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Overselling - Good or Bad?




Posted by Lezarwerks, 10-08-2007, 02:22 PM
I want to see some opinions of others; what are your thoughts about overselling? I think overselling is the only way to compete against the large companies, so long as you are willing to spend money to earn more money back. Automated system, technical support team, and perhaps a few techies who maintain a cluster of servers and such.

Posted by Adam H, 10-08-2007, 02:30 PM
Then you should of searched it. Theres a million and one other threads on WHT about overselling

Posted by Siropel, 10-08-2007, 03:29 PM
I love overselling, it's enabling me to have big numbers for small fee

Posted by sTag-Dan, 10-08-2007, 03:45 PM
You're not serious are you? Anyone can sell you a big 'number' for a ridiculously low price. If you think about it, in reality you're just paying for something you really don't have.

Posted by Siropel, 10-08-2007, 03:54 PM
I just love big numbers Yes, I'm kidding But like in other threads ... overselling is not necessarily a bad thing, there's nothing wrong with overselling done right. http://whreviews.com/overselling-hosting.htm

Posted by iHubNet-Matt, 10-08-2007, 04:32 PM
I would say NO to overselling

Posted by domaincart, 10-08-2007, 04:53 PM
If a Hosting provider allow to make overselling but they don't make overselling on their hosting plans or they make overselling themselves but don't allow to make overselling when there is no problem. If they do all of them and don't monitor the servers carrefully when many problems will occurr.

Posted by PremiumHost, 10-09-2007, 02:42 AM
You need to consider reasonable overselling and unbelievable overselling Any hosts that limit 10 reseller accounts 10GB space & 200GB BW on a standard server? (which means no overselling)

Posted by The3bl, 10-09-2007, 02:50 AM
Any host that offers 10 gig of space and 200GB of bandwidth for $20.00 a month and then limits it to 10 resellers accounts per server is only getting $200.00 a month for the server. He is going to go broke in a short period of time. There is no way to pay for a server and support staff and business bills on $200.00 a month gross income per server.

Posted by Pwninja, 10-09-2007, 05:16 AM
Overselling has to be done, but it depends on the ratio of available resources to resources sold. 2:1 is the golden ratio for me.

Posted by 040Hosting, 10-09-2007, 01:48 PM
What planet are you from ? Of course overselling has not to be done, its a choice, and a good choice not to choose for a host which oversells, but it comes with a price, no matter how you look at it, it are all business people trying to earn a living. I would not go for overselling. (and with not overselling i mean not only diskspace and bandwidth! its the whole picture!).

Posted by Pwninja, 10-09-2007, 01:52 PM
Sorry, I meant only diskspace and bandwidth, I absolutely agree that overselling other resources is a no-no.

Posted by calvynlee, 10-10-2007, 10:45 AM
hi, i am new here, for what i know overselling, it bring a lot benefit to that company with enough advertising and promotion. but for me, i not agree with it, seen like cheating

Posted by Lezarwerks, 10-10-2007, 04:55 PM
I disagree about it being cheating because you advertise a plan with X space, Y bandwidth, and Z features. You are to provide them that amount -- it is your promise, your end of the bargain. So long as you are able to provide that in overselling, you are not lying or cheating. However, if you fail to provide it while overselling -- like your maximum disk space goes full or your monthly bandwidth quota exceeded (resulting in your account and all accounts under it being suspended), then you're definately in trouble. You advertise 10GB of Space, 100GB of Monthly Bandwidth Transfer, and a bunch of features (I would be more specific, but for the sake of time I've summarized it). I signup and expect that I will actually and literally be able to use up my plan to the very fullest (10GB of Space, and ~100GB of monthly transfer). Look at it in the customer's point of it. Do you realize how hard you make it if you don't oversell? Sometimes it's virtually impossible to do it without overselling (my webhost has tried). Most people only use 1% to 10% of their plan; the leftover 90% to 99% of that plan is a total and complete waste of resources. You're wasting your resources by not overselling. Say you have a dedicated server with 500GB of Space, 10TB of Transfer. You've got all the software setup. Now let us say that to make good money, you advertise plans with large numbers (ie. [1GB Space, 15GB Transfer] vs [25GB Space, 500GB Transfer]). Obviously there will only be a minority, possibly "outcast" minority, that will even use more than 50% of that (or even try to use it to its fullest). With whatever plans you have, you attain the maximum customers on your server. Because you use large numbers, it hurts you; in most cases, as far as I know in my experience, you aren't making any profit (but losing money per month) or hardly any to make anything worth it (energy and effort). For $1 a month, do you think a customer would go for.. A) 100GB Space, 500GB Monthly Transfer B) 5GB Space, 75GB (or 100GB) Monthly Transfer You need to provide customers with more bandwidth than space. Bandwidth is a big thing. If you don't oversell, you are terribly limiting yourself on your dedicated server of how many customers you can have. But if it is your lifestyle and you are not as easily open to other ideas (in more detail), that's ok. I can't change you nor can anyone else; up to you to decide and take your sides. Just the way I see it. EDIT :: You have a better chance of NOT overselling if you actually own or run a datacenter, have the priviledge at a datacenter to use their resources for your own profit, or can run some dedicated servers personally in your basement in some locations in California (just a saying).

Posted by Outlaw Web Master, 10-10-2007, 06:16 PM
Is overselling a good thing or a bad thing? Well if you have the resources to fulfill a promise of what you are overselling then that can only be good thing. However, 99.9% of the monkeys who oversell within the cut throat business of overselling have neither the resources nor the necessary skills needed to keep their customers sites online. If there were 1000 posts regarding overselling in WHT, I would hazard a guess to say 999 of them were complaint issues and overselling host flames. Overselling's not good......it's not bad because no one forces you to sign up and get pumped big time. Overselling's just crap...and no good to man nor beast if they're serious about their sites which usually always end up getting suspended due to minimal cpu usage. When I say overselling I of course mean the usual impossible overselling plans we see on here all the time that everyone is only too well aware of. It's like horse crap....It Smells owm Last edited by Outlaw Web Master; 10-10-2007 at 06:20 PM.

Posted by tsj5j, 10-10-2007, 08:58 PM
Overselling is a good thing if done right. It's not cheating, telecommunications company, even your ISP is overselling right now, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's when it's done wrong that causes a big problem.



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