I want to add a Blog to my eCommerce website.  I have two hosting packages.  One at Lunarpages and one somewhere else.  My eCommerse site is on LP, currently there is nothing on the other host but a redirect and some pictures I use on EBay.

In the interests of promoting my 'Brand', I should put my blog on the same domain as my shop.  However, I did install Wordpress on LP and an error occurred that resulted in my site being moved.  Despite me sorting the problem immediately, it took LP 2 weeks to move my site back and working correctly.  Something I cannot afford to happen again!  If I put the blog on the other host, this cannot happen, but - what are the downsides?

Could someone give me the Pro's and Con's of hosting my blog on each package.  The domain names are similar, but obviously not the same.  The blog would be 'business' orientated, mainly about the shop site.

Many thanks in advance,

Jamie.

Hi Mitch,

I hadn't thought of that as an option.  Would it mean that, if something went wrong again, only the addon domain would be moved rather than the whole account?

If so, it sounds like that's my answer!

Thanks,

J.

Could you perhaps share with us what "went wrong" the last time? There's no inherent reason that a shopping cart (eCommerce) and a blog couldn't share the same domain. You just have to be careful when installing them to put them in different directories so that they don't stomp on each other's toes. Ideally you would have

/home/ACCOUNT/public_html/index.html   home or "splash" page with links to store and blog
/home/ACCOUNT/public_html/eComm/   shopping cart installed here
/home/ACCOUNT/public_html/blog/    Wordpress or some other blogware here

If you've already installed your shopping cart into the site root (public_html/), that's not as good but you can still salvage things by making a blog/ directory to hold Wordpress.

Anyway, there's no reason that you should be "forced" to go to two separate domain names (primary + add-on, or two different hosts). Either you somehow botched the installation of one or both, or the blog was hacked and your site compromised through it.

Well, if they're running under the same account (same server), whether at LP or elsewhere, if your blog spins out of control again it will take down your store too. This is regardless of whether you have both under the same domain name or one primary and one add-on domain. The only way to prevent this would be to have the store and the blog under separate accounts, or even on different hosting services.

You shouldn't have such problems with a blog such as Wordpress, unless you're insisting on using a very back-level (and easily hacked) version, or in using add-in modules of dubious origin, or in configuring it poorly. For example, if this gallery module insists on generating thumbnail images "on the fly", it will be costly in CPU load. You could install the basic blog, and watch your resource usage (especially CPU load). You'd probably want to work with support to monitor your load, and be ready to disable something if it causes CPU load to spike. If the blog proves innocent, try adding other modules (such as the gallery) one at a time and seeing what it does. It's possible that this is a poorly designed module that wants to generate all your thumbnail images at once -- with a large number of images that could be deadly.

Anyway, make sure you're using up-to-date levels of all your scripts and software, to minimize hacking success. Don't rely on the cPanel server status and load indicators, as they're likely to be way off. Add new software one thing at a time to see what the effects are, and be ready to remove them in a hurry. Try to understand the error messages you're getting and to deal with them rather than sweeping them under the rug.