Multiple Domain Hosting Explained!

If you are just starting out online to create your first website, you will probably find a shared web hosting provider to host your website. Shared hosting is the straightforward and economical hosting choice if you have only few websites. But as your online business grows, you will probably own many more websites now and need multiple separate web hosting accounts for each unique websites. You will soon realize that hosting each of these different websites of unique domain name on a separate hosting account could be very costly.

Suppose you own ten websites and each shared hosting account costs US$7.95 per month, your monthly hosting cost will be US$79.50. It is quite substantial if you are a small business owner. Is there a better way to save more money? Indeed, multiple domain hosting is the answer.

What is multiple domain hosting?

Typically, web hosting companies only allow one domain per hosting account. However, with the emergence of 'mini websites' trend where webmasters have possession of multiple websites, numerous web hosting providers are now offering multiple domain hosting where you can host multiple domains in a single web hosting account. In web hosting industry, hosting plan that sell multiple domains also commonly refer as "reseller hosting". But, keep in mind that multiple domain hosting is not the same as domain pointers or redirections.

With true multiple domain hosting, you simply add your multiple domains into one user account with each domain being independent from each other. Each domain has it's own control panel, FTP access, email accounts, CGI/Perl, SSI, PHP, website statistics and etc. It is just as if you had multiple separate hosting accounts.

In multiple domain hosting, you are allotted a specific amount of disk space and bandwidth. This web resource can then be divided among the individual domains accordingly. For example, if you are allowed to host up to five domains in a multiple domain hosting account with 4000 MB disk space and 100 GB bandwidth, you can choose to allocate 800 MB and 20 GB evenly among all the five domains. Alternatively, you can adjust the web resources according to the requirements of each website. The choice is entirely up to you!

The advantages of multiple domain hosting

Majority of web hosting providers offer discounts on the multiple domain hosting packages. Typically, the discount can vary from 10 to 15 percent. Therefore, it is far cheaper way of hosting multiple websites on a multiple domain hosting than purchasing a hosting account for each website. Moreover, you can manage all your domains with only single login and password. Besides, you can resell the extra domains to others to make a profit if you can't fully utilize all the resources in your multiple domain hosting account.

The disadvantages of multiple domain hosting

While you can save quite substantially by hosting multiple websites in a multiple domain hosting package, but hosting all websites on a single web server can proved to be very risky. As everyone will know, "Never put all your eggs in one basket". Even though web server rarely goes down, but all of your websites will be inaccessible if the web server experiences unforeseen downtimes. Therefore, it is very critical to find a highly reliable web hosting provider if you plan to sign up multiple domain hosting.

In summary, anyone owns multiple websites should consider multiple domain hosting as it is a more economical hosting option. Apart from that, as is the case for choosing any web hosting providers, you should pay close attention to the reliability and performance issues when choosing a web hosting service. Below is a short list of reputable and trustworthy multiple domain hosting providers that you can consider:

A beginner's guide to web hosting

Web hosting features explained

How to choose a right web hosting service?

How to select a web server and web server platform?

How to transfer your web site to a new web hosting service?

Should you choose free web page hosting?

How to create a website?

Multiple domain hosting - should you consider?

Back to Home Cheap Web Hosting