I’ve been on the search for a web host. I’ve used Jetsoftdev/Devserve hosting for many years. It was a bit of a trade off, I’d help manage their server and get some free hosting as well. That worked great, but I honestly just got tired of having to manage the server so much. I went on the look out for a new webhost that was reasonably priced but loaded with features.
Specifically I needed multiple domain support. I want the ability to host several sites for the base price. Then, it had to be Windows based.
The journey was an interesting one, to give the short answer. JodoHost.com won. Godaddy, 1and1.com, and aplus.net lost. I’ll go over the reasons why below.
For all providers, lets assume the fact that we have three domains and one of those has to be your ‘primary’ domain.
Root: example.com
2nd Domain: example2.com
3rd Domain: example3.com
I started with APlus.net.
This exposed me to the first problem that many host share when it comes to hosting multiple .NET domains. I can’t speak for non-.NET sites as I don’t currently maintain any of those. But .NET is configured to operate within “Applications” and the problem shows up when the host is using some fancy URL Rewriting to make ‘multiple domains’ possible. When a .NET site has to search for its root directory, it will show it as it is setup in IIS.
The problem here is when your file structure looks like this:
web\example.com\
web\example.com\example2.com\
web\example.com\example3.com\
So the following URL’s would (or should) be valid:
http://example.com/
http://example.com/example2.com/
http://example.com/example3.com/
http://example2.com/
http://example3.com/
The problem arises though, in that http://example2.com will show up as: http://example2.com/example2.com/
In trying to get this issue resolved along with some email issues, I found Aplus.net’s support to really be lacking. Slow, to no reply.
Next I tried 1and1.com.
I found the exact problem as aplus.net with the multiple domains.
So I moved on pretty quickly as I had learned my lesson
They were, however, a bit slow to refund the initial fee that I paid to setup the service.
Next on the list was GoDaddy.com.
During my initial tryouts of GoDaddy.com I thought I had finally found my solution. Unfortunately, however, they turned out to have the same .NET problem with multiple sites.
I was a bit bummed.
Their support was two fold. It was always available, but at times kind of slow to react. Many times they told me to wait 24 hours for changes to take affect (server changes, not DNS changes). Then those changes would never take affect and they would have to reschedule the batch function to run and fix the issue, which could take another 24 hours. This is why it took me so long to realize they had the same .NET issue.
Finally I did some more searching, and found JodoHost.com
I took a look at some of their plans, and found that their Reseller Hosting plan was perfect for me. It was unlimited domains, 65 GB of traffic, etc.. Makes no sense to use their basic web hosting plans when their reseller hosting plans give you so much more. If you are looking for just a basic web host, then there are cheaper options out there. This, for me, was the best option I could find.
I’ll write a specific follow up post for JodoHost.com soon. I want to make sure the good and the bad is not lost in such a long post.