webrampage

I’ve been noticing something for some time now. People rush to get a VPS or dedi once they get a bit of traffic. Now that’s not very smart. I’ll tell you why by listing the advantages of a shared host.

Advantages of shared hosting

• Everything comes installed. You’re good to go.
• There is tech support at no extra cost.
• Your life is a lot easier since it comes with something like cPanel.
• Everything is point-and-click. No SSH.
• You’re hosted on a (very) good server.
• Can handle traffic spikes well (most of the time).
• Noob-friendly (and sometimes even idiot-proof).
• A lot cheaper!

Disadvantages of a VPS/dedi

• Most of the time you need to install whatever you’ll need
• Tech support is optional. You’ll need to pay a few hundred dollars just for that.
• No cPanel, Plesk, etc. You’ll need to pay extra for that.
• You need to know how to use SSH (which is like the CMD for Linux).
• You get what you paid for. So, you need to pay a lot if you want a good server.
• Can it handle traffic spikes? Depends on the server specs.
• Not noob-friendly!
• Its expensive!

Okay there it is. You can now see how shared hosting makes your life easier. You should seriously stick to a shared host if you’re new to all this. VPS and dedis have their advantages, but they can be hard to handle.

But hey, you can’t even stay with a shared host forever. You need to upgrade once you get some pretty decent traffic. I would say around 2K-5K unique visitors per month. It depends actually. Depends on how much resources (ex: CPU, RAM, bandwidth, etc) you’re taking up. So, its not exact science.

Another tip, if you stick with a shared host then get a dedicated IP. And I made a list of 5 great shared hosting plans and a shared hosting checklist. Be sure to check them out and avoid oversellers!

Oh man my small VPS is getting raped by these traffic spikes. I need to upgrade or use caching plugins. Well I’ll figure something out. Okay so I was wondering the other day, how overselling started. Like how overselling grew and finally stopped at the unlimited space/bandwidth plans. I did some research and got the answers.

It looks like overselling started back in 2005. I couldn’t find out which company started it though. But, it did look like BlueHost started it all (damn you BlueHost!). Again this is might not be right. We’ll never know who came up with this “brilliant idea”.

2005

A few hosts (ex: BlueHost, PowWeb) are overselling the bandwidth, only. They’re overselling upto 100GB of bandwidth. Still not bad. Just trying to beat the competition (by lying a bit).

2006 (early)

Hosts aren’t happy. They want to oversell the bandwidth a bit more. On average its around 100GB to 300GB bandwidth. A few hosts (ex: BlueHost) are offering upto 15GB space though.

2006 (mid-late)

This is where it gets better. I mean for those greedy hosts. Bad for us, of course. Hosts such as PowWeb are offering upto 20GB of space and 400GB of bandwidth. PowWeb’s probably saying in your face, BlueHost! Oh wait. BlueHost is offering 50GB of space and 999GB of bandwidth.

Woah. Holy shit! DreamHost is offering 1TB of bandwidth. There we go. We’ve found our leader in bandwidth overselling.

2007

Okay here’s where we get our 100% oversold plans (aka the “modern overselling”). DreamHost is offering 200GB of space and 2TB of bandwidth (and so is HostGator). What are they thinking? We’re not complete idiots. Enough overselling!

Oh no. Its not enough. BlueHost wants to kick the competition’s ass by offering 300GB space and 3TB of bandwidth.

2008 (early)

Yay 2008! Everything’s pretty much the same as 2007 right now. Everyone is offering 300GB space and 3TB bandwidth. Now lets fast forward a few months. Hosts are offering 1500GB space and 15TB bandwidth. Which greedy bastard came up with this? I think it was PowWeb. There are no archives of 2008 on the Wayback Machine yet. But, I remember PowWeb offering it first.

A few hosts are offering unlimited space and bandwidth too (oh crap!).

2008 (mid)

This is where things get totally screwed. Now most of the oversellers (PowWeb, BlueHost, etc) are switching over to the unlimited plans. This is where we’re at, right now.

Who started it all?

Well to me it looks like BlueHost and PowWeb were the masterminds behind this. But, hey I didn’t go around checking every single host. I only checked the leading oversellers.

Over to you

I hope you guys learnt a bit on how overselling grew. This isn’t very accurate, but still, you get the idea. Well go ahead and drop a comment on what you think about overselling and if you have any idea where overselling really started from.

Don’t forget to subscribe via RSS or email, if you’ve enjoyed this. And lastly, I would like to say “thank you” to the hosts that completely destroyed changed the hosting industry with the idea of overselling.

There’s going to be some (semi) funny shit here. I’ll be going around, randomly talking with different hosts and see how they react to my questions and the things I say. Sounds awesome, huh? Yay! Lets do it!

BTW, these are real live chats. I didn’t modify them (except for taking out the unnecessary crap).

1. PowWeb

The hosting industry’s leading overseller with <sarcasm>a great support team</sarcasm> and the best sales reps (who can really lie). Take a look at the chat I had with their sales people (they know what they’re talking about).

Me: How can you provide unlimited space?
Virgil Shaw: It is decided by our Product Management team. <WTF?>
Me: No I mean. Its not possible for servers. There is a limit, right
Virgil Shaw: Yes, it is possible. <Woah breaking news!>
Me: Oh ok. Do you guys oversell?
Virgil Shaw: No. <How do they provide unlimited space then?>
Me: Oh ok. Do you guys suspend accounts for using too much space or having too many files?
Virgil Shaw: No.
Virgil Shaw: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Me: No. Thank you. You answered my questions. Powweb doesn’t oversell, your servers have unlimited space and you won’t suspend accounts.

Man these guys are great! They are the first host in the world to come up with servers that have unlimited space. Just amazing. How did they do that? Some kind of alien technology I guess (Area51 Sector-Powweb). They don’t even oversell. Well why would they need to oversell when their servers *really* have unlimited space.

2. BlueHost

Hmm BlueHost does not oversell. They have some crazy configuration on their server that allows them to provide unlimited space without overselling. How cool is that? They’ve also got a really courteous sales rep, Ann A. (she never closes the chat without asking if all questions were answered).

Me: How can you offer unlimited space?
Ann A.: Hi! We have several hard drives per server. the space is dynamically allocated between accounts. larger accounts share the server the server with less users than smaller accounts. <Oh really? Wow. So smart!>
Me: No I mean. Its not possible to give unlimited space. At least for $7
Me: Do you guys do overselling?
Ann A.: We are simply saying we won’t charge additional for extra bandwidth or storage used but it does have to be used in a responsible manner. We do not oversell. <Don’t lie to us! Frigin overseller!>
Me: Oh ok. So you do not oversell. Good to know that
Me: How much space and bandwidth falls under responsible manner? <An excellent question!>
Ann A.: Our cpu limit is 35% CPU for 30 seconds and we have a 20 concurrent process/connection limit. As long as the limits are not exceeded, there’s not limit for the amount of space and bandwith used. <Bit smarter than PowWeb’s rep.>
Me: Ok. Are you sure Bluehost doesnt oversell?
Ann A.: Yes, I’m sure.
Ann A.: Obviously, most customers do not come close to use the amount of space available. For those that do use the space available, they are moved to a server that is shared with less users, so the space that promised to them in their hosting package is available. <That IS overselling>
Me: Ok ok. So you guys don’t oversell <I smell a big fat lie>
Me: If we get closed because of using too much space. My friend will refer to you and take legal action against you, personally. <Lets freak her out>
Ann A.: ok, i understand. thank you! <How rude! Closed the chat right away. Nice sales rep, BlueHost>

These sales reps are awesome! Saying whatever they need to say to make you buy a hosting package. These guys are the teller marketers on the web. They lie just as much (maybe a bit more), they’re just as desperate, but they’re not as annoying as those teller marketers.

I hope you guys found it very educational. And don’t believe whatever those sales people tell you. You know why, right?

More like this coming up soon (that’s right!). And if you have anything like this then email me (I’ll credit you). Don’t forget to drop a comment and tell us what you thought of this.