In another post I'll get into the nasty details but for now, a question for the professionals here. How does one know if a supposed hosting company really owns the hardware or is just a branded reseller with now hands on control over your site?
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In another post I'll get into the nasty details but for now, a question for the professionals here. How does one know if a supposed hosting company really owns the hardware or is just a branded reseller with now hands on control over your site?
Just for the heck of it... in another board I was tipped on that my forer hosts were playing games when a viewer sent me to a templet page that can be cloned by resellers. To my surprise, it looked EXACTLY like my hosts website.:angry:
Does it really make a difference to the end user if the host is a reseller or not? Your still getting what you'd get from the upstream reseller, and possibly more (support, etc)... I just dont see why it should bother you, especially if your happy with what your getting.
True but some folk feel a bit uneasy when they know there host is just a reseller for another company, I suppose i can understand that.
Try seeing if they have private namservers but they could still be a reseller. I wouldnt be too worried about it though
Regards
I believe hosting providers must not "keep secrets" on this issue. IWhois.sc might provide some information about ownership but not on hardware.
Regards
Dimitar
Have you tried asking your host if they are a reseller? That to me would be the first way of finding out.
Most resellers (for those reliable ones) should be honest that they resells from another company. However, I do agree that they are not required to review whom they are reselling from (for the sake of the customer taking an opportunity to just go to the upstream provider).
There are many ways where you can try to see if he is a reseller. From the domain, nameserver, forum, reviews, etc. Though no solid proof, but you will somehow know quite abit after collecting the information.
I don't see a bad thing to host your site with a reseller if they do provide good support service unless you are hosting extreme confidential material.
Cheers
I think that being a reseller or not makes no difference every hosting company should be reliable, other wise the shouldn't offer these type of services where support and uptime is a neccesary. Even if I found out I was on a reseller, I think I would go to the main site to get support as some resellers usually don't know a lot about hosting, and think its easy money.
At the end of the day, unless you run your own DC, supply your own transit and generate power, mine your own fuel and develop your own hardware etc etc, you're all resellers of someone else : there is always somebody further up the chain.
It is true that the further up the chain you go, the more control the provider has and in theory (but not always in practice), the more costly it will be for you, but that doesn't mean people who're lower down the chain are useless; you'll quite often find that as they're not pottering about patching the server, monitoring loads and tinkering in the deep recesses of the server, that they provide a more direct, supportive approach to server management : often at a lower cost than their core provider.
And if they've picked their provider well, basically doing the choosing and selection you would have had to do, then you won't have any problems with them, or the service they provide as a reseller.
There are not any big difference between both platform in terms of service and support to the end user, if you have chosen a reliable one either, it should provide you good service and support as a whole.
There are great hosts around that don't "own" the servers, they rent them from datacenters. Some of them actually manage over 100 servers, so they're not exactly small enterprises.Quote:
How does one know if a supposed hosting company really owns the hardware or is just a branded reseller with now hands on control over your site?
As for the small hosting provider supplying hosting from a reseller account, some the hosts I mentioned above have started like that. :)
That said, using a combination of tools, one can usually find out more about the host, and determine some of the providers further up the chain: whois.sc, dnstools.com, dnsreport.com, google.com
Thanks to everyone for some great input.
In my case (for several of my sites) restricted sections and list mail is a critical issue. Some communication is time sensitive too. Not having 99% confidence that group messages were actually sent (or replies received) is a bad thing.
And yes, we have had some lost data experience and the company's back-up tape system failed. I now backup my site locally after losing six months worth of content on one site. Even then, I stuck it out because of the ability to communicate online with a real body who was listed as CEO of 4web-space.com. With the new players in place, and our trusted contact seemingly vanished, support (or lack thereof) is the critical issue to me.
I've asked many direct questions of these folks only to get unrelated questions in return. I suspect I've been lied to about the status of the one person whose trust was earned over several years of top notch support.
Simple question to those who are resellers here... If you had a customer paying you $16.99 per month each for several sites plus extra fees for databases and mail lists, and he wanted to speak with the boss on support issues, would you ignore that request? Even when told the customer would cancel all accounts?
:scatter: Read more detailed issues and questions on the topic I posted here in the forum.