Types of websites that may require dedicated hosting

Often there is a difficult decision to be made as to the type of web hosting required for a website. The main decision here is whether to opt for shared hosting or dedicated hosting. This articles looks into some of the factors and type of websites that make dedicated hosting a requirement.

So, what is dedicated hosting and how does if differ from shared hosting? The easiest way to explain this is to start by looking at what shared hosting is. Essentially, with shared hosting you are sharing a web server with various websites. A shared hosting provider will dedicate a portion of a server to each website sharing that server. Dedicated hosting, on the other hand, is where an entire web server is dedicated to your website; your website or your group of websites is all that is hosted on the server. There are a number of benefits to this and it is preferable to those who want control over their server and their hosting. It allows webmasters to configure their server how they wish and manage it themselves. So, for who is dedicated hosting required?

High Traffic Websites

Being the only website hosted on a server means a site is better able to cope with a high volume of traffic, something that isn’t always the case with shared hosting. High traffic websites hosted on a shared platform can result in slow load times, thus frustrating visitors. During particularly busy periods this can lead to a site being unavailable.

Organisations with Multiple Websites

Depending on the size of the sites and the traffic being received, you can host a number of sites on the same server. If you run a number of sites, though, it makes more sense to host them all on your own dedicated server rather than opting for shared hosting for each of them. This will allow you to have control over your server, something you wouldn’t have with shared hosting, meaning you can manage it according to your needs. Using a server, or a number of servers, for just your own websites means that you cannot be impacted by what is happening with sites run by someone else, something that can be an issue with shared hosting.

Sites with Multimedia

Having multimedia files on your website means that more bandwidth is required. Therefore, if you have a site that contains a lot of video and audio files then dedicated hosting may be required. Shared hosting is not as likely to be able to cope with these.

A Business that is Expected to Grow

Some websites may not require dedicated hosting now but might in the future. The website of a business that is expected to grow is an example of this. The volume of traffic may not be particularly significant at present, but if expected growth is realised this volume is likely to increase. It is important this is considered prior to deciding on the type of hosting required.

E-commerce Sites

There are a number of issues with e-commerce sites that can make dedicated hosting a necessity rather than a want. Security is one of these; e-commerce sites will deal with customer’s payment details and keeping these details secure is of utmost importance. Security is much easier to maintain if you have a dedicated server, as there are fewer external factors that can influence it. Typically, e-commerce sites have periods of particularly high traffic. Christmas is a good example of this; in the lead up to Christmas many people may wish to purchase products from a website. Dedicated hosting may be required to cope with this.

Andrew Marshall ©