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Popularly known as virtual hosting service or as derive host, a shared web hosting service is where many websites are all on one web server that is connected to the internet.  Every site has its own partition, a place/section on the server, in order to keep it separate from others.  Shared web hosting is considered an economically efficient option for hosting because several sites can share the cost of server maintenance.

Considering it is used by many different sites, the server requires system administration.  For users who do not wish to bother with it, other people can maintain the server.  Users who want to have more control may not find this option appropriate, however.

Shared hosting can be implemented in two ways: IP-based and name-based.  IP-based virtual hosting, also known as dedicated IP hosting, offers each host their own personal IP address.  There are many physical network interfaces on the same physical interface.  Client IP addresses are used to figure out what website to display.  The main advantage of IP-based virtual hosting is so clients can have their own SSL certificate, compared to a shared certificate.  Name-based virtual hosting provides virtual hosts with several hostnames on one machine with one IP address.  When web browsers want a resource from the web server via HTTP/1.1, it includes the hostname as part of the request.  From this, the server processes the information and determines what website to show the user.

Shared web hosting has a web-based control panel system.  cPanel, Plesk, Ensim, DirectAdmin, H-Sphere and InterWorx are a few examples of web-based control panel systems.  Most large hosting companies use custom made control panels.  However, many lawsuits have occurred from people try to recreate the functionality of well-known control panels.

Shared web hosting services have disadvantages, as well.  These systems, for one, do not properly support secure websites (HTTPS).  All name-based virtual hosts must share the same digital certificate.  Second, if a Domain Name System is not functioning properly, it may be more difficult for people to use name-based virtually-hosted websites.  Normally, a user could rely on their IP address to contact the system, but the web browser does not know what hostname to send to the server.

Shared web hosting services will not work with browsers that do not send hostnames as part of requests.  However, since pretty much all web-browsers currently use HTTP/1.1 protocol and also virtual hosting, this should not be too much of a problem.