The first web hosting plan I ever bought back in 1997 was $40/month for only 100 megabytes of disk space. Back then it was a luxury to have your own domain, especially for internet marketers. There was no such thing as hosting multiple domain names on a single web hosting account.
Fast forward to today and I now pay only $1.30/month for unlimited disk space and I can host multiple domains on one account. Cheap web hosting has become very competitive over the years. But is it wise to host all of your domains on one web hosting account? Let’s find out.
Advantages:
Multi-domain hosting gives the web hosting account holder the ability to host multiple domains on a single web hosting account.
The biggest advantage is the money to be saved. You don’t have to incur additional hosting costs when you get the bug to start another website. This is especially advantageous if you’re an avid blogger, an internet marketer, need an online presence for your brick and mortar business, want to post your family’s activities and summer vacation photos, or maybe you want your own personal email address with a spiffy domain name.
Disadvantages:
All web hosting companies have infrequent “burps” in service, but no doubt you’ll select a reputable web host that knows how to limit these. However, if a web host does suffer an unfortunate prolonged outage and all of your domains are on a single account, then all of your sites will be inaccessible during the down time. It’s something you’ll need to take into consideration if you plan on hosting sites that are generating an income. No visitors means no money coming in.
All of your domains will resolve to the same IP address. If your sites are giving back links to each other in hopes of boosting your position on the search engines, having the same IP address won’t help a lot because the search engines can see you’re basically linking to yourself. However, any additional traffic you gain is always welcome.
In Summary:
Multi-domain hosting is very economical, but if you’re running several mission critical businesses, spreading them out across different hosting companies may be advantageous in the long run. The good news is, there are many reputable web hosting companies offering quality hosting at very low competitive prices.