By Rodel Garcia
What is Reseller Web Hosting?
Reseller web hosting gives a company an opportunity topurchase large amounts of web space with the intention ofpackaging it for resale purposes. These web hosting plans, helpthe "reseller" to be a middle-man by allowing him/her to createand brand an image, find customers, and finally, host them onthe servers owned by the hosting company.
This business allows the reseller of web hosting tostrategically investigate market demands and creatively answervia competitive pricing and package content. Lastly, it ismutually beneficial to the web host, as their servers remainfull and profitable.
=| Advantages: |==
Besides the entrepreneurial aspects of being able to create abrand and have another company actually provide the web hostingservice, reseller hosting has some interesting advantages andfeatures including:
* Resellers possess the opportunity to offer other services, tobe used in conjunction with web hosting accounts. These includemerchant accounts, SSL Certificates, search engine optimization,and domain name registration, which all may provide additionalincome for the reseller. * Resellers can avoid the expensesinvolved in maintaining their own in-house web servers, mailservers, DNS servers, backup generators and other networkhardware and connections required to host Internet web sites *Resellers are able to respond to increasing numbers ofbusinesses and individuals that are migrating to the web. A richtarget demographic exists. * Resellers can purchase packagesbased on his/her sales forecasts for their use of hard diskspace, allowance of data transfer, and a variety of other add-onoptions. * Web hosting resellers can pursue scalability, wherepurchases from the web host will directly correlate to growth ofone's business. * Web hosting resellers can enjoy high profitscompared to initial investments. * Resellers are offered nicemulti-level graphical user interfaces that can automate theprocesses of managing domains and customers, which makes theprofession of reseller web hosting more enjoyable.
=| DisAdvantages: |==
Clearly, the benefits and advantages of reseller web hostingoutweigh the disadvantages. However, the major premise ofestablishing a business model surrounding another vendor'sservices may at times be a daunting task.
For example, proper research must be done while selecting areseller web hosting provider, especially if your brand andtotal business responsibility depend on a 99.99% uptime. Trueinvestigation should be done to ensure that the reseller webhosting company will be in business and will provide the levelof service that has been promised to a reseller's customer.
Furthermore, reseller features such as hard disk space and datatransfer allowance will need to be monitored so that if thesemetrics are exceeded, one can easily upgrade plans rather thanbe hit with hefty "ala carte" expenses associated with overagepenalties.
=| Benefits: |==
Reseller web hosting allows the major benefit of revenuestream generation for the companies who don't have the time,money, or resources to maintain their own servers and datacenters. Furthermore, it is a great business opportunity forthose who want to create a stand-alone business venture, or forthose with other parallel businesses who can take advantage ofthe chance to sell hosting with their services.
What is the best application of a reseller web hosting serviceprovider?
The major benefit of reseller hosting plans is that the reselleris allowed to purchase web space for a reduced cost. At thattime, the reseller can sell the web hosting plan and/or use someof the space for his/her own projects.
The best application and intentions are revenue-based andseveral schemes exist for this:
1. The reseller can create his or her own brand, market it, andsuccessfully sell and support the web hosting plans. Then thecustomer can contact the reseller for support. 2. The resellercan just act as an affiliate or an agent for the web hostingcompany. In this way, the reseller is minimizing liability ofservice provision, but still reaps benefits of revenue oncecustomers purchase. Customers would contact the original webhost for support and future plan modifications. 3. The resellercan be "hired" on as a proxy employee. In this model, thereseller can create accounts as an "employee" of the originalweb host.
=| How to decide: |== Generally, just as one would decide on anyother web hosting plan, there are some main concerns that exist.Possible resellers should always investigate concerns such as:
1. Having a large enough site and the ability to market throughvarious channels to justify the initial costs involved with thereseller packages. 2. The cost, as compared to other web spacevendors with similar plans and packages. 3. Security of Data andequipment of the company that the reseller purchases with. 4.High enough bandwidth for the number of sites and the types ofsites the reseller will support. 5. The level of knowledge andintegrity of the web hosting provider 6. The service levelagreements for technical support and hardware repairs from theweb hosting provider 7. The speed of the page downloads anduptime of the company's web pages.
Furthermore, because one is putting their name on the brand, itis imperative to further investigate hardware. Some of thefactors to consider are:
Brand: Brand names of hardware convey reputations forreliability and known support for hardware failures.
CPU's:The speed of the CPU's in the servers will directlycorrelate with the load speeds of customer websites.
Memory:The reseller web host should allow one to know that thevery important commodity of memory will be readily available, asan increased number of sites running various types of code andscripts may prove to be resource and memory intensive.
Mirrored Drives:To offer backups to potential customers, it isgood to further investigate backup options. To ensure dataredundancy, most hosts can offer drive mirroring, which willkeep a synchronized copy of all data for easy backups.
Features specific to reseller hosting can be numerous also.Generally, it is advantageous to look for a reseller plan thatoffers nice plans with value-driven offerings in disk space,bandwidth, and 24x7 support. One can also look for plans thatoffer free account setups with no contracts.
Other reseller specific perks to look for include:
Hosting ability:UNLIMITED site hosting will allow one to packagetheir web space any way that they choose for resale purposes.
Private name servers :further reinforces branding and makes youlook like a stand-alone network.
Administration software:This software allows the reseller todivide the web space into packages. On the end-user side, italso gives them administration rights to their website.
The benefits of reseller web hosting seem to far outweighthe disadvantages. With proper business planning, reseller webhosting seems to be a great addition to a company's products
Article Source: www.ArticlesBase.com
