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  1. #1

    Why would I want a host with overselling

    I've been looking for a potential new host. Since I don't want to jump into something worse than what I have (which is fine when things are running), I'm paying closer attention.

    I currently have a reseller account. I do not sell hosting to others. Having a reseller account was recommended since I have several sites. I find it easy to maintain them via cpanel.

    So...... when I see a host that allows overselling (I assume to potential other resellers), I think to myself, why would I want to host my site on such a host with that allowance.

    What keywords would I want to see or look for if I switch, to ensure the space isn't oversold if that is the right term. To ensure I get the space and system resources. (Since I don't resell and only one or two of the sites is somewhat critical, getting my own server etc is out of the budget and potentially out of the technical knowledge)

  2. #2
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    Check out for low loads and also be sure they are non-oversold (No unlimited offer of bandwidth and space). Also, check out the prices and how long they have been in business. Finally, you can ask for speed tests. In WHM, you are able to see the loads of the server(s), which is a good indicator.
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  3. #3
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    Usually, hosts that unable overselling allow you to go above the disk space and resources that they offer you, and they would then bill you for what you used after you pass the limit they give you.

    Some tips you should do before signing up with any kind of web host is, to check there domain WHOIS see where there located, see how long they have the company domain registered and how long the company has been alive for..

    Hosts that offer unlimited usually oversell a lot and have people packed on there servers. do as UBservers stated and check the loads of the servers if they are high then its a no good company.

  4. #4
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    Hosts that sell unlimited bandwidth on their shared plans is fine as long as they have the TOS and the capital to handle that business model properly. Hostgator and Site5 come to mind. I would be wary of unlimited reseller plans though. And budget/startup unlimited plans are a disaster waiting to happen.

    Ultimately just about every host is going to oversell their shared/reseller plans to some degree. There is nothing wrong with that. From my experience most websites use FAR less than their allotted monthly bandwidth and storage. Overselling just means that they recognize not everyone will use all of their resources so they are free to sell more resources than their server could handle if every client cashed in 100% on their allotted resources. This allows them to have more clients per server and provide better pricing for their clients. But in today's age of websites the biggest factor is generally server resources and not storage/bandwidth. So even if your host provides you with a lot of storage/bandwidth the odds of you actually using it are slim to none. You'll hit the resource limits in their TOS before you come close to hitting their advertised resources.

    This is what the CEO of Hostgator said 4 years ago when they "sold out" and went to the unlimited hosting business model:
    How do all us shared web hosting companies sell more disk space and bandwidth for ten bucks then the dedicated server providers sell for hundreds?

    It’s an easy concept really. Every web host has a terms of service with CPU and memory limits. If your website consumed too much of its share of CPU or memory then most web hosts will require you to upgrade. When you purchase a dedicated server you can’t get shut down for CPU or memory abuse so they have to sell you a plan based on what your site could use with less restrictions. At HostGator, we pretty much get an unlimited amount of bandwidth from our provider thanks to having thousands of servers. We also have 10,000′s of gigs disk space not being used. Giving away unlimited disk space and bandwidth doesn’t really cost us anything. It’s the CPU and memory that has a real value. A server will usually become extremely overloaded way before you ever get close to using the amount of disk quota and bandwidth it comes with.

    If you plan on reading a hosting companies TOS to find out if they have CPU and memory limits it’s usually going to be a waste of time. We are all going to put some CPU and memory limit in there that can’t truly be tracked. However all us hosts have to provide a mystical usage number in order to answer a customers question which is… “how much CPU and memory can I use.” It really is as simple as if you crash a server or slow it down you will be suspended. At HostGator we put 200′ish customers per box and if the server load increases, it can generally be attributed to just one person on that server causing 90% of the problem. Sure, we have ways to track but in the end boils down to not wanting to sacrifice every other users’ experience on that same sever for just one or two websites using all the resources.

    The number ends up being less then half a percent of customers per box that get suspended. I know this sounds terrible but if we didn’t suspend the .5% of customers that are a problem the other 99.5% would have many outages and slow load times. The .5% we suspend usually are the ones that even if they were on the server by them self they would still be crashing it. They are the ones that truly need dedicated servers.

    Yeah I know how screwed up everything I just said is, but unfortunately this is the cut-throat marketplace that Hostgator is playing in. Take a look at our old hosting tips page written many years ago. Things have definitely changed since then. We’ve held out longer then any of the other larger hosts with offering these scam plans that I can think of, but in the end trying to educate potential customers has failed. It was either follow the trend to stay competitive or start shrinking as a company.

    ...

    I could have lied as most hosting company blogs and CEO’s do by saying something along the lines of… “We are very excited that our growth has allowed us to negotiate better pricing which we are passing on to our customers in the form of larger plans.” HostGator is one of biggest hosting companies in the world so I know a statement like this is BS. I’m sure many of you will be upset with me writing this as the truth hurts, and I’m sure some of you would even prefer I lie to you, but really in the end honesty is the best way to go.

  5. #5
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    Hosts that enable overselling on their reseller accounts give you the option of creating as many cPanel accounts as you wish, that have however much space allocated that you wish, without exceeding your account limitation. So it doesn't matter how much space each cPanel account is allocated, only how much your account has used in total. This doesn't mean they are over selling the server.
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  6. #6
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    ^ Correct. Allowing resellers to oversell their plan doesn't equate to the host machine being oversold. The reseller account will be suspended once it reaches the plan's limit regardless if the reseller decides to oversell or not.

    In the end, it's still up to how the main hosting company manages its servers.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by bizeesheri View Post
    I've been looking for a potential new host. Since I don't want to jump into something worse than what I have (which is fine when things are running), I'm paying closer attention.

    I currently have a reseller account. I do not sell hosting to others. Having a reseller account was recommended since I have several sites. I find it easy to maintain them via cpanel.

    So...... when I see a host that allows overselling (I assume to potential other resellers), I think to myself, why would I want to host my site on such a host with that allowance.

    What keywords would I want to see or look for if I switch, to ensure the space isn't oversold if that is the right term. To ensure I get the space and system resources. (Since I don't resell and only one or two of the sites is somewhat critical, getting my own server etc is out of the budget and potentially out of the technical knowledge)
    The key here is to make sure the company you are looking at is not overselling themselves. I know it can get a little confusing, but allowing reseller clients to oversell is somewhat is essential as it allows resellers to create web hosting packages that are consistent with the rest of the industry without renting out an entire server.

    So again, the big difference here is making sure the company who is allowing their clients to oversell is not actually overselling themselves (ex: claiming to offer unlimited bandwidth or unrealistic disk-quotas like 100GB for $5 per month).

    Hope that helps clarify things.
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  8. #8
    Example of a standard reseller account without overselling. I will keep it simple.

    25Gb of Space
    100Gb of bandwidth

    That reseller for example can only setup say 5 accounts with 5gb of space and 20Gb of bandwidth. Regardless of the space used, you cannot setup more accounts than what you are allocated.

    Example of a reseller that allows overselling.

    25Gb of Space
    100Gb of Bandwidth

    That reseller can now setup 50 accounts with 5Gb of space and 20Gb of bandwidth.

    The difference is that with the first option the reseller has to stay honest to their customers while the second option makes the reseller hope their customers don't all use to much space and bandwidth. The server will still suspend the account if the resellers account goes over the space or bandwidth limits set to their reseller plan. You can probably draw your own conclusion as to what happens when hosts sell reseller packages with unlimited space and bandwidth. The host selling the reseller packages needs to monitor the server to make sure it doesn't get oversold.
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  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by killigan View Post

    The difference is that with the first option the reseller has to stay honest to their customers while the second option makes the reseller hope their customers don't all use to much space and bandwidth.
    Just because a reseller is overselling their reseller package does not automatically make them dishonest. It really all depends on what the reseller is claiming to offer (if the reseller is selling packages that they can easily provide by scaling up, then there is nothing dishonest about it).

    What I've actually found is that most companies who disable overselling are actually overselling themselves (which is why they have disabled overselling).

    As I stated before, I think its crucial for a company to allow their resellers to oversell (obviously its up to the reseller to oversell responsibly), but at the end of the day, as long as the main provider is not overselling themselves, then weather or not overselling is enabled or not is pretty much irrelevant to the end user.
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  10. #10
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    Overselling does not equal poor server management. While they often occur simultaneously, that doesn't mean that one caused the other.

    Correlation does not imply causation.

    If a company poorly manages their servers it's unlikely that it matters whether they are overselling or not. You can easily have 1 account on a server causing issues just as you could have 1,000 causing issues. If a provider is not effective at monitoring their services and handling the one user causing issues for others, there's nothing to stop that number from growing and services becoming more and more unstable.
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  11. #11
    What i find is usually people that say overselling isn't dishonest or mean poor server management is usually the ones that do it....

    And that in turns means you SHOULD stay away from them. Bottom line as far as I am concerned.
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  12. #12
    The term "Overselling" is being misrepresented a little bit.

    Overselling on a shared server is bad. Allowing reseller hosts to "oversell" their accounts only means they can actually sell the amount of space given to them instead of them being stuck with only being able to sell packages based on their overall quota. Maybe cPanel should use a different term
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  13. #13
    ^ what he said.. Just to clarify
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  14. #14
    After I got home tonight, I checked my stats. my traffic was only 400 meg, yes meg last month (all sites area zero usage LOL) disk usage wasn't even 1 gig. So if they had a lot like me (I have a 5.00 plan, probably 20/20), they are ok. right?

  15. #15
    If I am understanding you then yes. It also depends on what other sites are running, resources everyone is using and that sort of thing. Space isn't normally the issue, it is the resources. If the main host and reseller both manage their accounts properly then you shouldn't have an issue anyway.
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  16. #16
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    At the end of the day, the issue is not about overselling. It is about how the hosting company is managing its resources. A hosting company can charge premium prices but still oversell. The only way to find out which host is better in managing is server load is to perhaps read the reviews on this forum, get feedback from its current clients and the best of all, is to try it out.

    If there is a concern that there is a possibility that a shared hosting server would get overloaded or overused, perhaps, its time to consider getting a VPS/Dedicated/Cloud server that dedicates resources.
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  17. #17
    thats good overall advice. as I said in the beginning, since most of the sites aren't mission critical and I don't resell, I have to balance cost vs time to manage my own.

    Appreciate all the responses so far. Learned a lot and what to look for.

    Since I don't have to do anything today, that is helpful, as it provides time to investigate. If my current host gets the issues resolved, then I'd be fine to stay there too.

    Thanks!

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by bizeesheri View Post
    thats good overall advice. as I said in the beginning, since most of the sites aren't mission critical and I don't resell, I have to balance cost vs time to manage my own.

    Appreciate all the responses so far. Learned a lot and what to look for.

    Since I don't have to do anything today, that is helpful, as it provides time to investigate. If my current host gets the issues resolved, then I'd be fine to stay there too.

    Thanks!
    Perhaps, you got the luxury to try different hosting providers (especially the big players) out.
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  19. #19
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    If you are not actually selling hosting to others you may want to consider using a shared host that utilizes CloudLinux OS which allows for CPU/RAM management on a per user basis. This way there is less risk and your sites should perform more consistently.

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