SHARED HOSTING DEFINITION

Shared hosting is Web hosting in which the service provider serves pages for multiple Web sites, each having its own Internet domain name, from a single Web server. Most Web hosting companies provide shared hosting. Although shared hosting is a less expensive way for businesses to create a Web presence, it is usually not sufficient for Web sites with high traffic. These sites need a dedicated Web server, either provided by a Web hosting service or maintained in-house.

OPINION: In the majority of cases this is what I would recommend. Very few sites actually reach there bandwidth and space limits and those that do can usually be upgraded without too many problems. It is also the cheapest option so unless you already have a massive site then I would recommend using shared web site hosting services.

RESELLER HOSTING

Reseller hosting is the provision of Web hosting services to companies that in turn act as Web hosts for other companies, typically providing Web site design and management services as well as acting as host for the site and serving its pages to users. For example, a hypothetical Sports Site Server Inc. could provide a package for professional or amateur sports teams that included an easy-to-use approach to creating a Web site as well as the space for the Web site’s pages and an easy-to-use interface for keeping the site up-to-date. Sports Site Server would actually use the computer and storage facilities of Giant Host, Inc., a hosting company that offered similar reselling capabilities to many companies like Sports Site Server. A large hosting company that allowed reselling (like Giant Host) might actually host hundreds of Web sites.

In general, a reseller is a company that buys a product or service from another company and repackages it, usually adding something to it, to other companies under its own company or brand name.

OPINION: If you have the time, knowledge and funds available then reseller hosting can be a great thing as you can feasibly end up with free hosting yourself. Not for everyone but if you can market yourself and add something to the service it may be worth considering.

A DEDICATED SERVER

In the Web hosting business, a dedicated server refers to the rental and exclusive use of a computer that includes a Web server, related software, and connection to the Internet, housed in the Web hosting company’s premises. A dedicated server is usually needed for a Web site (or set of related company sites) that may develop a considerable amount of traffic - for example, a site that must handle up to 35 million hits a day. The server can usually be configured and operated remotely from the client company. Web hosting companies claim that the use of a dedicated server on their premises saves router, Internet connection, security system, and network administration costs.

Typically, a dedicated server is rented that provides a stated amount of memory, hard disk space, and bandwidth ( here meaning the number of gigabytes of data that can be delivered each month). Some hosting companies allow the renter of a dedicated server to do virtual hosting, in turn renting services on the server to third parties for their Web sites. domain name system, e-mail, and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) capabilities are typically included and some companies provide an easy-to-use control interface.
OPINION: If you have a massive site then you really should be thinking of getting a dedicated server. Most people will never come close to getting the amount of traffic that shared hosting allows but for those that do or believe they will then a dedicated server is a must.

CONCLUSION: Without knowing your exact needs it is difficult to comment but in the large majority of instances ( over 90% ) shared web site hosting services will be more than enough to have your site up and running successfully.

The definitions included in this article are provided courtesy of searchsoa.techtarget.com/

Tip 1.

Make sure that you pick your hosting provider to match your needs and not the needs of whoever is recommending a host to you as otherwise it is unlikely to be the best web hosting solution for you. This may be a review site and I have my own personal favorite in Hostgator but ultimately I try to provide as much info on an host as I can because ultimately each company will offer different packages and one may meet your needs more than another. Make sure the package you choose has the right features for you:

a) Price - Stick to a budget that you set yourself. In my experience services for less than $5 usually end in disappointment but you can certainly find great hosting for under $10 if you are on a tight budget.

b) Space and Bandwidth - Make sure the space and bandwidth you are offered meet your needs. In most cases bandwidth and space won’t be too much of an issue as most sites never come near reaching there limits but it is still something you should make a note of.

c) Features - Hosting companies have different features so you should be sure you use a provider that meets your needs. For example if you have a choice between multiple domain hosting or $100 in advertising vouchers and you only have 1 site then you would take the vouchers, however if you plan on having numerous sites you may be better of with the multiple domain hosting.

Tip 2.

Take the time to look into several key areas before signing up with any provider to determine if they are the best web hosting solution for you.

a) Check that they have a phone number to contact. It doesn’t need to be 24 hours but it should be available during business hours at least. Also being toll free is a good sign that they have their customers convenience in mind.

b) A 24 hour support desk is a must from any hosting provider so make sure they offer it. If you want to go a step further you can test it at anytime to check that they are there 24/7 and to see how long a reply takes, with anything under 1 hour being a good response time.

c) Read any terms and conditions they may have. It can be very easy to simply tick whatever boxes it ask you to or skip to the next page quickly but you should avoid doing this and read them thoroughly. Also whilst doing this look for a money back guarantee.

d) Payment Options – A host should provide their customers with more than one payment option. Credit cards and other payment option such as PayPal or something comparable.

These tips aren’t a guarantee that you will find a great provider but you would have to be extremely unlucky if you don’t find the best web hosting solution for you or something very close to it by following the tips provided. As I have already mentioned I see Hostgator as being the best host but that may not be the case for you so check out as many of the reviews here as you can until you find the one that matches your needs.

First off it is important to point out to anyone new to web hosting that you are better off using shared hosting when you first get started rather than trying to figure out how to manage a reseller account or a dedicated server. A shared server will be well maintained, well by a good company it will, and it will also provide you with plenty of space and bandwidth  for the majority of webmasters needs.

Once your site becomes a massive success then you can always upgrade as required but for now save yourself some money, and some headaches, by using the simplest option of a shared host.

Shared web hosting ranges in quality from the totally useless to the inexpensive quality website hosting you crave. Never simply go for the cheapest option but likewise using the highest pricepoint service doeesn’t guarantee you will get a company you will be happy using. Look into these key areas before joining a web host.

1) Look at the companies reliability. Ignore there own claims as these are usually exaggerated and instead get the input of people that have used the service in the form of either forum users or review sites.

2) Customer support is priceless to many webmasters as any one can encounter problems with their sites so it is important to make sure you will have good support there when you need it.

3) Make sure their package contains the things you need. If you plan on having many sites then get hosting that offer unlimited domain hosting on the one account. If you have no HTML knowledge then look for packages that include site builder software and Fantastico for easy installation of scripts such as a Wordpress blog.

These 3 key areas are a great sign that you will end up with inexpensive quality website hosting as opposed to poor cheap hosting. One company I would recommend taking a look at is Hostgator but you can find a good starting point for companies to look at on this page Inexpensive Quality Website Hosting At A Glance

Here is the checklist:

1. Pricing

As tempting as the cheapest option may be don’t just sign up with them, they may well be the best choice but until you actually look into them you won’t know that. Also some opt for the dearest option thinking it is a guarantee of greatness but it isn’t, plus it really isn’t necessary to spend a fortune when good hosting can be found at a more affordable price.

2. Features

Make sure that the hosting provider you are thinking of joining actually offers the tools and features that you are looking for, if they don’t look for another company as someone somewhere will offer what you want and probably for a very similar price. A simple example of this is if you are technically useless and feel you need a site builder then you should find a service that offers one for free.

3. Size

The amount of bandwidth and disk space you get with your hosting package isn’t really going to be the issue many believe as very few sites reach their limits, in fact a large number use less than 10% of it. For this reason if you find two services that completes the checklist and the only difference is one has a lower price but less space/ bandwidth then I’d recommend you go with that for this reason rather than paying more for space you probably won’t use.

4. Performance

Take the time to look into the reliability of the hosting company as it is such an important part of your sites success. Ignore the sites own 99.9% uptime claim and check out stats found on a review site or search for forums or discussion boards with users of the service for their opinions.

5. Customer Support.

Try to find out what kind of reputation a company has for its customer support because you will probably need to use it at some point.

If a site meets all the above criteria then you will almost certainly end up with the best web hosting solution for you.

Here are the common mistakes.

Going For The Cheapest Option.

This is probably the most common mistake people make. They see the price and automatically sign up, no research, no looking into, just an immediate sign up. There really shouldn’t be such a rush however. Nowadays there are so many cheap hosting providers around that you can afford to do a little looking around and making sure you are getting all you need.

Choosing Because Of Size.

Many people are drawn by the promise of unlimited disk space and bandwidth but the truth is that this is unnecessary. Very few webmasters actually come anywhere near reaching their bandwidth limits, so don’t make this the main reason you decide on using a provider.

Believing What They Read.

Every hosting company makes the same claim of having a 99% uptime guarantee so don’t fall into the trap of believing it. This guarantee is meaningless and so the companies get away without actually meeting their claim. This means that you will have to find out their actual uptime rate yourself. You can do this either by searching through forums, chat rooms, and discussion boards based around similar topics or checking out review sites which provide this information.

Never Checking Their Reputation.

Customer support is vital for any webmaster because there are so many problems that you can encounter and yet about 95% of webmasters never bother to look into it. I recommend you do because otherwise you will regret it. Do this the same way I mentioned previously with the help of forums or reviews.

Inexpensive quality website hosting isn’t that hard to find if you put in some effort and look into it properly. If you fail to then you risk making the mistakes mentioned above and using a service that you feel is a let down.

The most important thing you should look for in any hosting provider is reliability.  Without it all the hard work time and effort you put in could be a waste of time but with it you will reap the rewards.  The problem is though that it can be hard to find out just how reliable a web hosting provider can be.

They make the same claims of a 99% uptime guarantee but this is a meaningless guarantee that many companies simply don’t live up to.  Finding the actual uptime is a little more difficult without using the actual service yourself.  The only other options you have are checking out a review site such as YourHostingOptions.com or searching through various forums and discussion boards and getting opinions from members that have used the service.

An affordable website hosting service can be just as reliable as many of their premium rate counterparts.  Reliability though isn’t the only thing you should look for.  Before joining any hosting provider make sure that you check out the reputation of their customer support.

Customer support is such a vital element that can be overlooked and yet it can be the downfall of your website.  Many websites encounter problems it is just something that seems unavoidable.  Most using a provider with good customer support will find it is quite painless when you have a problem as they will do the best to sort it out for you and guide you through the problem.  Those lacking the support will find it an awful experience and could even find themselves losing lots of business until it has been sorted.

An affordable website hosting service can be just as good as a premium service provided it includes the two elements I have mentioned in this article.  If you choose to ignore these two factors you do risk being very unsatisfied with the hosting provider.  I personally would recommend HostGator to those looking for an affordable website hosting service.

In days gone by to get a reliable web hosting service, you needed to use a premium rate service.  Thankfully, this is no longer the case as thanks to the amount of competition good hosting can now be had by all.

Nowadays you can find a reliable service for a very reasonable price.  Not only that but you will also find packages that include all the tools you will need.  These include items such as site builders, which is great for those with no technical know-how.

The best web hosting solution does not have to cost you a fortune, and in fact, there is little reason to spend a fortune.  When the cheap services are of such a high standard.

Unfortunately I cannot give you a definitive answer of yes but that doesn’t mean you should panic and think you need a premium hosting service which will cost you a small fortune, because you can certainly find a good budget website hosting service.

Like in any sector or marketplace there are always products and services that aren’t worth the savings you will make. That said, as with most things in life, if you know where to find them you can actually find products and services that over deliver. This means you can find budget versions that are just as good as their higher priced alternatives.

When looking for cheap website hosting just be sure of two things before signing up:

1.That the company has a good reputation for customer support. This is a must as a large number of webmasters know very little about the ins and outs of how their site works so they depend upon the support of their hosting provider when they encounter difficulties.

2.Make sure they have a high level of performance. If they aren’t reliable and you don’t know when your site is going to be accessible then what’s the point putting all the effort into having a site at all.

A budget website hosting service can offer these things and because cheap hosting is now such a large market you can also get so much in the way of extra services ( take a look at Hostgator for a good example ). This makes them the best hosting solution for anyone with a website that isn’t getting enormous levels of traffic.

Why? Quite simple, the possible savings are absolutely massive.

Basically multi domain hosting means that instead of one website per account you can host many sites on one account, meaning you only have one fee to pay.

Here is an example of the kind of savings you can make. Lets say you have 7 sites each of which is hosted on its own account and those accounts cost $5 a month. That will cost you $35 a month.

Now instead of paying $5 lets instead say we pay $7 for multi domain hosting. You can host all 7 sites on the one $7 account meaning your 7 sites cost you $7 each month.

Thats a difference of $28 per month, which is a huge saving. Work it out over the length of a full year and you will really understand the savings you can make with multiple site hosting.

It isn’t expensive either, the $7 in my example is not a number I have come up with randomly. Affordable multi domain hosting can save you a small fortune and should be snapped up by anyone looking to have numerous sites.

Their site isn’t the best looking around and is in fact very basic looking but their packages obviously do all the talking for them with price plans starting at an amazingly low $3.95 a month. They may not be the best service but they are certainly the best price.

Click Here To Visit IX Web Hosting

IX WEB HOSTING FEATURES

IX Web Hosting provide almost everything you could need to get you business site up and running. Their choice of control panel may not be the best as they have opted away from cPanel and instead opted for using H-Sphere. H-Sphere is still easy to use however so shouldn’t make much of a difference and it is better than the likes of vDeck ( which Startlogic uses ).

You also get a free domain name with each package and spam filtering, templates and Firewall protection also come as standard. The cheaper options however don’t come with MySQL so really the Business Plus plan ( $7.95 ) is going to be the starting price for a large webmasters.

One great feature of IX Web Hosting is that for the business plan you get given up to 8 different IP addresses meaning if you want to have numerous domains and link between them the search engines won’t penalize those links for all being from the same IP address. Other host that offer unlimited hosting do not offer this service.

IX WEB HOSTING PERFORMANCE

Their are no real issues with the uptime with IX Web Hosting. Uptime during testing was a very reasonable at 97.4% and any downtime was always dealt with relatively quickly.

IX WEB HOSTING VALUE

Definitely cheap with prices starting at $3.95 but as mentioned earlier I wouldn’t really recommend using anything less than the $7.95 package which then brings its prices back into line with much of the competition. Multiple domain hosting is as always an advantage and as I mentioned earlier the multiple IP addresses can be very useful for those with numerous sites for search engine purposes. Note that Windows hosting is around $2 more expensive per package.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

24/7 chat support and support tickets, and the US also get toll free help. Waiting times aren’t too bad although far from fast. The major gripe I’ve found from many users has been that responses to support tickets often are lacking the information that was actually requested so this could be a concern.

IX WEB HOSTING REVIEW CONCLUSION

Their lowest price package may certainly tempt many but unless you really know what you are doing I would avoid this option and thus that brings its pricing back in line with others. IX Web Hosting are worth giving serious consideration to and if they had used cPanel they may well have been my first choice.

Click Here To Visit IX Web Hosting