Multi-Site Access With CCBill - Suggestions Please

Okay here's the deal, im currently working on a new affiliate program thats going to be launching next year and im trying to work out the best way to offer multi-site accesses to members that join 1 site.

I know i can have all of the sites share the same htaccess file, that isnt the problem, the problem is, should i give all sites their own members area, or should i create a single members area and backend all of the sites in to that?

I can think of several benefits of using each method but im hoping someone with experience in granted members access to mutliple sites with 1 membership could offer some insight in to the best way of approaching this.

Any of you folks currently offering members full access to all of your sites with a single membership purchase? If so, how did you go about setting up the members areas?

Also, did you find that one method caused more problems for you than another and if so, what additional problems were created so i can avoid those if possible :)

Regards,

Lee

Obviously giving access to more than 1 site, and mentioning that you do so in the tour, will help conversions.

If you also want to help retention, you'll be far better off if each site has its own members area. Then you can also do rolling updates in various site's members areas, which will help with retention even more.

We use MAS from Mansion to manage all of the member's areas from 1 interface, so from our perspective it's as if we're managing 1 site, but from the consumer's perspective, each members area is independent from the others.

It's $4,000 but worth every penny.

Lee,
a very simple method, maybe not the most secure, is to just use referral URLs in your .HTACCESS file. I know of a number of CCBILL programs that use this method.

use strongbox, they have a site jump feature that is totally secure!

and I would suggest creating each site with its own members area and offering the other sites as bonus sites, that way the member does not feel like he is being snow-jobbed when joining a niche site and getting a common members area.

cheers,
Luke

It's also really simple to have CCBill's script write to two different htpasswd files for different sites.

I'd probably vote for separate member areas, just for customer satisfaction. I think they'll feel like they are getting more content and being treated more honestly if they have logins to two different sites with different content than if they are sold on two sites and find out it's one members area.

You also have the flexibility if you maintain separate membership files and areas to later offer promotional deals for the one site, and then upgrades to get the second site.