Multiple website hosting
Discussion
If I wanted to become a web designer (I don't) and bring in 10 or 100 or 1000 new clients where should I go to host them?
I assume there are companies out there who provide a bulk hosting type service?
I have Googled it but it but most results seem to refer to a handful of (presumably similar and/or pointing to the same site) domains on one account and I don't think that's what I'm looking for.
I assume there are companies out there who provide a bulk hosting type service?
I have Googled it but it but most results seem to refer to a handful of (presumably similar and/or pointing to the same site) domains on one account and I don't think that's what I'm looking for.
Ta, I knew there would be a name for it. So looking at the first one up (Fasthosts) it's £49/m for up to 500 sites? With an offer for the first year at £20/m, is that reasonable?
I did actually have a site with them many years ago but this really isn't something which I can get enthusiastic about, it bores me to tears.
What I want is reliability first. For UK clients. And the right price and support.
I did actually have a site with them many years ago but this really isn't something which I can get enthusiastic about, it bores me to tears.
What I want is reliability first. For UK clients. And the right price and support.
uber said:
Just search reseller hosting and you will get tons of options. If you have a money site don't use this kind of hosting as the servers are normally abused more than Chris Evans on Twitter
How do you mean money site? At the minute we outsource all this stuff but what I'm trying to check is 1 that we're not being ripped on price and 2 if we should take over hosting ourselves and have more control.
technodup said:
How do you mean money site?
At the minute we outsource all this stuff but what I'm trying to check is 1 that we're not being ripped on price and 2 if we should take over hosting ourselves and have more control.
Sites which create transactional value i.e ecommerce / service or are very important to your business. Reseller plans normally limit resources or when abused by other people on the same server damage your site.At the minute we outsource all this stuff but what I'm trying to check is 1 that we're not being ripped on price and 2 if we should take over hosting ourselves and have more control.
If you want to DM me your site/s I can tell you what I would suggest
768 said:
I'd use DigitalOcean or EC2. I'd be charging a lot more than £49/month for up to 500 sites though.
A non tech managing DO is a recipe for total disaster. They may be cheap and be scaling like crazy but they have some serious reliability issues and when they let you down they go hard at it.Appreciate the replies. At the moment I don't have a full list of sites, but they're all (afaik) non ecommerce. Local businesses, trades, printers etc. Likewise I'm not sure on numbers because the main guy we outsource to has his own, and then ours that we give him over to build/manage. If I was guessing at the moment there's probably 50-100 but growing.
Given that we outsource this for a reason (we haven't a clue and have no inclination to learn) is this a sensible road to even look at going down?
We sell these clients a site and/or SEO. They pay us. We pay someone else to do the work. It all works well, he does a good job, clients are happy. But if he gets hit by a bus tomorrow, or we fall out for some reason we aren't in control of the sites, and he could switch them off/try to poach the business etc.
Is there a straightforward answer which doesn't involve me adding web monkey to my list of job titles?
Given that we outsource this for a reason (we haven't a clue and have no inclination to learn) is this a sensible road to even look at going down?
We sell these clients a site and/or SEO. They pay us. We pay someone else to do the work. It all works well, he does a good job, clients are happy. But if he gets hit by a bus tomorrow, or we fall out for some reason we aren't in control of the sites, and he could switch them off/try to poach the business etc.
Is there a straightforward answer which doesn't involve me adding web monkey to my list of job titles?
jamoor said:
+1 for xilo.As for 'Under a Bus scenario', take a look at password/key escrow services. Make sure this covers both the domain registration, the site hosting or site content (site's source control).
Edited by 4x4Tyke on Friday 8th July 11:19
768 said:
If you're clearing enough to cover the costs of employing someone to take over it, it might be worth thinking about that.
Not. Going. To. Happen. 
This is the bit I don't understand, what is there to do? Sites don't go down often, I assume when they do a report gets filed with the host, they get them back online. Leaving the money aside what would a tech be doing day to day? What is there to manage? (I'm not being cheeky there, just really don't know).
4x4Tyke said:
+1 for xilo.
As for 'Under a Bus scenario', take a look at password/key escrow services. Make sure this covers both the site hosting and the domain registration.
Interesting, thanks.As for 'Under a Bus scenario', take a look at password/key escrow services. Make sure this covers both the site hosting and the domain registration.
one simple example we came across on a server of ours the others day...
- several client sites on there
- one of them needed some new functionality adding to it - that needed a version of PHP of 5.6+
- another site because of older code has issues with php that new
- how do you resolve such a conflict?
- we were able to move one site to another server, but would you have that freedom?
If you have no technical knowledge then it is a risky approach - servers do go down - you have to deal with security, what happens when you there are updates?
There isn't a huge amount of profit in hosting, to run it without the requisite skills is a time-bomb which may or may not go off...
And that seems remarkably cheap for hosting - what are the limitations?
could you go into partnership with someone instead - take a smaller cut, but have someone take the risk on the technical side?
- several client sites on there
- one of them needed some new functionality adding to it - that needed a version of PHP of 5.6+
- another site because of older code has issues with php that new
- how do you resolve such a conflict?
- we were able to move one site to another server, but would you have that freedom?
If you have no technical knowledge then it is a risky approach - servers do go down - you have to deal with security, what happens when you there are updates?
There isn't a huge amount of profit in hosting, to run it without the requisite skills is a time-bomb which may or may not go off...
And that seems remarkably cheap for hosting - what are the limitations?
could you go into partnership with someone instead - take a smaller cut, but have someone take the risk on the technical side?
technodup said:
Appreciate the replies. At the moment I don't have a full list of sites, but they're all (afaik) non ecommerce. Local businesses, trades, printers etc. Likewise I'm not sure on numbers because the main guy we outsource to has his own, and then ours that we give him over to build/manage. If I was guessing at the moment there's probably 50-100 but growing.
Given that we outsource this for a reason (we haven't a clue and have no inclination to learn) is this a sensible road to even look at going down?
We sell these clients a site and/or SEO. They pay us. We pay someone else to do the work. It all works well, he does a good job, clients are happy. But if he gets hit by a bus tomorrow, or we fall out for some reason we aren't in control of the sites, and he could switch them off/try to poach the business etc.
Is there a straightforward answer which doesn't involve me adding web monkey to my list of job titles?
You dont need to swap hosting at this stage, you need a procedure where you have access to the data incase you part ways for any reason. This should be in a contract between the two of you. Given that we outsource this for a reason (we haven't a clue and have no inclination to learn) is this a sensible road to even look at going down?
We sell these clients a site and/or SEO. They pay us. We pay someone else to do the work. It all works well, he does a good job, clients are happy. But if he gets hit by a bus tomorrow, or we fall out for some reason we aren't in control of the sites, and he could switch them off/try to poach the business etc.
Is there a straightforward answer which doesn't involve me adding web monkey to my list of job titles?
If the designing/hosting and 'stuff' is going well and the relationship is fine, there's probably no reason to change it. I've seen companies decide that they want to save money and go out to a £20/month host and then it all goes to s
t, ultimately they lose clients. It's not worth the hassle. Get a contingency plan in place on the basis that you dont want to use it, but it's there incase it's needed
akirk said:
one simple example we came across on a server of ours the others day...
- several client sites on there
- one of them needed some new functionality adding to it - that needed a version of PHP of 5.6+
- another site because of older code has issues with php that new
- how do you resolve such a conflict?
- we were able to move one site to another server, but would you have that freedom?
If you have no technical knowledge then it is a risky approach - servers do go down - you have to deal with security, what happens when you there are updates?
There isn't a huge amount of profit in hosting, to run it without the requisite skills is a time-bomb which may or may not go off...
And that seems remarkably cheap for hosting - what are the limitations?
could you go into partnership with someone instead - take a smaller cut, but have someone take the risk on the technical side?
This this and this.- several client sites on there
- one of them needed some new functionality adding to it - that needed a version of PHP of 5.6+
- another site because of older code has issues with php that new
- how do you resolve such a conflict?
- we were able to move one site to another server, but would you have that freedom?
If you have no technical knowledge then it is a risky approach - servers do go down - you have to deal with security, what happens when you there are updates?
There isn't a huge amount of profit in hosting, to run it without the requisite skills is a time-bomb which may or may not go off...
And that seems remarkably cheap for hosting - what are the limitations?
could you go into partnership with someone instead - take a smaller cut, but have someone take the risk on the technical side?
We keep our client sites separate, we have a good deal in place with a hosting provider but make less than we could each year but it peanuts anyway. Much easier keeping everyone separate.
The other day a company wanted to migrate their site to us, current host couldn't provide us FTP access, guess why, multiple hosting.......
Why bother the money is in development and management not hosting, unless your a hosting company that is
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