Archive for the 'Multiple Domain Hosting' Category

Reasons For Using Multiple Domain Hosting

Multiple domain hosting refers to a form of web hosting that allows you to control several domains on one hosting account. Hosting multiple domains on a single hosting account allows you to save time and money, because instead of paying for multiple hosting services, you can have all of your hosting needs met by one company. Multiple domain hosting is also seen as a highly convenient option, as you can administer the services and features of each domain within one centralized control panel.

The Advantages of Multiple Domain Hosting

There are many benefits involved with using multiple domain hosting. The most notable advantage is that multiple domain hosting allows you to expand your web presence, thereby increasing your visibility allowing you to reach more clients with ease. With control over multiple domains, you have the ability to stretch your investments into multiple niches, thereby diversifying your income through various revenue streams.  When used in conjunction with the ever-expanding online arsenal of website applications and plugins, multiple domain hosting gives you the ultimate ability to express yourself, or your business, by creating blogs, photo galleries, forums, and even support sites. The sky is the limit with multiple domain hosting, as you are no longer restricted by the confines of a single web site. Multiple domain hosting captures the essence of what it means to be entrepreneurial.

The Value of Multiple Domain Hosting

Due to the large and varied number of companies offering multiple domain hosting, it is now very easy to find affordable deals on multiple domain hosting. In fact, even though you have control over multiple domains in one control panel, the prices are in the same area as other hosting packages. There may be a little extra cost involved, but it is well worth it to be able to expand your online business with multiple web sites. Keep in mind that choosing a reliable hosting company will ensure that your investment is worth every penny, even if it costs you a bit more than using a “cheaper” web hosting service. The old saying “you get what you pay for” is still valid, especially in the world of online business.

The Ease of Multiple Domain Hosting

While multiple domain hosting may cost a few extra dollars more per month, the domain names themselves are extremely easy to acquire, and they are also highly affordable. You can buy a $5 domain from a site like Godaddy, and then use this new domain with your multiple domain hosting package by pointing your site to your hosting provider’s servers. This is a very simple process that can be done with the help of the hosting company within your website’s control panel interface. After you’ve made the necessary changes and your new domains are active, you can log into your multiple domain hosting account and manage them as you see fit. Most web hosts will also offer the features needed to set up additional services such as FTP accounts, email accounts, subdirectories and databases for each individual domain.


Multiple Domains and Search Engines

There are several website owners who are making inappropriate use of multiple domain hosting.   Unfortunately for them, they are also crippling their very own search engine rankings by blatantly violating the guidelines established by the search engines that matter the most.  Site owners today choose to register multiple domains for various reasons, including the following:

- They want to secure a brand name or trademark from competitors.

- They want to expand their web presence across different niche markets.

- Domain names are incredibly affordable.

Some people also register more than one domain for misguided reasons, including the belief that pointing multiple domains to the same location will result in higher search engine rankings.  What many do not understand is that search engines despise duplicate content and the automated programs they send out to index your pages cannot determine whether you fall under the category of innocent and uninformed, or deliberate and blatantly manipulative.  Those websites that ride this line should expect to be treated equally and to your disadvantage, you can be heavily penalized or even banned from the search engines for not knowing right from wrong.

Understanding the Guidelines

As someone trying to promote a website, you should know that search engines do not openly publish their guidelines as they do not want to give away too much information.  However, there are a few rules that have been established which are directly related to multiple domains.  These guidelines are quite simple: do not try to manipulate the index through sneaky redirects and cloaking and do not create multiple pages or domains that contain overwhelming duplicate content.  So, what does this mean to you?  Well, it should at least you know that there are some notable disadvantages to having multiple domains, especially if you do not remain cautious of duplicate content.  Should you make the mistake of having the exact same content on multiple domains on the same server, you could be in serious violation of search engine guidelines.   When this occurs, it does not matter what your intentions were, because you could still find yourself banned from the index.  This not a great way to starting building your web presence at all.

Check Your Content

When it comes to questionable SEO practices, not knowing about the search engine guidelines is no excuse.  Sadly, an alarming number of web hosting firms and designers are not aware of how to properly use multiple domains.  This results in numerous website owners who unknowingly hinder their site’s ability to be indexed and placed in the rankings.  Our advice to anyone who has more than one domain is to investigate and find out how they have been set up.  If you have two similar but slightly different domains showing the same content, you could have a problem on your hands.  In the end, your quest to maintain visitors could prevent you from leveraging some of the most significant potential traffic of all – the millions of web surfers that find what they need via the search engines.


Multiple Domain Hosting for Niche Marketers

Online business owners who have a multitude of websites to accommodate their niches often run into problems with substantially high web hosting fees.  Whether you are paying on a monthly or yearly basis, the cost for hosting can add up pretty quickly when trying to run more than one website.  Fortunately, there is a solution that can help you dramatically reduce the costs.  By opting for multiple domain hosting, you can host all of your niche websites under a single account and literally save hundreds of dollars each year.

Multiple domain name hosting is not to be confused with domain forwarding, which lets you direct different domains to one particular website.  For example, let’s say you have a domain and create content for a website at yoursite.com.  You then purchase similar domains but instead, use extensions such as .net, .org and .biz.  Domain forwarding allows you to take these domains and point them to the original domain at yoursite.com.  This way, whenever some types in yoursite.net, yoursite.org or yoursite.biz, they are still taken to a location that displays the content from yoursite.com.  Multiple domain hosting does not operate in this fashion.  Instead of being forwarded or redirected to the same website, this type of arrangement allows you to have a number of different sites that contain their own specific content.

Multiple Domain Hosting in Action

As an example, let’s assume that you have targeted a total of five niches to make money online.  Your existing domain is myserversite.com, which you transfer to a provider that offers multiple domain hosting.  After uploading the content and composing your main website, you then add on the four additional domains to your account.  During this process, the system creates a folder for the add on domains, which will actually look a lot like sub-domains.  For instance, when adding mysoftware.com to your primary domain, the system might create a “software” folder, thus resulting in a sub-domain that reads something like mysoftware.myserversite.com.   The key factor to remember is that when a user types in the mysoftware.com URL, they will be taken to an entire website rather than a sub-domain.  In simple terms, these sub-domains end up taking the form of top level domains for your add on domains.

Maximizing the Potential of Multiple Domains

There are quite a few ways multiple domain hosting can help you save money apart from the obvious.   Aside from directly cutting the cost of web hosting by more than half, there is a wide variety of features and options that typically come included free in hosting packages that will ultimately allow you to save even more.  These offerings generally include powerful e-commerce tools, marketing services, free online advertising credits and pre-installed software scripts to name a few.  While these features have become standard on the market, they still are not guaranteed, so finding a host that bundles them in a multiple domain hosting plan could result in a steal for you.


How to Find the Best Multiple Domain Hosting Plan

If establishing your web presence calls for more than one website, multiple domain hosting is an option you need to consider.  As the title indicates, multiple domain hosting is a type of arrangement that permits you to run numerous domains from one account.  Though widespread now, this option was not always available as past times required that you obtain a separate account for each individual domain.  As you can imagine, this was rather costly, inconvenient and just plain inefficient.  The old way made it difficult for a webmaster to keep up with all of their sites while severely deducting from their bottom line.  These days, there are a large number of companies that offer the ultimate in convenience by allowing to maintain all your sites in an easy and efficient manner.

Storage and Activity

There are a number of obvious reasons to choose a plan that offers multiple domain hosting.  The key is knowing what to look for in a host.  One of the first features you need to consider is your options for disk space.  Since you will require a higher capacity to store the files for your websites, you may also be required to pay a little extra every month.  Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need a tremendous amount of storage to run multiple domains.  However, you don’t want to sell yourself short either.  If you only need a few small sites, a couple of gigs should suit you just fine.  On the other hand, if you intend on building large sites with a lot of files, high resolution photos and video, you will obviously require a greater capacity.

Bandwidth is another critical feature that must be taken into account.  If you feel that you will be generating a high volume of traffic amongst of your sites, or a have a need to incorporate streaming audio and video, you will need an adequate supply to make sure everything functions smoothly.  This is very critical as media files tend to eat up a lot of bandwidth.  When it comes to disk space and bandwidth, it is important to come up with some estimates in regard to how much you need.  Without enough space, you will not be able to store any files.  Once you exceed your bandwidth limits, your site will become completely inaccessible.  It is much better to have more than enough of both as this will provide your websites with the room they need to grow.

Easy Access and Control

As with any type of hosting plan, the control panel for a multiple domain solution should play a key role in your decision.  This piece of software is the central office for your web presence so having something that is functional and easy to use is very essential.  There are many types of control panels on the market, but applications like cPanel and Plesk are ideal for multiple domains because they make it simple to maintain all of your sites from a centralized area.

Conclusion

Finding a host that allows you to run multiple domains is rather standard these days.  What you have to do is find one that offers the features and can provide the level of reliability you need to keep each and every one of them up and running.


Popular Options for Hosting Multiple Domains

The low cost of domain name registration and web hosting services has made it very feasible to operate multiple websites.  Because there are actually a few ways to achieve this, it is important to make yourself familiar with each option as well as the benefits and drawbacks that come along with them.

Genuine Multiple Domain Hosting

When deciding to run multiple websites, the first determination that needs to be made is whether or not to do so with the same company.  Multiple domain hosting has become incredibly popular over the last few years and almost ever host you run across will offer this capability.  These are providers that allow you to host and administer several domains on a single account.  Many prefer this option for the simple fact that is both cost effective and less stressful from a management aspect.  Simply login into your control panel software and all of your domains can be managed from a centralized interface.

Growing with Your Current Host

If you already have a website and are content with the services provided by your current web host, you may want to consider purchasing additional accounts from them.  This makes a good option because it gives you the peace of mind of dealing with a web hosting provider you are familiar with.  In addition, companies that value their customers have been known to offer discounted prices for each additional account that is purchased from them.  On the flip side of the coin, going with a new host will give you the ability to evaluate and experience the services offered by other companies.  It will also allow you to have different IP addresses for each of your websites.

The Reseller Route

Another option you have for multiple domain hosting is signing up for a reseller account.  Because this type of hosting is designed for maintaining several websites under a single account, you typically get the assurance of a stable platform that won’t suffer from slow page loads and frequent server crashes.  Unfortunately, reseller hosting is traditionally more costly than conventional hosting and tends to come with less features.  So, if you don’t plan to resell hosting packages, this type of arrangement could actually be to your disadvantage.

Factors to Keep in Mind

Apart from signing up with different providers, these are mainly your options for multiple domain hosting.  Because purchasing a reseller account or separate accounts with different hosts can prove to be expensive, many opt for solutions that allow you to host a given amount of websites or unlimited domain hosting.  While there are benefits to such an arrangement, the drawbacks are quite unsettling.  If the server happens to go down, all of your websites will be down as well.  This could be equally damaging whether you are running a profitable e-commerce site or popular blog.  Because of this, it is critical to choose a hosting company that offers a reliable service and around the clock technical support.


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