On shared hosting your site shares a server, and often an address, with hundreds of others. Proper isolation and managed hosting keep a neighbour's traffic, spam or hacked site from becoming your problem.

Hundreds of sites on one machine

On a typical shared hosting plan, your website is one of hundreds of accounts on a single server. They share its processors, memory, disks, network connection and, usually, its internet address.

That is why shared hosting is cheap, and for a small site it can work well for years.

You never see the other sites and have no idea what they are: a shop running a sale, a hobby forum, an abandoned blog with plugins from 2014.

What they do still reaches you. Not through anything you did, but through everything the server shares.

What the neighbours share with you

The last is the one nobody asks about. On a well-run server, each account is walled off from the others; on a poorly run one, a break-in next door can reach your files.

A neighbour's busy day

When another site on the server has a rush, from a sale, a mention in the news or a swarm of bots, it takes more than its share of the machine.

Your pages slow down or time out at moments that have nothing to do with your own visitors. The host's figures show your account within its limits, because the problem is not your account.

From the outside it looks random. The site is fine in the morning and crawls after lunch, and it behaves perfectly whenever someone sits down to test it.

Limits that protect you

Better shared servers give each account a fixed share of processor time and memory. A neighbour who hits that ceiling slows only itself.

The same limits apply to you, which is fair. A host that publishes them, and lets you see your own usage, can tell you which side of the line a slowdown came from.

Plans sold as unlimited still have limits, written into a fair use clause, and they tend to be discovered during a busy week.

The shared address and your email

Most shared servers send email for every account from the same address. If one account sends spam, deliberately or through a hacked form, the address gets blocklisted, and other mail servers start refusing or filtering everything that comes from it.

Your quote replies and your contact form's notifications then bounce or land in junk, through no fault of yours.

Hosts that watch outgoing mail catch this early. The lasting fix is sending business email and form notifications through a service that does not share that address.

One worry can be set aside. Google has said for years that sharing an address with other sites does not, by itself, affect where your site ranks.

A hacked neighbour

Small sites are broken into all the time, often through outdated plugins. On a shared server, the question is what the intruder can reach next.

On a properly separated server, each account's scripts run as that account's own user, and each account sees only its own files. A break-in stays where it happened.

On an older or careless setup, scripts from every account run as one shared user. An intruder in one site can then read, and sometimes change, other accounts' files, including the one holding your database password.

Nothing on your own site shows the difference until the day it matters.

A worked example

A custom T-shirt printing and embroidery shop with five staff gets most of its work through a quote form that accepts artwork: logos, team lists, the odd sketch photographed on a phone.

Through the spring, uploads began failing at odd hours, and customers phoned to say the form had timed out. The host checked the account, found it within its limits, and suggested a plugin was at fault.

Then the office noticed quote replies bouncing. The server's shared address was on a blocklist, and the host eventually confirmed that another account on the machine had been hacked and was sending spam.

The slow afternoons had been the same neighbour, busy with work that was not its own.

The shop moved to a managed plan on a server holding far fewer accounts, each with its own limits and walled-off files. Form notifications now go out through an email service with its own reputation.

Nothing about the website itself changed. It simply stopped sharing its fortunes with strangers.

What managed hosting buys

Managed hosting is largely a set of decisions someone has already made for you: how many accounts share a machine, how they are kept apart, and who is watching.

It means a server not packed to its limits, accounts that cannot see each other, monitored outgoing mail, prompt patching, and a person who notices when a neighbour misbehaves.

It costs more than the cheapest shared plan, because the cheapest plan saves money by skipping exactly those decisions.

Questions to ask a host

Most of this is invisible from a control panel, so ask, and expect plain answers.

Ask how many accounts share the server, whether each runs as its own user with access only to its own files, and what your resource limits are and where you can see your usage.

Ask whether outgoing mail is monitored, how quickly a blocklisted address is dealt with, and what happens to your site when a neighbour is hacked.

A host that cannot answer those, or will not, has told you something anyway.

The counter-case

Shared hosting is not the problem in itself. A small site on a well-run shared server, with sensible numbers of accounts and proper separation, can run happily for years.

A server of your own is not automatically better either. A virtual private server that nobody keeps patched trades strangers' risks for neglect.

And a brochure site with no forms and no email on the server has less to lose to its neighbours than a busy shop.

Whatever the plan, know how your site is kept apart from the others, and who is watching the server you share.

Before the next renewal

  1. Ask how many accounts share your server.
  2. Ask whether accounts are separated from each other.
  3. Ask for your resource limits and usage.
  4. Check the server's address against the main blocklists.
  5. Send form notifications through a proper email service.
  6. Keep a backup away from the shared server.
  7. Move if the answers are vague.

Step two is the one that sets the ceiling on a bad day. Slowdowns and blocklists are a nuisance; a neighbour's intruder reading your files is a breach.

What any plan covers, and what it leaves to you, is set out in what a hosting plan includes and what it does not.

Frequently asked questions

How many sites share a shared hosting server?

Often hundreds. They share the processors, memory, disks, network connection and usually the internet address, which is what keeps the price low.

Can another site slow mine down?

Yes. A neighbour's rush or runaway script can take more than its share of the server, unless the host gives each account fixed limits that contain it.

How can a neighbour's spam affect my email?

Many shared servers send every account's email from one address. If a neighbour sends spam, that address can be blocklisted, and your messages start bouncing or landing in junk.

Does a shared address hurt search rankings?

Google has said for years that sharing an address with other sites does not, by itself, affect rankings. The real risks are speed, email and security.

What does account isolation mean?

Each account's scripts run as its own user and can see only its own files, so a break-in on one site stays in that site.

What should I ask my host?

How many accounts share the server, whether they are kept apart, what your resource limits are, how outgoing mail is monitored, and what happens when a neighbour is hacked.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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