| Posted by projectw3, 08-26-2006, 03:27 AM | | Hi folks, I hope this guide helps everyone out there who is choosing a reseller account.
First, check the support of the hosting companies. During peace time, when there are no server outages, how quick are the companies in responding? Beware of companies who claim 24/7 support but they're chat is always offline. Also, giving a phone number that leads to a voicemail doesn't sound good as well. Observe a company during outages. How did the company respond? Did they lash out at customers? Understand that if there are outages, support emails can flood a hosting company. In those times, be patient. Give a company time. Did the company have a good understanding of the outage? Did they learn from the previous experience? A crisis will bring out the best, or the worst in a team.
Here are a couple of situations that a hosting provider can score points. All customers will appreciate their hosting provider to suspend or terminate anyone who utilizes resources unfairly and jeopardize the whole operations. Such use include email spamming and proxy sites, sometimes extending to including huge forums, which can slow down a server drastically. In the case that a customer knowingly put an unfair load on the server, the account should be suspended, so as not to risk the other sites going down as well. Appreciate the hosting company if they bother to send out at least some form of notice. If the sites are growing, it may have outgrown the reseller account and require an alternative solution. In this situation, a good webhost should warn you before hand instead of shutting you down without warning or notice. Why is there a difference between the warning and no warning?
Always remember this as a rule of thumb. If systems go down, that can be tolerated to a particular extent. Anyway, no company wants to the server to be down and create more problems for themselves. There isn't any intention to screw customers up in the first place. That is key to having a successful partnership and relationship with your host. A warning says 2 things. (1) they are doing their job and monitoring server usage. (2) They have your interests at heart and provide ample warning and plenty of options. Also, by providing a warning, it indicates their willingness to get things right. On the other hand, an unfair suspension without warning says just 1 thing: "You are a small paying customer. You are not worth the money we are receiving from you. We don't want you. Get lost." Stay far away from any company who does that. That's a human intent on screwing up their customers.
When reading reviews, be discerning. Now you know what to look out for. If you read any reviews on hosts shutting down accounts without warning, be sure to counter check with the situations above. That alone will lead you in the right direction.
I was wrongfully accused of search engine spamming, creating link farms etc, just as the account that I had was growing (in terms of the number of sites with TLDomains and subdomains). I have been doing search engine marketing for 5 years and in the process, have gotten many of my sites to rank well in the search engines. If there's anything wrong with my linking methods, who's the first one to get hurt? The hosting company? The neighbouring sites? Wrong! I'll be the first one to get burnt. Why? Because if they are link farms, they'll hurt my sites, and they won't rank, and I won't make any money. And that takes away all reason for having the hosting account in the first place.
Here's my mistake. Many hosting companies oversell. I should have smelt a rat when I see a provider advertising this:
$10 reseller account. 5GB diskspace, 250gb bandwidth, unlimited domains, unlimited subdomains, ftp, databases, etc
When the industry standards are more like this:
$10 reseller account. 1GB diskspace, 50GB bandwidth, unlimited domains, unlimited subdomains, ftp, databases, etc
The truth is this. The provider was taking a gamble, hoping to seduce small paying customers, and hoping that they don't put up so many sites. When I started building many sites, they lost the gamble. To recoup their losses, they suspended the account without warning. The whole experience was frustrating, but I learnt an important lesson. A good hosting company should also know how to make strategic business decisions and this includes pricing their plans well and setting themselves up for success instead of taking a gamble that they can't win in the long run.
In all fairness, I'm one of those who may have special hosting needs in the near future. Growing from a single reseller account to 2, then 3, then 4 and 5 means that there's growth. In the not too distant future, the chances of me needing a VPS or dedicated server is going to be much higher than a company paying $5 with a couple of websites sitting on the server. And when I want to have an upgrade, who do you think I would go to? Of course I'll go to the host who'll do the best job whether it's a $5 account or a $10 account. Bottomline, provider with the best uptime, fastest and most knowledgeable support wins.
The fact that a hosting provider couldn't see this, says alot about their business acumen. And that's why they have to take bets. The business is getting really competitive. They can't get enough clients to stay profitable, so they have to resort to gambles.
Well, I certainly hope there are lessons in this guide that can be learnt. I learnt the hard way, and have no wish for anyone to share that same experience. It's a painful experience, and nobody deserves to have to go through that. I wish you good luck with your sites, and may the relationship between you and your web hosting provide blossom into a fruitful one.
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| Posted by hfohrman, 08-26-2006, 04:13 AM | | Thanks for a good review.
I like to add one thing when selecting host.
Look where the host has his support system. Many companies only have a one computer buissenes and then they have there own supportsystem and sopport mail on there reseller mashine.
So is the mashine is down. Then there is no way to communicate with the host. Always ask for a alternate support chanel.
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| Posted by rv_irl, 08-26-2006, 03:22 PM | | That was a decent review!
A very good point as well. It is very important that you host your support desk on a remote server. Letting your customers keep in touch with you during the worst of times and receive help/updates can truly bring out the willingness that the provider is putting in on customer support...
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| Posted by everity, 08-29-2006, 03:04 PM | | Let me summarize your guide.
"You get what you pay for."
That is the most important lesson to learn!! There is always someone who will say "Oh no, thats not true. I've been with xyz hosting company for x number of years, its cheap and its great." It is always that same individual who comes back later with a story similar to yours.
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| Posted by projectw3, 08-29-2006, 04:30 PM | | I don't think you even read the guide.
I didn't go for the cheapest, I went for a few accounts, and paid according to the price that they asked for.
If there's going to be a summary, the point is that cheap doesn't mean no good, and pricey doesn't necessarily means good either. It all depends on the person running the company.
Also, how's your post helping anyone? Or are you simply responding because you adopt a similar strategy?
Last edited by projectw3; 08-29-2006 at 04:43 PM.
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| Posted by everity, 08-29-2006, 07:07 PM | | Why are you attacking me?
I did read the guide, thank you very much. Although at the end, I felt like it really could have been summarized and saved your readers a lot of time. Most of your suggestions are what one would learn through trial and error. Most are not determinable ahead of time. The only one that can be easily determined is price.
I wasn't attacking your guide at all, I was just summarizing, because most people aren't going to read all that. THAT is how my post is helpful. Also, shopping on price is the biggest mistake people make when choosing a host. That is a very well known fact. That is another way my post is helpful.
I didn't attack you or your post. I have every right to add anything that I think would be helpful.
Also, I never said you went for the cheapest. That is what YOU said, and I quote...
"I should have smelt a rat when I see a provider advertising this:
$10 reseller account. 5GB diskspace, 250gb bandwidth..."
Your words, not mine.
Last edited by everity; 08-29-2006 at 07:11 PM.
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| Posted by projectw3, 08-30-2006, 01:36 AM | | Ok, you made your point.
I believe you're really trying to help.
My apologies if it sounds as if I'm "attacking" you.
By the way, that wasn't the cheapest plan they have. I bought the reseller at $10. They have another plan at $5, non-reseller, also offering unlimited domains, unlimited subdomains, etc. lol. Isn't that silly?
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| Posted by onthespot, 08-30-2006, 10:52 AM | | Indeed its rather ridiculous the overselling going on in todays market. Considering the fact that most dedicated providers only giv e out about 1500GB bandwidth per month. If youre giving out 250GB that means that one can only host about 7 or 8 resellers and at 10 bucks a pop that doesnt even cover the server prices.
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| Posted by everity, 08-30-2006, 12:36 PM | | projectw3, sorry if i was defensive. my apologies as well. Yes, sounds like they have some silly plans.
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| Posted by piehosting, 08-30-2006, 12:53 PM | | this is a very imformative and nice guide.
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| Posted by projectw3, 08-30-2006, 01:29 PM | | Hey, I've visited the website in your sig.
You look like a really competent programmer.
You setup all those stuff yourself?
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| Posted by everity, 08-30-2006, 01:45 PM | | Thanks for noticing. Yes, but I've had years to do it. Everything is in-house with the exception of cPanel. All the domain-related scripts are linked via xml to Directi's API. Still not quite enough domain names to make it worthwhile to become an ICANN accredited registrar, and it would only reduce overhead by 14 cents per domain name anyway, so for now I'm happy to resell domain names.
The advantage to doing everything in-house is that I have one crm system through which everything is completly integrated: Not just domains and hosting, but all sorts of customer support, billing, etc. as well as integrating and coordinating custom web-development projects with other vendors. Customers have access to everything in one place, through one interface (with the exception of separate cPanels for each individual hosting account.)
I've automated everything that can possibly be automated, but some things still require good old-fashioned customer service. The bottom line is that I'm lazy, lol, and have made it so that I only have to get involved where necessary.
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| Posted by projectw3, 08-30-2006, 02:08 PM | | I setup a free account to try it out.
It's really simple to use. Quite impressed with the custom control panel.
I think the site development feature is something unique.
It's going to be especially useful for international clients.
Just one question though.
I can't help but notice this:
Please note: If you add more than the amount owed, the extra payment will be applied to future invoices, or refunded upon request. Balances in your favor (up to $500) are currently earning 7.35%. The interest we pay you is compounded daily and applied on the first of every month.
Does that mean if the customers pay extra they can earn interest?
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| Posted by everity, 08-30-2006, 02:14 PM | | Yes, that is correct. Its an incentive for customers to make larger payments so that the number of transactions are reduced. Its credited on the first of every month, but by clicking "Billing Summary" you can see the to-date interest earned. The savings on merchant transaction fees more than compensate for what is paid out in interest, and customers are quite happy to receive the interest payments, as it is more than what they earn by putting their money in a money market or savings account. They can request a withdrawal of funds at any time, either by a refund back to their credit card or through a PayPal payment.
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| Posted by projectw3, 08-30-2006, 02:22 PM | | This is very interesting. I already bookmarked your site.
For example, if I prepay $500, I get 7.35% interest right?
So 7.35% in a year is about $36.75.
So if I select your smallest plan, which prices $39.90 for annual payment, wouldn't that mean I would be getting almost free hosting?
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| Posted by everity, 08-30-2006, 02:26 PM | | Lol, yes, it would. Also, you would get 17% commission payments from anyone you refer, which also earns interest. Most eVerity customers sign up as a result of referrals, and the ones doing most of the referring get free hosting as well as some commission payments.
I'm not out to take over the world or be a "big" host. I enjoy what I do, and we make a good income, so I have no problem thanking customers any way I can.
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| Posted by projectw3, 08-30-2006, 02:37 PM | | That's great.
My brain is already giving me some ideas that I could come back to explore at a later stage. It has the tendency to try to kill me by giving me too much to do.
For the time being, I still have to focus on getting my sites back up on track
sigh. Again, good job on the control panel.
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