - a corporate web site containing a large number of web pages, or a site, which consists of just several webpages and which you have built simply for your pals and relatives.

You've made a decision about what your site will be, now what?

As soon as you have decided what sort of web site you desire to establish, the next move is to find out what kind of web hosting service you have to choose for your web endeavor. Essentially, there are two kinds of website hosting services - free-of-charge website hosting services and paid website hosting services. The free web hosting solution is ordinarily used by users that do not own a business-related website.

Advantages and disadvantages of the free web hosting solution

You will not receive a lot of options with a free-of-charge website hosting plan. Features like web traffic, RAM memory and web server disk drive space are restricted and inadequate for a complex e-commerce web site or a corporate site, or even for a site with a lot of graphics. Besides, there are lots of banners incorporated in your web site by the hosting plans provider. These advertisements occupy lots of space on your website and are pretty irritating.

Shared website hosting

The professional paid shared website hosting services tend to be more dependable and include lots of sophisticated features in addition to the high-quality hosting server that will accommodate your website and its files. In spite of that, it is essential to find out which features your web site demands before selecting your web hosting package. You should not hurry and wind up buying something that your website does not require.

Find your web host

It is not difficult to find a hosting accounts provider. You have to simply conduct an online search in order to find a web hosting provider that meets your web site's needs. Before you make your actual choice, have a glance at the specs of the hosting packages provided by the web hosting distributors that have got your interest. We, for instance, are among the best hosting service providers on the marketplace at present. The enormous variety of hosting solutions and our prices are what makes us an alluring option. Yet, you must confirm what kind of web hosting solution you require and whether the price matches your allowance. Moreover, you must not forget to examine the hosting service provider's TOS prior to opening an account to ensure that your web site is not abusing them.

Opening a hosting account

As soon as you have found out what features are most important for your web site, the next move is to sign up for an account with the hosting accounts provider of your choosing. You will get all the important tools for administering your files and databases. With us, for example, you will obtain a web hosting Control Panel, which is comprised of domain name, web site, database and e-mail management areas. You log in the web hosting Control Panel using your unique username and password, which gives you safe access to the part of the hosting server where your web site will be hosted.

Uploading your website

You can either upload your web site via an FTP software application or, as is with most hosting vendors, through an online tool that is included within the Control Panel. With us, the File Manager is pretty user-friendly and offers features comparable to those observed in Windows Explorer, which makes file management extremely easy. We offer also a website builder and a PHP-based script installation tool, which you can use to develop your web site if you have no programming skills and are making your very first steps in web design. The online web site building tool, dubbed SiteStudio, will also save you the time and effort of making a web site on your personal computer and then uploading it through an FTP program or the File Manager tool.