hosting: addon vs. new account ??

[awaxler]

I have a hosting account with bluehost and have been very happy. They have a similar package that many other hosting companies offer...basically unlimited domains, unlimited space etc.

I am about to start a new website which will be a classfieds site for a particular niche. Customers will post their ads with pictures, upload videos, possibly have their own storefront etc.

My question is...is there any disadvantages to adding this site as an addon to my already exisitng account? Maybe a disadvantage in terms of seo? Also, when these hosting companies say "unlimited space" is it really unlimited...how can that be?

Thanks,
Adam

[Chris_Willow]

Even if you purchased another account, the main network address would still be the same. This is true for most hosting companies and even between different ones because they store their servers on the same server farm.
But if you're not planning to build a huge website army all linked together, then it should be cool by just adding an addon domain.

Chris

[scorpio9]

There is a limit to everything!, what they are doing is overselling. basically what that means is, say they have a 100GB hard drive just to keep it simple; they will sell that hard drive space to three users at 50GB each, straight away you can see that the figures don't add up (3x50=150GB)

What the hosting providers already know is that 2 of the 3 user will probably never use all 50GB, at lease not for a long time, so even if user no. 3 uses his full 50GB there still a bit of slack from the unused space from the other 2 users, the ISP have oversold the hard disc space, they do the same with most of their resources.

Generally it not a problem unless the 3 users in this example are really greedy and all want to use their allotted 50GB, then the ISP have a problem!

When they say unlimited it means they know no-one will ever get to that stage. Often you will find a "reasonable useage" policy/clause in their TOS and that could be used if they think you are using too much resources. So no; unlimited does not really exist with these guys

I should point out that some ISP never oversell, the good ones.

unless you are planning to link your sites together then the addon domain should be OK, I know some people say addon domains are not good for SEO but others will also tell you different.

scorpio9

[Stangracer]

I started off with a hosting account like that from Hostgator. I really didn't like the add-on domain concept. This was not a scientific test, but it seemed like when Google would come to the add-on domain it would go over the main domain as well.

I really didn't like that.

So I went ahead and got a reseller account and moved my sites over to it.

This allows you to make a new cpanel for each domain and control the resources such a web space and traffic to each site.

The cost is low and you can upgrade your reseller account as you need more space or traffic.

I have several domains and this allows me to treat each one as an individual site, because they are.

I use XsitePro V2 for all of my websites and my FTP client is setup for each site so the management is centralized and easy.

There are some other benefits as well, say you decide to start flipping sites, you can offer hosting with the site as well and it is on its own individual cpanel for the customer.

The unlimited space does have a limit, and that is the disk space that is available which can be quite substantial using Network Attached Storage or a Storage Area Network. They use the unlimited space for marketing, knowing that the vast majority of users will not use a ton of disk space, this is a numbers game, much like Internet Marketing is a numbers game.

These servers are shared, so there are many web sites on each server.

There is nothing wrong with using the existing account.

If you are going to be doing more and more websites you might consider a reseller account so you can give each domain it's own cpanel and dedicated resources in which you control.

Good Luck.

[Stangracer]

Thanks...

I went ahead and switched to a reseller account so each domain has a cpanel account now.

Solved my issue and allows for expanding my marketing. Keeps things nice and tidy too.

I appreciate the help...

[wanrenqingkong]

what scorpio9 said is right"There is a limit to everything!"
It is related to logic concern, you would keep away from business if you genuinely think there is a company which can supply unlimited disk space.

I currently host with webhost4life, which is supplying unlimited disk space with fast speed, but, of course, as I said above, I know it's impossible to get unlimited space. And they have stated in their TOS that they do not allow for taking the hosting space as storage, such as uploading mass files, audios or vedios for storage purpose. Without doing so, I don't think whose website can use out of tens of GB space.

And I can add unlimited domain names(which pointing to different subfolders, equal to different websites), so there is no need to worry about disk space at all as long as I do not upload files for storage purpose.

And another important thing is that bandwidth is unlimited, no bother to purchase extra bandwidth.

So I think you can read through their TOS, if they promise you the disk space is unlimited under any circumstances, but there is limit when you upload mass files, you can sue them.

[awaxler]

Thank you for your responses...

After speaking with my hosting company and the maker of the script I am using I think I will start with the addon account for now.

Thanks again...

[Lloyd Buchinski]

I have followed a lot of threads on "add on domains" for years and
they didn't come to a conclusion. I searched Wikipedia a few years
ago and they just had a very short post that said practically nothing.
I just checked them again and there is no entry at all for the term.

I have read that add on domains in the DirectAdmin control panel
don't suffer like those in cpanel, but that was in a DA forum so it
might have been biased.

[Caroline Middlebrook]

I use Bluehost too and I use addons for lots of niche sites etc. I'm not an expert on SEO so I don't know the full implications but I have certainly not run into any problems as a result of using addon domains, at least none that I know of!

Caroline