Hello,

I have a question about Reselling. If you were going resell for MCHost, VO, or SplashHost, etc.. and you are setting up your own site to brand your own service, you list the features they make available for you to offer your customers, etc... like Plesk or Cpanel... shopping carts.. etc. What happens when you grow big enough to get your own dedicated server and you choose one that suits your traffic/space needs best but uses a different control panel? Are you violating anything by switching your customers to that? Or do you offer to keep them as is and just switch over those that are willing to and new users? What is the best way to offer services as a reseller but not restrict yourself for when you grow and switch over to your own servers?

ALSO, this question is important. When you resell, should you list your providers server/network specs as you are using their equipment? If so, should you word it a special way so that you do not claim to own the servers/network yourself? Example.. say 'The servers we utilize' or 'Our providers servers are/Our providers network is', etc. ? What if you are planning on getting your own servers in the future, then by switching to a different kind of servers or network are you then breaking a claim or obligation to a customer?

Thanks in advance!

Put something in your TOS that allows you to make switches like that.

There is no ethical question on this, you are the host, and you can decide what features/panel your users see. Of course, if you promised an advanced panel and later switch to a barebone panel(same goes for shopping cart and other features), your clients won't be happy.

The situation you described is quite common, where a reseller has outgrown reseller program and transit to a dedicated server. You miay want to search the forum for threads related to this.

There are a couple of methods you can take: if you provider has dedicated solution as well, you can continue to use the same panel and same provider, and simply upgrade from a reseller program to getting a dedicated server. If you are looking for this route, search for provider that use ensim, which has complete migration path.

You decide how to approach your users about the migration. You can simply add new user to new server, force all of them to migrate, or let them choose. Beware that in general server migration are difficult. Just search the forum for "server migration".

The issue of whether to keep the same panel is up to you. Some large hosts themselves also switch(recently there were a few changing from cpanel to h-sphere and plesk). The only trouble is that the configuration data from your reseller account may not translate directly to the new panel. (ensim has technology that allow migration from their webpplicane to higter version)

The issue of whether to disclose yourself as an reseller is up to you. You can certainly mention your host's features without mentioning their brand, say something like "site hosted on power server" instead of "we have power server and network". As some might get offended when you claim those features as your own.

Peter

Originally posted by SO23

ALSO, this question is important. When you resell, should you list your providers server/network specs as you are using their equipment? If so, should you word it a special way so that you do not claim to own the servers/network yourself? Example.. say 'The servers we utilize' or 'Our providers servers are/Our providers network is', etc. ? What if you are planning on getting your own servers in the future, then by switching to a different kind of servers or network are you then breaking a claim or obligation to a customer?

Thanks in advance!

You are using this network, so you can write about it. Anyway, even bigger webhosting providers write about NOC network as their own.