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How
To Host Several Websites Under One Account
by:
Mario Sanchez
If you
operate several websites, each with its own domain name,
signing up of separate hosting accounts can be an expensive
proposition. Even if your hosting company offers the add-on
domain feature (which will allow you to add different domains
to the same hosting account) you will be charged a monthly
fee for each domain you add, sometimes costing almost the
same as your full hosting fee.
The
solution is to open a reseller account. Reseller accounts
were created to allow web designers to offer hosting services
to their customers, to create a one-stop-shop for all their
web design and hosting needs. However, you don't need to
be a reseller to buy a reseller hosting plan.
Reseller
accounts are usually slightly more expensive than regular
hosting accounts, but they will allow you to host different
domain names without incurring in the add-on domain fees,
making more efficient use of your space and bandwidth.
You
want to choose a reseller account that offers:
no limit to the number of domains you can add.
the possibility of hosting your main website free, without
using any of the space and bandwidth in your hosting plan.
If you are a reseller, your main website will be your business
website, and the space and bandwidth will be reserved for
your customers. If you are not a reseller and just want
to manage different websites, you can designate one of your
domains as your main website (usually the largest and/or
most popular, since you won't accrue any space or bandwidth
for it).
the possibility of upgrading to another plan without any
penalties or fees.
To find
out how much space and bandwidth you will need, first determine
how many sites you are likely to host, how many pages each
site may have, and how many visits will those sites most
likely have. If you plan to host 10 sites with 20 pages
each, at an average of 50KB per page and 100 page views
per site per day, you will need 10MB of space (10 x 20 x
50KB) and 1.5GB of bandwidth per month (10 x 100 x 50KB
x 30).
As far
as pricing is concerned, there are reseller accounts costing
as little as $10 / month up to several hundreds (or even
thousands). It all depends on your requirements and the
hosting company you choose, so shop around to get the best
possible deal in terms of cost and reliability.
About
The Author
You
can freely reprint this article. Just include the
following resource box at the end:
Mario
Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest ( http://www.theinternetdigest.net
), an online collection of web design and Internet
marketing articles and resources. You can freely reprint
his weekly articles in your website, ezine, newsletter
or ebook.
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