How do I find out where a reseller is hosted?

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Posted by Gary King, 04-30-2005, 06:55 PM
How do I find out which host does a reseller resell from?
Posted by (Stephen), 04-30-2005, 06:58 PM
There are many ways to do this, but if you really want to know, why not just ask them?
Posted by Gary King, 04-30-2005, 07:01 PM
What if they don't answer back or don't want to tell though?
Posted by dollar, 04-30-2005, 07:18 PM
Then they really aren't the host for you most likely.
Posted by Bofu2U, 04-30-2005, 07:58 PM
Not always. It all depends on how the bigger company is, they may be selling shared cheaper than the reseller. In this situation I would understand him not telling who it is. As to finding it out, if the company they used knows what they are doing (ex, private IP's etc) then it will be darn near impossible, if they don't tell you there's always webhosting.info but besides that.. good luck :/
Posted by porcupine, 04-30-2005, 08:04 PM
Most hosts wont tell you a number of things, that doesen't make it unreasonable. A host isn't required to divulge any/all information at a hats drop, they may consider it a 'trade secret' for all you know, while that probably does not offer the host they resell from much benefit, most people like keeping a good thing secret when it comes to business, myself included. I've declined to name various sales reps, where we get our hardware shipped, vendors we use, etc. as I have taken years to negotiate many deals we've got, and I dont feel like handing away the few competitive advantages we may have. In short, just because someone doesen't want to disclose information to you, doesen't make them a bad host. If you cant figure out who the reseller account is, all the more precious the secret.
Posted by freak, 04-30-2005, 08:11 PM
Post the company here. The 'experts' WHT is always keen to dig into other people's affairs
Posted by dollar, 04-30-2005, 08:12 PM
Reguardless of how big a company is I feel that it is improper to divulge who you purchase your services from. If the person you are purchasing your services from is cheaper than you, you should be able to answer the question of why people should pay more for your services. Take the time to include all that information in the reply to the question being asked to you and you might just earn yourself a sale because of it. If you offer better services than the person you are reselling from, that's your selling point, not cost. If your cost is less then there is no reason in this type of situation to be afraid to tell them who you are selling services from. As for the post about trade secrets, a reseller account is not a trade secret. If you are purchasing a reseller account and selling hosting, the company you are purchasing from is definatley trying to sell all the reseller accounts they can, the last thing they want is to be considered a 'trade secret'. In the instance of different hardware vendors and the like there of, that is different than who you purchase your reseller account from. You have negotiated special deals with the companies instead of purchasing their products right off the catalog. Would you mind divluging your vendors if you ordered directly from their catalog at public costs? I'm sure you wouldn't. As far as who they are reselling for, it's all public knowledge in one way or another. I have yet to see anybody with a reseller account that does not give away who they purchased their account from in one way or another. There are many many tricks to help hide this, but that is usually to give the illusion that a host is not a reseller. Do a search and you will come across a great thread about wheter or not you should even tell people you are a reseller when they ask. IMHO you should not hide the fact that you are a reseller, or who you are reselling from. I would feel that if a host who operated on a dedicated server refused to allow people to know which datacenter they are located in people would find that as shady and a sign of a host that is not right for them.
Posted by dkitchen, 04-30-2005, 08:20 PM
My favourite way to do this has to be something along the lines of: Fire open a command prompt "telnet website.com 25" Grab the servers hostname Google for it and see what you get back ... Then again, this isn't always obvious, there are tons of different ways, if you still don't know post here and we'll see what we can do for you. Dan
Posted by Bofu2U, 04-30-2005, 08:41 PM
That's actually a good technique Dan, I just tried it -- thank God nothing in Google came up
Posted by porcupine, 04-30-2005, 08:58 PM
I'd have to disagree there. My vendors, providers, sales reps, deals, etc. are my own information, nobody elses (not even my staff necessarilly). While the comparison on Data Center is of relavence no doubt, thats of a potentially different magnitude. If the host says "I'd prefer not to name my host, but the server is located in the Rackspace datacenter", that should be good enough. That way the customer knows what they're getting (as far as connectivity reliability), assumedly is informed regarding hardware, etc. but is not provided more information then they necessarilly need. We've had a variety of reseller customers inquire whether or not they should advertise that they resell for us (as many are proud of where they host, can't find fault in that), I don't recommend it, as some customers seem to get confused on how far to push the line, and attempt to contact us for support, which they're not provided (at which point they get angry, failing to understand thats not what they [or the resellers] pay for, and simply not what we offer for a variety of reasons [security, legal, cost, etc.]).
Posted by dollar, 04-30-2005, 09:10 PM
Well we're definatley going to have to agree to disagree becasue we would obviously go around in circles for eternity if we continued =) The datacenter is not the only issue in a provider either, if you go back not too long ago and the person was hosted in The Planet, but was hosted there via TomSyer that could cause concern. In any event as I mentioned we'll just end up in circles as there is a good argument to be made for both sides.
Posted by porcupine, 04-30-2005, 09:19 PM
Agreed, there are potential critical points on both sides of this fence. I guess the lesson I'm trying to introduce to a LOT of WHT'ers who may be new to business, negotiations, or the industry in general, is the concept that not all information is theirs to know, some things are specfically not noted, some for a good reason, others not. While luck can go either way (when concerning why the reseller wont tell), it's not a reason to discredit them in any manner, if they dont want you to know, thats their business, and you can probably at least ask for their reasons to get a better feel for why.
Posted by The Stealthy One, 04-30-2005, 09:50 PM
This is an interesting thread! I like to put it this way though: Would you walk into Wal-Mart and ask them who supplies their merchandise? And do you really think they'd tell you?
Posted by dollar, 04-30-2005, 09:52 PM
I would be willing to bet if you talked to somebody that knew they would tell you, but you wouldn't have to ask because meijers buys directly from the source for most all their products. Read the name on the package, that's who they bought it from
Posted by Bofu2U, 04-30-2005, 09:52 PM
First time I've ever heard that.. good comparison!
Posted by sakg, 05-03-2005, 07:27 AM
I agree with whatever is said above. I have a new question. How can I make sure that my clients can't find where I am hosted. I have started a new thread with the above subject at http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...hreadid=401209
Posted by The Stealthy One, 05-03-2005, 08:07 AM
Good! It's not just me who sees it this way! The thing is, as resellers we should take offense when someone asks if we're a reseller and who we resell for. That's a very personal question and is very much akin to walking into a retail store and asking where they purchase their merchandise. Don't be afraid to stand up for yourself and just say 'we can't disclose that.'
Posted by porcupine, 05-03-2005, 09:02 AM
Why should you be offended though? While I fully agree that some people might not want to directly disclose that information, typically because they dont add much value aside from their own effective advertising (which really adds no value for the customer), it doesen't however really make it an offensive question. I certainly dont get my back up when someone asks us who we buy bandwidth from for example, I just wouldn't necessarilly want to share my sales rep, or pricing, etc.
Posted by redone, 05-03-2005, 10:04 AM
I replied in the other thread too. I agree that you do not need to share such information regarding where you buy bandwidth from etc and indeed who you resell for. Quite frankly who you resell for isn't relevant. As a reseller you can switch where you resell your accounts from in a second! What matters is that you have happy customers and deliver a quality experience to them. Asking who you resell for in my opinon isn't that important. And if you did tell a client? Not that I would but if you did and they Google'd or searched here for your provider and found out that they were useless and unreliable then what? If you find yourself in that situation you shouldn't be in this business anyway!
Posted by Bofu2U, 05-03-2005, 01:58 PM
Don't take too much credit
Posted by WO-Jacob, 05-03-2005, 08:47 PM
Actually not so good. I don't think Wal-Mart would have a problem telling you, as even if they did tell you, they buy 10,000,000 Widgets at a time where you would only buy 20, and you would realize it would still be cheaper to buy from them anyway
Posted by Mad_Elektra, 05-03-2005, 11:26 PM
Additionally, you could provide a friendlier support plus a clean-cut storefront (user-interface) for your customers to shop on. Customers would be too glad of your service than finding out who your suppliers (who may be wholesalers) are. Say, if they really are keen to find out, let them be. Let them go ahead. If your service has been truely good, they are likely to "regret" leaving you for the "wholesale buy".
Posted by anil, 05-04-2005, 07:03 AM
This is an interesting thread! I like to put it this way though: Would you walk into Wal-Mart and ask them who supplies their merchandise? And do you really think they'd tell you? ________________________________________________--- i agree with you
Posted by dollar, 05-04-2005, 03:57 PM
I tried this with Meijer's yesterday (walmart was too far away) and I was speaking with a manager about a new fish tank I was picking up for my latest lizard. He said: "We purchase our tanks directly from All Glass" (All Glass Aquariums being the name of the company that makes the tank).
Posted by jmweb, 05-04-2005, 05:21 PM
And how can we verify that this is the truth? Because a Walmart Manager told you about it? How do you know he wasn't just pawning you off?
Posted by dollar, 05-04-2005, 06:07 PM
How do we know he's lying?
Posted by jmweb, 05-04-2005, 06:12 PM
We don't but you can't really verify this unless you look at the investor info.
Posted by porcupine, 05-04-2005, 06:14 PM
Problem is, of course they're going to tell you its the manufacturer (and in most cases, it will be with walmart), as most people are proud to buy directly from the builders of a given product. Thats like asking me "where do you buy your Peer1 bandwidth from?", chances are you already know the answer.
Posted by dollar, 05-04-2005, 06:40 PM
I also can't verify that you are alive unless I meet you, but I'm going to assume you are because it would make sense If anybody can find a product meijers carries that they know is not direct from the manufacturer and would like to let me know, I would be more than happy to go back in and ask; however, i would be willing to bet a couple dollars that if the person I talked to actually knew, (s)he would tell me that they purchase from such and such person. Somewhere earlier in this thread the point was made that even if you know their suppliers, it will not hurt them because you do not have the purchasing power that they do. In any event I'm going to pull myself back away from this thread and just concede again to any future comments =p I just did a little experiment for fun to see what the folks at meijer really would say/if they would answer at all.
Posted by porcupine, 05-04-2005, 06:47 PM
Yeah, but I think people need to take a more realistic view of things. You're signifigantly more likely to get a straight answer from someone who has nothing to loose in telling you. Walmart knows that you wont be buying from the same sources, I could call up Ford and ask who they buy the metal to make their cars from, and you can bet they'd also tell me. How picking 10 random sellers who push Cisco gear on Ebay, ask them where they pick up their stock. Or how about your local specialty shop. Those are probably better examples.
Posted by dollar, 05-04-2005, 06:54 PM
Even though this will hurt my arguement, I will post it for the good of the thread. As I mentioned above I have a couple lizards, I also have 7 fish tanks that I keep. Needless to say I go through quite a few feeder fish/crickets every week. I have my favorite fish store that I purchase 95% of my items through (with the exception of my tanks for lizards because meijers are cheaper and im not worried about leaks). I asked them at one time who they purchase their feeders from. I was not planning on skipping them and going directly to the supplier because I love their store too much, but I'm sure they had the complete opposite thought in their head. They did refuse to let me know about their suppliers. The one intreesting point was that they went on to let me know the highlights of their suppliers (what kind of place it was like, the food used to feed all the fish [not just feeders] etc...) Porcupine's post about the local specialty shop reminded me of that. Take it for what it is
Posted by PMichaud, 05-05-2005, 05:23 PM
It seems to me that if you can't validate your business, even to yourself, then that business is bound to fail. Businesses are about taking input, adding value, producing output. If you don't add value, whether you resell hosting, or you resell widgets to walmart, you're bound to fail. I charge 300% cost for my hosting plans. Where's my customer's value in that? I buy my space and bandwidth in "bulk," whereas they only want a little, so they end up still paying less for it than they would have otherwise. Everyone wins.... that's value. I think with that philosophy, you shouldn't really have too much of an issue sharing who your host is.
Posted by ramppi, 05-06-2005, 03:55 AM
At first greetings from Finland to You all. For the second I must tell that reseller hosting is not my main business - its design, contents, marketing. I have two accounts in USA ($ cheap) for myself, my good customers & friends. I have, 'by accident', taken about 20 commercial customers. That is my backround (yes, my mother language is not english) Third to this interesting item: The article reseller host is selling is service & knowledge, not hardware (Duals, powers etc). I myself like transparency, for me its natural to tell that I resell a service in long chain: starting from 1. datacenter/connections via 2. server(s) owner (here comes + knowhow input, billing, maintaining, support) 3.+maybe third input between and 4. it's me here. For me its ok that my customers know my buyin price, cause charge from work, service, time... and it is also my profession to do the work finding reliability. That is my piece of cake. I think its consulting? I had taken this as an excursion (as mentioned above) with cheap-sellers (yes I know one cent wont make a dollar burger). When WHTHOST (mr lyall edward mcevoy ran) ( mr michael birrane in the start was good fellow, also mr thomas olivares in support, also member here) wen't down I ofcourse could not blame Fortrexx ITC, Intel, Ford Motor Co... I can be honest and say that it was due the cheap thrills & thieves. Now I am waiting curiously what's gonna happen with Dailyhosting: I was looking mr collings's rehearsing here in wht for one year and decided to give young guy a dime. But somebuyhosts (selling/buying/running is another story). I always back up myself with another account in higher level company. I understand people like having privacy in the business and act as pure company. It may be in Scandinavian culture that transparency thing, straightness. Yes, many of us are blue-eyed (hah). In small hosting companies you dont find a single natural name in company info etc, often anonym emailaddr. When good there may be one peter or pan. It came too long post and bit offtopic. ... But I didn't start WalMart thing either. Although I have good possibility to wish sunny spring time to you all and also good, growing, honest hosting biz. cheers

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