Forum Moderators: phranque
I'm especially wondering about #4. If you get a dedicated server and put all your sites on one server, you may be spreading your self thin, because many believe that search engines often filter pagerank when multiple sites are on the same IP or C Class.
So how do you purchase your hosting when you have many sites?
1) Don't worry about #4
2) Buy a bunch of small accounts on many different hosts.
3) Something Else?
So how do you purchase your hosting when you have many sites?
A combination of several things can be considered.
1) Don't worry about #4
Careful planning and timing can get you different C-class IP addys on the same machine. That's a case of giving enough time for your host to run out of that C-class (256 IP addresses) before requesting more ;-)
2) Buy a bunch of small accounts on many different hosts.
Hosting is dirt cheap these days, I have several small "virtual" servers running for smaller sites with low-ish load.
3) Something Else?
I think your top 3 nailed it - those are definitely the main consideration. Different C-class IP's are nice, but not critical when you look at all other factors SE's take into consideration. If you plan on doing a lot of cross-linking, then it's obviously more important, in which case a number of small virtual servers on different hosts would probably fit the bill.
TJ
What if you bought a reseller package, and set up multiple sites under the reseller account? Do people do that?
Seems to me, you could re-size the accounts, so you can have a 5MB account for a mostly-text site, and shift the saved space to one of your more bulky sites. Or have all small sites (a megabyte will hold a lot of text), and plenty of them.
For $38.95 you could have all the sites you want, and sell off the extra space.
that's a common approach that many people, including myself, follow.
