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Shared Hosting Scam Model - Request Number for Sustainable cPanel Hosting
MTUser2012
Member
Maybe I am just really slow, but I think I've identified a shared hosting scam that seems quite popular, probably because it works so well. Because of all the domains I own for SEO purposes, I am always looking for shared hosting accounts. I like to have one domain per account, not 20 domains in one reseller package. I prefer to buy cPanel accounts, but will purchase DA if the price is right.
I've been burned quite a few times with new hosts on WHT that offer yearly pricing and then disappear around the 7 month mark so you can't file a claim with PP. I beginning to suspect that there is one two operators (unknown) who just repeat this model continually. One hallmark of this scam model is cheap prices. $6 a year is just too low for a sustainable cPanel operation after the cPanel price increase.
I do recall from my time here all the talk around "summer hosts" and "kiddie hosts" meaning high school kids starting hosting companies during the summer, and how a lot of these fail at the end of the summer etc. But, those efforts don't seem deliberate scams, just people without experience making mistakes.
Also, I am not talking about the systemic scams for brands advertised on LEB owned by a single scammer featuring CC servers. I've lost a few dollars to those, but learned my lesson quickly.
Providers here, what is a reasonable, sustainable price of small accounts, 1GB of space, one domain? I see a lot of offerings in the $12 to $18 a year range that seem to work. Of course I see loads of offers for $24 to $36 a year, but I don't usually buy these ones.
I'd like to incorporate provider wisdom into my purchases going forward where I would not purchase accounts below a certain price.
Comments
12$ and above is a good sign (to me at least) lower than that and its asking for troubles.
I'm not a provider here but.... my two cents for what its worth
The pricing is going to depend on the providers costs but
Let's say a dedicated server costs you $100 (cheap dedicated server) per month plus $40 (ive seen them for more and ive seen them for less) for cpanel so your instant costs are over $140 per month
Now you need to fit 100 accounts at $14 per month... which is never going to happen so you fit 1000 at $14 per year
Which is all good and well but servers have limits and the disk space for those 1000 accounts is going to need to be 2gb+ (meaning 2tb of storage if you don't oversell)
From my experience all providers oversell slightly but the cheaper end tend to need to oversell more in order to make the numbers add up and it only takes 1 irksome person who uses all the resources allocated and more to cause major issues
So generally after all of that... if there offering :
-unlimited
-massive amounts of resources for not alot of money
-seem too good to be true
Then run a mile away
I always ask questions of support and pre-sales before I sign up for any service for any period of time... gives a good indication of who I'm going to be dealing with and what the company is like (ive asked pre-sales questions like how long have you been in business? Etc etc)
Chip
I have ~30 accounts across providers, all $10 or below. I've only been "burnt" by one host, (tetahost) and I still got a pro-rata refund out of that via a PP dispute. edit: also dochost who mis-sold the account and then refused a refund
I'm constantly on the look out for new accounts but it's pretty hard to find them at less than $10 in my experience. I do avoid hosts completely though if they are not using blesta or whmcs and have not had a forum account for at least a year.
On here, I would recommend smallweb, webhorizon and mikept
Littlecreek hosting is good provider.
This seems expensive.
Why not:
Spreading your stuff over many hosts increases hassle...not sure it really buys you the resilience you seek.
or for the truly paranoid - get 2 hosts and have one as a hot standby and have all of your dns in cloudflare so you can switch it over quickly
he did say in his original post: SEO purposes
Ah, the dark arts.
I too have such "essay" or "assignment" clients who mainly use it for SEO purpose. They are my valuable Int'l clients and they regularly pay the invoices on time.
No headache so far..
A decent shared hosting server with recent hardware and a fleet of useful software would at least cost 2 to 3 times of that.
I would say, it would be around $15 - $20 for cPanel based hosting after the 2021 price hike.
For DA, it would be ~$14, depending on the provider.
Yes I know thats why I said cheap dedicated server.... old hardware etc
Which isn't ideal but I'm sure there are hosts using this hardware (infact im certain there are)
Chip
If you're not paying at least $5/mo, have a dedicated IP and have access to support over chat or phone, you shouldn't be running business essential services on it. Period.
I do not think hardware cost would drive down the service cost significantly. Perhaps $1 - $3 per year max.