Our low density hosting is similar to shared hosting, except that the maximum number of domains allowed on one server is 50, and each domain has its own application pool in IIS. This means that each site is better isolated from other sites on the same server than in shared hosting and it has more resources dedicated to it. The result is that larger, more intensive sites will perform better and be more reliable, without the cost of running your own server, and the knowledge that requires.

Each low density server also has an instance of SQL Server 2008 Web Edition installed and MySQL 5. These are exclusively for use by the domains on that server, rather than using our standard shared hosting ones. Again this means better performance, as there are fewer databases. As with all our web servers, a local FTP server is installed on each server. The same Helm control panel is used for low density hosting, along with our SmarterMail mail server, SmarterStats for site analytics and our 4 redundant DNS servers.

As each website has its own application pool, problems with one site will not affect the other sites on the same server. It also allows us to securely offer full trust in ASP.Net - something which is not possible on standard shared hosting, for security reasons. ISAPI Rewrite is included free on every low density plan, and all the ASP components that you have come to expect on our standard hosting are also included.

These low density plans are available both to regular customers and to resellers. Whichever option you choose, the price is the same. The only difference is in the control panel - the reseller control panel allows you to sell to your customers in an unbranded fashion. If you are not reselling, it is best to choose the regular option, so as to avoid having your control panel filled with unnecessary options. If you are an existing reseller and want to start offering our low density plans as well, a second separate Helm account will be needed to do this, as our low density hosting can not be mixed with the standard plans.

If you are looking for the ultimate in reselling, we offer a Dedicated LD service, where an entire dedicated server is reserved for the use of your customers. It is your choice as to how many domains you put on it: you can keep the density low to get the best performance, or fill it up with as many customers as you wish. It is completely managed for you, so you do not have to worry about the technical skills required. For full details on this service, please see the Dedicated LD page, as the information on this current page does not apply.

So, if you have decided that low density hosting is for you, how do you go about purchasing? It is sold on a per-domain basis, with each domain including a large quantity of resources - 10gb disk space and 100gb bandwidth each month! The pricing starts at £11.95 a month if you are buying just one domain, and then goes down in price as you purchase more.

We also sell "packs" of domains. These are sold in quantities of 5 and 10 at £10.95 per domain and £9.95 per domain respectively. The advantage of these is that you can share resources between domains, so if you have 5 domains you have a total of 50gb disk space to split across the 5 domains however you wish.

To order 1 domain, or one of our packs, click here to use the signup form. If you wish to order a different quantity of domains, or you are an existing low density customer who would like to add more domains, please contact sales by clicking here and we will be happy to make the arrangements for you.

If you have an existing site on our standard hosting, and would like to move it to low density hosting, please let us know and we can assist you with this in order to make the transition as smooth and easy for you as possible.

If you have any questions about our low density hosting, please do not hesitate to contact us and we will be happy to answer your queries.

Each domain has a separate FTP account, and can be setup separately - so you can host more than one website on the same account! If you want to host domains for other people, and give them their own control panels etc you must use a reseller plan

Bandwidth is used each time someone visits your site, so if they see a page that is 3kb of html data with a 10kb picture on, they have used 13kb of bandwidth up. If you get 10 people viewing that page, thats 130kb bandwidth. We only measure the bandwidth to and from your website, we don't take into account ftp or mail bandwidth - so you can use those services as much as you like, without worrying about how much you are using! The figure given is for each month, so you get 12 times that amount in a year! Extra bandwidth can be purchased in 1GB blocks.

You can create sub domains of any domains you host with us, these are in the form subdomain.yourdomain.com and a directory is created for them in the main domains web space

An FTP account allows you to upload your website or other files to our servers easily. You can use any FTP client you like on your computer to do so. You can find FTP clients at many software download sites, or can even use ones built into some browsers such as Internet Explorer.

Each POP3/IMAP account is an email address that can store e-mails. You can check it using a mail client such as Outlook, Outlook Express etc or using our included webmail.. The space used by your mail accounts is counted towards the your main disk space quota for the plan.

We support the use of MySQL databases on our server which are used mostly with PHP scripts, but can also be used with other languages (such as ASP, ASP.Net etc through MyODBC which we also have installed). We also have phpMyAdmin to enable you to manage your databases. The space used by your MySQL databases is counted towards the your main disk space quota for the plan.

Powered by Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Workgroup Edition, these databases are great for use from ASP.Net or ASP, as well as supporting other scripting languages! For full information on our MS SQL packages please see this page.

* If marked with a star, the amount of disk space used by MS SQL databases is included in your main hosting plan disk space limit instead of being calculated separately.

ASP "Classic" is a scripting language from Microsoft to allow you to add dynamic content to your websites. You can write your own scripts to do almost anything, or use many of the pre-written scripts that you can find on the internet. We have the IIS6 as our web server, which fully supports the latest version of ASP. A large number of ASP Components are included, please see the main plan information pages for details.

Microsoft's newest scripting technology is the successor to ASP. More than just a new language, its a whole new way of programming for the web! We support the .Net Framework version 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0 on our servers. See the Microsoft ASP.Net Site and .Net Framework @ MSDN for further information on the technology.

As recommended by Microsoft, in order to maintain a secure server environment, ASP.Net is run in a trust level known as "Medium Trust" (with a few modifications to allow for additional features) on our servers. If you will be running commercial scripts, please ensure that the developer has made their script compatiable with this trust level before purchasing. If you have any questions about what can be run in this trust level, please do not hesitate to contact sales or support.

PHP is another scripting language which allows the addition of dynamic elements to your websites. It is normally (but not always) used in conjunction with MySQL, and many pre-made scripts can be found on the internet if you do not wish to write your own

Perl is another popular scripting language which allows you to add dynamic content to your site. Pre-made scripts can be downloaded from the internet and used, however please note that as this is a Windows server some scripts may have compatibility problems. We would recommend ASP or ASP.Net if you are making scripts to run on our servers

SmarterStats is an advanced statistics package which will give you detailed information on your visitors and their browsing habits. Find out what files are using the most bandwidth, or where in the world your visitors come from! You can see a demo of SmarterStats 3 on the developers website: www.smartertools.com

You can have your own custom error pages that are displayed instead of the default for the following errors:
400: Bad Request
401: Unauthorized
403: Forbidden
404: Not Found
500: Internal Server Error

Secure folders allows you to protect certain areas of your site so that only people you allow access to can view it. You can set up as many users as you like and assign them to groups. Each folder you protect can have a different set of users who are allowed access.

Included with this plan is space on our Shared SSL server. A new directory is created in your web space to hold the secure files, and these are then viewed via a secure SSL connection (i.e. https://).

We can also provide SSL on your own domain (i.e. https://www.yourdomain.com or https://secure.yourdomain.com), either with a certificate you provide or one you purchase from us. There is an additional fee for SSL on your own domain however, please contact sales for further details

ISAPI Rewrite provides similar functionality to mod_rewrite on Apache. For full details, please see the official documentation. It is available to activate on a domain for a one-time setup fee of £10, simply contact sales to do so.