Are you currently on a shared hosting plan in an effort to save money on your website hosting needs? If so, then one potential issue of shared hosting that you’ll want to be aware of is that of the “bad neighbor effect.” Hopefully, it’s something that you’ll never have to deal with—but it’s something that all website owners and administrators on shared hosting plans should be aware of. And if you want to avoid having your site fall victim to this all-too-common problem, the good news is that there are easy solutions!
What Is the Bad Neighbor Effect?
Specifically, the bad neighbor effect refers to a situation where one of the other sites on your shared hosting plan sees a large influx of traffic. This unexpected influx of traffic can overload the shared server, causing it to draw resources away from other sites on the shared plan in order to prevent the site with the high traffic influx from experiencing downtime.
The problem with this is that when your site’s hosting resources are depleted to cover another site’s hosting needs, you’re not getting your money’s worth for your hosting. In fact, your site could even end up suffering (in terms of speed and reliability) as a result of the bad neighbor effect.
How Can You Avoid the Bad Neighbor Effect?
Even if you haven’t experienced any issues with your shared hosting plan thus far, it’s important to understand that the bad neighbor effect can occur at any time and without warning. Take some time to think about what would happen if your site experienced unexpected downtime as a result of another site on your server depleting its resources. More than likely, you’d be pretty upset. Even worse, your site’s reputation could be tarnished by slow page load times or even unexpected downtime! If your site relies on ad revenue or online sales, this downtime could also affect your bottom line.
Fortunately, avoiding the bad neighbor effect in hosting is as easy as not using a shared hosting plan! Instead, consider hosting your site on a dedicated server. When you have a dedicated server, you can enjoy the peace of mind in knowing that your site is the only site on the server itself. In this sense, you’ll never have to worry about the actions of another site affecting your site’s performance.
There are numerous other benefits to having a dedicated server for your site as well, including added security and customization. Since you’re not sharing the server with anyone else, you can be the one to ultimately make all the big decisions or make adjustments to your hosting as needed.
If you’re ready to ditch your shared hosting plan for a dedicated server, ReliableSite has some great options to suit your needs—and they’re more affordable than you might think! Contact us today to find out more about how we can help you avoid the dreaded bad neighbor effect in hosting!