I hope you have been enjoying my posts on hosting options. This time, we’ll take it a step further, looking at how you can become a reseller of web hosting.
Web hosting reseller plans are available from many different hosting companies. Reseller accounts allow one customer’s account to control multiple secondary accounts, each of which has its own user name, password, disk space and bandwidth allocation.
Customers choose web hosting reseller plans over regular shared hosting plans for two main reasons.
The first is the reason that they were set up: to allow a customer to resell hosting to their own customers. These days, it is unlikely that users of shared web hosting reseller plans would be operating as independent hosting companies. It’s possible, but most web hosting businesses run on dedicated servers or at least VPS. But if you provide website design services, ‘business-in-a-box’ website installations or similar services, you might want the ability to offer hosting to your customers along with the other services that they are buying from you.
Choosing reseller hosting allows you to do this. In most cases, on Linux servers running cPanel, you will control the main account through your WHM (Web Host Manager). There you have the ability to reset passwords for individual accounts, open and close accounts, allocate disk space and bandwidth, view usage and many other functions. Then each subsidiary account has its own cPanel access via a username and password.
So your customers can only see their own account and do not have access to the main WHM or other customers’ accounts. They can attribute more than one domain to their account (if you allow this), but only by setting them up as add-on domains.
So that is how web hosting reseller plans can be used to resell hosting services. The second reason for choosing this type of plan is that it’s a cleaner and easier way to set up multiple websites within one account. If you choose basic shared hosting plans where the account is in one domain name and all other domains must be set up as add-ons, it can be harder to move them around, sell them, back them up and restore them, etc. For somebody who has a lot of websites or who buys and sells websites often, a reseller account is an excellent choice.
When people talk about web hosting reseller plans they usually mean plans on shared hosting. If you have a dedicated or virtual private server, you can easily set up separate accounts too, of course. But this is nothing special for hosting services at this level.
If you are offering hosting to your own customers through web hosting reseller plans then you will need to think about the question of support. Technical support is extremely important for website owners. Downtime (time when the site is offline) can mean that the website owner loses sales or advertising revenue. Customers expect hosting to come with 24/7 technical support.
So if you are reselling hosting space, you need to know whether the hosting company that you are buying from will provide support to your customers as well as to you. Usually, they will not. So you have to either hire a technical support team of your own, or take calls from your customers and pass the questions on to your hosting company, causing delays for your customers. Of course, if you are simply using a reseller plan for your own websites, then you will not have issues with customer support.
Web hosting reseller plans are available from a number of reputable hosting companies including BlueHost and HostGator.
Dedicated Server Host Reviews: Liquid Web
I wrote about virtual hosting last time. Now I’m going to look at dedicated server providers, in particular Liquid Web.
In this review we will consider one of the most popular dedicated server host companies, Liquid Web. Established in 1997, they have an excellent reputation among users of dedicated servers. They are not your only option if you are looking for a dedicated server host but they are the top choice of many online customers. So let’s look at what they offer and whether it would be right for you.
Services Offered
Liquid Web offer a wide range of dedicated servers including a single, dual and quad processors. In each category you have a choice of different multi-core servers. You can choose either Linux or Windows operating systems.
At the time of writing, Liquid Web offer both managed and unmanaged dedicated servers. If you know what you are doing technically you might choose unmanaged. If you don’t, then managed hosting is definitely worthwhile for the software installation and support that you will get.
Automatic backups can be set up for you and it is highly recommended that you take advantage of this. Liquid Web own three separate data centers, giving more options for secure backup storage.
Pricing
Pricing for dedicated server host services is constantly changing so we will not quote actual prices in this review. It is also sometimes hard to compare like for like because different companies offer different server specifications. But generally speaking, Liquid Web’s prices are comparable with those of other hosting companies offering a high quality service for dedicated servers.
Support
If you are looking for either a VPS or a dedicated server host, technical support should be your most important question. Almost anybody who uses a dedicated server will tell you that.
Liquid Web are a professional hosting company offering dedicated servers, VPS and smart servers (cloud based) only. They don’t offer shared hosting. This means that their support team is entirely focused on providing technical support for dedicated and virtual private servers, so they should be more ready and able to answer your questions than a team that is expecting to deal with a lot of questions about shared hosting services.
As you might expect of a dedicated server host, Liquid Web have an excellent reputation for technical support. They describe it as ‘heroic support’. Staff specialize in one of eight service areas (setup, migrations, security, monitoring, network, development, system restore or data center ops) and the staff are extremely knowledgeable and helpful.
You have the choice of phone support or a ticket system. The ticket system is answered very fast but if you are based in the USA you may prefer to call them on their 800 number.
If your ticket remains open across a shift change you will find a new staff member dealing with it and sometimes this is annoying because they might not always read the whole ticket history so you can find yourself repeating the same questions. However, there can be advantages in having someone else look at a ticket that has not yet been resolved. In any case, this is a potential issue with any dedicated server host’s support team because no individual staff member works 24/7.
Types of Hosting – What Is Virtual Private Server Hosting?
My previous posts have looked at paid and free hosting as well as reliability. Now I’m going to look in more detail different types of hosting, starting with virtual private server hosting.
Virtual private server hosting is one of the many options for hosting websites on the internet. It is a step up from shared hosting and gives you a service equivalent to having a server of your own.
However, VPS or virtual private server hosting does not suit every customer. Before you sign up, it is important to understand something about VPS hosting and decide whether this is really the right option for you. In this article, we will look at the differences between VPS and its ‘big sister’ the dedicated server, as well as its ‘little sister’, shared hosting packages.
So what is the difference between VPS and a dedicated server? The answer lies in the word ‘virtual’.
A dedicated server is a physical machine that is rented to one customer. If you went to the offices of your hosting company, you could (if you were allowed) see an actual piece of hardware that is your dedicated server.
However, many servers can be partitioned in such a way that each partition can offer a customer almost all the functionality of a dedicated server. Each partition runs server software and can be configured to the customer’s specification, so each partition is called a virtual server.
VPS hosting may be either managed or unmanaged. If you choose unmanaged hosting, you will be able to configure and administer your own server as you wish. This is an attractive option for customers who have the necessary technical skills or those who employ technicians who can handle the work. If you choose unmanaged hosting you may be using your virtual server to provide shared hosting services to your own customers, or running special software that requires the server to be set up in a particular way.
Most customers who are upgrading from shared hosting don’t have the time or skills to manage their own server. If you are in that situation, you will probably want to choose a managed VPS service. That way you can choose a service that offers packages that you already know from shared reseller hosting, like cPanel and WHM, so you do not have to learn a whole new set of technical skills.
Virtual private server hosting can be an attractive option for both customers and hosting companies because it significantly reduces the cost of providing servers. Hosting companies can offer private server services to several different customers while only incurring running costs for one physical machine.
Apart from cost, managed VPS hosting has a number of advantages for the customer when compared with shared hosting.
First, each partition will have its own IP address (or even several IP addresses) that are not shared by any other customer. This means that with a VPS, you will not be affected by any dubious activity by other customers sharing the same IP, which can happen with shared hosting.
Second, you can set up your own DNS. This gives a more professional look to your server address, especially if you are reselling hosting.
Third, you have full control of the space and bandwidth that is allocated to your virtual private server. On shared hosting you may find that access to your websites is limited at busy times because other customers’ websites are using a lot of bandwidth. This would not happen with a virtual server because no other customers would be sharing your bandwidth allocation.
Alternatively, on shared hosting you may be told by your hosting company that you must upgrade because your sites are using more than their share of bandwidth. With virtual private server hosting you have the right to use all of the allocated bandwidth.
Reliable Hosting: Features To Look For
In my previous posts, I’ve looked at paid and free hosting. This time, I’m looking at reliability – I cannot overestimate the importance of having reliable hosting for your website. Reliability is what keeps your site online, whether you are operating a company website that attracts customers, a site marketing products that sell through an online shopping cart, or a small information site for your family or a local non-profit organization.
So what are some of the points that you should be looking at when you are seeking out a reliable hosting company for your site or sites?
Is It A Well-Established Company?
If you look around at a few online forums that focus on web hosting, you will find the names of many hosting companies. Some of these will be well-established, having operated online for many years. Others could be brand new startups that may succeed or fail.
Of course, as long as you own your domain and keep backups of your site’s pages, you can switch to another hosting company if things go wrong. So you may feel that it is worth taking a chance on a startup, if it is cheap. However, transferring your site can be time consuming.
In the worst case, a bad hosting company will not keep their security systems up to date and your site may be more likely to be hacked, attacked by viruses or malicious scripts, or used to send spam email. Any of these happenings can be a disaster for your site or for its visitors, so that is another reason for using a well-established, reliable hosting company.
User Feedback
User feedback is a great way to discover which are the most reliable hosting companies. Again, feedback can often be found on web hosting forums. Keep in mind, however, that individuals may have personal reasons for supporting or criticizing a particular company. Look for a large number of reviews before making a judgment, do not rely on one person’s experience.
Downtime
Reliability is not just a question of finding a company that will stay in business. It is also important that they keep your website online 24/7, or as near as possible to that.
When hosting goes offline, your website will be unavailable to visitors. This is known as ‘downtime’. The most common causes of this are maintenance of the servers and faults on the servers.
The most reliable hosting companies have systems in place to prevent most downtime. Through most faults and scheduled maintenance your site will stay online. However, inevitably there are some situations where a little downtime is inevitable, such as server upgrades. It is useful to be warned of this so that you can reschedule product launches or your own work on the site.
Again, you can check out some user reviews or you can email the company and ask what downtime they have had in the past 30 days, and whether they routinely warn customers when they are carrying out the type of maintenance that they know will involve downtime.
A Variety Of Packages
A reliable hosting company will usually have a choice of packages to suit different customers. These can range from a basic, single-domain shared hosting package to a dedicated server. It’s easy to upgrade so you can start with the cheapest package if you want.
However, it is best to avoid companies that offer a one-time fee for hosting and tell you that this is all you will have to pay – ever. They have running costs and how will they stay in business if they are not passing these on to their customers every month? You may find that you pay a large amount for ‘lifetime hosting’ and then the company goes out of business. That is the end of the ‘lifetime’ for your hosting, and you will have to find a more reliable hosting company and start paying again.
5 Top Paid Hosting Companies Reviewed
In my last post I wrote about free hosting. This time I’m looking at paid hosting options with a review of five different hosting companies, with options for people with differing needs.
The top hosting companies all offer slightly different specifications and account types, for different prices. This means that it can take a lot of time to work through them all deciding which one would be best for you.
In this article we will look at the main characteristics of hosting plans with five of the top hosting companies. All of them have a slightly different focus. Of course, you still need to check the fine print for any company that you are thinking of signing up with. Their terms, plans and prices can change at any time, and a mention here is not a recommendation or a guarantee of any particular service. The comparisons in this article are just a starting point and we hope they will save you some time.
Basic Shared Hosting: HostMonster
HostMonster offer one low-cost plan: unlimited domains on shared hosting. You start by allocating one domain to your account and any more must be add-on domains.
This is fine for low usage but keep in mind that even though it is standard in the industry to advertise ‘unlimited’ space and bandwidth, they can still ask you to open more accounts or move on if you are consuming more than your ‘fair use’ share. Check the fine print for each of these top hosting companies for details.
HostMonster’s support team is located in the US and has a good reputation. However, there is not much flexibility in the plans. There are no reseller packages, VPS or dedicated servers so if you want to upgrade you have to accept the hassle of changing to one of the other top hosting companies.
In summary, HostMonster is a good choice if you are pretty sure that you will not need to go beyond the limitations of shared hosting.
Basic and Reseller Plans: BlueHost
BlueHost go a little further than HostMonster by offering three levels of reseller plan on shared hosting as well as the basic plan that allows add-on domains. Reseller plans allow you to resell hosting space to customers or to set up your own domains on separate accounts so that you can more easily sell websites to buyers. This is valuable for some users, especially in the internet marketing field.
Flexible Plans: HostGator
HostGator offer a very wide variety of plans from one-domain shared hosting and reseller plans right up to dedicated servers. They have been providing web hosting services for a number of years and are well-established in the online business world.
Support response is acceptable in terms of speed and technical knowledge, but not the best we have seen. However, they have minimal downtime, a lot of experience and a good record with customers, many of whom have been with them for many years.
HostGator’s flexibility means that your hosting can grow along with your business. You can start with a cheap plan and upgrade very easily whenever you need to. They will transfer all of your sites to the new server when you upgrade, so there is no work for you.
Business Hosting: InMotion
Like HostGator, InMotion offer a number of plans for business users with different needs. They are a little more expensive but have an excellent reputation for support and service. Downtime is minimal and they claim to have much faster website loading speeds than many of their competitors (we have not tested this). In summary, they are marketing their services to business users who are prepared to pay an extra couple of dollars for reliability.
Dedicated Servers: Liquid Web
Liquid Web is one of the best known providers of dedicated servers. Shared hosting is fine for many users but it has its disadvantages. Your site is competing with others for the server’s bandwidth and in some cases you may find your site blacklisted because of the activities of another user on the same IP address. A dedicated server is the ideal solution for customers who want more control and greater capacity, and Liquid Web is one of the top hosting companies operating in the dedicated server market.
As you can see there are numerous options open to you depending on what you are looking for. Make sure you do your research before diving in and making a purchase.
