Companies, organizations, or individuals usually prefer shared hosting when they are starting to make their identities known in the Web. But, oftentimes, these clients do not have the time, the resources, or the manpower needed to maintain their website. When you are just starting to establish yourself or your business online, the maintenance of your website is important to ensure that it is always available, 24/7. In order to achieve this, a number of web host providers offer managed shared hosting services. This can come as a separate package or an additional service to the shared hosting package you have chosen.
What are the features of a managed shared hosting service?
Different providers may vary in the features that they offer for shared hosting services. There are general features that you can expect, though. These include:
- Website monitoring
- System management (i.e. installing, upgrading, and updating open-source software or framework, applications, and scripts for your website)
- Exclusive live technical support which is available 24/7
- E-mail setup assistance
- Troubleshooting
- Performing backups
Web host providers may offer more or less of these features for managed shared hosting.
What are the advantages of managed shared hosting?
Having your provider manage your site gives you more liberties. Here are some of them:
- You can focus on your business and worry less about the technical aspects of your website.
- You don’t have to learn in-depth web development concepts.
- You don’t have to hire your own IT staff to maintain your website. You can be confident with the team of your web host since web development and maintenance is the area of their expertise.
- The services you used to pay for will now be free, like refreshing the system.
- You would have specialized solutions to issues or defects in your website.
With all these, all that’s left for you to do is to provide a great content for your website. Also, you can concentrate on marketing strategies and campaigns to get customers to access your website. The administration of your website would be handled wholly by your provider. You may be needed for a few details, but that’s as far and as technical as you get with administrating.
What are the limitations of managed shared hosting?
A misconception about managed shared hosting is thinking that it leans more on the aspects of managed dedicated server hosting than shared hosting. In fact, it is quite the opposite. So expect these limitations with managed shared hosting:
- Website redesigning and custom graphics are not provided.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your content is not provided.
- If you are an e-commerce website, you will be the one to manage the products and the shopping cart in the website.
- You have to be the one to update and troubleshoot third party plugins. You are also in charge of making sure that the plugins are compatible in your website. This also goes for server-side scripts.
- Site transfers are not supported.
- Database conversion is not supported.
There are workarounds for these limitations, though. If you are not tech-savvy enough to handle the technicalities of your website, then you can hire or contract one or a few web developers. Websites on shared hosting servers are not as big and complex as those in dedicated servers, though, so one web developer is usually enough. Also, even if services like website redesigning and customized graphics are not provided, your host must still provide assistance. Your host can also offer these services with an additional price. But, if you are expecting more traffic to your site and it requires more than the basic web management, then you should probably consider other hosting packages.
