by Alan Fernald

Created on: October 21, 2008   Last Updated: November 16, 2008

In 2008, the majority of web sites on the internet were hosted by third party hosting providers. Though many people are aware that third party hosting exists, to most, the terminology used in describing the different types of hosting can seem rather intimidating. I hope that this article will clarify the confusion of the different plan types.

There are three basic types of third party hosting provided; Shared hosting, dedicated hosting, and managed hosting. Each type of hosting has advantages and disadvantages, but the principal differences between the hosting types are the server ownership, server management and pricing. Some advantages common to the different third party hosting packages include an Internet firewall managed by internet security professional, high-speed internet connection and the elimination of the routine administration tasks required by typical servers.

SHARED HOSTING:

With shared hosting, the third party hosting company retains full ownership and management of the server used to provide the hosting. The hosting provider makes all decisions regarding what operating system the server runs, the security configuration of the server, and the software applications that are permitted to run.

The servers used to provide shared hosting are generally very robust and can support many hundreds of websites. In some cases, these servers may actually contain over a thousand different web sites on behalf of hundreds of different companies. Because a single server can support such a large number of different clients, shared hosting packages are the most economical available. Packages generally start for US $1 to $2 per month, and some providers will even include the domain name registration free.

The advantage to shared hosting is the extremely low price.

The disadvantages of shared hosting are that the web site owner must design their web site based upon the software packages installed on the hosting server. If a web site is built using the Microsoft .NET Framework, but the web server has not had the appropriate software installed, then the web site will not function correctly and must be rebuilt using software supported by that particular server. Additionally, if there are configuration requirements specific to your web site, you may need to contact the hosting providers technical support group to ask them to correct the configuration rather than being able to make the corrections yourself. Thus, a change that you could make in thirty seconds may take anywhere

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