Creating a website and maintaining it entails a lot of work and can prove to be impractical, time-consuming and costly for individuals and small and large scale companies. It is advisable to seek the help of service providers that specialize in all aspects of web hosting.

Aside from providing you a space in the server where you can store information in your web site and a steady Internet connection, most web hosting companies also provide additional services ranging from domain name registration and renewal to email hosting, data transfer, directory protection, backup services and technical support.

One of the hosting methods used by web hosting companies is virtual web hosting. This allows them to host a multitude of domains on one computer or server. Thus, if you decide to get a virtual web host, you are only renting a space in the huge server and sharing its features with many other domains.

Virtual web hosting, also known as shared hosting, is the most affordable and efficient means of getting your web site a home on the web. For about $4 a month, you can use 300GB-space of a web server. Most servers have more than 2GB of Random Access Memory (RAM), so they are capable of hosting several domainssome are even capable of hosting as many as 250 domains.

There are basically two types of virtual web hosting: name-based and IP-based. In name-based virtual web hosting, only one IP address is used by various host names, while in IP-based virtual hosting, every web server that is configured with several virtual network interfaces on one physical interface, has its own IP address.

Like all other forms of web hosting, virtual web hosting has some disadvantages. One is you might experience problems encountered by other domains that share the server. Also, the simultaneous processes in the server may require you to have more technical know-how.