Best Approach to Hosting Multiple Sites?

Need help with my hosting approach

[webman]

We had a power outage in San Francisco last nite that knocked out my webserver for over 12 hours. When I got it back up and running this morning, I noticed that one of my sites pagerank had gone to grey. So far, outside of one site, I've been virtual hosting all of my sites on one computer, and on one IP address.

After last nite's disaster, I have decided to migrate my more important sites to hosting companies. Given this background, I have the following questions that I'm hoping someone here can answer or at least give their opinion (I couldn't find these specific answers by searching previous forums):

1 - Does it make sense to use the same hosting company for all sites or is it better to diversify across hosting companies? It seems that hosting at the same company would be easier because you'd learn the interface and be more efficient. However, hosting at multiple domains would let you compare hosting companies, protect your sites from all going down at the same time, and diversify your IP addresses.

2 - If you host several domains at the same hosting company, can Google (or other SEs) tell if the IP addresses or the domains are related? If so, this would lend credibility to diversifying.

3 - Any recommendations for hosting? I've seen other people here like pair.com and westhost. I currently host one site at OLM.net and have been very pleased with the service, except for the length of the log files they keep (usually only 1-2 days) and the site reporting feature (doesn't have keyword stats). Anyway, because I paid for a year in advance I am only paying $10-11 per month, which is in my budget range.

Thanks in advance for any guidance or opinion anyone can offer!

[oilman]

I use pair specfically because they still hand out a new IP for each domain and you can host as many domains as you want on one account - I have 17 domains on one account and it costs me about $50 a month total. If the host is big enough they will have several c classes maybe even a b class or two. pair is hosting just over 140K sites right now - I'm not worried about google linking my sites together just because I have them all on pair.

I used to spread them around other servers but got tired of paying extra $$ as well as keeping track of it all.

[Slade]

A note on control panels...

Except where a company has had a custom product built for them(or by them), you will see some of the same management interfaces at very many hosts.

WHM/CPanel, Ensim, Cobalt RaQ, and others, are all very, very common.

Once you learn how to use one of those, you can pick up another host in a different datacenter with the same one with almost no learning curve.

[profitpuppy]

I have had the same questions myself. Currently, like oilman, just use one host which costs $25 per month for 20 domains and you can add domains at something like $0.5 per month per domain, plus you can add ips for a similar amount.

[Nick_W]

Mine are all on the same IP. I like the idea Oilman said about different IP's at the same host company. Off to check out Psir.....

Nick

[webman]

Thanks for the responses! I am going to check out Pair.

[webman]

I was checking out Pair and noticed that they call your domain a "virtual domain". Does this mean that you are automatically on a shared IP address? Does anyone know if you can purchase your own IP address?

[Nick_W]

From msg #2

I use pair specfically because they still hand out a new IP for each domain and you can host as many domains as you want on one account

I presume Oilmans correct but I didn't see anything on the site either?

Nick

[webman]

Nick, I emailed Pair with the question. I'll let you know what I hear back.

[oilman]

It's entirely possible that pair is doing shared IPs but scattering the sites in one account across several IPs. Like I said, I have 17 or so domains at pair and they all sit on different IPs - not a duplicate to be had in the bunch.

[webman]

oilman, Have you tried typing in a few of your IP addresses to see if they resolve to your sites? If they do resolve, wouldn't they have to be assigned only to you? If they don't resolve, they are likely virtualhosts.

[Nick_W]

Virtual host or not though, the point is that his sites are on different IP's. Sometimes pretty important ;)

Nick

[webman]

yes Nick, agreed that being on different IPs is very important. Probably even more important than having a unique IP. I'd still like to figure out if the IPs are unique though. :)

[oilman]

I've typed in the IPs (and use the IPs for setting up sites before I change the dns settings) and always get my sites. I'm inclined to believe the IPs are unique.

[sun818]

Last time I registered an account it was one IP pointing to a registered domain, or a www.pair.com/~youraccountname - And that IP was not shared with any other account by default.

[dvduval]

If money is an issue, there are certainly quite a few reseller programs out there that cost less and offer more space.

I have one account that I pay $20/month with 2 GB space and another that I pay $12/month with 1 GB of space. One of these even gives me 10 ips. The other charges $18/year per ip. Both of these accounts offer multiple domains.

[Napoleon]

I use a number of different hosts... but I guess it depends how sites you actually have. I just don't like single points of failure (I know - you could argue that Google is one now!).

I would certainly endorse Pair though. I host my most important sites there simply because they are so reliable.

[Quinn]

dvduval,

Would mind sticky mailing me a link to the host that provides this:

One of these even gives me 10 ips.
Thanks

[webman]

dvduval,

Would you stickymail me also? Or just post it in this thread if you can?

Thanks!

[webman]

Just heard back from Pair:

Turns out that each IP address for each virtual domain is unique. :o