October 23, 2009
Three Things That are Not Guaranteed on a Shared Server
The shared server represents a popular type of web hosting that is able to accommodate the needs of many individuals and online businesses. Shared hosting refers to an arrangement where customers share space and bandwidth on a server. It is pretty straightforward and typically comes included with desirable features such as multiple email accounts, webmail access and e-commerce solutions equipped shopping carts, SSL support, marketing tools and much more. This environment is in high demand and actually acts as the vehicle most companies use to get their business online. Perhaps its greatest advantage is a cost efficiency that allows almost anyone to build a web presence at what has become a very affordable price. Because there are also a few drawbacks that deserve mentioning, the purpose of this article is to educate by letting you know some of the things you cannot count on when it comes to a shared server.
1.) Superb Performance
While many businesses start out on a shared hosting platform, once they began to establish themselves and their sites grow, that shared server just may become inadequate and insufficient for their needs. One of the main reasons this occurs is due to the mere nature of the environment. Because the server could actually contain data for hundreds or even thousands of websites, there is a great chance that the activities of other customers could result in problems with your site. One of the most common ailments is slow response times that leave your website suffering from performance issues. For example, if one site on the server all of sudden needs additional bandwidth, that demand could actually threaten the stability of every other website in the environment. All it takes is a single website to slow down activity on the entire server.
2.) Continuous Availability
A slow server can result in lost traffic as visitors tend to stay away from sites that perform sluggishly. A surefire way to send them scrambling to the competition is downtime, which is far more likely in this environment than a dedicated server. Downtime is a business killer because in the eyes of the visitor, it tarnishes the company’s credibility. You can determine just how much a shared server is costing you by checking your traffic statistics on a regular basis. A good web stat utility will show you just how fast visitors are leaving your site due to slow response times or unavailability.
3.) Dependable Security
The security on a shared server also becomes questionable once a website starts to grow. Even though respectable web hosting providers take various steps to make sure customers are running their sites on a secure platform, the sharing aspect deems your website and all the data it contains vulnerable to security issues. There is a chance that you never encounter such problems in this environment, but if you are running mission-critical operations and e-commerce transactions, hosting on a shared server may not be the best move.
Shared hosting has its advantages, but the issues of stability, availability and security can turn out to be huge disadvantages as your site grows. VPS and dedicated hosting are the two most logical options you need to consider once your website reaches this point.
Categories: Shared Hosting |
Tags: web hosting providers,
slow server,
slow response,
shared space,
shared server security,
shared server,
shared bandwidth,
server performance,
multiple email accounts,
ecommerce solutions
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