Choosing a Web Host if You`re a Reseller - Fun with Features
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Let's start with the most obvious features: web space and bandwidth. How much of that are you getting, and for what price? That affects what kinds of packages you can create for people, and what you can charge. Keep in mind what I said in the previous section: biggest and cheapest isn't necessarily best. Consider what kinds of customers you plan to serve. Are they likely to need lots of space and huge amounts of bandwidth? Don't assume that just because they're hobbyists doesn't mean they won't have some pretty big needs in this department. Most podcasters are hobbyists, and they are notorious for eating bandwidth for breakfast.
Check out what other features your prospective web host provides. Remember, if your web host doesn't provide it, you can't provide it to your customers. Most of them will want to be able to have email addresses for their own domain--ones that don't include your domain or your host's domain. Other features you should look for are autoresponders and FTP access. If you're going to have clients that sell anything through their websites, ask your prospective web host about servers with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), MySQL, and shopping carts.
You will also want to know what kind of server the host is using (Microsoft, Unix, or open source operating system such as Linux). You or some of your clients might want to use server side scripts, and if you do not have this information you will not know what you can support. Remember, one way that many companies differentiate themselves is by how much they can offer their clients in the way of services; if this is the route you want to go with your reseller web hosting business, you need a web host who can help you with it.
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