[thelist] how do you manage lots of websites and where do you host?

[Maximillian Schwanekamp]

Theodore Serbinski wrote:
> Well guys, as my list of small part time clients grows, I'm battling a
> problem of hosting all of these sites in one place, with one login and
> not having to worry if the client has bought the hosting and received
> the login info or not. Right now I just tell them where to sign up so
> they can worry about the billing and I don't have to. Then they
> forward me the login in stuff and I setup everything for them. But
> then obviously this becomes a pain to actually administer with so many
> logins.
> One idea I've stumbled upon: http://www.site5.com/index.php

This is actually a fairly common offering, especially among cPanel-based 
hosts; it's usually called "add-on domains" or something similar.  Many 
hosts' upper-tier shared hosting include X add-on domains, with a small 
fee for each domain beyond the initial X.  Another good host that offers 
this is InMotionHosting.com, but there are scads out there.  With this 
setup you have one hosting account, with multiple sites.  The root of 
each website usually ends up something like:
/home/username/public_html/siteroot
And the whole thing can be administered from one cPanel login.  Maybe 
site5 is different, but AFAIK you have some limitations with this, as 
some control panel settings (e.g. Spam Assassin) apply across all 
domains within the account, and a security breach would be a breach of 
all client domains rather than just one.  If it's true that only you or 
your [future] staff would have admin access, this setup is convenient 
for multiple smaller sites.

If it's at all possible that your clients may get someone else to do 
webwork, you might want to look at leasing a server and offering 
webhosting.  I've been using a cPanel-based virtual server from 
ServInt.com, and the experience has been very good so far.  A virtual 
server is a good compromise between a multi-domain [reseller] account 
and a full server.  You get root and SSH access, so you have full 
control over all sites.  You have a control panel for all accounts (WHM 
in my case, with cPanel), and each account has their own cPanel account.

Some leased-server options include ServerBeach.com, HostGator.com, and 
ev1Servers (though my personal experience with ev1 was very bad), 
RackSpace.  Search the list archives.  And of course webhostingtalk.com 
as Mark mentioned, but IMHO the noise:signal ratio is a bit high there.

FWIW!
-- 
Max Schwanekamp
http://www.neptunewebworks.com/