Add-on Domains

What is an add-on domain?
Add-on Domains are a a separate web site stored in the same hosting package.
Some hosts offer unlimited domains, but they actually provide you with the ability to define add-on domains under your existing account, rather than having multiple hosting accounts.


The difference between domains and add-on domains, is that regular domains have their own control panel, allocated space and bandwidth, and an FTP account with a separate directory.
Add-on domains on the other hand, share the same directory as the primary domain and are accessible by the same FTP account.
The bandwidth and disk usage statistics are merged with those of the primary domain (so you will not be able to tell which domain is using more bandwidth at a given time using the control panel statistics, for example).

Why it’s important?
If you plan to own more websites in the future, add-on domains may be an economical solution for you, because this way you can host your second and third website under the same hosting account without purchasing a new one.

Host server hardware and response time

Why it’s important
Hosts with outdated server hardware are more likely to handle HTTP requests poorly. This comes into play when there are many visitors surfing your site at once, or worse, many visitors at someone else’s site, which is hosted on the same server as yours.
The result is a major slow down or even server disconnections, and a bad user experience for your visitors.

A good response time depends not only in the server hardware but also in how organized the network is structured and how experienced the host provider is in avoiding bottlenecks.
For example, the host can decide how many simultaneous connection are allowed from a given ip, in order to avoid spammers and keep the server more secure.

How to check
Not many web hosts specify the hardware of their shared hosting servers so you just need to ask them about it.
Like in uptime testing, to retrieve realistic and accurate statistics on your host’s server response time, you will need to to sign up for a trial period with the host, and test it for the entire time using an online response time monitoring tool such as Hyperspin

Summary

This three part article was not meant to gather all aspects of web hosting nor to details all the considerations in choosing one.
I picked selected considerations that some website owners tend to neglect when deciding to go with a host.

To conclude, don’t let the flashy “unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited domains – all in 4.99$ per month” prevent you from asking some important questions before purchasing your next hosting package.

What experience do you have with web hosts?
Is there something important I’m missing here? Tell me about it!

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