Reseller Hosting

joekelly123

Hi,

I've nearly completed what will be my first paid for website, but I was interested in buying one of the reseller packages that are available.

I was wondering does anyone have any opinions on any of them, or who they would consider to be the best one one to go with.

This will not need to anywhere near the best package just one that would allow me to host 10-15 sites, at least to start with.

CoNfOuNd

I would compare various hosts to see who offers the most suitable package at a suitable price. A scalable package is what you are after - so you can start with 10 or so accounts, then upgrade to the next reseller package as your business grows.

I'd pick a webhost that's preferably in Ireland, with Irish servers and with Irish support. Contact them and see what their support is like, check if they offer 24/7 support by email, phone, live chat etc.

Check if they are currently running promotions or will give you free domain registration etc.

DJB

www.blacknight.com have some good plans and the support is great!

joekelly123

See, I think I've found pretty much all the companies offering services.
The thing is prices seem to vary greatly from company to company but the offerings seem similar.

Like for example Blacknight's basic solution is € 499 for 3gb
Letshost is €300 for same. Both ex VAT

Most of the other specs are the same except monthly transfer, higher on Letshost.

So what other variables should I be looking at.
Is uptime a consideration or are things stable everywhere?
Customer Support is probably an issue.

So really I'm just looking for opinions or suggestions.


Thanks again for any help.

joekelly123

Actually seen as I'm here, this is the site I've done
www.urbanainteriors.ie
Any idea how much you would charge in general for a site with this much content.

If you have the time to look


BTW its not complete yet still a bit of tidying up yo do.
Thanks

CoNfOuNd

Letshost.ie servers are located outside Ireland.

Check if each webhost has an uptime guarantee for resellers, and what their typical response time for support tickets is.

joekelly123

CoNfOuNd wrote: »

Letshost.ie servers are located outside Ireland.

Would location be a big consideration, apart from possible customer support issues what other factors would it affect?

CoNfOuNd

Both you and your clients should receive faster response times from servers that are located closer to you, so if the majority of your users are in Ireland, it's good to be using Irish servers. This is why multi-national companies will have servers located on every continent.

A ping response isn't the perfect guide but if you're in Ireland, I'd hope Irish servers will respond at least 4 times faster than US based servers.

Also I think Letshost use US datacenters, so I presume their own staff don't have any physical access on the ground to their servers since they are in a different country.

DJB

If you're hosting a .com in Ireland, google picks up the ip of the server you are on and indexes it in the google.ie result set. So if you are advertising to an irish market, hosting in a irish ip range is a good idea for seo.

Apart from price, the other major factor in your consideration should be up time and support. I believe that Blacknight have a first class service and are second to none on support. I've developed a good relationship with them over the past year or so and I've always found their staff helpful in sales/support issues. It's the friendly service with a smile and their proactive approach that makes them great. (I can see you laughing now michele!!!) Seriously though, they've helped me out with things outside support issues and are always contactable on mobile, msn, etc. should the need ever arise.

If you check out any of the previous posts on "who to host with" you'll always see them recommended!

I can't comment on letshost or spiral as I've never dealt with them. I also have a reseller account with hosting365 along with my dedicated with blacknight. I've hosted with H365 for about 5 years and it was great for most of it but in the past year, they had a couple of issues that knocked out their whole data centre for a good part of a day (on 2 separate occassions) and support isn't as helpful as it used to be. This is the problem with changing from a sapling business to an oak tree, and I think stephen would agree there. Saying that, their domain prices have dropped significantly lately, the service is quite good and the system (and control panel) they use is also good but I don't believe the support is as good as it used to be or as good as blacknights is currently!

Other than that I heard Digiweb were not great in the hosting market for a couple of years as they were concentrating on the whole broadband thing. However, I hear they've made some great improvements in the past year and service & support seem to be up. Don't know for sure as I don't deal direct with them but I hear things are much better over there.

Hope that helps as a review - just remember, price isn't the only factor in your decision but I think you know that already.

Rgds, Dave

DJB

joekelly123 wrote: »

Actually seen as I'm here, this is the site I've done
www.urbanainteriors.ie
Any idea how much you would charge in general for a site with this much content.

If you have the time to look


BTW its not complete yet still a bit of tidying up yo do.
Thanks

Every designer would have their different prices based on their level of skill, experience, costs, etc. Judging by the code behind things (table design) and the style of the site, I'm guessing you're only doing this a short while (I could be wrong and sorry if I am)... and I hope you don't think I'm being condescending? I've been there, bought the t-shirt and now I print them!

When I was at that level, I think I was in the 500-1500 mark for that type of site. I don't do flash though so not sure what you'd charge there. Did you make that flash yourself or is it an off the shelf thing?

What did you charge for it as a matter of interest?

joekelly123

Hi,

Thanks again for all your help.

Yeah I am new this is actually my first site, so I reckon its not too bad.

I had priced the job at around the €1000 mark but they keep adding features and extra stuff, so I'm now thinking around 1300-1400.
I reckon thats pretty fair.

The flash is http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/

I found it pretty good, there is a script for photoshop to automate the gallery building (only found that after a good few hours doing it manually, Sigh).

mneylon

If you're not sure who to opt for give each of us a call and see how helpful (or useless) our staff are (I'm about to board a flight to LA, so please don't ask for me by name!)

In terms of who to opt for...

Several of the largest Irish hosting providers run their own networks, own their own hardware and are members of Inex

steve-hosting36

I'd also add that maybe DJB should try our support again - our support teams are larger than probably any of our competitors entire head count (and then some) in hosting, and we strive to offering excellent support. (We're also the only onles offering true 24/7 livechat, email support and providing FreePhone support)./

DJB

Hi Steve! I did recently. I had to contact them recently about 1 or 2 domain issues and it still didn't feel up to scratch as it used to be in years gone by. I won't go into the details here but if you want I'll email you, for customer feedback if nothing else. As I mentioned, I think this comes with a growing business, once it goes to a certain stage that whole personal touch is lost! Pity - it'd be nice to have that personal touch from a large company.

Apart from that, the freephone support is a good idea and as I previously had to call a UK number for support, prior to moving to H365, it was an added bonus. I recently used the 24/7 live chat on a saturday which did come in handy. Although I have had support emails take 3/4 days to get a response in recent months.

I'm not mad on pointing out bad points too much. I do think the service and price is good overall but my point is that the level of support (and personal touch) that existed in your company up until 1/2 years ago, just isn't there any more. It's too automated and formal. It's something that comes with a growing business. This was the influencing factor in my recent purchasing decision for a dedicated server!

My recommendation to joe is that both H365 and Blacknight can provide a good service but that you are dealing with 2 totally different companies in terms of size - and this reflects in the attitude of the staff, organisational culture, etc. Steve - you've become the fasthosts of Ireland!!! Michele - I hope yee don't grow too big!

Ah, rant over! Rgds, Dave

p.s. I'll send that mail to you if you want Steve?

steve-hosting36

Hey Dave, would love the email, but don't ilke the fasthosts analogy

We are the only host giving 24/7 support to -all- customers, providing completely freephone phone support, and I do feel we are back at close to the 'personal' touch levels we were at a few years ago

Of course we're much bigger than anyone else in Ireland, but we're still relatively small (relative to the fasthosts of this world) and with our support volumes v's headcount, we can probably give a better experience than all but the very small (mom and pop) outfits.

As for delays, etc, the reason for the 24/7 livechat, and the phone, and my personal involvement on forums and blogs is that we are accessible. If things arent right or taking to long, and email/pm/chat will sort it instantly, any time of the day or night.

There is a reason we have nearly 100,000 domains hosted, and it's not because we deliver poor support experiences.

matt-dublin

joekelly123 wrote: »

Actually seen as I'm here, this is the site I've done
www.urbanainteriors.ie
Any idea how much you would charge in general for a site with this much content.

If you have the time to look


BTW its not complete yet still a bit of tidying up yo do.
Thanks

you need to validate all of you code!
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.urbanainteriors.ie/index.html

you need to do this for all of your pages.

your css is fine.

i would change your images so that they have border="0" in them

also on the specials page, change it so the width of the site is uniform with the rest of the site.

the gallerys you should try and incorporate into your main site, as when i clicked into them i felt i was being taken to a completly different site.

and as for stece-hosting...
ill vouch for there service, i've about 5 domains with them and their customer service is excellent, generally having issues i've had sorted in a very short time frame. I also haven't seen any down time yet!
Their packages are fairly good, and i think they give you the most space/transfer in ireland (correct me if im wrong).

I haven't built up to buying my reselling account yet (out of pure laziness!) but i do intend on doing it!

daymobrew

joekelly123 wrote: »

Actually seen as I'm here, this is the site I've done
www.urbanainteriors.ie
Any idea how much you would charge in general for a site with this much content.

If you have the time to look

Attached screenshot from Firefox 2.0.0.4 on Solaris. Are those vertical lines supposed to be on the left?
Note the misalignment just above the footer.

The big image on the Specials page messes up the centering. As you are using tables for layout you could break this into smaller images and text.

The content on the Care Tips page starts much lower down than other pages.

For SEO (and visitor bookmarks) it would be good to change the page title for each page e.g. "Care Tips - Urbana Interiors".

I like the crisp colouring.