Reseller Web Hosting
What is Reseller Web Hosting?
Reseller web hosting gives a company an opportunity to
purchase large amounts of web space with the intention of
packaging it for resale purposes. These web hosting plans, help
the “reseller” to be a middle-man by allowing him/her to create
and brand an image, find customers, and finally, host them on
the servers owned by the hosting company.
This business allows the reseller of web hosting to
strategically investigate market demands and creatively answer
via competitive pricing and package content. Lastly, it is
mutually beneficial to the web host, as their servers remain
full and profitable.
=| Advantages: |==
Besides the entrepreneurial aspects of being able to create a
brand and have another company actually provide the web hosting
service, reseller hosting has some interesting advantages and
features including:
* Resellers possess the opportunity to offer other services, to
be used in conjunction with web hosting accounts. These include
merchant accounts, SSL Certificates, search engine optimization,
and domain name registration, which all may provide additional
income for the reseller. * Resellers can avoid the expenses
involved in maintaining their own in-house web servers, mail
servers, DNS servers, backup generators and other network
hardware and connections required to host Internet web sites *
Resellers are able to respond to increasing numbers of
businesses and individuals that are migrating to the web. A rich
target demographic exists. * Resellers can purchase packages
based on his/her sales forecasts for their use of hard disk
space, allowance of data transfer, and a variety of other add-on
options. * Web hosting resellers can pursue scalability, where
purchases from the web host will directly correlate to growth of
one’s business. * Web hosting resellers can enjoy high profits
compared to initial investments. * Resellers are offered nice
multi-level graphical user interfaces that can automate the
processes of managing domains and customers, which makes the
profession of reseller web hosting more enjoyable.
=| DisAdvantages: |==
Clearly, the benefits and advantages of reseller web hosting
outweigh the disadvantages. However, the major premise of
establishing a business model surrounding another vendor’s
services may at times be a daunting task.
For example, proper research must be done while selecting a
reseller web hosting provider, especially if your brand and
total business responsibility depend on a 99.99% uptime. True
investigation should be done to ensure that the reseller web
hosting company will be in business and will provide the level
of service that has been promised to a reseller’s customer.
Furthermore, reseller features such as hard disk space and data
transfer allowance will need to be monitored so that if these
metrics are exceeded, one can easily upgrade plans rather than
be hit with hefty “ala carte” expenses associated with overage
penalties.
=| Benefits: |==
Reseller web hosting allows the major benefit of revenue
stream generation for the companies who don’t have the time,
money, or resources to maintain their own servers and data
centers. Furthermore, it is a great business opportunity for
those who want to create a stand-alone business venture, or for
those with other parallel businesses who can take advantage of
the chance to sell hosting with their services.
What is the best application of a reseller web hosting service
provider?
The major benefit of reseller hosting plans is that the reseller
is allowed to purchase web space for a reduced cost. At that
time, the reseller can sell the web hosting plan and/or use some
of the space for his/her own projects.
The best application and intentions are revenue-based and
several schemes exist for this:
1. The reseller can create his or her own brand, market it, and
successfully sell and support the web hosting plans. Then the
customer can contact the reseller for support. 2. The reseller
can just act as an affiliate or an agent for the web hosting
company. In this way, the reseller is minimizing liability of
service provision, but still reaps benefits of revenue once
customers purchase. Customers would contact the original web
host for support and future plan modifications. 3. The reseller
can be “hired” on as a proxy employee. In this model, the
reseller can create accounts as an “employee” of the original
web host.
=| How to decide: |== Generally, just as one would decide on any
other web hosting plan, there are some main concerns that exist.
Possible resellers should always investigate concerns such as:
1. Having a large enough site and the ability to market through
various channels to justify the initial costs involved with the
reseller packages. 2. The cost, as compared to other web space
vendors with similar plans and packages. 3. Security of Data and
equipment of the company that the reseller purchases with. 4.
High enough bandwidth for the number of sites and the types of
sites the reseller will support. 5. The level of knowledge and
integrity of the web hosting provider 6. The service level
agreements for technical support and hardware repairs from the
web hosting provider 7. The speed of the page downloads and
uptime of the company’s web pages.
Furthermore, because one is putting their name on the brand, it
is imperative to further investigate hardware. Some of the
factors to consider are:
Brand: Brand names of hardware convey reputations for
reliability and known support for hardware failures.
CPU’s:The speed of the CPU’s in the servers will directly
correlate with the load speeds of customer websites.
Memory:The reseller web host should allow one to know that the
very important commodity of memory will be readily available, as
an increased number of sites running various types of code and
scripts may prove to be resource and memory intensive.
Mirrored Drives:To offer backups to potential customers, it is
good to further investigate backup options. To ensure data
redundancy, most hosts can offer drive mirroring, which will
keep a synchronized copy of all data for easy backups.
Features specific to reseller hosting can be numerous also.
Generally, it is advantageous to look for a reseller plan that
offers nice plans with value-driven offerings in disk space,
bandwidth, and 24×7 support. One can also look for plans that
offer free account setups with no contracts.
Other reseller specific perks to look for include:
Hosting ability:UNLIMITED site hosting will allow one to package
their web space any way that they choose for resale purposes.
Private name servers :further reinforces branding and makes you
look like a stand-alone network.
Administration software:This software allows the reseller to
divide the web space into packages. On the end-user side, it
also gives them administration rights to their website.
The benefits of reseller web hosting seem to far outweigh
the disadvantages. With proper business planning, reseller web
hosting seems to be a great addition to a company’s products
Rodel Garcia is a freelance programmer and web developer. Owner
and webmaster of this web hosting
website. For details of this article, please go to PHP /MSQL Web Hosting
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