Shared Web Hosting
by Jimmy Martin
The cheapest and easiest way to put a website on the internet is to use shared web hosting.
Figure 2: Shared Web Hosting
As shown in Figure 2 above, shared web hosting is when many websites share one web server. All of the sites are stored on the server's hard disk drives, but there is only one copy of the server software running.
When a request for a web page comes in from the internet, the server first checks to see which website the requested page is from. It then looks in the area of hard disk space that is reserved for that website. When the page is found, it is sent out to the person who requested it.
The reason it is possible to run several websites on one web server is that most websites do not receive enough web traffic to need a server all to themselves. Modern web servers have so much memory, disk space and processor power that they can serve several hundred small websites without difficulty.
Shared web hosting is often a "one stop shop" where you can set up domain names, websites and email addresses for one low price.
Next we will examine some of the Pros and Cons of a shared web hosting.