#Shared hosting
Shared hosting is the most common type of hosting. If you just want to get a simple site up and you have no interest in learning about IT and systems administration then this is where you should start. Having said that spending a little bit learning about the different types of hosting and how it works could save you time in the long run.
With shared hosting the host creates you an account on their systems that will publish and run your website. The resources of the server or servers running the system are shared between all the sites hence the name. They wont try to specify the amount of RAM or CPU power that you will have available, this is normal and not something you should worry about (trust me on this for now). You will get a website you can log into where you can control the settings for the account, this is called a control panel and Cpanel is a brand of software for doing this and very widely used.
For people to access your website you need to have a domain name, these are registered for between one year and ten after which they must be renewed. You can't buy the name outright. You do not have to register the domain name with the same company you have the hosting with, although occasionally a shared host will require it. If you are a beginner with one site it's fine to have both services with the same company and it means they will be able to set every thing up for you.
Regardless of where the domain is it will need to be "pointed" to your hosting service IP address. The domain registrar will do this for you. For completeness I should say that you can have a separate company again do the pointing.
As shared hosting is aimed at beginners or at least people with little technical knowledge they often provide very good support for talking you through the process of getting your website set up or even moving it in from another host. Be aware that this kind of support is expensive for them to provide and by far the biggest cost for a host, you end up paying for it over the long term. You may get cheaper deals if you can put in more effort yourself. Shared hosting is still cheap though and paying a little bit extra every month may be worth it for that piece of mind.
By looking at the hots website you may not be able to differentiate between a quality web host with a significant infrastructure investment and experienced 24/7 support staff, an amateur who has bought a single server with cpanel to sell hosting accounts without much of a plan for if things go wrong and a web hosting company run by marketeers and accountants who's incompetence and indifference frequently leave individual customers hanging out to dry but do not care as long as their churn rate is below some threshold.
The bullet points on most shared hosts websites to allow you to choose between their hosting plans and compare with competitors are largely meaningless. If you are coming close to the limits of bandwidth, disk space or number of email accounts then you probably need to rethink the type of hosting you are choosing. These limits are only quoted to sow doubt in your mind and make you buy the next plan up and also as an arms race against the next host.
- Longevity Hosts that have stayed the distance tend to be better quality. I recommend you look for a host that has been around for at least as long as you plan your site to be with that host.
- Reputation This is a difficult one. Many of the review sites are fake and only exist to take a cut of there referrals. Look for personal recommendations or reviews linked to mature social network accounts facebook and google reviews.
- locality Choose a host in the same country as you. You will get a speed boost. It's sometimes easier to deal with people who are culturally similar. In case of disaster then legal avenues are a more realistic option
- The right features If your site needs a MySQL database make sure the hosting offers it, but dont worry you wont need 10. Check the hosting the right PHP version etc.
- Other features a lot of extra features hosts offer are of little value, it may be something that is available free elsewhere or automation of a feature that's simple to implement in your website code. But if a host is offering a feature that's useful to you then that's good.
- Just try one it doesn't really matter! It's not hard to re-upload a site to a new host and many hosts will even bring your site in free from a competitor. Just pick a host and try, if your not happy move.