Web Hosting
Table of Contents
Web Hosting Uptime
Website hosting you choose determines the overall consistency of the site experience you offer not only to organic visitors but all visitors, from social media, visitors coming to your website directly, paid advertisements, and any other form of web traffic. Hosting uptime is referring to the percentage of the time your website is online not only for users but web crawlers as well. The greater the uptime, the less likely users will land on your website only to realize it’s down, and send them back to their search engines or competing companies potentially risking your rankings in the process, revenue, or leads. Hosting providers who claim to have 100% uptime, may not be transparent, there will generally be some downtime but the key is to keep that downtime as short as possible.
As your company website grows, hosting needs will change, especially when you scale a site to hundreds of thousands to millions of pages. Eventually, your traffic numbers may be big enough to shift from a dedicated server. Making this transition will be cheaper and easier if you do not want to switch hosting providers at the same time. Organizations with large sites or high volumes of web traffic require a different type of infrastructure such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, or Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Types of Web Hosting
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting works well for those who want to get their website off the ground. It mainly helps with an entry-level website and can also have multiple domains and website buildout on the platform. This is where your website(s) will be stored on the same server as multiple other websites on the network. This is where multiple domains share the same server resources, like RAM and CPU processing. In other words, think of your wi-fi connection at home and how many devices are connected to it. That could be your smart tv, cell phone, laptop, desktop computer, or tablet, and how many family members are all using it at the same time. Your internet speed will be divided by the number of devices and people using the internet which can really bog down how fast your wi-fi connection is.
With all resources shared by the number of domains the cost of shared hosting plans is pretty low compared to dedicated servers and other types of hosting packages, making them an excellent option for website owners in their beginning stages. Some features you’d like to consider if selecting a shared hosting plan is:
VPS Hosting
VPS hosting plans are the middle ground between shared server hosting and dedicated server hosting. VPS hosting is unique because each website is hosted within its own space on the server, though it still shares a physical server with other users. VPS hosting is on a physical server but it shares the resources with other users in addition to more customization and storage space than shared hosting packages. Once a website has an increase in high traffic or spikes in usage, the website will be affected by other sites on that server. From a cost perspective, the pricing points for VPS hosting can be cheaper than a dedicated hosting plan.
Which type of hosting is best for SEO?
There is no one type of hosting that is inherently the best for SEO. The best hosting for SEO will depend on the specific needs and goals of a website. However, VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting is generally considered a good choice for SEO because it offers many benefits that can help improve a website’s search engine rankings. Some of these benefits include improved performance, greater control, enhanced security, and flexibility. Other types of hosting that may be suitable for SEO include dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, and managed hosting. These types of hosting also offer various benefits that can help with SEO, such as high performance, scalability, and expert support. Ultimately, the best hosting for SEO will depend on the specific needs and goals of a website, and it may be necessary to try out different hosting options to find the one that works best.
Dedicated Server Hosting
Dedicated hosting provides the most control over the server and your website will be the only one stored on it. This will require a bit more technical knowledge with full control of the root and admin access to control everything from the security to the operating systems running the server.
The costs for dedicated hosting are more expensive than VPS hosting and shared hosting. Generally dedicated hosting is used for websites with higher levels of web traffic and companies that need more control over servers.
How does a dedicated web server help SEO?
A dedicated web server can help with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in a number of ways. Some of the benefits of using a dedicated web server for SEO include:
- Improved performance: A dedicated web server provides dedicated resources for your website, which can help improve its performance and speed. This is important for SEO because search engines use page speed as a ranking factor. A faster website can also provide a better user experience, which can help improve your website’s rankings.
- Greater control: With a dedicated web server, you have more control over your server environment than with shared hosting. This allows you to make changes to your website and its settings, which can be useful for implementing SEO strategies.
- Enhanced security: A dedicated web server provides better security than shared hosting because it isolates your website from other websites on the same server. This can help protect your website from malware and other security threats, which can harm your search engine rankings.
- Flexibility: A dedicated web server is more flexible than shared hosting because you have the ability to customize your server environment to meet your specific needs. This can be useful for implementing advanced SEO strategies that require specific server settings.
Cloud hosting
Cloud hosting is a great option for websites with a higher volume of traffic and usage.
Improved website speed: Cloud hosting can help improve your website’s speed by providing access to a large number of servers. This allows your website to handle increased traffic and load pages faster, which can help improve your search engine rankings.
Reliability: Cloud hosting can provide improved reliability by distributing your website’s content across multiple servers. This can help prevent downtime and ensure that your website is always available to users, which can help improve your search engine rankings.
Scalability: Cloud hosting can provide the ability to easily scale your website’s resources up or down as needed. This can help ensure that your website can handle increased traffic without performance issues, which can help improve your search engine rankings.
Security: Cloud hosting can provide enhanced security for your website by providing access to advanced security features and regular security updates. This can help protect your website from cyber threats and improve your search engine rankings.
Overall, using cloud hosting can provide several benefits that can help improve your website’s search engine rankings.Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best shared web hosting service?
When starting up a new site some of the best shared web hosting service providers are Host Gator, Blue Host, Siteground, Kinsta, A2 Hosting, Hostinger, and WPEngine. There are a number of other web hosting providers that also offer shared hosting packages like IONOS, Dreamhost, Flywheel, and Godaddy. Depending on your needs, keep an eye out for features like free emails, unlimited websites, free SSL, speed, and storage space.