Guest Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 I make money with OSC sites. I have been working on actually having about 4 stores up and running as no one site will ever make me much. I figure niche marketing is the way to go but , depending on the niche, no one site will bring in a whole lot. My biggest obstacle to having multiple sites with different product is having to pay for an SSL cert for every domain befoer I know if it will be a money maker for sure. Aslo, I refuse to use shared SSL. SO I had an idea i'd like to run accross you more seasoned ecommerce folks. Even though I have multiple site, I do business under one name. Lets just say ABC Co. is my biz name. My plan was to buy a domain called something like abccosecure.com and buy an SSL cert for that domain. Then, in my OSC stores, I would point my secure server for each store to that domain (and each store will have it's own folder, just like I were using shared SSL, I guess). SO for example... Store #1's secure checkout would be pointed to https://www.abccosecure.com/store1 Store #2's secure checkout would be pointed to https://www.abccosecure.com/store2 (/store1 and /store2 being replaced with the respective site name rather than "store1" or "store2", of course). SO that's it. That is my idea. This would keep the cost down for SSL certs in the meantime while I am poor. THe major benefit here for me is that I would not waste money on a cert before I could determine a site's profitability. Once I determine it is profitable enough, I could then buy a cert for it once my wallet can afford it. So, do you think this will work? Let me know. I would love to hear what anyone has to say. and if there will be a problem I hav enot thought of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tswalling Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 I think you're best option would be reseller hosting which would let you install a ssl cert for the primary domain you sign up with. Then you can create hosting accounts for your other domains which could use your shared ssl cert. For instance at one time I had a reseller account at kualo.com purely for the benefit of being able to host lots of domains either for myself or friends. So if you signed up for one with the domain xyz.com you would log into your admin panel and create full blown accounts for your other domains. Purchase your ssl cert for xyz.com and your other domains will be able to use this shared ssl cert through the hoting accounts you setup for them: xyz.com/~username/ Then you won't have to worry about setting up any files in two places just for checkout. By the way reseller hosting like the one I had was fairly inexpensive and I think you could find it in the range of $20 - $30. It will give you lots of space, room for expansion, and control over all your accounts. I'd shop around, I still might have some links to some I almost used if you want to PM me. If you do this I'd make sure you brand all your sites very clearly so they appear a part of your xyz.com network of sites so users are clear when checking out. The other benefit of lots of reseller accounts is they come with easy install scripts, usually via a product called Fantastico. osCommerce is included in this so you could install all of your various stores in each hosting account within minutes. Hope that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 OK, but here is the deal. You said to go with reseller hosting to do this, however, I am thinking that I don't need to. You see, i use a multi-domain host. They are very cheap. I have been using them for a year now and I love it. So basically, for the reasons you say I should use a reseller hosting account, I am thinking that I could do the exact same thing with my multi-domain hosting account. Do you agree? Unless I missed something in your post, it seems that I would acheive the same thing (and for less money - It only costs 6.95 for 10 domain hosting with my host). Thanks for your post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 your host doesnt offer a shared ssl certificate? really nothing wrong in using a shared certificate. so you are saying you pay only 6.95 per month for all 10 domains? are they subdomains, ie store.domain.com, or are they all separate domains in their own space? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 No actually, my host does not offer shared SSL. As I said, I do not want to use it anyway. I have in the past and found that during peak times, those shared SSLs are really unreliable and make checkout very slow. As for the host, no, they are not subdomains. They are FULL top-level domains (ie. abc.com, not subdomains like xyz.abc.com). You also have the ability to have unlimited (I think it is unlimited) subdomains for each domain. They even offer OSC (which is how I even discovered OSC in the first place). :) The only thing I don't like about them is that they limit on 3 dedicated IPs per account even if you sign up for an unlimited domain account. (each dedicated IP is $1.50 per domain). Problem here is, for instance, right now I have one domain with a dedicated IP and I purchased an SSL cert for it. If I wanted to add a dedicated IP to another one of my domains, thye have to move my account to another server because they have no IPs left on the server my account resides on right now. From my understanding, this would cause my current SSL cert for my first ddomain to not work (I believe, but not really sure about that). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 OK. Here is a PM i got from TSwalling regarding my question if multidomain hosting... TSWalling wrote... "Not quite... I was wondering if you would bring up that point of multi-domain hosting because that's what I'm doing now. The advantage of a reseller account is that the ssl certificate that you install in the master account can be shared just as if you were using the shared ssl at your current provider. If you go with the setup you have now you will have to put some of the osc files over on your main domain. Since a reseller account will have true sharing you don't have to do anything special for instance. Reseller Acct: main domain is masterstore.com 1st store domain is store1.com with a username of store1 2nd store domain is store2.com with a username of store2 https://www.masterstore.com/~store1/ will actually point to the real files at store1.com https://www.masterstore.com/~store2/ will actually pont to the real files at store2.com Multi-Domain Acct: main domain is masterstore.com 1st store domain is store1.com with a username of store1 2nd store domain is store2.com with a username of store2 https://www.masterstore.com/~store1/ will have to have a copy of store1.com's files for checkout https://www.masterstore.com/~store2/ will have to have a copy of store2.com's files for checkout Do you see the key difference? This would be the simplest way to share 1 ssl certificate. In the multi-domain account you would have to install oscommerce in two places correct? I haven't dealt much with secure checkout via another domain, but for an ssl certificate to work like the example you drew out, the user would need to be checking out on the actual masterstore.com domain. Basically a reseller account would be mimicking your current hosting situation only you would be the host and hostee (is that a word?) I know your current setup is cheaper but I think a setup like I describe would be the most hassle free which would allow you time and money savings as you move forward. This is one solution I see, I'm curious to see what other people say." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tswalling Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 Let me add that my reply above was regarding cxm322's PM to me asking if he couldn't just do the same thing with his current hosting account which allows multiple domain hosting. The other thing I just wanted to add is that yes, going with your hosting companies shared ssl is one option but like cxm322 I prefer to get my own certificate which matches up to my domain in case a user were to look into it or click on it and view the information contained in it. It's just a case of one less thing to explain to users when trying to get them to trust you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 But here is my take why it would work on a multi-domain host rather than buying reseller hosting... I went to a host that offers shared SSL and I found that thier shared SSl URL is... https://www.sslpages.com/<username>/ OK. so basically what I am getting at is that if I were usind this host and their shared SSL, I would tell my OSC store(s) to point to "https://www.sslpages.com/<username>/" when checking out and for all other secured pages. ANd, I would not have to upload any OSC files to my hosts secure domain sslpages.com. So why would I have to upload some osc files to MY secure domain with the SSL cert if I were to go the multidomain route??? As I would be setting up my secure domain with folders for each other domain I will use on it, just like the host with the shared SSL is doing above. Oh, and I will be keeping it all on the forum instead of PMs. It gets too confusing that way. I would like everyone to learn from this as I can't be the only one wondering about this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 OK. After come thought, I think I may see your point. From my understanding on a multidomain account, the structure looks like this... Mainsite.com Store1.com Store2.com Store3.com and so on. On a reseller account, the structure would look like this... Mainsite.com ---> Store1.com ---> Store2.com ---> Store3.com with all my stores being a sub account (not a subdomain but a sub account) of my mainsite.com. Only the latter would act truely like shared hosting without having to upload OSC store files to my mainsite.com. Is this correct??? If so, I have a feeling I would be better off jsut buying an SSL cert for all my domains. This would be cheaper considering I pay only 6.95 for 10 domains and 3 dedicated IPs (wich is max for my host per account). Therefore, for every 3 stores I would have to open a separate hosting account. Since I cna buy a decent SSL cert for $35.00, I see no point in spending $25/month just to acheive the shared SSL thing. But I will ahve to think it through some more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tswalling Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 Someone with experience in secure oscommerce pages via another domain hopefully will chime in here, but my understanding is you need instances of oscommerce installed on your main site if you want your other sites to be able to checkout there. See you can't do what your host is doing because your domains aren't set up the same way. If you had a reseller account your domains would then be setup just like your hosts are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tswalling Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 cxm322, we posted at the same time so you it looks like my point didn't matter anymore. Budget wise it looks like that is the way to go but I would really write down all costs and do the math because keep in mind as the number of sites grow there will be a point at which it will be cheaper to get a reseller account with 1 ssl cert. Also you have to renew ssl certs every year so if you have 10 domains, thats $350 a year. (depending on renewal costs) In summary, so far the advantages to a reseller account would be: - 1 ssl cert to purchase and renew - one installation of oscommerce per store - depending on the host, easy install of osccomerce via fantastico - a lot more than 10 domains for your account Anyone have any advantages or disadvantages to add to either case? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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