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I’ve just used up a whole work morning in researching a larger hosting package. I already knew that most hosting is now done on Linux operating systems because they are much safer and free, so that the cost of hosting is just plumeting downward.

Matt Heaton, CEO of Bluehost.com says in his blog on http://mattheaton.com,;
“We build a new server for Bluehost customers about every 38 hours. That would end up being a LOT of money if we were paying for an operating system like windows on every box. The ONLY piece of software that we pay any money for in the running of Bluehost is the Cpanel licenses for out control panel. Everything else on our servers is 100% free and open source software.”

Ah-ha! That explains why some hosting companies can offer packages that seem almost too good to be true.

Some months back someone had mentioned on their site that they were moving to Site5.com, so I checked it out and was impressed. I bookmarked it. And I began to daydream about moving all my sites there, plus the ones I look after for non-profit missions. Right now that is a total of 7 sites, but could soon be more.

So the last three days I’ve given up some hours to just researching this matter. At first I thought a shared hosting package at Site5 would serve my purposes nicely, but as I read all over the site, I discovered that I wouldn’t be allowed to sub-let or re-sell spaces to other site owners, which I had hoped I could work into my dream deal.

Okay. I switched over to researching their reseller package. But it had to be paid a year in advance. A bit out of my reach at the moment, although I might handle it in another month or two. While googling for other hosts and resellers, I saw that Bluehost.com came highly recommended. I checked that out. They limited their shared package to 6 sites, and had no reseller deal.

When I searched for reseller hosting + unlimited sites, I began to see better deals price-wise. The best price so far is one in Toronto, Canada (hey, my own country!) and it is $3.99/month (or 43.89/yr) for 1 GB of space, Unlimited reseller sites allowed, That almost seems too good to be true! Which means now I must research this company very thoroughly to make sure I’m not making a rash move.

My time is up, but I want to say that if you are looking for hosting, do a thorough search and keep looking for another day or two. There are so many out there that it pays to be well informed. The features you want to make sure the company you do business with will have, are;
space offered in Gigabytes, instead of just megabytes.
Bandwidth in GB or even unlimited!
hosting is on Linux operating systems. RedHat is considered good, and CentOS, but there are many others.
Since they are practically offering this at no cost to themselves, low price is a consideration.
Maybe the determining factor is support. That is NOT equal in all places! Take time to correspond with their sales and support staff, and ask questions. See how fast they are, and how polite and knowledgeable they are. There will be days later when that will be most crucial to your web-mastering or reselling experiences. Believe me, I know whereof I speak!