Unlimited Website Hosting – A Marketing Concept

When you are considering website hosting how to get started you will usually see various limits imposed on the cheaper hosting packages.  These restrictions can relate to:

Bandwidth
Disk Space
Number of Domains
No of Databases

You may also notice that some website hosting providers offer unlimited website hosting.  This sounds good as you seem to be getting a lot for a small monthly fee.

Having said that we have to ask – is there really such a thing as unlimited website hosting?  Logically the answer has to be no as there will always be limits, ultimately the hosting company’s bandwidth to the internet and the amount of disk space on the server.  

In terms of hosting “unlimited” is a term coined by the marketing teams and is meaningless from a technical point of view.  In fact even “unlimited” hosting plans have some restrictions.   
This does not mean that there is anything wrong with these services and some restrictions are necessary to prevent one user taking all the resources to the detriment of the other users.

It is worth looking at how basic shared hosting services work i.e. how can the website hosting provider make money when offering an “unlimited” service for $5 per month?

The basis of the service is simple. Multiple users with their websites and email are hosted on one server using the same disk space, bandwidth and IP address.  Profitability depends on getting as many users on one server as possible.  Some hosting companies put more sites on one server than others which is why it is always best to go for a well known reputable company (the old saying “if it looks too good to be true it probably is” applies here).

Shared servers are fine for personal users and small businesses but not suitable for very busy websites. It is therefore reasonable for the hosting company to enforce conditions to avoid one user adversely affecting another.

A website company will have a mass of statistical data from which they can predict average usage of the resources and will be monitoring activity to ensure that the physical capacity is not exceeded (outside exceptional peaks).  This will also alert them to any user who is taking a disproportionately large share of the system resources. This is why the service Terms and Conditions will contain some restrictions.  For example although unlimited bandwidth may be allowed to cover peaks there may be a cap on average bandwidth usage and there may be restrictions on the activities that the hosting service can be used for e.g. certain gaming applications not allowed.

Unlimited website hosting is a marketing gimmick but for most users the restrictions enforced will not be an issue and a shared “unlimited” service from a reputable company is good value for money.