There are many levels of web hosting services available to businesses, ranging from shared web hosting to colocation. With the availability of huge internet pipes and data centers that could survive a third world war, every business should have a quick loading, reliable website.
Most businesses can get by with basic hosting services provided by a web hosting company. This is called Shared Web Hosting and typically costs less than $10 per month. If your company is utilizing a shared hosting service, your website is sharing space on a server with hundreds of other websites. Shared web hosting offers a number of different user functions, including the ability to setup email and FTP accounts, backup your site by downloading zip files with site content and view site traffic statistics. Shared hosting isn’t as secure as dedicated hosting and doesn’t offer the Service Level Agreements that come with dedicated hosting. If you’re going to utilize a shared hosting service it’s recommended that you subscribe to a service level that provides a private IP address. If you’re sharing an IP address with other websites, the content and behavior of your “neighbors” could potentially affect your website’s SEO.
Is the same service as Shared Web Hosting and your decision to utilize it is more of a business decision than a technical one. The companies that utilize reseller agreements market and resell hosting services or could be web developers. Web developers manage a number of websites and it’s less expensive to enter into one reseller hosting agreement than subscribe to a number of individual shared hosting accounts. A reseller hosting account typically costs around $25 a month.
Virtual Private Server (VPS) accounts are a step up from shared hosting services and a step below dedicated web hosting. With VPS a company would receive all the features that are offered with shared service, along with extras like off site data backup, included private IP addresses and root access, which gives an administrator all the rights and permissions to all a website’s files and programs. VPS accounts are more scalable, offer more security and better Service Level Agreements than shared hosting. VPS offers a dedicated hosting experience, but at a lower cost. Typically a VPS account goes for about $50 a month.
In next weeks article, I’ll discuss dedicated hosting services and colocation.
If you have questions about web hosting or need help establishing the service, please call CarrierBid today or complete the form on the right side of this page.
for immediate service or fill out theform and we’ll be in touch right away.