Reseller Hosting

I?ve actually had a bit more time on my hands as I?ve done a few less evenings at work, and have found that I?ve been enjoying making websites again. It?s something I like doing as can hopefully make a few quid from.

I?ve mentioned previously the limitations I?ve had with hosts, especially as most of the sites I built depend on MySQL, which is not supported very well with my current 1&1 account. I tried out Heart Internet which proved a wrong choice as unknown to me I couldn?t host multiple domains on the account which is pretty rubbish (read that post here) and so I quickly cancelled that, and soon I came across A Small Orange. I opted for the ?tiny? package as I was hoping to utilise the unlimited mySQL databases and link them into sites I host on my 1&1 account. wrong.

If you are having a single site on ASO then it?s fantastic, but there are incompatability issues with me linking to mySQL databases there from my 1&1, which is a bugger considering that was the whole reason for going over there. I?ve done plenty of reading up but haven?t found any real solutions and so I?m in a quandry again and my hosting accounts are in severe need of a good tidy up.

I?m coming to the conclusion that I may have to actually have to try some more hosting accounts and see if they fit the bill. I will have to sign up for a month which will be yet more money, but if I find a solution then I?ll be a happy man and it?ll be worth it.

I?m considering buying reseller hosting which will give me a lot more control over the sites I run and in the end make each account easier to manage as I?ll be able to customise what is available on each account and keep track of the bandwidth etc used by each site I run. It will also give me the opportunity to sell webspace to people if they need it as I can assign cpanels to all the accounts and specify what is available to each package(which will also help with income.)

The company I?ve been impressed with so far, and who I looked at a while back are HostGator and their reseller plan. It all looks very good, and as it?s a US company I should get a favourable deal due to the weak dollar ($24.95 a month / £11.82 in real money.)

If it all looks fine then I?ll set up the arduous task of moving all.. yes ALL?my sites over to it, and then cancelling the hosting with my 1&1 and ASO accounts so that everything is in one place. I will keep my domains hosted at 1&1 as they are very good for the .co.uk domains which I don?t think are available on HostGator, but that should make things a lot tidier.

Of course I will probably find a flaw with HostGator and have to switch over to somewhere else!

I think that if I really am serious about building websites then and see this as something longterm then I may as well bite the bullet instead of pissing around with cheap and cheerful solutions.

btw. I made a new site the other day as a favour to a friend (took only an evening to do) and you can see it here. It?s again built with websitebaker CMS and I?m quite happy with it. There are a few bits that might need to be fiddled with, but all-in-all it does the job.

I?ve also started work on my own site, but will have to put that on hold again if I do get the reseller account as it will change slighty. Also, if I get the reseller account a fair bit of time will be spend migrating accounts, so it?s not worth havign a site up offering webdesign if I don?t actually have the time to do it.