Shared Hosting and Dedicated Hosting

By Web Hosting on May 11, 2007 in Web Hosting

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Web hosting packages are of two basic types - shared and dedicated. Below is a brief description and explanation of what type of hosting will suit your needs best.

We all know that websites are stored on servers. Servers are essentially special personal or network computers that respond to data requests. Each server is assigned a unique IP (Internet Protocol) address. An IP address comprises of four numbers and separated by dots. (e.g. 123.456.78.9).

A website with dedicated hosting has access to all the resources of the server. Also the IP address assigned is unique to that particular website. In shared hosting, several websites are placed are placed on the same server, and all of them share the same IP address as well as the same server resources.

However, the cost of shared hosting is much cheaper than dedicated hosting. In shared hosting the users or customers split the operational costs among themselves. Shared hosting is available for as little as $2 a month but dedicated hosting could cost up to $100 a month or more.

  • Shared Hosting

In shared hosting, a single server is shared by many websites. This includes server resources, bandwidth, disk space as well as IP address. However, the host will allocate a certain limited amount of bandwidth and disk space to be used per month for every user. Exceeding this limit may cause you a heavy penalty.

One downside that needs to be considered is that it may take longer for your website to be displayed in case your neighbors receive heavy amount of traffic. Every server has a certain limited amount of bandwidth. Each request sent to the server is dealt with in the order that it is received as in a queue. So it could take long for your website to be displayed if the queue is long.

Hence the amount of traffic a site receives is more significant than the number of sites shared on the same sever. A server hosting 300 low traffic sites will respond much faster than one which has 70 sites that are receiving ample traffic.

There are many risks and downsides involved in shared hosting. If your neighbor happens to run a corrupted or badly programmed script, it could affect the entire server and that could in turn affect your website in a negative way. It could also cause your website to become inaccessible. The other disadvantage that remains is that if your neighbor is performing inappropriate activities on the net like spamming, chances are that he may be banned from major search engines. This means that all those who are sharing the same IP address will effected due to this. It is advisable to go through the policies of the web hosting companies about such activities in order to avoid inconvenience in the future.

  • Dedicated Hosting

In dedicate hosting you have access to all he resources associated with a server. You have no limitations whatsoever and have access to the complete bandwidth, disk space as well as host single or multiple websites. You have all the freedom to use all the resources to meet your requirements. Large companies who receive huge streams of traffic need dedicated hosting. Large intricate and complex websites too need this type of hosting. This king of hosting also gives you the freedom to run any kind of script that they wish to run.

  • How to Choose

Shared hosting is ideal for smaller websites as they are usually inexpensive and attract nominal traffic. Large companies are better off with dedicated hosting as their websites need to be more comprehensive, complex and attract at least 1000 visitors a day.

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