How Many Websites Can you Have with FastComet Shared Hosting

Having the option to have multiple websites on a single shared hosting server can be quite a benefit. Clients often ask us whether they can host multiple websites and, if so, on which of our hosting plans it is possible. In this article, we will provide the needed information about FastComet and the various ways to have multiple websites. We will also give you some additional information about the benefits of having more than a single website.

Table of Contents:

• How Many Websites Can You Have with FastComet Shared Hosting?
• Advantages and Disadvantages of Having Multiple Websites
• Advantages of Having Multiple Websites
• Disadvantages of Having Multiple Websites

How Many Websites Can You Have with FastComet Shared Hosting?

There is no limit on the number of websites that you can host on a single shared hosting plan. There are currently three types of shared hosting plans that we offer, and here is a brief description of how they work:

• FastCloud Essential: This shared hosting plan will still allow you to have unlimited websites on it. However, you will have to configure them in sub-folders or subdomains of the primary domain set on your account. You will not be able to configure two or more websites on different domains.
• FastCloud Plus: This shared hosting plan will allow you to set up unlimited websites and a separate domain for each one of them. The plan does not have a limit on the number of addon slots that you will use.
• FastCloud Extra: This plan will also allow you to host as many websites as you wish, on separate domain names for each one. There is no limit on the addon slots on it.

For a full list of the features for each of your shared hosting plans, we do suggest that you review our Pricing page.

Keep in mind that there is a distinct difference between subdomains, parked domains, and addon domains. 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Having Multiple Websites

As your traditional business needs to change and has to grow, so do modern website platforms. They are meant to allow your technology teams to respond quickly and reliably. With current technologies, you can create a new website with just a few clicks. The question is, however, “are those websites for the good or bad of your online business?”

Launching multiple websites can be an effective way for your business to better serve its separate audiences. That said, most organizations quickly find that managing the demands of multiple web properties can be a daunting task.

On the technical front, you face the ongoing burden of each site’s needs for maintenance, improvements, and related costs. But beyond the administrative headaches, multiple sites may be doing more harm than good to your marketing strategy as well.

Advantages of Having Multiple Websites

If you opt to launch multiple websites, you face an assortment of complications in terms of upkeep and content management. However, under specific circumstances, your organization may be best served if you divide its digital resources into separate products.

For most businesses, the decision to support multiple websites comes down to the need to resolve various problems.

Serve Different Audiences

If your business serves both a B2B and B2C clientele, you can have separate websites to serve those customers. Or, if you need to communicate information to an audience of employees and customers, you can provide a separate digital experience for each.

In both cases, your audiences will be browsing different services, which require presentations that are just as distinct. As a result, content on separate websites that target the users’ needs will seldom overlap.

Operate Multiple Brands

When organizations offer distinct products targeting different audiences, you can tailor their website experience accordingly.

For example, manufacturing companies will often distribute white-label products for retailers in addition to one under their own brand. Or depending on the needs of your audience, you can provide a separate website for each product or department. At a university, the Art Department will have different digital requirements than an Engineering Department. With a multiple-site structure, the school can accommodate the needs of every department.

Audiences in Different Geographic Areas

If your business is serving customers around the world, you can use different websites and designs to accommodate cultural differences.

For example, you can use a different header image to acknowledge differing sensibilities between countries. Or a separate website can justify the text right-to-left to better accommodate readers in Asia versus the North American version.

Depending on your business, you can expand your number of websites to suit your customer’s needs. However, without the proper roadmap, both your users and your organization will quickly be overwhelmed.

Disadvantages of Having Multiple Websites

For every business, multiple websites only make sense in the context of your customer. If your customer doesn’t see a clear benefit from using a different site, the justification for multiple sites falls apart as both you and your user encounter difficulties.

Typically, your organization can be hampered by maintaining multiple websites in three ways.

Poor User Experience (UX)

When organizations consider the users of their sites, they often fail to account for a considerable overlap in their target audiences. For example, a healthcare company offered separate sites for their customer groups, which included an elder population, veterans, and users with disabilities. In addition to failing to account for some users who fit into all three categories, the organization didn’t consider that customers didn’t think in those terms. They just wanted the information.

Without the proper justification, multiple sites confuse your customers. Depending on how the differences in your site designs are rendered, users could easily become unclear about where they fit. Or, as they navigate between sites, your customers may not realize whether each is part of the same company.

Negative Impact on SEO

When organizations have multiple sites, they often reuse their content across properties. While this eases the burden on marketing teams, it also impacts your search rankings.

While Google doesn’t penalize organizations for reusing content, it does inevitably split your site traffic between multiple sources. Instead of drawing a large audience to your main corporate site, you’re sending users to multiple sites that are now competing with each other for search ranking.

Additionally, if your competitors focus their efforts on maintaining a single site, then their content will be ranked higher than yours.

Increased Technical Complexity

Marketing teams face challenges with managing the content on multiple sites, which can demand their efforts to be multiplied as changes are implemented. But from a technology standpoint, your organization now also has to implement feature improvements and software updates in multiple places.

As your teams strain to manage the details for multiple sites, each starts to diverge. Even as your teams update features through the multisite tools of Drupal or WordPress, you still introduce the possibility of a site breaking if it hasn’t been kept up-to-date. To prevent multiple sites from forking in terms of capabilities, your organization needs an extra layer of governance to apply a big-picture view of technical decisions.

Resolving Multiple Site Issues Requires Expertise

Fortunately, the technical and organizational challenges of managing multiple site issues are not permanent conditions. With the right digital agency partner, you can gain insights into solutions and better understand whether multiple sites are your best option.

By isolating your business problems, you can evaluate whether your audience can be better served by an API integration on your website to incorporate an outside database. Or, you can shift to an upstream development model that allows separate sites but with greater stability because they share a single codebase.

Whether you’re stuck with unmanageable issues brought on by multiple sites or are considering expanding your digital products, an agency partner can be a vital guide.

Contact us for Assistance

We have the proper tutorials if you need help with setting up your subdomains, addon domains, or parked domains. Additionally, always feel free to contact our customer support team via Live Chat and ask any questions you have, or use our ticketing system to contact FastComet’s technical support experts.

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