A search for “web hosting” returns thousands of web hosting company results. But how many of them are really unique offers? Well, no. There are a few issues you have to be aware of when entering the jungle of web hosting…

Reseller accounts

Most mainstream web hosting companies offer reseller accounts. Reseller account means that anyone can resell these hosting plans under another brand name. What you get, is in effect, an instant web hosting company, but the technical support and infrastructure maintenance is provided by the company who is providing the reseller plan, but the first point of contact is the reseller.

To make reseller accounts more attractive, hosting companies give away templates and tools for resellers to create their own website. As a result, the reseller home pages often look the same, and often look exactly the same as the original hosting company’s page, with perhaps change of logo or colors.

Some resellers combine offers from different companies under their own brand, and may have a unique design, but plans are still the original offers of the companies the reseller is representing.

Working with a reseller may help you save money, but you need to know that they do not own the infrastructure; they are limited to what the seller provides and cannot provide customers with a better service than the original provider, merely the same service. If you suspect a web hosting company is a reseller, ask them or compare their listed offers to the offers we list on this site. If you find exactly the same services, they are very likely a reseller.

Mainstream hosting companies: different company, same owner

Different companies can belong to the group of companies or the same owner. They share the same data center, and very likely the same internal infrastructure: DNS server, firewalls, etc. Each company offers different plans at different prices.

If you are happy with the customer service offered by one of the providers in the group, you can switch to any plan under this group to better suit your needs, or to save money, knowing that the same team is behind it.

There is nothing wrong with this, but it is another aspect of the industry you should be aware of. If you are unhappy with the service of a particular host, moving to another host owned by the same group is not going to make you any happier.

Dedicated server split to shared plans

Selling shared hosting plans seems like an easy way to make a buck to some people. Buy or rent a dedicated server, install one of the many free software packages to split it into smaller parts, and flock them off to the public. This was very popular a few years back.

Good hosting experience requires 365/24/7 monitoring and a dedicated customer support team. These types of hosting companies seldom have the resources or the will to provide decent customer support. The industry is extremely competitive, and the margins are low. As a result, the hosts rely on a large volume of clients.

This type of substandard hosting may be cheaper, but it is certainly not the best way to go. Always check to see how long a hosting company has been in business. If they haven’t been in business very long, they may not provide a very good service.

There are many web hosting companies, but few of them manage their own infrastructure. Check carefully before switching hosting companies, you might actually end up changing to a reseller host with your original company!