Which hosting plan for a directory or classifieds site: listings, search and spam

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The short answer: a directory or classifieds site is heavier than a presentation site: lots of people writing, searching and uploading images, and caching helps less when users are logged in. You can start on a shared plan, but expect to move up. The biggest problem, before weight, is usually spam.

What weighs, and what does not

Part of the site	What to do
User-submitted listings	They attract spam and scams. Moderate before publishing, limit submissions and validate the forms: A website form that is safe and spam-free.
Fake sign-ups	Accounts created by bots fill the database. See Fake orders and spam sign-ups and Stopping spam comments.
Search	It gets slow with many listings if the database has no indexes: Database indexes.
Images	Each user uploads their own, unshrunk. Limit the size and resize on upload: Image optimisation.
Many processes at once	Users online at the same time occupy processes: Entry processes.

How to choose, step by step

1	Start on a shared plan with the spam protections on from day one.

2	Set the moderation rules and who applies them, before opening to new advertisers.

3	Measure the usage: How to monitor your site performance in cPanel.

4	Move to a VPS or Cloud when search gets slow, when process-limit errors appear or when the number of users online at once grows.

If the site collects user data, you have duties towards it: consent, access requests and deletion. See Customer data in your shop. Rules vary by country.

Give each listing its own address and a unique text. Repeats from several advertisers make Google treat similar pages as duplicates.

Building a directory or a classifieds site? Tell us how many listings and users you expect.

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What weighs, and what does not

How to choose, step by step

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