I've done some research before I actually fired up my site. I've noticed that ALOT of places offer a ridiculous amount of space and bandwith when they couldn't offer that to a customer if say 10 people wanted to have that account and actually came close to those limits. Why is this done? Is this what "Overselling" means?

Just curious

Yes it is overselling! Many hosts oversell but only by 20-30%. The most important thing for you to remember when starting as a reseller is to go with one of the top hosts. Yes, they cost more but you will be able to keep your clients and grow. Too many new resellers start off with the cheapest host they can find and can never build a customer base.

They can never build a customer base due to a few facts like downtime, non reliable support, and over filled/slow servers.

You get a good provider as sitekeeper said thats been in business for at least a few years and start your business on a solid rock not mud like some of the fly by hosts we see here much to often.

Regards
Phillip

Originally posted by StevePJC
I've done some research before I actually fired up my site. I've noticed that ALOT of places offer a ridiculous amount of space and bandwith when they couldn't offer that to a customer if say 10 people wanted to have that account and actually came close to those limits. Why is this done? Is this what "Overselling" means?

Yes, this is what "overselling" means. Overselling generates lots of debates. Some folks think that overselling is unethical. Others think it's perfectly OK, so long as the customer gets what the customer actually demands (uses) within the limitations of their accounts. Why does overselling exist? Overselling is *much* less costly than not. This is often reflected in the lower cost of accounts.

Many, many customers never use a fraction of the webspace that they are allowed to use under their plan. Let's say the plan gives a customer 1GB of disk space and the server has a single 40GB disk. That would be 40 identical plans with no overselling. But say that cumulatively they only use 10GB of space (an average of 250MB per customer). Some folks would ask, "Why let that space go to waste?" Some folks would sell another 40 plans on the same server. (For this example, I've ignored disk transfer, but the principle is the same.)

Overselling is common in business -- especially with airplane seats.

Most customers of oversellers never know about overselling. However, the webhost that overloads a server with sites will run into trouble. If one engages in overselling, one must be sure not to oversell too much -- and have a plan on what to do if the customers expand their sites. One plan that you see is that when servers get crowded (with disk space and data transfer), the webhost will move customers to a different, less crowded, server.

My motto is if you cant offer what you say dont sell it.

Originally posted by 3nom
My motto is if you cant offer what you say dont sell it.

That is common sense, no need for a motto.

Matt is right :)

archive.org is cool. Browse here for the hosts that have flopped and then archive.org their site and check out their packages. :)

Originally posted by 3nom
My motto is if you cant offer what you say dont sell it.

Yea I know but more people need to start catching onto it. Too many people oversellingthere servers.