Blog Networks - How do you Host?
 

Here's a question for the guys with huge blog networks : How do you host? Who do you host with?

Do you just open up random accounts everywhere or have special server setups? Do you use mostly cheap VPS hosts or buy dedicated boxes and then buy IPs as you grow?

I am pretty sure I can help you out !

Starting off with a decent VPS is good

After some growth you can move to a dedicated server @ the same location :)

just start with a bunch of cheap shared hosting accounts. even VPS is overkill for some blogs to start off with. especially if you are doing a network. typically you dont put enough into 1 for it to get major traffic. the point is to have a lot of sites that do a little each.

Just so I don't get spammed with whatever hosting company. I'm looking to build sites on different Ip blocks so I can interlink them and not have them all on one single server.

:thumbsup I have 80 blogs on just 2 shared hosting accounts. You really don't need anything to big for a decent sized blog network, once you get up to 200+ then think about getting a VPS.

bump to the top for a real biz thread

Depends what you are after but as you said you want different ip blocks so go with smaller virtuals in different hosts. If you are going to make blogs that only host some pics etc you wont be using much BW at all.

In my opinion, it is always good to mix some shareds with some VPS'es or dedicates for your network

If you want to play with the big boys...

In the Dec. Issue of XBIZ World Magazine I have a review of a system for integrating Amazon S3 Cloudfront services with WordPress.
You can run a WP core on a lesser host and seemlessly serve your content via the CDN.

And that is exactly how I/we do it. We shy away from shared IPs, unless we are sharing an IP between a couple of our own sites, but never interlink sites that share the same IP.

:thumbsup

As I mentioned before. There are hosts that provide this with virtual accounts. But getting a VPS or dedicated, is a lot of extra money. Talk to baddog. he offers multiple c block multiple ip virtual accounts I believe.

We host ours at Web Air, nuff said.

My advice is to get several Reseller accounts.

You can find some at
Certified Hosting :thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup
Naked Hosting :thumbsup:thumbsup
NameCheap :thumbsup


Why Reseller hosting?

Because
- it's cheap
- it's managed (so you don't have to worry about server updates, security etc...)
- its's easy to use
- it has cPanel
- every site has it's account and login and can be transfered to other hosting easily
- every site has it's own bandwith and visitor stats and all those handy tools that cPanel provides
- you get different IP's with different hosts (SEO)

My advice is from my personal experience with varios hosting companies and various hosting products (shared, reseller, vps, cloud, dedicated, cdn... I use them all!)
I have several reseller accounts with those companies (without ANY issues in years) for hosting my blogs...

If you need any other infos email me at celebempire{at}gmail/./com or ICQ (in sig)
If you need any hosting help -> http://www.awmzone.com/services

I`v hosted my blogs on two shared accounts and bought some extra ips

So how do many different IPs help? I seem to get just as much traffic on blogs that aren't using several dedicated IPs as the ones that are.

You don't need 50 different hosts.. As long as each blog is using it's own content how they are hosted means little to nothing.

they don't help but can help if you interlink your blogs...

Unless you plan on interlinking them.

Indeed :pimp