How Does Web Hosting Work?
A server is basically a big, fast computer that is always on. Companies keep their websites on servers, and when customers type the website address into their browser, then are sent to the copy of the website on the server. While a large company can afford to have it’s own server, Web Hosting companies usually host the bulk of websites on the internet, as they rent their server space to customers for a fee. They are obviously in the business of making a profit, so if you are looking at getting Web Hosting, you need to be aware of how it works.
There are 3 types of Web Hosting available: Dedicated, VPS, and Shared. To explain the differences, imagine that the server is a pie, and it’s split into 100 pieces. We are going to call these resources. Each of the different types of hosting gets a different share of the pie. How much are you getting?
Dedicated – You get all 100 resources to yourself, hence the term dedicated, as the server is 100% dedicated to your business. This is very expensive of course, and is only good for extremely large businesses.
VPS (Virtual Private Server) – The server is split into exact amounts. It could have 2 portions of 25 each, and 5 portions of 10 each, to total 100. You get exactly what you pay for, and can choose a bigger or smaller size, depending on your needs. It’s almost the same as your own Private Server (Dedicated) as you know what you are getting, hence the name Virtual Private Server, because you virtually have your own small server.
Shared – This is the most common form of hosting, as it is dirt cheap. But there is a reason for that. Using the example of the pie, a Dedicated server might be $100 for all the pie, VPS is $25 for 1/4 of the pie, and with Shared Hosting, they give the pie to 100 people at $1 each. While that might seem fair on the surface, they don’t guarantee you a 1/100 slice of the pie, and instead it’s a free for all to eat as much as you can. Someone can have 100 websites on their share, and you only have 1 website. So out of the 100 resources, 1 person might take 30, another takes 20, the next 8 people take 41 resources, leaving the last 90 people to squabble over 9 shares, getting 0.1 each. Shared Hosting is great for people who know how to eat more resources, and the amateur website owner is always left getting a bad deal.
THE VERDICT
So unless you are on a really tight budget, you should NEVER get Shared Web Hosting. Always go with VPS for your Web Hosting needs, so you can guarantee you are using a server which can deliver your website fast and efficiently to your customers.
Personally, I was a customer of Bluehost for about 3-4 years, but have now been with GreenGeeks for close to the same amount of time. While Bluehost are still better than most, I find GreenGeeks servers are better quality, crash less often, provide more protection against hackers, have much better technical support staff, and even with all these factors, they are still cheaper.
GETTING STARTED
To start using GreenGeeks Web Hosting, CLICK HERE and then choose your package based on how many websites you have.
UPDATE: Things have changed in the hosting world, and GreenGeeks now have protection mechanisms in place to prevent people from having hundreds of website and hogging resources. So I can now recommend the shared hosting packages that they offer. I’ve tried them myself, and you still get fast speeds compared to the VPS.