Unlimited Domain Hosting - Is It Really Unlimited?
Unlimited domain hosting is so popular now that it has practically become a staple of the industry for most hosting packages. For those intent on creating many websites this may seem like a great feature to have but there are a few things that need to be understood about how it really works before you launch into creating your web empire.
Unlimited domain hosting usually works by creating unlimited subdomains under one “parent” domain that you register your account with. If you registed your account with “domain1.com” then any other addon domains you have will actually be referenced as “domain2.domain1.com” and while you’ll still be able to access “domain2″ from “domain2.com”, you’ll also be able to access it from “domain2.domain1.com”. Also, your addon domains may be referenced from a directory within your public_html directory and if the root of your public_html directory is attached to “domain1.com”, then “domain2″ is also accessible from “domain1.com/domain2/”. This can become an issue for several reasons.
If you are an internet marketer or you simply have several websites that you do not want associated with one-another, it may be possible to type “site:domain1.com” into Google and have one of your competitors find out all of your subdomains and therefore all of your websites. Some web hosts will block this from happening but you should check with their support staff before you register. You could also register a “dummy” domain name that you do not intend to put a full website on and use htaccess and robots.txt in order to block robots from indexing the directory and block users from accessing it.
The only other way to absolutely block this possibility is to use a dedicated server for your hosting so that your add on domains are neither subdirectories of the domain you registered your hosting with, nor will the domain you registered with be assigned to the root of the public_html folder.
Although you may be able to ask your web host to assign a directory such as “public_html/domain1/” for the domain you registered with and combined with htaccess you could block the “domain1.com/domain2/” access. You wouldn’t be able to block the “domain2.domain1.com/” access with this method however.
The interactivity between your domains may not be an issue to you if you are not an internet marketer or have an interest in e-commerce but it is definitely worth looking into if either of these avenues are something you intend to pursue.
Reliable Web Hosting
Most web hosts will provide an uptime guarantees in the range of 99 to 100%, but how is this possible? Servers do crash at some point and packets are lost on occasion so how can you truly get 99% or 100% uptime?
While uptime may not be as important for personal homepages, e-commerce sites rely on their page being up 24/7 so that no sales are ever lost. Nothing is fool-proof but before signing up to a host there are a few features you should inquire into about the potential host:
- What type of UPS are they using?
- What type of backup generators are on site?
- Are the servers mirrored?
- How often are backups created?
Every host should have some combination of battery backed UPS systems and on-site generators in case of localized loss of electricity but it is good policy to see what you are risking thousands of dollars on.
Choosing a host with mirrored servers is your best possible option if you are worried about servers crashing and catastrophic loss of data. A mirrored server will always be running right along side the main server, ready to take over in the event of a halt or crash. An even better way to make sure of this would be to purchase a dedicated server plan that includes mirroring. This way you don’t have to worry about what -other- people are doing on the same server you use.
Finding the Best Hosting Service
Choosing the best web host amongst a sea of prices, packages and features can be dizzying. While prices is an obvious deciding factor when comparing web hosts, when browsing through features several aspects are universal:
- Disk Space - will your sites fit? how much can you expand?
- Bandwidth - will you safely stay within the limit when your site gets busy?
- Uptime - what kinds of guarantees does the host offer?
- Customer Service - if you call for help, will anyone answer?
Disk space and bandwidth are in high supply these days and many hosts reflect this by providing large supplies with their packages.
Uptime and customer service are big concerns so why not take care of both at once? Contact customer service (not the sales team!) and inquire about when they last had a server crash and how long it took to rectify the situation. Be sure to note if the response comes from customer service, tech support or sales.
How to Choose the Best Hosting Service for You
Choosing the best hosting service for your needs all depends on what type(s) of sites you intend to have:
Blogs: The main consideration for blogs is finding a host that provides proper scripts for hosting blogs, such as Wordpress. Most hosting providers will have these scripts. Blogs can be setup and maintained using very little diskspace so when considering how much bandwidth you need you will simply need to do a small calculation (visitors x disk space used) to determine if the bandwidth will meet your needs.
Content Sites: Content sites, like blogs, are not likely to take up very much disk space or get close to using up the maximum available traffic in most modern shared hosting packages. When looking for shared hosting for content sites your main considerations will usually by price and reliability.
Image Galleries: Image Gallery sites will likely require a large sum of disk space and bandwidth. Some hosting providers allow up to 15TB of traffic or even unlimited traffic. Although this may cause somewhat slower-than-average loading times at peak hours, these packages are likely ideal to avoid charges for going over bandwidth any given month.
Streaming Audio/Video: Streaming audio and video will require even more bandwidth than an image gallery. You need to take bandwidth into account in a big way. Depending on the formats you’re providing you may even need to think about using a dedicated server in order to ensure that you are not sharing a connection with other customers and therefore causing buffering delays that may lose potential viewers/listeners.