Facts About Shared Web Hosting
How to Find a Good Hosting Provider Out of Ads Hustle and Bustle
Mar 21, 2009
There are many options for finding web hosting. Many review sites (for referral purposes) compare features which are not important in everyday use, and this leads the customers astray while wasting time.
Instead, one must pay a particular attention to vitals needs by ignoring advertising tricks. In general, the common features listed for each web hosting company are not generally helpful, as almost all web hosting companies provide the same features.
Disk space and bandwidth
Disk space and monthly bandwidth are not important, as the practical limit is the CPU usage, and the allowed values are actually far from those claimed in ads. Unlimited space and bandwidth, which are very common these days, are truly meaningless, as just a small amount can be used in live performance of websites (e.g. in order of few gigs) on a shared hosting.
In addition, it is not possible to use the disk space separately (for storage purpose), as it is noted in the Terms of Services that any files should be associated with the running websites. On the other hand, handling large files is accompanied by much CPU usage. This is indeed an advertising trick, as almost all web hosting companies are shifting such values to 'Unlimited', though no client could reach even normal limits.
Popularity
It is useful to investigate the popularity of a web hosting company. An easy way is to check the Alexa rank of its domain. One may think that the Alexa rank is not usually reliable for two reasons:
- The owner can cheat by fake traffic
- Not all internet users have Alexa toolbar (to be considered by the Alexa)
But fortunately these are not the case for web hosting companies, because
- It is so hard to cheat the Alexa rank of websites with high pageviews
- Webmasters (who are hosting clients) usually have Alexa toolbar
Customer Services
People usually think that they have a routine job and there should be no need for technical support, but it will happen. Therefore, it is highly recommend to try the company live chat to determine how much the live support team is fast, friendly, and helpful. It is very important service for a webmaster, as when a problem occurs for a live website, time strongly matters.
Web hosting companies pay high referral commissions (higher than the hosting price), because they know a client will remain for years. Thus, the key financial factor is the regular price, not a promotion for the first year.
Another critical feature needed for ordering web hosting service is Money-Back Guarantee (most of them have one, but it is very important). Changing the server is not usually an easy task, particularly for junior webmasters; thus it is highly recommended to test the web hosting service before putting all materials (websites) in action. As a matter of fact, hidden problems may be appeared when using the hosting service for a live website.
Although it is usually ignored by junior webmasters, the best way to register a domain is to keep the registrar different from the the web hosting company. As a result, there will be full control in the case of contract termination.
Some Tiny Suggestions
- Free Shell access (SSH) is a significant advantage.
- MySQL databases working on localhost is better than a defined IP.
- Check the number of allowed maximum simultaneous connection to the databases.
- Control Panel is an important part of web hosting. Choose a famous well-developed one.
In general, shared web hosting companies provide critical limitations to keep their service live in the presence of numerous clients. Since the price of a shared hosting is at least 10 times less than that of dedicated servers, shared hosting is still the most popular way for hosting a website. On the other hand, shared hosting should be compared with managed dedicated servers, which are extremely expensive.
