Pingdom has an interesting look today into five of the top web hosts and their growth patterns over the past two-plus years. They include – accounts in parenthesis:
- Dreamhost (625,470)
- Ipowerweb/Ipower (414,788)
- Bluehost (374,965)
- Hostgator (299,463)
- Site5 (64,737)
One thing to note is that more accounts doesn’t necessarily mean more revenue as Dreamhost has the most accounts but prices their accounts very low and caters to the entry level crowd.
Pingdom also explains some of the factors that go into growth for hosting accounts:
- Aggressive affiliate programs, offering plenty of profit sharing and perks to affiliates.
- Reseller programs.
- Blogging and being open about their business and the company, usually with a personal touch, giving insights and creating discussion. Dreamhost is very good at this.
- Discussions in blogs and forums.
- Overselling (a hotly debated topic, but nevertheless a fact).
- Lowering hosting prices (often in connection with campaigns).
- Lowering domain name prices.