Hi,

I'm looking desperately for a solution to my webhosting problems. I've been told to try a reseller account, but I haven't found what I've been looking for.

The problem: 5 tiny sites need hosting, with three of them going to have their own domain. They are currently scattered all over the web on free webhosting accounts. Since I'm also not happy with the free hosts out there, I intend to give away free webspace to my friends, using subdomains, eg www.me.org/friend . (BTW, who provides the control panel for a reseller's customers - the reseller or the host?) I will not use advertising to pay for the space and bandwidth, I'll simply do it out of curtsy.

Together that makes four domains, which will take up around 50 MB combined maximum. Yes, M as in Mega, not Giga. Even then I probably can still give away 20MB. (The sites are all personal ones, the biggest currently being 3MB - and a joint effort of 30 people.)

Basically I'm looking for a simple 50MB starter account with average bandwith and reseller features. Is there such a thing? I'm willing to pay up to US$ 80 a year for it.

<edit>Note to webhosts: if you think of sending me offers, you should not be squirmish about *what* I got on these sites. Simply don't worry/bother to look until you get complaints. (Which, apart from the occasional freak, you won't.) It's not warez, mp3's or porn movies, but something that's not intended for little kids, racists, homophobes or the faint of heart. In short, ever heard of slash? </edit>

Trekchick
desperate newbie

try mchost (http://www.mchost.com). They provide the cheapest reseller solution that I know of ... I was opening your thread and realized later that I am reading your thread with mchost ad on the top :D

cheers,
:beer:

35$ a month? I can get 50MB space and one Gig of bandwidth at that price for a year! There is no way I'm ever going to use a full Gig of space all by myself. With the free webhosting, yes, I will, but I do not want to pay for the bandwidth a full Gig treksite is going to get.

Do you know of any custom reseller plans? Or maybe webhosts that offer custom plans, shared hosting and reselling plans at the same time?

Is tera-byte an option?

TIA,

trekchick

And in both cases you will likely get exactly what you paid for....

Hello trekchick,

It is quite difficult to find a plan to suit exactly what you need :(

Basically you are saying that you need a reseller account that's about USD$80 per year and you can host as many domains as you like within your allocated web space and bandwidth?

The closest one is nuke.to reseller plan... 600mb web space and 7000mb bandwidth per year BUT you need to sign up for a regular account then pay a setup fee to convert it to a reseller account. :(

Hope you can find a host with your needs soon :D

Regards,
Choon

Are you sure you want to be a reseller? Maybe what you need is just some good cheap hosting, since you are just going to put your buddies in subdirectories.

I am new to reselling, so I will not claim to be anywhere near as knowledgeable as other folks here, but if you are not actively going to sell hosting accounts, why bother?

Tracy Brant

Try http://www.eternias.com/.
I'm currently hosted with them and I have no complaints. Use their custom plan and I'm sure you'll get what you need.

You don't have to spend lots of money just to host 3 tiny sites. What you need to look for is a web hosting company offering web hosting services for a small yearly fee.

Our experience tells us that many of our own resellers have always started out by buying a small number of packages before commiting to an unlimited reseller account. There is absolutely nothing wring with locating a cheap yet reliable web hosting provider ;)

You get what you pay for.

*cough*advert*cough*

Are you sure you want to be a reseller? Maybe what you need is just some good cheap hosting, since you are just going to put your buddies in subdirectories.

I am new to reselling, so I will not claim to be anywhere near as knowledgeable as other folks here, but if you are not actively going to sell hosting accounts, why bother?

Tracy Brant



Well, the reason why I need a resellers account is that I want to set up something similar to geocities and angelfire, but just for my friends. So I need all the features a reseller gets, but not the space/ bandwidth.

I could get myself simply some cheep hosting, but I do not want to get kicked off for abuse. (Most hosts do not like people messing around with cgi scripts and give away their webspace for free.)

Thanks to all for your answers.

trekchick

Hello trekchick,

I don't think that most hosts care about how you use your allocated webspace as long as it is not against with their TOS.

However, for messing around with cgi scripts... depends on how the people messing around... if it affects other users/accounts greatly, no host will allow it as long as you are in the shared server.

Just my thoughts :)

Choon

Check out Veoweb.net. THey have some very good inexpensive plans. You can get one account and set up domain pointers and what not. I have been using them for a year and a half and have never been disappointed. Andy

You should try veoweb.net. You can get the the basic package that is 12.95$/m with 10 subdomains and 2 domain pointers.
Extra domain pointers cost 5$ for setup.
I was looking for something like this myself and I found it in a good company as well.
I can point you to some others but it took them about 2 days to aswear me during the weekend!

:unhappy:

veohost.com is very far from what I have on my mind. I need to host several different domains (e.g. www.myownsite.com, www.mybrotherscompany.net, www.allmyfriends.org) pointing to different accounts, which I can't do unless I got a reseller plan.

I also want to start my own (free) webhosting company, using a seperate domain and giving away subdomains (in the form of www.myfriends.org/friend) and, if a site is big enough, give it a TLD and host it with this.

Basically I want to be a normal reseller, just on a smaller scale (100mb space and about 1gig bandwidth with an upgrade option to 200 mb and 3gig bandwith) and with the difference that I do it out of charity. No money will be made nor any expenses covered with ads, pop-ups or similar. (I'm crazy, I know.)

I really need a reseller plan - one that a poor college student making no money out of this can afford.


trekchick

At first you say you want different accounts and you say you want one. Maybe you don't know what a reseller is.

With a reseller plan you "sell" accounts to others.
With domain pointers you can host many domains(yours or not) in one acount(your own). Also with subdomains you can have "www.mysite.com/friend1/"

I think this what you want.
Also try m6.net

Perhaps you should look around for a reseller option where you can buy the seperate packages at a discounted rate, rather than having the *one block sectioned off into small accounts* thing.

I suggest it because you're so small scale, and most of the latter types of reseller plans are big - which is really the whole idea. Resellers planning to make money wouldn't last long with only 100mb total :)

Sigh.

I want a big chunk of webspace for me out of which I can do resale. I want to resell chunks out of the account I get.
If I get 500 mb, I can resell 20 accounts at 25mb.

I got no use for the other scheme where I get an account and market a set of plans for a host because it is me alone paying for everything. I got nobody to do resale to. (Most of the sites I'll be hosting are mine anyway.)

Also I need the option of putting people into subdirectories (as in mydomain.com/person1 , mydomain.com/person2 , etc.), because I want to built a community. A community with very different needs. One needs 50mb of space and the other 2mb. Standard prefab hosting plans do not fit that and are more expensive to me.


I'm webdesigner-in-training with the need to showcase/try-out myself. (I'm using the old learning-by-doing method.) Therefore, if I get asked by people to do websites, I do them for free and take care of everything. I intend to move up, but to do this I got to leave the geocities and angelfire sandpit first and start hosting domains. If this means I pay for other people's hosting, so be it.

<edit> I am looking for something similar to www.**********.com personal or professional plan. I would have already signed up with them if it weren't for their TOS.</edit>

I don't think you need a reseller account to add directories. All hosting accounts I have seen allow you to add as many ' www.yourdomain.com/friend1' as you wish, until the space is taken up.

Is this possibly what you want. Say your website is abcd.com.

You want to add a friends website to your account, so you need to make a directory to put his website in.

www.abcd.com/buddy1

So when you type in, http://www.abcd.com/buddy1
you will be taken to your friends website.

Yes, you can have that with a regular non-reseller account.

If you want your buddies to be able to manage their own websites, you will need an ftp account for each buddy, so they can access their files without touching yours or any other buddies.

So, if you have 10 buddies, you will need 10 FTP accounts.

Another alternative so they can manage their own files, is install a copy of 'Fileman' in your cgi-bin. Its a script that lets you give free homepages away, and lets each buddy log into their account and mess with their own file without bothering or accessing files that belong to someone else. They can only get to their directory. You can also limit the size of how much they put in their directories also. This way, if you give them 5 meg of space, that is all they can use. They cannot go over that amout.

One more thing..............................Use a UNIX server.

Hope that helped.

Have you considered hosting the sites yourself.. or have one of your friends host them? Considering your budget, you're going to have a VERY hard time finding a host w/ the features you need. Considering your space/bandwidth needs, it sounds like anyone with remotely decent upload speed ( any of your friends have DSL or Cable? ) could easily handle it. It would obviously take some time to learn how to get it all set up but it's really not that hard.

Good luck.
Justin

Have you considered hosting the sites yourself..

Nope, and until I win in the lottery this will not be possible. I got a 386 Intel running Win 3.1 with a 12kb modem. :blush: I'm thinking of switching to Linux, but so far I did not really need it. (Free university server to play around with, you know.) All I ever use on this oldie is the txt editor. I'm actually the only one in the student dorm who ownes a PC. Go figure.

trekchick.

Thats the spec of PC I started with over 10 years ago!

All I can pitch in with here is look at http://www.venturesonline.com or a similar cpanel host.

Get a decent enough package and you get the ability to create proper subdomains and create multiple ftp accounts, you can look after it well with no hassle through cpanel and you can dole out subdomains and space very simply and easily.

I don't think you need a reseller account to add directories. All hosting accounts I have seen allow you to add as many ' www.yourdomain.com/friend1' as you wish, until the space is taken up.

Another alternative so they can manage their own files, is install a copy of 'Fileman' in your cgi-bin.

Well this helped alot. I hope you can help me some more. Problem is I need to host TDL's too, preferably in one and the same account. (So that I can squeeze even the last kb out of the traffic and space I got.) :D

I got
me.com.kg 1mb
sister.org.ru 4mb
daddiesbusiness.com 20kb
etc - sites I own and run
myfriends.org/buddy1 to buddy10
mycommunity.net/friend1 to friend 10 - the free hosting thing
and
abcd.com
tuv.ws - sites who are designed and hosted by me but maintained by others.

Possible without reseller account? Please let me know.

trekchick

Thats the spec of PC I started with over 10 years ago!


Well, thinking of it, that's about the time I got my baby. Yup, Christmas it will be ten years. Cheers to an oldie! :beer:

Thanks for the tip.

trekchick

At least yours is still functional for you.

Mine was *shudder* a knackered bell :D (tech joke).

It was pulling it apart to try to make it work and improve it that sent me down the road to bechoming a hardware tech!

Okay, it is better if you get a reseller account. Finding one that is going to meet your budget, that is going to be the problem. If you simply going to crank out directory after directory, and let your buds use them, you wouldn't need the reseller account.

There is also domain pointing, but that probably is not what you are looking for.

Find the cheapest reseller account you can, and do it that way. It would be the best for what you want. You are probably going to have to double your budget though.

Say to a couple of those buds of yours that you can have it real nice, but it is going to cost a small fee for the year. Take the sum of what it is going to cost for the year and split it between all the free ones. You can also take the sum, deduct the 80.00 that you want to spend, and divide the rest up between them.

Say a reseller package cost you 200.00 per year. Knock 80.00 that you kick in, off that amount and split the remaining 120.00 between them. That is not a bad yearly price.

The TLD's, you can either use domain pointers or open them their own accounts and charge them what it costs you. Probably around 30.00 per year. Which quite honestly, is not that bad.

That's about all I can say.
Good Luck

.

Also, would it be possible, if you had your own nameservers, to setup the domain to point to a subdirectory, and mask it?

Dont understand what youre saying.

In my limited understanding if youre a reseller your personal nameservers are mainly to mask your identity and to point hosted accounts to. Some hosts can set you up for domains to point to subdirectory's but it depends on your set up, ie. - if your host does that as part of the deal. And masking is another point altogether, and one that can do you more harm than good with some search engines these days.

I will be corrected if I'm wrong :D

trekchick,

Similar situation here. For example, I will set up several friends' sites as mydomain.com/friend. I am also hosting yourdomain.com and am hoping to host hisdomain.com. You MAY be able to do this with a non-reseller account IF you find a host that is willing to work with you.

I went to INTENSEinfo.com, and Joe was willing to let me set up three different domain names I owned within one account (225MB, 12.95/month). These are 3 different domain names, each with their own content (eg, not merely pointing) set up as name-based addresses (rather than IP-based). I don't want to speak for INTENSEinfo.com or what they might or might not do routinely, I'm only pointing out that some hosts might be flexible enough to work with you.

Hope it helps!
Fastman

Originally posted by trekchick
Hi,

I'm looking desperately for a solution to my webhosting problems. I've been told to try a reseller account, but I haven't found what I've been looking for.

The problem: 5 tiny sites need hosting, with three of them going to have their own domain. They are currently scattered all over the web on free webhosting accounts. Since I'm also not happy with the free hosts out there, I intend to give away free webspace to my friends, using subdomains, eg www.me.org/friend . (BTW, who provides the control panel for a reseller's customers - the reseller or the host?) I will not use advertising to pay for the space and bandwidth, I'll simply do it out of curtsy.

Together that makes four domains, which will take up around 50 MB combined maximum. Yes, M as in Mega, not Giga. Even then I probably can still give away 20MB. (The sites are all personal ones, the biggest currently being 3MB - and a joint effort of 30 people.)

Basically I'm looking for a simple 50MB starter account with average bandwith and reseller features. Is there such a thing? I'm willing to pay up to US$ 80 a year for it.

<edit>Note to webhosts: if you think of sending me offers, you should not be squirmish about *what* I got on these sites. Simply don't worry/bother to look until you get complaints. (Which, apart from the occasional freak, you won't.) It's not warez, mp3's or porn movies, but something that's not intended for little kids, racists, homophobes or the faint of heart. In short, ever heard of slash? </edit>

Trekchick
desperate newbie

oops. this is not the advertising forums!.

Hi

I might be way off beam here but I have never seen a discount hosting company that would provide a reseller with the software to sell off subdirectories (www.domainname.com/selloff) in the same way that geocities does.

Are there any that provide the software that allows subdomains (selloff.domainname.com) to be sold off? If there are then the focus of the search should be on who can provide this service.

Either way it is a bit strange wanting to set yourself up as a reseller, however small, yet not want to pay for the privilege. In business there is a food chain and if you want to move up you can't expect to have things given to you.

Anyway finding a good hosting service that balances all your requirements is a very complicated and difficult experience. The first step is to be aware of what is possible and what you are actually after.

Good Luck
Danny

Dreamhost.com offers the ability to have one cheap account and add domains to this account for $5.00 per month ... i've worked with Dreamhost.com before and I think they are top notch ...

and no, I am not affiliated with them

Originally posted by otherground
Dreamhost.com offers the ability to have one cheap account and add domains to this account for $5.00 per month ... i've worked with Dreamhost.com before and I think they are top notch ...

and no, I am not affiliated with them

For $5 per additional domain added to the account per month? If I have 5 domains, that would add up to USD$20.00 for 4 domains and 1 domain for my main account... then I must well go and sign up a reseller plan at SplashHost.com for USD$20.00 per month and I can add as many domain as I like :)

Depends on your main account allocated web space and data transfer though ;D

Just my thoughts,
Choon