One the many reasons why a good number of website owners as well as bloggers, chose to go for the managed web hosting accounts is as a result of the reduced cost of purchase. But, that aside there are still a lot of advantages in making use of these cheaper web hosting options than, then the so called dedicated and unmanaged web hosting accounts.
The assumptions that dedicated servers and always more advantageous to a website owner over the shared or managed web hosting is not very correct. And as you read to the end of this very insightful piece of articles you will soon find out the reason why you need to go for the managed/shared web hosting account.
When you buy a shared or a managed web hosting package from a reliable company, you can be rest assured that your online business is good to go without further cost to you. These managed web hosting packages comes with an option of a monthly payment or an annual payment plan for you to choose from. As soon as your hosting account is setup and running you do not necessarily need to do anything else but to start uploading your files and documents to the server.
Shared hosting packages do not come with the purchase of additional software, cables, and in some cases the employment of a server technician to handle the technical aspect of your server as witnessed with dedicated web hosting. The truth is that you really do not need to go for a dedicated server if your company does not have a need for such kind of server as this sort of servers are only recommended for large organization and firms with a huge database. Such huge organization with lots of staff under their payroll could afford the cost of employing technical personnel to manage their server issues.
The cost effectiveness of the shared/managed web hosting account is a relief for small business owners who do not need to sometimes pay through their nose to buy such dedicated servers. They also do not have to worry about the technical aspect of their servers as it's well taken care of by the web hosting company. Some of the most reliable web hosting companies will also ensure the safety of your files and documents as they are backed up periodically. This is very necessary as your files can be easily recovered even when the server crashes.
Some of the very reliable web hosting companies will also provide you with antivirus software to help protect your files and as such you can be sure that your files are safe with them. Actually the beauty of these shared/managed web hosting accounts are not just in cost reduction, but the peace of mind you also enjoy as you know that there is someone whose job is to ensure that your documents are highly safe without an extra cost to you.
Now you can see that with managed/shared web hosting account you not only payless but that you also enjoy all the accrued benefits that come with the package free of charge.
Managed Server Web Hosting
It's embarrassing, time consuming and not to mention costly if you are missing out on sales.
On the other side of the scale, it can be very costly to be on a larger web hosting plan or dedicated server and hardly even use the services it offers.
Good quality web hosting is not cheap, but you need to balance your business needs with what you can really afford to pay.
So what web hosting service should you be using? Good question!
In this article I'm going to be talking about the pro's and con's of both shared web hosting and dedicated web hosting packages. By the end of the article you should have some idea what your online business needs now and what it will need when it expands.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is what most small online businesses use. Shared hosting means that your site is on one server that also holds other peoples websites as well. Your website will not be the only one on that server. Very few small online businesses need the power of a dedicated server.
Most companies offer a few different types of shared web hosting services. The only difference usually being how much disk space you want or how much transfer allowance you need.
The best way to show you what the difference is between shared hosting services is to show you an example.
Go to http://www.marblehost.com/hosting-plans.php
This is an example web hosting companies shared hosting services. As you can see they offer two different types of shared hosting services. Basically they offer a small and large service.
The major differences between each package really is how many domain names you can host, how much transfer (how many megabytes that are downloading from your website) you can have and how much disk space (how many files you can store) you need.
If you're just starting out online and haven't got a website up yet and not sure what you are doing exactly, start off with the small plan. That's more then enough for a small site or blog for that matter.
Now if you run a larger website and you offer a lot of downloads, say for example you're selling a rather large ebook, you might need the large service. Let's say you have a 10mb ebook for sale, the large service this company offers would allow you to have roughly 2000 downloads of that package before you ran out of bandwidth (transfer).
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is for the big boys. It's for medium to big business looking to do a lot of work online. A dedicated server is just that, you're own server. You get your own server just for your website which is unlike shared hosting as you have to share a server.
There are many different packages available with dedicated hosting depending on how much you want to spend. The more resources a server has, IE, RAM, Hard drive space, processor speed, the more it will cost.
You can see that a dedicated server allows you a lot more disk space and transfer allowance. It also allows you unlimited domain names. Dedicated servers are also known to be a lot more stable and allow you more control over your website and are perfect for a professional image.
There are two types of dedicated servers....
Managed hosting
Managed hosting offers you the support of a technical team looking after your server. They do all the updates and technical side of things for you. They will perform routine maintenance without you even asking. Managed hosting how ever does cost quite a lot more then un-managed usually.
Un-managed hosting
Un-managed hosting isn't as support less as it sounds. Most dedicated servers do come with technical assistance and routine maintenance, but any support questions will more then likely cost you extra. If you need something added to your server, it will cost you a in maintenance fee's. Rebooting your server should also come free with un-managed dedicated hosting.
Multiple Domain Name Hosting
Another thing you should look at is whether or not you want to host multiple domain names with your one hosting package. Both shared hosting and dedicated hosting can allow you to do this. A lot of share hosting services now allow this.
I recommend always using a web host that allows you to have multiple domain names with your one account. It really does solve the problem of having multiple hosting accounts for different domain names.
Other Things To Look For
Other things to think about when searching for a web hosting company is what you intend to do with your website.
Do you need a lot of technical assistance? If so, look for a hosting company with live 24/7 support. Do you want to create a blog, or lot's of blogs? Then you will need to see if your web hosting company allows you to setup multiple MYSQL databases.
Both Dhruv Patel & Bedrich Omacka are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Dhruv Patel has sinced written about articles on various topics from Computers and The Internet, Web Development and About Web Hosting. Dhruv Patel is a customer of DreamHost. He has created site to help new DreamHost customers and to promote DreamHost by giving DreamHost co. Dhruv Patel's top article generates over 22200 views. Bookmark Dhruv Patel to your Favourites.
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