Making the decision between a dedicated server and a shared web hosting service to be the online home of your business or organization’s new website can be one of the most important choices you make in the process of launching the site!

Surprisingly enough, many providers recommend one option or the other based on incidental features like monthly transfer and storage space alone.  While these are important considerations, they should really come secondary to the dedicated vs. shared hosting decision.  Why so?

Well, there are major differences between shared and dedicated web hosting services that can significantly impact the performance of your website on multiple levels.

Dedicated Web Hosting

Using a dedicated web hosting server means that your site is the only site on an individual server and on an individual IP address.  It’s a common misconception that having a dedicated server means you’ll keep it and operate it at your own physical location—in reality, most dedicated web hosting plans are actually “managed” plans where you’re paying to use a server that’s professionally maintained in a secure hosting center.

There are substantial benefits to using dedicated web hosting.  Having a dedicated IP address of your very own means that there’s no chance of being banned or penalized by search engines for sharing an IP with another site that uses black hat SEO techniques, maintains illegal content, or is caught for sending spam.  Having bad neighbors on your IP address can really do serious damage to your own site!

Another benefit to having dedicated hosting is that you don’t have to share your server’s memory and processing power with another site that might be a heavy resource user.  Sites that run sophisticated scripts like chat rooms can literally bog the entire server down to a crawl—meaning your site becomes caught up in the traffic jam even if you’re not causing the problem when not using dedicated hosting.

The only real downfall to hosting your website on dedicated server is that it does tend to be a bit more expensive—but usually not prohibitively so if you’re running a growing business or organization that relies heavily on its website (or especially if you’re doing any type of e-commerce.)

Shared Web Hosting

Like the name suggests, shared web hosting is when your site is based on a server and IP address that’s shared with several other websites.  There are cost advantages to doing so.  When you research web hosting on the web, most of the time when you see budget plans under $10 a month or so, these are going to be of the shared hosting arrangement.

For basic brochure-type websites, shared hosting can be a bargain and not necessarily hold your site back in the performance department too much.  Here’s the thing—if you do choose shared web hosting, make sure you’re being hosted on a reputable server and that you’re surrounded by only the best neighbors.  We can help you do an IP search to see exactly what sites are all hosted on your shared server—many are shocked when they find out that they’re sharing their “house” with hundreds of other sites, many of which are less than upstanding net-citizens.

Which One Is Right For You?

In the end, it’s really up to your performance needs and budget.  On one hand, many good sites call shared web hosts their home.  But for growing websites and sites that receive a decent degree of traffic, it’s always worth giving the benefit of the doubt to the dedicated hosting option.  The additional costs are negligible when considering the pitfalls you could run into with a low quality shared service.

And above all, remember that choosing between dedicated and shared hosting is the most important primary part of the web hosting selection process—only consider storage space, traffic quotas, and other features once you’re sure that your site is at home on the right server first.