Solving Common Shared Hosting Problems: A Practical Troubleshooting Guide

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Shared hosting plans are easy to set up, low-cost, and popular among new users and small business ventures. However, with a growing website, users experience several restrictions and common shared hosting problems.

Shared hosting’s affordability makes it ideal for various hosting needs, such as beginner hosting, small business hosting, best hosting for React app, and much more. Since it’s the basic web hosting solution, users encounter various issues while hosting their websites. This practical guide on troubleshooting common shared hosting problems helps solve them promptly.

Common Shared Hosting Problems & Their Solutions

1. Slow Website Performance

Shared hosting environments spread the usage of CPU and RAM between hundreds of websites. A traffic-intensive application or high traffic on one website causes problems for others.

Troubleshooting Tips:

  1. Optimize Images: Large images cause delays in loading web pages. Make use of WebP formats or compress your images before uploading.
  2. Use Caching: Caching plugins like WP Super Cache for WordPress reduce loading time by serving static pages to visitors.
  3. Minimize Plugins: Too many plugins consume resources, hence it is better to install the only plugins which are needed teh most.
  4. Enable A CDN: A content delivery network, like Cloudflare, minimizes server load and delivers content faster by spreading it out across global servers.

Tip: While many providers offer shared hosting solutions, only a few offer robust services. MilesWeb offers the best cache tools and optimized servers with its shared hosting plans.

2. Frequent Downtime

Some shared hosting providers face more frequent downtime because of server overload, maintenance, or hardware failure.

Troubleshooting Tips:

  1. Monitor Uptime: Tools like UptimeRobot monitor the uptime of the website and find patterns around the time of downtimes.
  2. Reliable Host Selection: If downtimes occur regularly, it is time to change your host. Look up hosts with a minimum commitment to 99.9% uptime. For instance, MilesWeb guarantees a 99.95% uptime guarantee.

3. Security Flaws

Shared hosting environments are slightly vulnerable to security attacks. As the server is shared, a cyberattack on one site eventually leads to attacks on another.

Troubleshooting Tips:

  1. Install SSL Certificate: Most hosts like MilesWeb have free SSL; thus, you’ll rank higher and have better protection for the visitors of your site.
  2. Update Frequently: Ensure that all elements are updated with their latest version; this includes your CMS, plugins, and themes.
  3. Security Plugin: For WordPress or another similar platform, you have the option to get security plugins installed.

4. Email Deliverability Issues

Normally, shared hosting accounts share the same IP address for email sending. In case a specific user is sending spam, it might harm the reputation of your server and jeopardize your deliverability.

Troubleshooting Tips:

  1. Use Dedicated IP For Email: Some hosts give a dedicated IP address strictly for the email that will avoid deliverability problems.
  2. Use External Email Services: Route your email through an external service, like Gmail or Zoho Mail, or a transactional email service like SendGrid for better delivery.
  3. Check Blacklists: Check your server IP in blacklist sites, like MX Toolbox; remove your IP if it happens to be on a blacklist site.

5. Limited Database Connections

Shared host servers limit the total connections to the database, so if you have a website on a shared hosting environment that has a lot of high traffic, you get that “Error Establishing Database Connection” message because all the connections are fully taken.

Troubleshooting tips:

  1. Optimize Database Queries: Fewer is best; use caching and mitigate unnecessary database calls.
  2. Upgrade to High-Level Plans: Upgrading shared plans or shifting to VPS usually allows many database connections. For instance, you can easily go for MilesWeb’s high-tier share ghosting plans and get better database performance.

6. Low Server Configurations Control

Shared hosting environments significantly limit your access to server configurations. This means that your choice for changing either the performance or security might be restricted.

Troubleshooting Tips:

  1. Use .htaccess: Most web hosts allow users to fine-tune certain server behaviors, such as redirects, caching rules, and file permissions, with the .htaccess file.
  2. Optimize With Available Tools: Check to see if your hosting service has a control panel called cPanel, which is full of features that you can use to fine-tune settings for PHP, manage SSL configurations, or add DNS entries. Even the cheap shared hosting plan by MilesWeb offers a cPanel for ultimate control options.

Conclusion

There’s no secret that shared hosting is inexpensive and easy to use, but very limited. With reliable shared hosting providers like MilesWeb, you get a seamless hosting experience. Their plans are best in cost, top-library with features, and utilize advanced technology. However, technical issues are inevitable; hence, the above tips will help you troubleshoot common issues while making the most of your shared hosting plan. As your website continues to grow, always look to reevaluate your needs to ensure a smooth and scalable experience.