Web Hosting Reviews & Ratings

July 07, 2010

The Downfalls of Shared Web Hosting

Shared web hosting is perhaps the most commonly used type of web hosting service. The main aspect that is common amongst all web hosting accounts is the fact that the web server is shared by many users. Shared web hosting plans offer a variety of distinct advantages, including a decrease in the overall pricing of plans, however there are also many downfalls to shared web hosting. Every aspect of shared web hosting needs to be considered before you make the final decision to purchase a shared web hosting plan for your websites. The following information should help you weight the risks and benefits of shared web hosting plans.

The Obvious Downfalls of Shared Web Hosting

As the names implies, you will be sharing a web server with other websites. This means you will have access to less server resources since all of the server's capabilities will be evenly distributed amongst various websites. This means your website will also share an IP address with those website, which in essence means you will be sharing a virtual address with all of those sites. You IP address is used by various services, including search engines, to catalog your site;s online activities. If one of the site's you are sharing an IP address with becomes deindexed by a search engine, or even worse shut down due to illegal activity, then your site could suffer the same fate. Although such an occurrence is not extremely common, it does happen and it is a distinct possibility for shared web hosting users.

Low Priority Support

As is the case in many other businesses, the web hosting industry is about customer priority. Web hosting service providers understand that their higher paying clients wish to be treated better than the clients with lower rate plans. This means the web hosting company will often hold dedicated hosting customers at a higher priority than shared hosting. If you find yourself waiting on the phones for exuberant amounts of time trying to reach a customer service rep then the reason behind this could be they are in the line with a dedicated hosting customer instead. Although the hosting company will never admit this is the case, this is the hard truth behind any service-oriented industry.

Site Performance

Aside from the security and overall support of your website being lessened by a shared web hosting account, your site will also suffer from decreased performance in many cases, especially if the site contains many files. Decreased performance can come in the form of slow loading web pages, which are a severe annoyance to many web browser. Your site may even suffer from server downtime due to the lack of available server resources at various points throughout the day. Every time someone views a page on your website the server has to upload files to the visitor's computer, which consumes bandwidth. Since the server's bandwidth is being shared by many other users, your site may freeze or pages may load incompletely at times.

Conclusion

 If you are serious about running a successful online business then you may want to purchase a dedicated hosting plan to ensure the success and reliability of your website.

Tags: Shared Hosting,  shared web hosting,  web hosting service,  server resources,  shared ip