Ecommerce Web Hosting - Shared or Designated?

A Home Business Article Contributed by Elizabeth Fox-Wise

There are Two Common Types of Ecommerce Web Hosting - Shared and Designated

When it comes to ecommerce web hosting, there are two basic choices to consider, do you want a shared server or a designated server plan? Before making this decision, it is important that you understand what both of these choices are.

Ecommerce Web Hosting on a Shared Server Plan

Shared Server Ecommerce Web Hosting is the most common choice for small business, for a couple of key reasons.

The first thing that attracts an small ecommerce business owner to shared web hosting is the cost savings. Shared Server ecommerce web hosting can be found for as low as Twenty Dollars a month. Typically there are many web hosting plans offered by the hosting company and prices will increase as the services increase, but for twenty - sixty dollars a month, most ecommerce business' can find a web hosting plan that meets their needs. At this price, even small and start up ecommerce business owners can afford the rent!

Another advantaged to shared hosting service for a small ecommerce business is it typically comes with much more Customer Support and Technical Support than does designated server web hosting. Shared server hosting companies will often even offer support and software for web site design. This is not usually the case for designated server hosting. For the small business owner without an IT staff, technical support from the web hosting company can prevent technical issues from causing a long "down time" for the business or even putting the ecommerce company out of business.

Of course, Shared Server Web Hosting also has some disadvantages, which is why they are not commonly used by Large ecommerce businesses. Shared Servers are just that - Servers that are shared by several different eccomerce web sites. The disadvantages to this is that extra traffic on the web server means slower site performance and a lower level of site security.

Ecommerce Web Hosting on a Dedicated Server

Typically, dedicated server web hosting is chosen by all large ecommerce businesses. By having their own dedicated server, the large ecommerce business is renting an entire server for their own business use.

Dedicated servers give the business more control over their site design and managing. They can choose all of their own software and features.

This also gives them more control over the security of their web site. With no one on the server other than their business and their customers, the chances of the security of the web hosting sever getting compromised is much lower.

However, with the increase in freedom also comes an increase in responsibility and an increase in costs.

If you choose a dedicated Ecommerce Web Hosting solution, the business should have knowledgeable IT people on staff to handle technical problems that will arise. Dedicated Web hosting is more independent and typically comes with less support from the hosting company.

A dedicated web hosting solution is a far more expensive choice than is a shared. Although the costs of dedicated hosting are coming now and are now affordable for some small business, they are still substantially higher than shared web hosting costs. Typically, plans will start at around One Hundred Dollars a month and range in price up to several thousand a month.