Can anyone recommend a host that charges a set monthly fee under which you can host multiple web sites?

I have heard this called "virtual servers" but have also seen that used to mean someone hosting your site on a shared machine. The thing I am after would let me host a bunch of sites for one fee, as long as I didn't exceed storage or bandwidth limits.

I have 4 or 5 sites I need hosted, but don't want to pay the typical monthly fee for each.

Any referrals? Is this type of arrangement possible/typical? Any pros or cons to doing it this way?

Thanks,
Erik

Originally posted by erikhaagensen
Can anyone recommend a host that charges a set monthly fee under which you can host multiple web sites?

I have heard this called "virtual servers" but have also seen that used to mean someone hosting your site on a shared machine. The thing I am after would let me host a bunch of sites for one fee, as long as I didn't exceed storage or bandwidth limits.

I have 4 or 5 sites I need hosted, but don't want to pay the typical monthly fee for each.

Any referrals? Is this type of arrangement possible/typical? Any pros or cons to doing it this way?

Thanks,
Erik

the email support is lax the phone support is ok..with this host you either love them or hate them.

http://www.setupsite.com you buy one package at full price (14.95) and the rest of the domains are 4.95$ a month

<<ADMIN EDIT>>

I can't speak for everyone, but I think that most hosting companies (at least those run by the people here) would work with you to set up an agreement with you whether they have a posted package or not that serves your needs. My advice would be to find a couple of hosting companies that you like (good reviews, good service, etc.) and contact them about your situation. I know that we have "altered our packages" in the past and I am sure that others have too. If someone can't work with you then maybe you don't want to be there anyway. You might want to start with Martie at http://www.hostcaters.com.

Angela
WebAuthorities
http://www.webauthorities.com

I would be leary of hosting companies that make you pay for large amounts of disk space, when chances are you really aren't going to use it. I recently read a statistic about a company that offers over 25MB of free web space. It sounds impressive; however, the average user hardly even touches 1MB.

My best advice is to assess your current client load and determine how much total space that they are using now. Take that number, multiply it by two and find a company offering a package in that amount (or who will work with you to arrange a apckage of that size). If your client base or usage starts to grow, either upgrade or find another company with decent rates.

<<ADMIN EDIT>>

tera-byte might be a company to contact. When i first signed up for my account at tera-byte i used the domain http://www.edproject.co.uk (now hosted in the uk). As i was leaving webnetics i required a place for for kchat.org and asked if it was possible to forward my domain to another directory on that domain. They did this for free and also got email forwarding of the domain.

I have since had the account changed to kchat.org and moved edproject away from there. So i think uyou should email sales@tera-byte.com and see if they can offer you a good deal :-).

Since you are a Norse, I'll be honest... check out Tera-Byte.com or as Flash mention send them an email :)

I have posted information about using Apache MOD REWRITE and HTACCESS to acheive multiple domain hosting previously. Reference http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=1101
.

However, I will post the same information here again for easy access.

---------------


If your web hosting account runs a Unix system with Apache server, you have your own IP address, and your web host has wild card domains enabled then you may be able to use .htaccess to run multiple domains on your account. .htaccess files will henceforth be called HTACCESS in this post.

For example, if you are running firstdomain.com as your main account and want to also run seconddomain.com on your account you could use something like the following in your HTACCESS:

Code Example




RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^[^.]+\. firstdomain\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.([^.]+)\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! seconddomain [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) %1/$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ! firstdomain\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^([^.]+)\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !seconddomain [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) %1/$1 [L]



Your new “document root” for seconddomain.com will public_html/seconddomain. You will need to point seconddomain.com to your IP address using a DNS service such as myinternet.com.

All HTACCESS rules from your main directory are followed recursively into the secondary domain folders; so your error document handlers may work incorrectly with the secondary domain. However, you can define new rules under an independent HTACCESS in the secondary directory.

Problems

Case Sensitive

The domain name will be case sensitive, so SecondDomain.com will not work. However, you can fix this problem by placing redirects for the most common case spellings of your domain. For example:



Redirect /SecondDomain http://www.seconddomain.com
Redirect /SECONDDOMAIN http://www.seconddomain.com
Redirect /Seconddomainhttp://www.seconddomain.com
Redirect /secondDomain http://www.seconddomain.com



Directory Listing

If a forward slash is not specified at the end of a directory that does not have a default document (index.html and etc.), it will be resolved to firstdomain.com/seconddomain/directory/. I have not been able to find a solution to this that uses an account level HTACCESS.


Warnings

The Apache Mod Rewrite engine is EXTREAMLY complex. I would not recommend anyone who is not a programmer try to figure it out. The rewrite engine can also use a lot of resources processing requests, if your second obtains a large number of visitors, you should get a separate account for it or your web host might shut your site down.

Please use this information at your own risk. My staff and I will not be able to provide support for you. Even our company does not officially allow this technique on our servers, but we do not prohibit it either.

USE THIS INFORMATION AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Best regards,
Frank Rietta

I did it again!! I learnt something new again!! :)

To the original poster,
Im not sure what you were told but i think things are getting blurred here. A virtual host has many domains on one server , most reseller plans work that way. A virtual server is exactly what you stated in your first post, its a dedicated machine broken into several seperate machines, each being its own virtual server. Each of these virtual servers are capable of providing virtual hosting. So you would pay one set fee for the virtual server and then add your sites at will with no other fees. Usually a virtual server will come with an allotment of x number of domains allowed. A virtual server is like a reseller plan on steroids. I hope this clears it up a bit for you.

I'm not sure what type of setup you seek.

I currently have 4 sites with plans to add 2 more. The setup is a virtual server. We have one main site, for our company. Within that site are folders for each of the other sites. These folders are accessed directly by their specific URL. We are charged for 1 site. I can't recommend our host however, because they were recently bought out and service now stinks (to put it mildly). I'm currently looking at CrystalTech because I've seen good reviews on several boards. They offer multiple domains.

We are currently paying $240 a month. CrystalTech is much less expensive and offers more generous storage. As for the amount of storage space, I just increased ours from 200MB to 250 and may go up to 300 before year's end. My company's sites have roughly 1200 pages and a few dozen software trials plus maintenance releases for our software, so yes, need more than 25MB.

How about a free domain redirection service????

I've been using redirection.net (owned by tera-byte) and they have been great. Very dependable. $15 per year, per domain and includes the registration and redirection.

Originally posted by jiminsd
I've been using redirection.net

Hmmmm!!!!! Does this mean anyone could simply open another sub folder under his subaccount and redirect via redirection.net to that folder.

why? if you are redirecting, you wouldn't even need to create a sub folder, would you???! one could put all his files for several such redirected account all in the same directory (technically speaking), right???

my question is, would most hosting companies object to this practice. after all, they are losing money, aren't they?

webhost companies... please reply too!!!!

Learner

Yep, you could do this. Generally to keep things tidy, you'd want to put another site in its own folder (it's free you know, no charge for addl. folders :)).

Jumpline's AUP:
"Usage of scripts or other utilities to direct pointed domain names to subdirectories is not permitted and is grounds for termina tion of the account."

Burlee.com
"Customer may not use Customer's Website to store Web pages, files or data for other IP addresses or domain names..."

You often see something to this effect in the TOS of many hosts.

LOL !!!!!! guess i never did read too many TOSes !!!!! or if i did... couldn't make too much sense of them!!!!!! :D

Learner

Yes, it is technically possible to do what Erik is looking for but many hosts don't see that it makes good "business sense" and therefore refuse. I, for one, do offer such an arrangement. It's even mentioned in my FAQ.

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