This is an extremely popular method because it offers low cost without any of the disadvantages of free hosting. Also most web hosting companies will carry out your domain name registration on your behalf at a very reasonable cost. So what are the disadvantages of using shared or virtual hosting compared to dedicated or co-located hosting?

• Your website, although having its own domain name, will not have its own IP address. What is an IP address? It is a series of numbers which identifies a particular server machine. If you share a web server machine with other users you will have the same IP address as them. But what is the problem with this, if you still have your own domain name?

In most cases this does not present a problem. However, if any one of the sites hosted on the same machine, at the same IP address as yours, gets blacklisted for any reason e.g. it might be a porn site, it might be a site where people are taught how to produce viruses, it might be a 'phishing' site, it might be a "cloaking" site used to attempt to deceive the search engines, etc., your site could get blacklisted along with them! IP addresses do get blacklisted by organisations providing public web ac­ cess points, search engines, etc. etc. This is why it's important to find a reliable host. Check their terms & conditions to make sure they don't al­ low that sort of site to be hosted on their servers.

• The other disadvantage is that you have limited control over your own website. For example, many shared / virtual hosting packages only allow you to use one domain name, or limit your web space, or the amount of traffic you are permitted, or do not allow you to produce some of your own website features such as your own web enquiry forms. A great deal depends on cost;  you get what you pay for!  In some cases, however, some people are still paying far too much. Also, a great deal depends on what kind of web server software they are using. We shall now look in more depth at this issue because it is VERY important....