I am looking for a web host that will meet the following criteria:

- 4 Years in hosting business
- Has corporate funding
- has own data centers
- can purhase in 10 to 15 domain increments with price around $ 15
- does not offer unlimited domains
- does not offer unlmiited bandwidth
- master reseller account must have the ability to create a subaccount
which in turn can create its own domains subject to limitation by the
master account
- pop3 and a good web based email
- no setup fee
- if possible offers anonymous technical support
- phone support a plus

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Request for Question Clarification by funkywizard-ga on 04 Nov 2002 15:57 PST

if you have enough customers that would offset the cost of co-locating
a server, this would provideo you with a maximum of flexibility,
though it would cost at least $200 a month. With a co-located server,
you pay for the space your server takes up in a datacenter, along with
the amount of data transfer you use. Anything you put on the server
(including as many domains as you want) is totally up to you.

Note: I am posting this as a request for clarification because I get
an error when I attempt to post as a comment. I am not actually asking
for clarification.

Hi Dotcomguy,

I believe I have two option for you that will give you over 90% 
of what you asked for.  The one thing both are missing, at these
prices, is corporate funding. And, frankly, the companies with all
the venture capital behind them seem to be more in the selling 
stock business than caring about customers business.

I suggest that 'talk' to the owners of both of these businesses.
You'll be able to get hosting, bandwidth, real reliability,
well over 4 years exerience for each of them, and very high
recommendations from the people that use each of them.
Pay no attention if their 'product' offerings do not have the
structure or pricing you want. With privately owned companies
like this, you can structure things exactly the way you need them.

They both offer reseller set-ups, so you can do it transparently.
They both offer domain registrations, but I think I have another,
cheaper, option for you, in that arena. They both maintain limits
on sites on their servers - and kick off anyone disruptive.

Take a look at Rob Marlbrough, Jr.'s Webwizards.net
http://www.webwizards.net/order/
http://www.webwizards.net/order/
This $18/mo account is just an example of what is available.
You can contact him to make arrangements for a site/server.
(Or, just sign up for the $18/mo account and pay
$8/mo for each additional site...) He also has an 
affiliate program if you want to go that way and
not take responsibility for reselling.

Or private labelled brandable reseller accounts are also 
now available.  Your customers won't see hs company name 
or logo, they'll see yours!  Includes use of his billing 
and trouble ticket system.  

He is just putting on 24/7 live, email support staff.
Quick online, e-mail and humanclick-type support.
(If you're doing volume, you may be able to finagle a 
support phone number.) 

I've had my sites hosted with him for years and have
been most happy.  He's just upgraded all the service
and the servers  and I will be moving my sites to his
new servers by January. (And he is always open to good
advice.)

WebMail, control panel, decent site stats,

Domains at $15

2)My web designer has been using  http://venturesonline.com/  
as her host and for her clients. Pat Fread has some excellent 
packages for you to have your private, virtual servers
http://venturesonline.com/hosting/vps.html

Small set-up fee (but anything can be waived if you contact
them directly). They have live 24/7 online support staff.
As a reseller, you could have access to the phone number.
http://venturesonline.com/support/ded-support.html

My designer is so enthused about them, that, since I need 
to start taking several of my domains live, I was considering
this company for all my sites. (Then Rob told me about his new 
servers yesterday. Being my first choice, I'll stay with him.)


They also offer branded reselling options and an affiliate program

Domains at $15

--------

Resell domains only - http://www.directihosting.com
You can be a branded reseller and sell domains for 
whatever price you like, but pay as little as $6.49 each

I do hope this gives you what you need.

These are both long-term, solid companies who understand the
business - and are not planning to sell out and change service
and terms on you like Virtualis and others have done.

Your TaxMama-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by dotcomguy-ga on 07 Nov 2002 03:18 PST

Hi taxmama,

The companies you mentioned are indeed credible enough, they have been
in the hosting business for years. But both doesn't seem to fit my
specifications. I guess you might have misinterpreted me about the 10
domains I mentioned. I'm actually talking about multi-domain hosting
not domain name registrations. So, i'll start with webwizards, i
checked the site and it doesn't offer multi-domains. Venturesonline (i
know them months ago) came close, but it offers unlimited domains
contrary to my specs. Thats why on their lowest reseller package, they
charge you $35 already, not very good for startup resellers. Let me
also clarify about the master reseller account im looking for. This
master account should be able to create a sub account, specify disk
quota, no. of email accounts, bandwidth and no. of domains the 
sub-account is able to create. About directi (knew them already), i'm
not really asking for a domain reg company. This is about
multi-domains alone. BTW, I know directi is quite cheap, but ive heard
that their unstable technically. Enom, still stands.

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Clarification of Answer by taxmama-ga on 07 Nov 2002 09:47 PST

Sorry - I dropped my clarification under the comment button...

Hi dotcomguy, 
 
I understand it sometimes looks tough to get what you want. 
 
That's why I suggest that you bypass the descriptions up on the site. 
 
Last summer,my designer and I were talking about 'buying' our own  
virtual server, using it for her sites and mine, and reselling the  
rest of the space.  She spoke directly to Pat at Venturesonline.  
Pat was just starting to set up that service for some of her customers. 
That's why I suggest that you go directly to her, rather than just fill 
in an order on the site. 720-279-2011 (the phone number on the website)  
 
 
Rob is also just setting up that service. Before you move on, contact 
him and see what you can work out. mailto:support@webwizards.net 
 
You should be able to use  
 
a) multiple domains for your own businesses AND 
b) multiple domains to resell and control AND 
c) be able to control the file/transfer sizes, e-mail accounts, etc. 
 
Talk to them, then get back to me.  
If they can't help you, I'll ask my readers. 
Many of them are also major hosting providers. 
 
Your TaxMama-ga

Many of your requirements are not the type a webhost would generally
"advertise" since the majority of people wouldn't be interested.
However I did find one that meets many criteria:

http://www.westhost.com/

I have had personal experience with them for many years with several
of my hosted web sites.  They offer a reseller package worth taking a
look at. They also meet many of your requirements. Phone support is
not available but in my experience, 9 times out of 10 they respond to
e-mails within an hour or two.

I'm am very wary of hosting companies nowadays. Thats why i need a
company with solid background. Well the company u refered is credible
indeed but it offers discounted pricing not multi domains. What i'm
looking for actually is a host that can offer me multi domains in one
account. I have done my own research, and found out lots of hosts do
offer these but im doubtful about their profile, thats why i post
here, to get only reliable hosting companies.

I know what you mean about be wary, I have used
http://www.vnocspace.com
They have everything I need and more. They are customer focused and
have over 4K customers.

i've checked vnocspace, they are not popular. I've search hosting
discussion forums, and no mention about them. A google search gives 4
links. Definitely I will not go for this host. I have no references
about them. This is scary.

First of all, "No Unlimited Bandwidth" is reasonable criteria, but I'm
ignoring the "No Unlimited Domains" criteria for the following
reccomendation simply because the following service includes your own
DNS service. (Limiting domains on your own DNS is like limiting the
number of pages your webserver can host.)

Personally, I use http://www.mchost.com for these services. They
service only Private Label Resellers, and in my opinion, are the best
I've seen at it.

It starts at $35/month for 1 GB of space and 18 GB of bandwidth. Goes
up to $100/month for 52 GB of transfers. http://www.mchost.com/plans/

As far as domain creation goes, the reseller account (you) can create
a client account (your customer) that can create subdomains
(http://sub.domain.com) and the like, but new individual domain names
must be set up by the reseller, because only the resller has access to
the DNS and the ability to make those major adjustments on the server.

As far as the client accounts go, each one has CPanel access and all
the junk that comes with it. Stats, web-mail, spam filtering options,
file manager, stuff to insatll forums and other cgi scripts, and a
whole bunch of other stuff that I don't bother using. SSH terminal and
file transfer are supported, which is a big plus for me.

Here's their data canter tour: http://www.mchost.com/network/

Annonymous tech support.... Though it's more "public tech support" and
a place to discuss homemade scripts and how to do other webby stuff,
they have their own mostly-public forums. http://forums.mchost.com/

The only downside (for me) is that you will not have direct access to
apache config files, but if you really need something changed in there
(such as a mod_rewrite directive or an indexing option), they'll see
to it.

Anyway, I've been using them for quite a while now, and have been
happy with the results so far. I've been through a number of hosts for
my small commercial clients over the years, and these guys are, by
far, the best I've ever seen. VServers was once quite good.... but
then HostPro bought them out. Then Interland bought them out. And
Interland is horrible. Maybe even evil.... Anyway, speaking from
experience, I doubt you'll find anyone better ;)

-rahga(.com)

Hi dotcomguy,

I understand it sometimes looks tough to get what you want.

That's why I suggest that you bypass the descriptions up on the site.

Last summer,my designer and I were talking about 'buying' our own 
virtual server, using it for her sites and mine, and reselling the 
rest of the space.  She spoke directly to Pat at Venturesonline. 
Pat was just starting to set up that service for some of her customers.
That's why I suggest that you go directly to her, rather than just fill
in an order on the site. 720-279-2011 (the phone number on the website) 


Rob is also just setting up that service. Before you move on, contact
him and see what you can work out. mailto:support@webwizards.net

You should be able to use 

a) multiple domains for your own businesses AND
b) multiple domains to resell and control AND
c) be able to control the file/transfer sizes, e-mail accounts, etc.

Talk to them, then get back to me. 
If they can't help you, I'll ask my readers.
Many of them are also major hosting providers.

Your TaxMama-ga