Web Hosting: Virtual or Dedicated? What's the difference anyway?

Ok, you have decided to get your own URL and design your own website. The only problem now is webhosting, you have heard the term virtual and dedicated thrown around a lot but you really don't know the difference or even if you do you don't know what's the right one for you. Well, let me see if I can clear up some of that confusion.

Virtual hosting is when you purchase a hosting account for your website and they place your site on the same server (computer) as a bunch of other sites, I say bunch because this number varies. This is the reason why virtual hosting is the least costly of all the other hosting options, because it is "shared" hosting. Thus, when you hear the word "virtual" or "shared" they mean the same thing as far as hosting is concerned. Virtual is best for small to medium ranged websites that are either just starting out, or already have an established traffic stream that is not that large, let's say maybe 2000-3000 unique visitors (not hits or page views) per day. So this is a perfect option for you if you intend to put your site up and then promote it. This way when the traffic (if the traffic) reaches past a certain point, you can upgrade to a different hosting plan. Which plan might that be? You guessed it, a Dedicated Server hosting plan.

Dedicated is exactly how it sounds, a server that is "dedicated" to your site and your site alone. You are the only account on that computer, thus since noone else can use that computer but you the hosting company is going to charge you as such. Now dedicated server pricing can range anywhere from $250 per month up to an unlimited amount. It all depends on the amount of bandwidth that your site is pushing through their lines every month. A good hosting company will work with you on this, you can cap your bandwidth and this way if you go over it will either stop all traffic or slow it to a crawl. I would not recommend this as it can lead to end user frustration and let's face it, you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. A quality hosting company will let you know if you are getting close to your monthly bandwidth limit and they will ask you if you would like to be charged by the gigabyte or upgrade your plan. If it is something that is going to be a habit, then I recommend upgrading your plan. If this is just a one time thing, like maybe you placed a radio ad and your site gets a million hits in one day, then just pay by the gigabyte for the time being.

You should now have a better understanding of which hosting plans are which and the differences between them. If you have any questions you can always e-mail me at nibbsbit@optonline.net anytime. Make sure you do some research on a hosting company before you sign-up, a good way to tell if they are reliable is to call up their tech support and pretend that you are a client and have a problem with your server, see how they handle the situation. If they say "Yeah, we're on break, call back another time!" then you know that the company is dogshit. Don't jump into anything, trust me, it is very painful to have to deal with a bad hosting company especially when your income depends on your websites.