Web Hosting Recommended by Bloomingfun Tom

Since I'm responsible for hosting many of my website clients, and I like to try different products, I'm currently using two different webhosting services, StartLogic and Bluehost, and I am pleased to say I can recommend both to you. Both are easy to sign up for, easy to use, and inexpensive, reliably giving you tons of storage space and bandwidth, and multiple domain hosting. I prefer the control panel offered with StartLogic by a shade, and Startlogic now allows you ten domains hosted for the price of one, and 15 gigs of space! But the website you are looking at is in fact hosted on Bluehost. Though they "only" give you six domains and 10 gigs, Bluehost lets you have email accunts with each of your six domains, as well. Both hosting services also allow CGI scripts in Perl and PHP, multiple databases, and much more. Another service that I don't use, but which I've heard good things about online and from a friend who is also in the website business, is Lunar Pages, which isn't as generous in some respects, but which is JSP and ASP capable without getting into significantly higher pricing. So they are definitely worth mentioning here. If you have a busy website, their bandwidth alottment of 400 gigs is higher than most, and they are now also offering 10 domains hosted on one account.

Note: these are "affiliate" links, and I do get paid if you sign up after clicking them. Not everybody tells you that, however, and I've whittled down my recommendations to the services I actually use, plus one more that I also feel confident about recommending.

12/22/2005 - I am going to mention one more hosting company, Hostgator, which offers Unlimited Domain Hosting Only $9.95 a Month within the space and bandwidth alotted, which is still pretty generous. I frequently have reasons for adding more domains, like optimizing my URL for search engines, so I may try this service. They may be worth a look for those who want to cheaply host a large number of small to medium size websites. Upgrades are available if you go beyond your alottments, and email accounts may be created for all of your domains. I recently recommended Hostgator to a client of mine who phoned them up for advice after signing up for his account, and was pleasantly surprised to hear them offer to move his sites for him, saving him (and also me, as one of his webmasters) a fair amount of hassle and anxiety. They also mentioned that they are currently hosting some 20,000 websites, so this company is really taking off. I also judge Hostgator to be the most flexible for resellers.

1/06/2006 - You may also want to look at www.GoDaddy.com . They don't seem to be offering multiple domain hosting, but for just hosting one domain, their basic program is very cheap at $3.95/month, still offers 5 GB of space, and I believe them to be a reputable and reliable company. Also $1.99 domains with the purchase of hosting or other products. I won't make nearly as much money if you choose these guys, but I think I'd be remiss not to mention them.

Tip: The main difference between regular multiple domain hosting and reseller accounts is that reseller accounts include a separate "control panel" for administering each resold account. If you're webmastering all the websites you host, you may be able to save money by using multiple domain hosting without a more expensive reseller account. If you're clients want full control of their websites, you may want to become a bona fide reseller, which basically means you pay a little more so that you can sell your client a control panel and a full alottment of space and bandwidth. In my web hosting research, I discovered that Hostgator not only lets you brand the Control Panels with your logo, but also use your own DNS server name (e.g. ns.yourcompany.com) so that no one has to know you are a reseller.

If you found this page on domain names to be helpful, please

Tip: Many web hosting companies offer free set up and other discounts if you pay for the first year all at one time. Also check out my page on domain names.