Web hosting is the service of storing data that keeps websites up and running for users. Every single website that is online has a host server, and almost all use a web host to manage that storage. Not all web hosts provide the same level of quality, though. Uptime, and data speed and quantity of transfer are the best measures of a host’s success. You can often pay more to get data transferred in higher quantities, faster. Most web hosts offer unlimited bandwidth and disk space at a speed that is perfectly fine for small-to-moderate sized businesses or individuals. For companies with burdensome websites, they may need to seek out a more advanced web host.

A shared web hosting service is an agreement whereby each user gets a certain portion of total available resources. Multiple domains are hosted by the same server, which means that the server’s capabilities are split between multiple domains. This means that these websites will not experience as robust of performance as a website that has a dedicated server applying all of its resources solely to one website. If requests come in for multiple websites on the same server simultaneously, the server will only be able to transfer so much information at a single time. For low-bandwidth websites, the delays will often be unnoticeable, but for more burdensome websites, the delay can be significant.