why a reseller account can be better then a normal shared account

I have noticed that many times, people have a single cpanel account, when in fact they really should be making use of a reseller account. Partially due to the way that reseller accounts are promoted, it comes across as being only something for a reseller (and or someone going into the hosting business) would need or want. However this is not the case.

I have dealt with, dozens of buyers and sellers from the digital point marketplace, and I have a number of examples of how having dozens of sites on a single cpanel account is the wrong approach. I am not claiming to be an expert, I just want to give some basic advise that comes from a lot of issues that I have seen over time.

Couple of quick points as to why a reseller account is a good idea:

1. when selling a site, it is easier for both the buyer and seller to transfer the site if the site is on its own cpanel account → I have seen some buyers AND sellers struggle to move sites, but everything is just easier if the site is on its own cpanel account. For one, you can even let them have server access and host the site for xx days, (as opposed to “heres your files, GTFO”) and its even possible to transfer the cpanel account to the main host, and host with them (not with the reseller). Regardless, being able to give the buyer server access makes for a smoother transaction for all involved.
   
   
2. If you use a normal shared hosting account, then if one of your sites uses too many resources, it can risk your entire account being banned, in fact even if all your sites are low in resource usage, combined it might be too much → when you have a reseller account, individual accounts would be suspended, not your entire network.
   
   
3. If one of your sites is compromised, and its on its own cpanel account, it wont necessarily impact on all your other sites. Whereas without a reseller account, a compromised site could impact on all your other addon domains
4. if you need to hire a developer (or whatever) and you need to give them server access, you have given them access to everything! If this is your life, your income, that is a massive gamble! A reseller account allows you to have someone have access to a single cpanel account and not the entire network.
5. a single cpanel account with ALOT of sites, would have a large backup file. Downloading it, as well as uploading it, would be slow and clumsy. Whereas having a reseller account, would mean that your backup files would be smaller, easier to backup, and you can backup sites that are updated often daily, and your static sites weekly / monthly
6. under a normal shared account, if one of your sites has to be restored from a full cpanel backup, then as a rule you have to restore the entire account! sure it works..... kinda... but doing this just creates a mess.....

But the main thing that I really want to talk about is backups. Many hosts (I think for one, read hostgators, TOS) dont backup large accounts! This is NOT good. Of course, different hosts will have different policies, but this is a serious issue that many people dont even think about.
So let me give you a real life example of this, you can even look it up and read it on the WHT forums if you dont believe me.
The other day I was speaking with someone on the WHT forums. The story is that he lost all of his sites, just gone. Now he had a backup file, stored on his cpanel account, however, the hosting company had an issue, where all the data including his backup file was lost (like drive failure or something), and while the hosting company had a backup file, the backup file was found to be severely corrupted with the backup file being 1/5th of the actual size that it should have been! The guy himself had no local copy of his backup file.

Guess what. Someone who made a living from the internet, just lost their sites, their income their money their livelihood → dont let this happen to you!

Now please, I invite others to suggest their wisdom, however here is my advice for others in a situations such as this, (only for people who have *alot* and probly in the range of 5gb-10gb or more hdd consumption)

1. Take up a reseller account.
   Tip: Register the domain name for the reseller account as being “example.com”-> you dont need to assign a live working domain name for the reseller account itself
   
   
2. I dont necessarily create a new cpanel account for every site, group your sites on accounts based on how often they are updated. Like you might have a few sites that are updated maybe weekly (or monthly), you can group these on a single cpanel account and we will have that set to backup monthly. If you have a group of small sites that have content updated often, put them on one account so we can set them to backup daily. If you have sites that are over 500mb and growing, put them on their own cpanel accounts.

I realise that there are some people with over 100+ sites on a single cpanel account that are gonna think, “no way will I have 1 account for each site” and I agree. This is why I am advising to split some up, as well as grouping some sites together based on size, how often you need to backup and so on. I would definitely advise putting a site on its own cpanel account before flipping it.

Now how to backup your sites?
There are a few options. One, take cpanel backups manually. You can also use the software, whmeasybackup. Its simple and easy to install. Its run via cron. You can use it to backup your entire account automatically, you can use it to backup selected accounts, you could use it so some accounts are backed up daily / hourly, and still have your entire account backed up weekly.

Whmeasybackup is highly recommended, and if you wish to take a free trial of this software and see it in action, backing up from your server to a backup server, then please feel free to checkout: https://basicweb.com.au/cart.php?gid=3

summary.
Overall, I believe that many people would benefit from having a reseller account. Reseller accounts are not just for people planning on reselling, and they are often inexpensive in the $10-$15. While some reseller accounts cost alot as they come with whmcs (or other things needed for a webhosting startup) you wont be needing any of these as your only planning to host your own sites.

I do hope that I have given a few of you some ideas to think about.

 

Great stuff! Quality posts like this are pretty much non existent on this forum nowadays. With a reseller account you also get the benefit of analytics for each domain.

 

you mean hdd and bandwidth? (I didnt realist that I had overlooked that)

 

No I mean awstats or whatever website analytics the host is using.