Should I set up individual accounts for web sites or just subfolders?

have a reseller account, not sure what is the best organization structure

[roldar]

I have a reseller account with my webhost. I have a main domain name, and can set up addon domains below it (i.e. www.maindomain.com/secondarydomain would bring up the same page as www.secondarydomain.com). I don't like this simply because it seems cluttered to have these subfolders doubling as separate websites.

I have a dedicated IP address for my main domain. If I add the secondary domains as subfolders they'll share my dedicated IP [I think].

As a reseller I can create completely separate accounts, giving each domain its own cpanel. This means there will be separate log files for each domain name. I like the modular nature of this, but if I go this route my other domains won't share my dedicated IP address; they'll use a general one on the server.

So my question is, which way should I set up my structure? Is it dangerous to share a community IP address with potental spammers / google law breakers? Do I risk getting blacklisted for others' actions?

Is it a bad idea to have several web sites sharing the same log file as they would if I set up the subfolder structure? It seems like it would be difficult, but maybe there is an easy way to separate each site's logs?

I could purchase additional dedicated IP addresses for a few dollars each / month, but as minor as that is I'd rather not spend the money if there's no reason to.

Thanks!

[lZakl]

In my case, I set up a new account for every customer I get. I have PHP forms for them to upload & whatnot so I limit their access this way without revealing exactly who the host really is. Of course if they really wanted to know, they'd just do a whois and look for the nameservers. This gives me peace-of-mind though, knowing that even if they are some 'cracker' out to get into the folders above their 'home directory', I have more control with them on their own account, than if they were part of 'my' account. Also I hide the language type I am using, by having all my php pages labeled 'index.php' and put into their own sub-directory. This will also prevent some people mischievousness.

This way is also good as far as google. It's not going to look at "Jamies Custom Cakes" as part of "Dans Computer Service". A way to maybe get around this would be to use "Disallow" in your robots.txt file on the top directory (your account). That would stop the g-bot from reading your customers accounts as part of your site. If they want to get the g-bot to their site , I am pretty sure it can still be accessed via 'theirsite.com'.

Like I said before though, I just avoid this by getting each cust. their own account :0) Hope this helps you!

-- Zak