After you have picked out and registered a name for your domain, you still need to find somewhere to host the site itself. The first thing to consider in deciding, is to pick whether you want a shared or a dedicated host. That is, one that multiple people use, or one that you own yourself.

As with many other Internet based services, there are both pros and cons to engaging and utilizing a shared web hosting service. By having a basic understanding of the positive and negative aspects associated with shared hosting, you will be able to better ascertain whether or not dedicated hosting or shared hosting is the proper alternative for you or your business enterprise.

To start with, have a look at the different prices, as this may ultimately be a determining factor. Shared hosts are much less expensive then dedicated hosting, because you are only using a small part of the servers ability. I strongly advise against free hosting, for reasons of reliability, and so if you want good value shared hosting is the way to go.

Besides price, there is the issue of technical support. All shared hosts have good customer support, as this is one of the cornerstones of their business, and a major issue of competition between them. So if you don't have a lot of experience hosting a site, you might want a shared hosts, just because then you know it is run by someone who knows what they are doing.

Plus, shared hosts generally have a good range of supplementary systems, such as integrated email and PHP support. This is good because it means that you don't need to have, personally, any expertise in website hosting or server management to run it. As you can see, shared hosting can be a big help.

As mentioned, there are negative aspects attached to shared hosting as well. Perhaps the most significant downside to shared hosting is the reality that it normally will have a lower security level. By definition multiple individuals and entities are accessing the server all of the time which heightens the risk for security related problems and breaches.

Besides this, there is also the problem of limited resources. A shared host will not have all it's resources available, to all of its members, at all times, and this can be restrictive. If you're site is particularly high powered, you may find that the resources used by the others on the host has a detrimental effect, limiting what you can do.

Last, there is the problem of choice. While there are a lot of hosts to choose from, not all of them will have exactly the software you require, and if you later find you need a particular piece you will not be able to just install it, which you could if you owned the host yourself.

When all is said and done, the truth is that shared hosts are becoming increasingly popular. This applies not only to servers, themselves, but also to alternative forms of shared hosting such as exchange server hosting, windows web hosting, or even Virtual Private Servers (VPS). I hope I've provided a reasonably balanced summary, and given you something to think about here.