Reseller hosting essentially means that an individual can use the disk space and bandwidth he acquires from a web host to facilitate hosting websites owned by others – basically acting as a webhosting service himself. In essence, the individual (or the reseller) is buying his web hosting on a wholesale basis, and then selling on to other users to make a profit, much like a shopkeeper does. As soon as any deal has been completed by a third party and the reseller for web hosting needs, a portion of the reseller’s web space and bandwidth from the web hosting provider will be allocated to the third party.
The reseller would then initially have a choice of whether to “rent” a server for the web hosting company, after which he will be able to operate from a dedicated server, or resell hosting plans from his own shared hosting account. With the second option the reseller will actually find himself in a position to negotiate or “barter” with his prospective clients over disk space, bandwidth, pricing, etc, in essence setting out his own stall irrespective of the web hosting company itself.
As a general rule of thumb, reseller web hosting is a process carried out by web developers and web designers as a means to start out in the web hosting arm of the industry without having to actually outlay a large sum of money to do so. It is essentially a very cost effective way of “dipping ones feet” into the waters that are the web hosting world. This is especially helpful as most of the reselling plans offered today, especially those offered by the major players in the industry, allow resellers to set their own plans, prices, space, etc, meaning they can act independently while trying to figure out the best (and obviously most profitable) route to take.
One of the great advantages of setting up a reseller account is the fact that the reseller does not actually need to know too much about the ins and outs of web hosting. All the hardware maintenance and network infrastructure is normally carried out by the web hosting service and their data operators, whereas the reseller is normal charged with security and configuration; especially true when it comes to dedicated server use. Apart from that, the whole procedure is a relatively simple one, with step by step instructions usually offered to make the process of reselling as painless as possible.
At the back end, resellers normally have the option of creating and hence maintaining their client accounts and database via a helpful web like interface. There are a few different interfaces that a reseller may find on their account, and it all depends upon the system that is used by the web hosting company. Some of these interface software systems include cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, ehcp, H-Sphere, ISPConfig, Lxadmin, Virtualmin and Webmin. Each one has their own quirks but on the whole are simple to use and easy to maintain.
