I am looking into starting a hosting business and was considering HostGator.com to get my reseller account from. Who has tried it or currently uses hostgator? Do you like it?

Thanks

Have you used the search feature?
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/search.php?s=

You will find a lot of reviews on them if you search, best of luck :)

Hostgator don't allow overselling for resellers. Their shared hosting plans a little expensive than other companies. You can find a hosting company cheaper and better than Hostgator.

Their shared hosting plans a little expensive than other companies.That used to be the case. Not really the case now though. Their prices for shared hosting are actually very low IMO.

Thread moved to the Reseller Hosting forum.

I have with hostgator 4 months now, and everything is working great.

Their support is excellent, in fact non of my tickets took them more than 15 minutes to get responded (Of course non of them contains any critical problem, but still the response was very good), and they have real 24/7 chat support.

I wouldn't say their reseller plans are expensive, in fact I find them cheap, because of its added value. With the plan you get a WHMAP License, ENOM reseller account and some other things, so I think it is worth the money.

If you will start a hosting business, those added features will be very helpfull... I really recommend you HG.

Of course there are other very good hosts out there, ResellerZoom has worked fine for me too, even when I have only a few days with them. And despite some uptime problems I had with Eagerhost lately I still think they are very good, and I would recommend them too.

Hope it helps, greettings!

Hostgator do allow overselling, and although I've had a few niggles with accounts there, generally everything seems fine.

Hostgator do allow oversellingNot as far as I knew.

Live chat discussion I just had:

Chad: Welcome to HostGator, how may I assist you?
Dan: Hello Chad.
Dan: Does Hostgator allow overselling on the reseller plans?
Chad: No sorry we do not
Chad: for reliability reasons
Dan: OK. I was just checking. :) Thank you for your time.
Chad: Not a problem :)
Chad: Thank you for using Host Gator chat!

My bad - I could've sworn they allowed over-selling - but perhaps this was from before they upped the resources on all of their plans.

Originally posted by I, Brian
Hostgator do allow overselling, and although I've had a few niggles with accounts there, generally everything seems fine.

Sorry for my ignorance but can someone tell me what overselling means in this context?

Thank you,

S

I have been using them for about 5 months and there prices are good, and there support is top notch. When we needed to upgrade our package it took hardly anytime to get setup.

Originally posted by soundsational
Sorry for my ignorance but can someone tell me what overselling means in this context?

Thank you,

S

Overselling means that you offer more disk space and data transfer to your customers than you have actually purchased in your plan.

The main problem that I can see with hostgator.com is that if you consider disk space as your most important resource, and that you can't over sell it, then your cost is $4.99/GB. Making it difficult to compete with companies who sell large plans cheap.

From what I'm told, with Site5 you can oversell, but there, the cheapest plan is running you $8.97/GB of disk space! Which is even worse if your customer's actually use it all.

The problem I see with all of these reseller plans where you host a lot of domains under 1 big account is that your disk space is so limited, that if you sell larger packages to be more competitive, you are contstantly forced to upgrade to larger, more expensive plans. As soon as you start to see a decent profit from your resold domains, you need to upgrade. Each time you upgrade, your cost increases and you give your profits back to the host until you can fill up the additional space with new clients and get ahead. So not only are you impacted with the cost of aquireing new clients, your finances are impaced by the cost of getting more space to put them.

In my opinion, the old fashioned reseller plans were you pay for each new package as you grow is much more stable. Your cost and profit per package is predictable and your profit margin doesn't go down for weeks to months every time you need more space. Not to mention, hosting all your clients under 1 IP number is dangerous these days, when SpamCop will block your IP number at the drop of a hat if one of your clients is reported spamming. Then there goes your 99.9% reliability out the window.

In a perfect world you would be correct ServersAndDomains, but this is usually not the case.

HostGator DO NOT ALLOW YOU TO USE THE BANDWIDTH AND SPACE YOU PAY FOR. I can't say this clearly enough.

This is because they base their space and bandwidth on the plans you "invent". A hidiously unethical way of doing business but justified by the use of the word "overselling" - which of course suggests something "naughty".

I purchased their base reseller account. My sites in total used less than 10% of what the plan covered as far a bandwidth goes, and occupied, wait for it, less than 6% of the space the paln allowed. You would think I had made a good choice, but when I went in to add them it blocked me half way telling me I had exceeded the allowable space and bandwith.

Contacted with Host Gator to let them know I actually had not even loaded all my sites so how could I have exceed my space and bandwidth. They replied trying to upsell me into a larger reseller plan.

I was livid. How dare they promote a certain quantity of allowable bandwidth and space then not allow you to use it.

I moved to Reseller Zoom who allow you to use every bit of space and bandwidth you pay for. Thank God for the industry there are ethical and honest hosts out there like Reseller Zoom.

Now here is the interesting thing, in my Host Gator's WHM it clearly reported the CPU, RAM, number of hard disks and sizs and what % they were utilised. Compared to Reseller Zoom, Host Gator seemed to me to be almost double the disk usage with LESS CPU power and less RAM. So much for HostGator's "overselling" scare tactic. The power and available space was on Reseller Zoom's side.

The lessen here is when you hear "Oh we don't allow overselling because overselling floods the server" - from my personal experience this is absolutely FALSE. FALSE. FALSE.

At the end of the day one is faced with only two options:

1. A reseller plan that allows you to utilise ALL the space and bandwidth you pay for (resellerzoom.com)

2. A reseller plan that DOES NOT allow you to utilise the space and bandwidth you pay for (hostgator).

I would invite anyone from Host Gator to make a comment. Lets see how they try and justify not allowing people to use the space and bandwidth they pay for.

Imagine if you signed up for a broadband connection, say a 20 GIG month account and after 1 GIG usage they contacted you saying, "sorry, your computer is capable of handling more than 20 GIG per month, you have to get the 50 GIG plan"??

You could arugue that you haven't even touched the surface of using the 20 GIG you paid for, but to no avail.

The government would stamp them out of business in a flash. Yet we have HostGator doing exactly the same thing in hosting and nobody seems to see it.

Thanks Jumbuck for the reply.

It was quite an insight as i haven't come across such posting. I am now on my guard for dishonest host even though they have had positive feedback from the community. However, what can a customer do in these circumstances when they feel cheated and how do you find out where the restrictions lies in any hosting companies and do the trading board standards not monitor them?

For the mean time, thanks to your advice, i'm going to check out Reseller Zoom. It's a shame they are all based in the US. I am from the UK and would probably prefer to go with a UK host but the US hosting companies always seem to offer better value for money. Do you think it would make a big difference in where you are located (and i don't mean support as most of them offer 24/7 but more on the technical issues- speed, SEO and etc.).

Also, how does Reseller Zoom manage to offer cheaper reseller hosting?

Thank you,

S

Firstly, Reseller Zoom servers are located in The Planet datacentre, perhaps the best datacentre in the world.

Secondly, if your concerns are about exposure in the UK results in search engines for your domains then this is more about search engine optimisation and inbound linking tham anything else.

It is true engines now use IP filtering but I host many country specific domain names in my reseller account and they feature exceptionally well when someone chooses a localised search. But many of them are optimised well and there are many inbound links to them on websites actually hosted in this country.

If your concerns are about support, then let me tell you from my experience you need not be worried. Use the support ticket system and you will be very surprised.

I have one "advenced" reseller account which cost a little more but I've been blown away with the speed of the servers, the support level and the reliability of the whole show. Mind you I also have two "budget" reseller accounts and have yet to notice any difference. RZ seem to simply be a high quality host throughout.

I host a total of 70 sites across three reseller accounts on different servers at Reseller Zoom. There is a lot of responsibility here as many of my hosted domains are very serious enterprises.

With people like Reseller Zoom I can confidently say I will NEVER get a dedicated server, ever. Even if my business grows to hosting 200 sites. Reseller Zoom is just too damn good at what they do.

Finally, even though I seem to be singing their praises I am in no way connected with them (other than being just a customer). But this indutry needs to know when companies do things right, so I have no hesitation in letting people know of my experiences.

Cheers

Jumbuck

P.S. Unlike at HostGator, at Reseller Zoom you'll be able to use ALL the space and bandwidth you pay for!!

Thanks, i'll investigate RZ more later. About hosting location- i have a few clients and they are all based in the UK so being able to be searched on an search engine it vital. However, if we used 123-reg.co.uk (based in UK) for managing our domain names and set up the DNS to point to where the site is hosted (not web forwarding) will this not resolve the issue.

Also what is the cons of a shared IP hosting even though you can have unlimited domain names (not just sub domains)?

Many thanks for your quick response.

S

Hi again soundsational,

Why don't you send Reseller Zoom an email asking them. In all honestly, your potential hosts would be more qualified to make a call on this.

One thing I've found is that the IP address resolves at the server. You can't "trick" search engines into thinking a site is hosted in one country when its really on a server located in another.

If I'm wrong about this please someone let me know!!!

Cheers and good luck.

Originally posted by Jumbuck
In a perfect world you would be correct ServersAndDomains,

[EDIT]

At the end of the day one is faced with only two options:

1. A reseller plan that allows you to utilise ALL the space and bandwidth you pay for (resellerzoom.com)

2. A reseller plan that DOES NOT allow you to utilise the space and bandwidth you pay for (hostgator).

I would invite anyone from Host Gator to make a comment. Lets see how they try and justify not allowing people to use the space and bandwidth they pay for.

Imagine if you signed up for a broadband connection, say a 20 GIG month account and after 1 GIG usage they contacted you saying, "sorry, your computer is capable of handling more than 20 GIG per month, you have to get the 50 GIG plan"??

You could arugue that you haven't even touched the surface of using the 20 GIG you paid for, but to no avail.

The government would stamp them out of business in a flash. Yet we have HostGator doing exactly the same thing in hosting and nobody seems to see it.

I did not know that about hostgator. I suspect the problem is that they charge you based on the total resources you "allocate" to each plan, and not the amount you actually use. I had a plan like that once but they changed it to measure summary disk usage, not based on allocation of disk space nobody is using.

Overselling has a bad reputation, but in reality it is the only way to utilize your server resources in the most efficient way, while providing fair pricing to your customers for resources they actually use. I did not like paying for disk space that nobody was using as I'm sure you would agree.

However, one thing about Reseller Zoom that I found surprising after your lengthy praise. Continuing my previous post, their price for disk space is very strange. In their budget plans, you pay only around $2.50/GB which is a great deal! But as soon as you jump to the large plans, 10 GB and up, you're paying $6.50/GB. So again, as soon as you start to grow and gain some profit margin, you upgrade and find your cost per GB has jumped 160%! Inevitably, you give all your profits back to your host when you need that much more space. Which I think drives my point home with a bang.

If you go with an old fashioned type of reseller plan where you pay for each additional website as you grow, you get a lot more resources for your money and a more stable profit margin to live on.

Hi Todd,

Yes, good point.

I have three reseller accounts with Reseller Zoom because I don't like the idea of all my accounts in one basket. I feel spreading your hosted domains across two or three reseller accounts, especially when you have the numbers to warrant it, is a very wise idea.

My rule seems to be as soon as space and bandwidth reach around 75% of the allowable limits I get another reseller account. But this is only me, I could very easily keep going right up to 100% if I wanted to - at least with Reseller Zoom they let you use the space and bandwidth you pay for.

So I'll never be in a situation where I'll be paying 160% above what I'm paying now, no matter how large I grow.

Cheers

Jumbuck

Originally posted by ServersAndDomains
I did not know that about hostgator. I suspect the problem is that they charge you based on the total resources you "allocate" to each plan, and not the amount you actually use. I had a plan like that once but they changed it to measure summary disk usage, not based on allocation of disk space nobody is using.

Overselling has a bad reputation, but in reality it is the only way to utilize your server resources in the most efficient way, while providing fair pricing to your customers for resources they actually use. I did not like paying for disk space that nobody was using as I'm sure you would agree.

However, one thing about Reseller Zoom that I found surprising after your lengthy praise. Continuing my previous post, their price for disk space is very strange. In their budget plans, you pay only around $2.50/GB which is a great deal! But as soon as you jump to the large plans, 10 GB and up, you're paying $6.50/GB. So again, as soon as you start to grow and gain some profit margin, you upgrade and find your cost per GB has jumped 160%! Inevitably, you give all your profits back to your host when you need that much more space. Which I think drives my point home with a bang.

If you go with an old fashioned type of reseller plan where you pay for each additional website as you grow, you get a lot more resources for your money and a more stable profit margin to live on.
You only pay more per GB if you jump to a different type of plan. If you remain on the same type of plan, you pay the same price per GB. Just wanted to make that correction.

I'm starting to become a little confuse by all this now...

Okay! i'm trying to get this right in my head, take for example:

On Reseller Zoom, they have a budget plan for $4.95 p/m- this gives the reseller 2000Mb web space and 30GB bandwidth. The reseller get this amount every month for the same price. But only if the reseller exceeds this amount 9web space) that RZ will start charging the reseller (say $2.50GB p/m)? Is this right?

So if the reseller steps up his plan (to Advanced) and again exceeds the default amount given each month, then RZ will start charging $6.50

Now that HostingZoom is here to answer some questions, how much do RZ charge for per GB of bandwidth?

Thank you,

S

Originally posted by Jumbuck
Hi Todd,

Yes, good point.

I have three reseller accounts with Reseller Zoom because I don't like the idea of all my accounts in one basket. I feel spreading your hosted domains across two or three reseller accounts, especially when you have the numbers to warrant it, is a very wise idea.

My rule seems to be as soon as space and bandwidth reach around 75% of the allowable limits I get another reseller account. But this is only me, I could very easily keep going right up to 100% if I wanted to - at least with Reseller Zoom they let you use the space and bandwidth you pay for.

So I'll never be in a situation where I'll be paying 160% above what I'm paying now, no matter how large I grow.

Cheers

Jumbuck

Wise move! I didn't realize you can have multiple smaller reseller accounts there. Some hosts I've used only allow you to have 1 reseller account and force you to upgrade. I agree, distributing your sites over multiple servers is the way to go, as I have been doing that for years, and now with my own servers.

You get what you pay for! I have been using hostgator for about a year now (shared reseller). I would recommend them highly. I'm thinking of switching to a dedicated server from them. The uptime is great, the service is great, the features are great.

My experience has been very positive the whole time and my quality of life is much improved since I switched to them. Before that, I was using cheap hosting companies (zoneserv and turnkey resellers), both of which were a constant nightmare of downtime, hacked servers, and more forms of unreliability than i can count!

Originally posted by bmonster99
You get what you pay for!

Mate, that's not true about Host Gator. They have a hosting model that bases space and bandwidth on your invented plans and not what you actually use. See.... The Host Gator Rip Off (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=440007).

Reseller Zoom has the "overselling allowed" hosting model where they cap the number of resellers on a server. Its a much more stable and reliable model because the space and bandwidth is actually there ready for you to use.

i would say yes if you can afford it.
bit expensive then others but worth it.

I went with hostgator for about 2 hours. If first had their low end plan that allows you to host many URLs but did not call it a reseller account. I went to their demo and down at the bottom it had an icon that said "WHM" so I thought I was going to get a WHM, but I did not.

Also, most of the time when I clicked on a link to get more information about something, a box would popup but it would have nothing in it.

That told me that these guys were probably resellers themselves and were not doing a very good job of it.

Hey okbookman,

HostGator are way out of touch these days in my opinion, there are many posts about them basing their reseller space and bandwidth usage on the plans you "invent" - nothing to do with how much your domains actually use.

I rekon http://resellerzoom.com is the one.

Jumbuck

Originally posted by Jumbuck
HostGator are way out of touch these days in my opinion, there are many posts about them basing their reseller space and bandwidth usage on the plans you "invent" - nothing to do with how much your domains actually use.
Dude, you keep saying that, and I don't get your obsession. There are basically 3 types of "shared hosting reselling"

1. pay by client account (usually each account limited to 1 domain, or more $). Each client account has its own space/bandwidth allocated, and does not draw from your reseller "pool".
2. pay for a bunch of "accounts" (cp's), usually with unlimited domains. Disk space, bandwidth, and other resources are managed as a "pool" within your reseller account.

How that "pool" is managed makes a difference, and it is what you are complaining about, but it is not really so bizarre...

2a. In the type of plan you like (rz, for example) resources are measured and deducted from your pool "by usage". So, no matter how you advertise/sell ("invent") your client plans, the resources are only totaled up as they are actually used by your clients.

2b. In the other type (hg for example) resources are deducted from your pool "as allocated" to your clients. In other words, you create ("invent") the packages you are going to sell, and as you sell them, all of those resources are considered "allocated" to that client, even though they will probably not use all of them... but one important point is (in my experience) you can slice up the resources as thin as you like, so if you have 25 clients in your 20GB account, just allocate less than 1GB to each client, and they will fit. (Maybe this is not true at hg and that is what you have a problem with? what do they do to prevent this?)

Yes, I agree it is BS when hosts claim "allowing overselling causes server overload". That is ridiculous, because the HOSTS themselves ALWAYS oversell. They do not reserve 100GB of actual online disk space for each 100GB reseller account. They oversell, and they (hopefully) monitor usage and add resources as NECESSARY.

On the other hand, as long as you are AWARE of the difference between type 2a. ("by usage") and 2b. ("by allocation"), then it is something you can factor in to your evaluation of the host. a "by allocation" host may be cheaper or better enough to make it worth that inconvenience.

I don't see the rational for your extreme reaction to this well-known distinction between the way various hosts deal with reseller accounts.

I agree, and you've hit the nail on the head...
Originally posted by jph-
Yes, I agree it is BS when hosts claim "allowing overselling causes server overload". That is ridiculous, because the HOSTS themselves ALWAYS oversell. They do not reserve 100GB of actual online disk space for each 100GB reseller account. They oversell, and they (hopefully) monitor usage and add resources as NECESSARY.
I admit to getting my nose out of joint when HostGator use the "We are better because we don't allow overselling" claim. I don't call it BS, I call it a calculated deception for they know not many really understand the different hosting models out there. And this is what peeves me the most. There are many hosts that do allow overselling that cap the number of reseller accounts and monitor things very well. I just wish some of them would come in here and make a comment or two.

But your definitions are correct.

Jumbuck

Hehe, This is best Reseller hosting review I ever read.

Thanks alot :)

I've used Hostgator for rea-sellers and dedicated. Both are exellent, the servers are hardly ever down.

9/10

I've used Hostgator for rea-sellers and dedicated. Both are exellent, the servers are hardly ever down.

9/10

Yes, but are you making at least 50% profit/revenue? My problem with Hostgator is that just as you start to grow, you are forced to upgrade and that takes away all of the profit margin you had before the upgrade.

Yes, but are you making at least 50% profit/revenue? My problem with Hostgator is that just as you start to grow, you are forced to upgrade and that takes away all of the profit margin you had before the upgrade.

I never got forced to upgrade and never made profit, though I'm not with HostGator, I've moved to a bigger and better host, cheap also.

I know what your saying though.