Advice: Shared or Reseller - for own use only

[KeywordMan]

Based on other threads, I assume most of you would recommend an Aluminum reseller account for my situation because a reseller account offers:
* Each domain gets its own cPanel.
* WHM control panel gives important flexibility.
* Each domain has its own IP address - true??
* I assume each domain gets better/segregated Web stats.

However, I'd still like to pose my questions, for sanity's sake. :-)

---SITUATION---

I'm interested in having unlimited domains for my own use. I will NOT be reselling to others. I will NOT have client domains. This is purely for domains which I own.

These will be relatively simple sites. The largest might have 50 pages. Some Javascript. No dynamically-generated content anticipated. No MySQL/databases anticipated.

I anticipate it will mostly involve a number of small sites (separate domains) of 1-5 pages each.

I need PHP support for all domains.

I need FrontPage extensions for all domains.

I need to track detailed (page-by-page) traffic per domain, perhaps using a Web stats service other than what's bundled with HG accounts.

I want to make custom error pages. (Not critical, but desired.)

---QUESTIONS---

Main question:

Would you recommend (A) a HostGator shared hosting account (even the $9.95 "Baby" account) or (B) a reseller account ($24.95 "Aluminum")?

Specific questions:

What are the site management benefits of how individual domains are handled in a reseller account (separate cPanels; separate IPs??) versus in a shared hosting account (as a main domain + ADDON domains; one cPanel)? What are the benefits of having separate cPanels for each site (reseller) versus one cPanel (shared hosting)?

If I understand correctly, each site/domain in a reseller account has its own IP address, while all ADDON domains in a shared hosting account share a single IP address. If that is correct, what are the key benefits of each domain having its own IP address (including any Search Engine Optimization benefits)?

Many thanks in advance,
KeywordMan

[Serra]

On the reseller domains, you control just about all of the settings. If you want to give yourself unlimited addon domains, you may. Of course, unlimited isn't really unlimited, but that is another story.

And yes, they all share an IP. If you want each to have its own IP, then you will be limited to some number. I believe each reseller account has a limited number of IP addresses it can be assigned. 16 comes to mind, but that might not be true.

what are the key benefits of each domain having its own IP address (including any Search Engine Optimization benefits)?

None. The search engines will see that all of the IPs are on the same class C, and then ignore them.

[quietFinn]

Originally Posted by KeywordMan

.
* Each domain has its own IP address - true??

No, they are using the shared IP just like any other sites.

[tomowa]

Go with the reseller. Cpanel won't let you create addon domains, if you have not already registered the domain name you wish to use, and have propagated its DNS setting to your shared account.
http://support.hostgator.com/index.p...id=81&nav=0,26

You cannot create an addon domain if your DNS for the site you are trying to add hasn't propagated yet.

As such, if a domain exists already somewhere, adn you want to move it to an addon domain of yours, you can't create the addon domain for it, because the DNS does not propagate to your server. If you go ahead and change the DNS first, well then at some point your going to have downtime,as the DNS propagates, and starts looking for your new addon domain server, and you haven't created any thing there yet

Tom

[KeywordMan]

Serra, quietFinn, tomowa,

Thanks for the feedback.

KeywordMan