Pls help answer my questions Re: selecting web hosting provider

It really depends on what you are trying to accomplish. It sounds like your are starting out so one of the lower priced shared server plans should work for you. A shared hosting solution should be a good place to start with until you really learn and start having many sites to manage or sites with large traffic volume.

I personal like having my own server as there is no real limit to what I can do, but I am also very comfortable managing a server. However, I started with what is called a reseller account. Even though I did not resell websites I had the ability to add as many websites as I wanted for about $20 a month. I think some hosting companies now allow this even without a reseller account.

If you go with a provider that has cpanel it can be easier to move the websites, but moving email and databases can sometimes be tricky. I would not worry about that right now though as the reason you would hopefully be moving is because you are making money and have a lot of traffic you would hopefully be able to afford to pay someone that has experience moving sites. Moving the site to another server should not affect your SEO as you would still be use the same domain name.

The biggest thing to worry about is just getting started. Just find a company out there that provides a month to month low cost plan and start learning. To start it is not going to matter too much which hosting company you go with.

Having multiple ips comes into play when you have multiple sites that need security certificates for shopping carts or for some more advanced security between multiple sites and servers. It also helps when hosting your own DNS servers you need two DNS servers and each need their own ip address. Right now it sounds like you would not need this to start.

Geographic location can play a part in page load times, but not has much as how overloaded the server is and the actual bandwidth access the server has to the internet and how utilized the servers internet connection is.

Most of the time though any of the paid hosting companies are good enough to start with you just need to start and that is the only way you will truly learn. By going with a month to month plan you can check them out and it is not to hard to move a new site with no real traffic.

Do not try to over analyze things to much. It will never be perfect. You will run into problems and you most likely will stumble many many times before it starts to work. However, you have a better than average chance as you have found one of the best resources on internet marketing and everyone is extremely helpful.

I hope this helps and good luck.

Even I use HostGator for quite sometime and i am very happy with there services and features. I agree with Katie on using a known provider than a little not so knows.

May I ask you what motivated you to use a reseller hosting account as opposed to a standard plan?
I don't yet quite understand in which circumstances you would choose one. If it is to offer hosting plans under your account, then I wonder how successful such an activity would be, given that there are tens of thousands of hosting companies competing already.
Or is it indeed so that you can sell a successful website one day as a business in a box and therefore more easily transfer to the buyer (by hosting under your account with own cPanel)? Would the buyer in that scenario be able to move to a host of his own choice?

Thanks Sam, yes - I agree domain registration and hosting should be separate.