Dedicated Server vs Shared Server Hosting
March 15, 2012 | 
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Any website that is located on the internet is viewable by anyone who comes to it. To be able to have your website on the internet, you need a service provider. It is like a location for you to have your website in the internet. The kind of service that allows you to do that is called the web hosting service. There are many kinds of web hosting services available out there and 2 of the most common or mostly used is the shared hosting or the dedicated hosting.
Obviously there is difference in these 2 types of hosting. To put it in simple words, each has a different control given to the user to manage their website. Therefore, we need to know what the differences are before we choose the kind of web hosting we want.
For a shared hosting, its name already gives you a clear idea on what it offers. Shared means multiple websites hosted in the same location. So, in a server, there are multiple websites sharing the space, bandwidth and so on. This type of hosting is ideal for small business as well as new webmasters who are trying out for the first time. Over an all, it is very usable but it has some limitations in its resources.
As you are paying for the service, the provider will provide you with software, security, maintenance and support. As for the users, they will get a certain level of control with the control panel of their choice.
Shared hosting provides control panels like Cpanel PLeask and VDeck. With these control panels, users can really manage their websites. As for the serve, it is maintain or manage by more complex control panel like Helm and DirectAdmin. However, there are also some shared hosting that uses Linux web hosting and they will use either Windows or FreeBSD control panel. A Linux system is know to be compatible with most of the current control panel and therefore making it more acceptable in the market.
Due to the fact that shared hosting is shared, you can guess that the price required owning a website with this kind of web hosting would be more affordable. The fact that it is cheaper is the reason why many people turn to it. They can still get multiple database, management tools and many other service when they choose shared hosting. Even though that they know that it is more likely to face security issue and probability of their website occurring downtime, this is something that the are willing to accept.
On the contrary, a dedicated hosting is a hosting that only hosts one website in the entire server. Therefore, the user has total usage over the server. They do not have to share space, bandwidth or any other feature with any other website. It is most suitable for websites that expect a heavy amount of traffic. With more bandwidth, they have nothing to worry about. Users of dedicated hosting also have the power to choose the type of software that they want to use in the website. They also have the same capability of having multiple domains.
To sum it all up, a user of a dedicated web hosting service will have total control over their website. This provides them with freedom but they themselves have to make sure of the stability of the operation of their website. This is not something complex but very simple. All the skills that the user needs are at an administrative level. Users must also make sure that their website is monitored constantly to maintain security. However, if the user no knowledge about the technical requirements, the hosting provider does provide additional support and service to help users of the dedicated hosting.
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Advantages and Disadvantages of Free Web Hosting
Everyone likes getting things for free, but web masters receive free web hosting services from service providers, its best of knowledge for a webmaster to understand the benefits as well as demerits of free hosting and how it can become beneficiary.
For any webmaster, getting the right hosting can prove to be quite a challenging task. Free and dedicated hosting are some of the available options at your disposal. Some categories like PHP, DS and shared web hosting is included in the broad genres.
Free hosting is where a webmaster doesn’t pay anything to the host. Examples of free services are banner ads. The client gets good decisions from the web hosts because very few ideas remain in this kind of services. The problem however with free hosting is that Mysql database is not provided to the client.
Still on point, there is unavailability of multiple Email accounts or the inability to run scripting languages is unavailable for the client in such services. Clients get a domain through the free web hosting plans although it would be a sub domain or at best some directory which doesn’t assist the clients in their web promotion endeavor.
The most viable option of any webmaster, who cannot afford a valid hosting owing to the cost involved, is to choose a minor hosting to assist receiving dedicated hosting with full use of free services. Investments made by the client for receiving a cheap yet dedicated hosting will be a great return on investment in the process because of many advantages one gets along the way.
If what is needed is higher bandwidth and greater storage, dedicated web hosting service is your most viable solution. More database, email address and unlimited bandwidth are what dedicated web server is all about which is an advantageous alternative for hosting services. Normally dedicated server plans give web masters bandwidth ranging from 500 GB to 1 Tb per month, which needless to mention, it is more than enough for all website jobs to be done.
Undamaged dedicated web hosting gives the client better control and lots of flexibilities because the server administrator is the user. Be advised though that it takes a lot of time and is not cheap compared to manage hosting solutions. Look at the internet and you will discover there are lots of hosting services available at your disposal, from free hosting to affordable paid hosting plans.
For web masters logging in webhostgear.com could be needed help they can get on topics like windows hosting, and best web hosting service which can be found in the market. This website is the best web server guide.
Web Hosting – An Investment Or an Expense?
Is having your own website an investment or an expense? The following article will help you gain clarity on this issue.
First of all, let us consider the costs of having a website. A domain name with sufficient amount of space (that also includes a database support for interactive websites) costs under $30 per annum. This is roughly $2.5 / month.
Then comes the designing and maintenance costs. Depending on your requirement, web design can cost as little as $50-$100. There is no upper limit; it can go into several thousands depending on what exactly you want and who is doing it. Ideally, you should ask your friends and associates to refer web designers who have done a good job for them and also charged reasonably. Prepare your requirements in advance before taking quotes. Be very clear on what exactly you want for your website. This will save you a lot of pain. Be sure to cross check the quotes with sites like Elance. Discuss the maintenance charges also, if you need to update your site often.
There is another option where you can save on web design costs if you don’t need a very fancy / customized design. Most hosting providers will offer you site builder options at a nominal cost. In fact, you can even use a blog platform like WordPress or a CMS platform like Joomla and Drupal. Most hosting providers will offer fantastic support, which enables you to install these open source softwares with a few mouse clicks. I would advice you to first go with one of these options, preferably the WordPress / CMS option before you spend on web design.
Once you’ve worked out these costs, you now need to consider the returns. Business is all about ROI (Return On Investment) and you should seriously track all leads and / or orders you receive through your website. First of all, you need to accept the fact that you won’t start getting orders the moment your website is live. “If you build it, they will come” doesn’t work here. You need to work towards promoting your website.
There are several online and offline ways to do this. For offline promotion, you should include your website URL in every piece of communication as you can, like visiting cards, yellow page ads, invoices, quotations, etc.
For online promotion, you should first make it a point to include your URL in email signatures and forum post signatures. Next, you should consider spending a little on PPC (Pay Per Click) ads. The most important online promotion is free traffic from search engines. If you want to win the SEO game, there are only three things that you really need to concentrate on:
1. Unique content: Don’t ever copy content from other websites, create your own. If required, hire a decent copywriter, but first start on your own.
2. Updated content: Search engines love websites which have new content added regularly, so make it a point to add something new to your website at least once a week. If there are no new products or services that you add, consider adding some latest news in your industry. Or you can simply add useful tips that cater to your industry.
3. Backlinks: The more websites that link to yours, the more weight search engines give to your ranking. So try to get more websites linking to you, preferably from related content sites. You can also write articles that are beneficial to your targeted audience and submit them at article directories. Remember to add your website link in the author’s bio (you are seeing this in action right now; check out the bio following this article).
These are the three pillars that SEO stands on. If you do nothing else except follow these, you will get much more targeted traffic than your competitors. You don’t even need an SEO consultant.
If you can generate enough business from your website, it makes sense in continuing it. It then becomes an investment with good returns. You should give it a try for at least 2 years, to track proper ROI. Once you’re fairly successful, you can think of other ways to improve your website. If you’re making more than you’re spending, its time to take your website to the next level. Start by hiring / outsourcing people to write content for you. Use lead generation tactics by giving away free reports in exchange for people to sign up to your mailing list.
While your website is certainly an investment worth making, you can also claim the costs as business expenses! Consult your accountant for details.