What is Shared Web Hosting? Well, let me start with an example. Go back to your childhood days when you enjoyed those summer camps from school. All in one dormitory, knowing each other, sharing the same facilities – rushing for lunch, sharing the playground, the prayers together….Now halt, and come back to the present, the hosting world and, shared hosting is something similar to those summer camps. Defining it further, in shared web hosting several websites are hosted in a single server and enjoy the same facilities from the web host just like the summer camps, with the only difference that you may not know each website owner personally.

Speaking in general terms, you can divide shared hosting into two types – free shared hosting and paid shared hosting. In free shared hosting you use the web hosting services without paying anything. But it has its own drawbacks, ranging from poor facilities to poor website statistics. Paid shared hosting is generally what we mean when we say shared web hosting. Definitely it is far better than free shared hosting, with multiple email addresses, support to mySQL, PHP, and lots more.

The most important thing about shared web hosting is its cost effectiveness. In shared web hosting the service and maintenance cost is shared by a number of websites, lowering it to a minimal. And thus a number of small websites world wide find shared web hosting more preferable to other forms of hosting. Best suited for intermediate professional sites and small business websites, that doesn’t need the whole of the server’s space shared hosting is all about well maintained and well administered servers at a low cost.

To add to low cost, other advantages of shared web hosting may include software services that are already installed in the host server, better server administration, multiple emails, mySQL and PHP support. Better web statistics facilities are also supported by some shared web hosting providers. One more thing which can be termed as a benefit is that you don’t have to be technical expert yourself because your host manages the things for you.

But the main problem with shared web hosting is security. The security level is very low in shared web hosting as you don’t have any control over the server which is housing a lot more websites. SSL or TLS shields are also not much effective in this respect as websites have the same IP address and the same SSL/TLS certificate. Another disadvantage is the resource limitation which comes as a result of using the same CPU and hard drive by a number of websites. A problem in any other website can affect the other sites which share the same server and this also countable as an important drawback.

Whatever be the pros and cons of shared web hosting, it is undoubtedly the best option when it comes to first time users. You don’t have to worry much about the technicalities with your web host there to support you all the time. The lower cost promotes you to run several websites together without much effort. With its advantages, shared web hosting is best for those website owners who need to focus on their web businesses with digging into the kernel of the host server.

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