Types of DNS Servers

A DNS (Domain Name System) server, also known as a name server, is a web server that is specifically designed to connect with a massive database that stores all information about domain names and their corresponding DNS records. These records include the registrant of the domain, the web host, active nameservers and other information.

A domain name's DNS servers are listed in the WHOis database and the web hosting control panel, and appear as NS1.NAMESERVER.COM and NS2.NAMESERVER.COM.

The Basics

There are thousands of DNS servers around the world that contain pieces of the database, but there are only 13 root DNS servers that contain the entire database on each server.

There are two types of DNS servers – primary and secondary. It is important to note, however, that any DNS server can be used as a primary or a secondary server, depending on the preference of the sever administrator.  It is even possible to have the same server be a primary server for one zone and a secondary server for another.

If you're interested in learning more about primary and secondary DNS servers, then you may want to consider the following information.

Primary Master DNS Servers

A primary master name server reads data for the domain zone from a file located on the web server of the hosting account. This server usually also sends information to the secondary server as well.

Zone data is the information specified by the server administrator that tells the server how to behave and communicate with other servers. When a primary server communicates with a secondary server, it is called a zone transfer because zone data is being transferred from one DNS to another.

Two DNS servers are assigned to each domain to make administration easier and provide more security than just a single server. Once zone data has been created for a primary server, it does not need to be copied over to the secondary server because the two servers automatically share zone data.

Secondary DNS Servers

A secondary DNS server, also called a slave server or simply a slave, receives zone data from the primary server automatically after starting.  In Microsoft's DNS manager software, secondary DNS servers are referred to as secondaries.  Every time a secondary server functions, it requests information from its master server.

It is important to note that a secondary server does not need to pull data form a primary server because another secondary server can be set up as the master server.

Secondary DNS servers are just as important as primary servers because they provide security in the form of redundancy. They also lessen the load placed on the primary server and ensure that there is always a server working to deliver data. By diversifying the administrative structure of domain name servers, the security of web sites and the internet in general is ensured.

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How Website Hosting Works?

You all must have heard that to make a website visible on World Wide Web it is necessary to host it. Thus hosting helps an organization or business to make their website reachable via the World Wide Web. It basically provides the space, technology, and services that would be needed for your website to be reachable. There are three main types of web hosting viz. Shared hosting, VPS hosting, and Dedicated hosting. All three have different characteristics and have their own advantages and disadvantages.

There are terms related to hosting a website like a web server, HTML, CSS, domain, IP address etc. your browser sends a request for the page to the server by connecting through an IP address. When the domain name is translated, you obtain an IP address. The web pages are made up of a computer language called HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) that narrates the format, content, and layout of the page with the help of CSS that is a stylesheet. The web servers then deliver the page through the internet by reacting to the browser’s request. Therefore, in order to host your website on the web server, you need a hosting provider. It is a very simple procedure, but it might get confusing for people who are doing it or the first time.

Have you ever thought of how this process of hosting works? Let us go through the steps to host your website.

1. IP address

An IP address is a numerical identity with numbers ranging from 1 to 255 and divided by periods. For e.g. the IP address of our website is 103.247.99.254. Each website has its own unique identity and right now there are around 4.2 billion numerical identities. The IP address is essential because there are many computers on the same location that is called LAN (Local Area Network) and many LANs are connected together that is called WAN (Wide Area Network), therefore, each should have a unique identity.

When you sign up for a hosting service, you get an IP address. Sometimes one IP address is shared by many and it is also cheaper in price but this can prove to be harmful to the security of your site and it could be penalized or blocked. Having your own dedicated IP address is safe but expensive.

Making IP address the identity of your website is not very convenient, this is where domain name comes in the picture.

2. Domain names

Domain names are considered as the second name for IP address. It is difficult to remember these number and domain names are simpler to remember and understand. It is important to get a domain name for the website and acts as an address. For e.g. want2host. I am sure it is easy for you also to remember want2host rather than 103.247.99.254. One needs to purchase a domain name and it ranges from being cheap to expensive depending on your need. You can book your domain name from 1 to 10 years or so. Before its expiry, make sure, you restore it again or else your domain name will be publicly available.

3. DNS

DNS stands for Domain Name Server or Domain Name System. This step is known to be the hardest of all. It basically keeps a record of the information and is in charge of it i.e. Your IP address and domain name. Many times the hosting company itself maintains the information but there are many companies who solely provide DNS services. It gives an affirmation that the domain name is related to the IP address of the computer that has the website hosted on. It is a way for the domain names to guide us to the right computer.

Now that you know what IP address, domain names and DNS plays a role, let us look at the last step that is hosting.

4. Hosting

Now that you have your IP address, the domain name in place it is time to host it and make it reachable. In simple words, hosting is when you pay a company to put your website files on their web server. Your website’s files consist of HTML files, images, videos, photos, etc.

To put it all in place, when your domain name is put on the web browser, the DNS is connect it to the right computer/server and then that particular computer has your website hosted on it.

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How to Create Add-On Domain

An Add-on Domain is an extra domain that any person can make if he already owns a Domain. It is mainly used when a Domain owner wishes to manage multiple domains from a single control panel and a single hosting plan. It is a money saving process. An add-on domain can be given an add-on domain email address, forwarders and more, just like in a primary domain on the account. Here, simply one control panel is used to manage multiple hosting packages. The add-on domain appears completely separate from the primary domain. As a result of which the incoming traffic will have no evidence that the domain they are visiting is an add-on domain.

Creating a new Add-on Domain from control Panel:

Log into your control panel. Expand the left-hand stats pane, if not expanded already. Here you can see all the add-on domains you currently have. It also shows the maximum number of Add-on Domains you can have.

Step 1: Select “Add-on Domain” under the section “Domains”.

Step 2: Fill the details of the Add-on Domain. When finished, click on the Add Domain button.

You now have a new Add-on Domain. The domain begins working on the server after some time delay, called Propagation time.

Furthermore, The following things happen when you create an Add-on Domain:

◈ A new folder is created in the public_html Directory.

◈ A new Subdomain is created for the previously owned primary domain and is attached to the new folder in the public_html Directory.

◈ The new domain name is always associated with the Subdomain created in the previous step.

Therefore, if the primary domain was named want2host.com and we assign an Add-on Domain 1234.com to the folder 1234, the list of valid Url’s would be

◈ want2host.com/1234

◈ 1234.want2host.com

◈ 1234.com

All three URL’s would show the same website and access the same directory. However, any visitor that accesses 1234.com would have no clue that he was routed through 1234.want2host.com and all the functions would run normally. All these things happen automatically. No further actions are needed once you have loaded the content into the Addon Domain folder. The website want2host.com route can also be disabled without disturbing the 1234.com route. This is known as restricting Subdomain access to Add-on Domains.

Additionally, when dealing with a shared hosting plan, a single control panel would have to manage all the multiple hosts. This could become a problem. However, you can create a unique control panel for each domain name using a reseller plan. This means that the second domain owner can also manage and login into the email accounts, without needing access to the main control panel.

Removing an Add-on Domain

Step 1: Click on the Add-on Domains icon in the Control Panel.

Step 2: Scroll down and find the list of Add-on Domains.

Step 3: Locate the Add-on Domain you want to delete. Select Remove next to the Add-on Domain to remove it.

Manage Redirection Link can be used to redirect your Add-on Domain to some other URL if required.

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How to Create a Sub-Domain and More!

A Sub-Domain is not the same as a Domain. The name Sub-Domain implies that it is a part of the Domain name. Facebook.com is an example of a Domain(main page). It is the basis on which all websites are built. A Sub-Domain is as the name suggests, a subset of the main domain, for example tools.godaddy.com. The extra tools is the part that tells us that the page is a Sub-Domain. Its basic need is based on the fact that any web page cannot provide all the information in a single page in an organised manner. It a sub part of the website, that contains additional information. For example, a college website has separate pages for existing students and prospective students. This prevents confusion. Both these pages are called a Sub-domain.

A Sub-Domain, also called a child Domain, is just a sub-part of a larger Domain name in the DNS ( Domain Name System) Hierarchy. The DNS is a tool converts the domain name to its Name server’s IP address and then accesses the website. The DNS hierarchy is a multi level hierarchy, that has a root-level Domain at the top of the tree followed by the top-level Domains. The top level is followed by the 2nd level domains, also called the name servers. After these finally comes the Sub-Domains.

The second image, tools.example.com is a how a Subdomain usually looks.

To create a new Sub-Domain using your control panel, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open your Control Panel, login, and click on Subdomains

Step 2: In the Drop-down, choose the Domain name to which you want to create a Sub-Domain.

Step 3: In the Box before the Domain name you selected, type the name of Sub-Domain you wish to create.

Step 4: Inside the Document Root box, click the cursor. The box will fill automatically

Step 5: Click on the Create button.

You now have a new Sub-Domain.

Sub-Domains don’t always inherit all the good part from its root domain. Some other Sub-Domains on the same root domain may have a better rank. Whereas, some get no benefit at all. For instance, in Wordpress.com, any user can make a new Sub-Domain and conveniently publish it. To improve the ranking of your website, it is recommended to keep only one Sub-Domain under a root domain.

Sub-Domain helps to organise your website into Support, FAQ, help, contact and more such pages. Sub-Domains can also be created when you wish to share the disk space with other people. A Sub-Domain’s main advantage is that it can be created for each person you want to share your space with. You can also give them permission to access the space using their own username and password. Sub-Domains also help in organising the email addresses that come to separate departments on your website. For example, support@want2host.com and care@want2host.com. Creating a Sub-Domain, especially for URL’s that are very long, also help in remembering them easily. Long URL’s can be cut into a short Sub-Domain. This is especially helpful when one is dealing with a URL that has various special characters including ‘&’, ‘?’ and more.

A Sub-Domain can be really helpful. But, you should keep in mind that when you offer Sub-Domains to your friends or colleagues, you are responsible for the Disk Space use and Bandwidth.

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What is Business Email Hosting and its Benefits?

Business email hosting has become a great tool for establishing brand identity as well as its credibility. This article explains what is business email hosting and how a company, organization or even a website can get benefits ofbusiness email hosting.

Despite the growth of new media like digital or social media, emails still remain one of the most important ways of business communications. Businesses send thousands of mails to perform their crucial business functions. Despite the utility of business emails, there are still many organizations using free email hosting services like Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo for their business. However, these email accounts provide them with such email ID that are suffixed with the extension indicating towards free email hosting service providers and does not give them the advantages of professional email ID. For this, they need to get business email hosting.

What is Business Email Hosting?

A business email is the email specifically used for a business. A business email address contains the company name in it like employeename@companyname.com. This professional email ID not only establishes the authority of a person to act on behalf of a company but also acts as an advertisement of the company because the business name stays visible with every communication the employees make. Building a brand name is only one advantage of business email. There are many more advantages of a business email hosting account.

Benefits of Business Email Hosting

A business email hosting service not only makes your communication more professional but also increases your brand value. Using a professional mail account with your business domain name will give much more credibility to your business as your customers will trust you more.

Here are the various benefits of a professional email hosting for your business:

◈ Communication made more Professional: Using business emails will make your business communication more professional be it an internal communication with your employees or externally with your customers or stakeholders. Sending a business proposal to your prospective customer through free email account will sound too unprofessional, and is very unlikely to create an impact. On the other hand, a similar proposal sent from your business mail address looks more professional and convincing.

◈ Trust: As discussed above, a business email account is trusted more than a free mail account by the customers. A professional email account is always associated with a domain name which is your company’s business domain name on which your primary website is hosted. Any customer wishing to know more about your services can easily recognize your website address. This helps tremendously in gaining your customers. On the other hand, any anonymous mail sent through a free email account gives no option to the customer to check your company details, decreasing the trust factor substantially.

◈ Cost Effective: An email account costs nothing in comparison to the benefits you get from them. Many businesses consider investing in business emails as a wasteful expense. However, once they start using the mails, and see the benefits, they realize the true value for their money.

◈ Storage Space: Most service providers provide customized storage space to their customers. Depending upon the specific customer requirement, email service providers go ahead and customize the storage space.

◈ White-Label Email Hosting: With a white-label email hosting, you can use your own logo on the email account. This helps you to use your own brand name on the email account. Most of the businesses prefer a white-label email solution for their businesses as they don’t want their users to know about the parent service provider. White-label email solutions help you keep the identity of the service provider private and allow users to use their own brand name on the emails.

◈ More & Better Features: Professional mail accounts give you many more features and benefits than a free email service. For example, a free email account might not allow you to customize the mail box size, while a professional mail account like our Bizmail service will allow you to customize your mail box size according to your needs. Professional mails give you specialized features for your professional usage, like mail monitoring, or mail grouping that a free account won’t give. The business email solutions for bigger enterprises- the enterprise email service even give the feature of shared contacts, calendar and task with backup and recovery of delete trash mail. What more, you can even customize business email service as per your needs when you use paid email server hosting service.

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4 Benefits of Google Email Hosting

Google Business Apps are some of the most innovative technological tools available for savvy business owners. These apps can provide you with a broad range of services, from web storage solutions to various forms of business communications. Another great function of these business oriented applications is email hosting. Google email hosting is great for owners of both large and small businesses, helping to create a communications interface that is free of clutter and easy to navigate. Here are four unique benefits of using this service:

Google Infrastructure

It's no secret that Google is a company that dominates the market. Their products and services started out small and through excellent strategic measures and an effective business plan, their company quickly grew into a popular franchise that everyone was aware of. How did this happen? Through a well-made, quality infrastructure that you'll have access to when using Google email hosting. By having a proper, stable infrastructure backing everything you do, less worry and stress falls on your shoulders. Let Google do the hard stuff for you while you optimize and grow your business to new heights. 

Optimal Spam Protection

We all know how common spam has become in recent years, and how annoying it can be to those who come across it when browsing through their email messages. Luckily, technology has been developed that allows users to block out spam from their lives. Google business apps are known for excellent spam protection, through use of an innovative background system that works to sort and filter your mail messages. 

Concerned about more than spam? Viruses and other harmful substances are certainly a concern as well, as hackers have gotten very good at getting around outdated security systems. When using Google email hosting you and anyone who works with you can relax and know that you have some of the best virus protection currently available when it comes to email hosting and the world wide web. 

Add-Ons and Features

If you are looking for the best bang for your buck, Google business apps may be a feasible option for you. Looking for an email hosting option with tons of extra options and features? Convenient add-ons make this package more than worth it, and you'll use them more then you think. Want the ability to archive any of your business's emails quickly and easily? Want enough storage space to run any sized business effectively? Google email hosting can offer these things. 

Flexibility, Portability

As the owner of a growing business in today's fast paced society, chances are you're always on the go. You may be running from meeting to meeting, getting your face out their and making new connections, or you may be taking a much needed day off. Whatever the situation is, it's always nice to have access to all of your emails and other information from anywhere. Google business apps, particularly Google email hosting, are known for portability. Access these services from anywhere, on any portable device you may have, even your mobile phone. Take your work with you and never rush to the office to check your email again. 

Finding proper tools for your business isn't always easy. Wading through the many options available can create a growing feeling of stress and tensions, leading some business owners to being overwhelmed. Don't settle for the first service that crosses your path, take your time and research all of your options. In the end, the goal is to find what works for you, the service that will help make managing your business an easier, more streamlined process. 

Google business apps are a great option to consider, though certainly not the only thing out there. Along with top notch email hosting services, you'll also have access to a wide array of other useful business oriented apps. Get powerful calendar software that will help you schedule appointments and deadlines, huge amounts of storage for all of your business's important documents, powerful messaging tools to make communication between team members a snap, and so much more. Go with what works, go with Google. 

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Seven Basic Ingredients of Unix Hosting

Though often overshadowed by the market dominated Windows and Linux platform, Unix remains a widely used platform and a popular option for web hosting.  This article will introduce you to seven features commonly found in Unix hosting plans.  Though basic, these features are very important and should not be underestimated.

1. POP3 Email Accounts – An example of a POP3 email account would be “yourname@yoursite.com“.  Most hosting companies will provide you with a large number of email accounts to use for yourself or distribute to your employees.

2. Webmail and SMTP – As soon as your website goes live, email will likely become your main source of communication.  The tool you need to make this an easy process is a webmail program such as Horde or Squirrelmail.  This process can be even faster when downloading your messages to email clients such as Microsoft Outlook or Eudora.  However, in order for this to work, you need a Unix hosting solution that supports messaging protocols such as IMAP and SMTP.

3. Spam Filter – It doesn’t matter who you are, no email user is immune to spam messages.  In this day and age of the internet, having a reliable spam filter is a must.  These applications are installed on the web server where your site resides and typically offer features such as blacklisting, whitelisting and greylisting to mitigate spam.  The more flexible filters will allow you to make configurations to tag spam and have it delivered straight to a quarantine folder to keep it from cluttering your inbox.

4. FTP Accounts – FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a method that allows you to upload your files and maintain them on the server.  A Unix host that supports this protocol usually provides the ability to create a certain number of FTP sub-accounts.  This allows you to provide your clients and users with access to password-protected directories, which is very useful for sharing files in a more efficient and secure manner.

5. Backup Utility – While most web hosts perform automated backups on a regular basis, you should never put the fate of your website in their hands.  There are many ways to backup your website data, but the easiest way is with a utility specifically designed for this task.  Most of today’s control panels come included with built-in utilities that allow you to easily backup your site in minutes.

6. Web Stats – Analyzing your visitors and traffic can play a crucial role in the success of your site.  Popular web stat software such as AwStats and Webalizer run on the back-end of the server and can provide you with detailed reports on your statistics.  This can give you the knowledge to make the needed adjustments or additions that increase traffic and boost sales.

7. PHP and MySQL – Similar to Linux, almost all Unix plans come with support for PHP server-side programming and the MySQL database server.  These features are generally provided for no extra costs and can give you the power to create a dynamic, data-driven website.

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Sub Domains vs Sub Directories ‐ Which Is Better for SEO?

The URLs and the navigation of a site do matter for SEO but the elements of site structure that affect SEO don't end here. For example, take sub domains and sub directories. These are another example of a site's structural elements that do influence how Google ranks results. While the difference between when a page is in a sub directory (also called a sub folder) vs when it's on a sub domain might not be always huge, there are cases when it really matters if you use sub domains or sub directories.

The Difference Between a Sub Domain and a Sub Directory

Before we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of sub domains and sub directories for SEO, let's clarify the difference between them.

Basically, when you use sub domains, your URLs will look like this:

subdomain.domain.com

Notice the 'subdomain' part before your main domain. This part tells Google and your visitors that the contents in the sub domain is separate from the contents of the rest of your site. A typical use for sub domains is for a business site where the blog is separate from the rest and it resides on a subdomain of its own ‐ i.e. blog.companysite.com. Sites with forums (and other content, for instance articles) also frequently separate the forum part on a sub domain, such as forum.contentsite.com.

Unlike sub domains that precede the domain name, sub directories follow it. Like this:

domain.com/subdirectory

The difference is not purely in the syntax. It goes beyond that and it's related to the type of content you have. There isn't a rule when to use sub domains and when to use sub directories but basically if the content is a good candidate for a separate site, then you go with sub domains. If the content isn't that much different from the main content, you go with sub directories. For instance, if you have a blog about web design, you can have separate sub directories for tutorials, free stuff, your artwork, etc., but put the shop where you sell templates and designs on a separate domain.

SEO Benefits of Sub Domains

It's hard to say if sub domains are better for SEO or not because it depends on many other factors. However, one of the cases when you would benefit from a separate domain is when you have multiple pages for a single keyword.

Google usually limits the number of search results per domain, unless they are very relevant but this doesn't apply to sub domains. In other words, if you had a domain with sub directories and you have 10 relevant results, most likely Google will show only 2 or 3 of them, while if you had 5 sub domains, chances are 2 or 3 results per sub domain (or 10-15 altogether) will be shown. However, don't take this for granted and don't rush to sub domaining just to trick Google to show more results from your site ‐ this might not work and you will have wasted your time and effort.

Another advantage of sub domains for SEO is that you can put your keywords as sub domain names. This is especially good, if your main domain name lacks them ‐ i.e. if your main domain is healthsomething.com but you have lots of stuff about addiction, it makes sense to create a separate sub domain addiction.healthsomething.com with your keyword in it. Of course, you can do this with sub directories as well but somehow a separate sub domain with your keywords has more weight.

SEO Drawbacks of Sub Domains

The advantages of sub domains for SEO are tangible, however they also have drawbacks. For instance, sub domains are harder to set and manage.

Another disadvantage, and it's a major one, is that sub domains don't always inherit metrics from the main domain (i.e. if your main domain is PR5, your sub domains could be PR0 because for Google both are not closely related). In many cases, this alone is enough to make you give up the idea of using sub domains at all ‐ since the sub domains are not inheriting metrics, this means you practically have to optimize them from scratch.

SEO Benefits of Sub Folders

If you expect a longish list of SEO benefits of sub folders, there is no such list because basically sub folders have only two advantages.

First, similarly to sub domains, with sub folders, you can have the keyword in your URL. Second, sub folders inherit the metrics of your root domain, which means that if your site is doing well on a whole, any content in a sub folder automatically benefits from this, while with sub domains you might have to start your SEO efforts from the very beginning.

SEO Drawbacks of Sub Folders

The main SEO disadvantage of sub folders is that they could limit your exposure, if search results are already saturated with pages from your site. As I already mentioned, Google generally limits the number of search results per domain to 2 or 3, so if you have more pages that are relevant, they might not show in the main search results.

When to Use a Sub Domain and When to Use a Sub Directory?

Use sub domains for larger topics ‐ i.e. if you have a health site, it makes sense to create separate domains for each major group of diseases (i.e. cardiovascular, respiratory, etc.) and then create a sub folder for the separate diseases in this group (i.e. heart attack, flu, etc.)

Also, as already mentioned, if your site has a forum and or/a a blog in addition to your corporate pages, you should use sub domains for the forum and the blog ‐ i.e. forum.domain.com and blog.domain.com.

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10 Superb Uses of Dedicated Servers

So, you’ve invested big money to get yourself dedicated server hosting. You’ve got the expertise, you’ve hired the right people, you’ve got the infrastructure for it? We’re here to tell you the many ways you can use your dedicated servers to its full potential:

1. Web server: This is the most common use of dedicated servers – got tons of traffic on your website? Dedicated servers are perfect for hosting such a site. If you’ve outgrown your shared servers, dedicated hosting is the next best alternative for you.

2. Backup server: Technical failure, human error or natural disasters can be threats to data security. Use your dedicated servers to back-up all your data so as to avoid the risk of losing essential data for good.

3. Database: Your dedicated server could double as a reliable, efficient data storage system for other applications and websites. Additionally, the dedicated server can be used for analyzing data & archiving.

4. Application Server: Where your Dedicated server is used for a single, large, specific application. These applications are generally business critical hence you can have multiple dedicated servers setup so as to ensure load distribution & splitting.

5. E-mail servers: E-mail servers allow you to manage e-mails and have complete control over the reception, the distribution & delivery. It’s best to have your e-mail at your own domain so you can manage the storage & upload limit. With your own server, you can send heavy files without a size cap.

6. Chat room servers: Get your own chat room set up, also known at the IRC server. Every chat room uses this server, allowing file transfers, encryption, proxy, chat bots etc.

7. VPN Servers: Virtual Private Network servers provide secure connections over public networks & channelizes all your traffic through these connections.

8. Nagios Server: This server is useful for monitoring if something goes wrong with your host server & lets you know the approximate time required to fix it. It monitors network issues, host resources & network probes like moisture & temperature.

9. Video Streaming: Your dedicated servers are built to handle heavy files & large traffic making it ideal for video streaming.

10. Music Jukebox: A web based jukebox allows you to play & organise your music files from any device you use. Use it to stream different high quality multimedia at various bandwidths. Access your music library from anywhere.

If you’ve got more ideas on how you can use your dedicated servers, we’d love to hear from you! Do share it in the comments section below.

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How to use cPanel: Beginners Guide to Using cPanel’s Commonly Used Features

cPanel is a popular dashboard to manage hosting orders however, if you’re not too clear on how to use cPanel, this article will walk you through the basic functions that you can perform with relevant screenshots.

What is cPanel?

cPanel is a dashboard to manage your web hosting account through a web interface. cPanel makes managing a hosting account easy that even those without technical expertise can set up websites. The cPanel dashboard also gives you updates, ability to access and manage add-on domains, FTP, security measures, enable backup for your files & more.

◈ Shared Hosting
◈ Reseller Hosting
◈ Dedicated Servers
◈ Cloud hosting

Products you can access through the cPanel include:

◈ Mail
◈ Security
◈ Domains
◈ 3rd party app softwares
◈ Files
◈ Databases
◈ Logs

Several of these tools may be available at the discretion of your server administrator or web host as they may need additional modules or tools to be installed and exposed within the cPanel interface.

Why do people use cPanel?

◈ As mentioned earlier, it’s easy to use
◈ Helps set-up & manage mail accounts & services
◈ Helps manage domains
◈ Allows easy website backup
◈ Helps keep a tab on your bandwidth usage
◈ Upload & manage files

How to use cPanel?

In this section, we will be addressing the following how-to’s on cPanel:

◈ How to Update contact information
◈ How to change your password
◈ How to manage domains
◈ How to edit/ remove domains
◈ How to set up an email account
◈ How to manage your files
◈ How to backup your website

If you’re new to cPanel & have never logged in before, your hosting provider would have given you a username and password. You can login to your cPanel by typing in your domain name followed by a 2082 or 2083. Example: www.example.com:2082 or www.example.com:2082. You will be required to fill in your username & password here.

This is a typical view of your cPanel dashboard:

On the top, right hand side of your panel, you will be able to see your Username with a dropdown of settings where you can change your password, your language, style etc. It can all be reset with a single click.

You will then be able to see the sidebar which will contain:

◈ Home

◈ Statistics like file transfers, email account number, domain names etc.

◈ Dashboard for commonly used links, overview of bandwidth & disk space

◈ User management to add/ remove users email accounts, manage who has access to FTP etc.

Let’s now address the ‘how-to’s’.

How to update Contact Information in cPanel

To update your contact information, click on the dropdown next to your username on the top right hand side.

Click ‘Contact Information’

You will see a screen like this:

Leave all the boxes ticked to get notified about any account information changes, low disk space changes etc.

How to change password in cPanel

Change your password easily by heading to Password & Security. Here, you will need to enter your old password before you can change it to the new one.

Choose a strong password.

How to manage Domains in cPanel

cPanel allows you to host multiple domain names within the same panel. If you need to add/ remove a domain name from your cPanel, here’s how to do it.

Adding a Domain Name

Under the Domains section, click Addon Domains if you want to add a new, fully functioning website.

◈ The New Domain Name is the name you’ve registered sans the ‘www’.

◈ The Subdomain is automatically created

◈ The Document Root is the location of your new domain’s files on the server

Once you fill in the first field, the other two are auto-populated.

Hit Add Domain & you’re done.

How to Edit / Remove Domains in cPanel

On the Addon Domain screen, hit the Modify Addon Domain section where you can:

◈ Edit the document root

◈ Manage redirections

◈ Remove the domain altogether

How to set up an email account in cPanel

If you want to add an email account, simply click Email Accounts. You’ll see this screen:

◈ To set up an account, type in the contact email address (yourname@example.com)

◈ Next, type in the domain name (you’ll need to have it added to cPanel before you do this step)

◈ Create a strong password

◈ Add a mailbox quota

◈ And click Create Account

◈ To access your webmail account, simply type http://mydomain.com/webmail in the address bar.

How to manage your files in cPanel

Files is where you can upload files, take backups of your website & manage FTP accounts. Be very careful that you don’t modify or delete files accidentally, though. Here, you will see root files and subfolders.

Once here, you can create a new folder, you can upload a file through File Manager.

How to backup your website in cPanel

Backup Wizard in Files makes backing up a really simple task.

Once here, click Backup to backup your files. You will be given the option to either fully back up all files or do a partial backup which includes Home Directory, MySQL Databases, Email Forwarders & Filters.

You can choose your backup destination & request an email notification once the backup is complete.

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The role of your Domain Name & Web Host in SEO

Everyone wants their websites to be SEO friendly . Efficient Search Engine Optimization(SEO) helps to increase your page rankings  and the end result is web users viewing your website. But SEO is no magic wand that one waves; it’s not like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It is absolutely necessary to understand how and why it works. Before that let’s try to label the components that go into making a website online.

Domains have always been associated with plots of land. People buy domains and sell them with an intent of making profits. In other words, domains are considered to be the real estate of the internet. Top Level Domains (TLDs) form the very foundation of your website because they are used in URLs to identify the web page.

Keep that analogy aside for the moment and assume that your website is a feature film that needs to be screened. A theater is the most obvious venue that comes to your mind in order to screen your movie; a no-brainer.

Thus, the cinema theater is nothing but your web hosting service. A web hosting package is what gives your website space on the internet and web servers are what keep it up and running. Your website and the domain concerned with it are practically useless without an efficient web-hosting package.

Now that you know the gist of what puts a website live on the internet, let’s look at it from another angle. You need to decide how you want people to find you on the web. SEO is one of the last things to be neglected. It aids in keeping your website on a high priority when it comes to search engines, inevitably increasing the number of visitors on to your website.

Domain:

A Second Level Domains (SLD) is the text that comes right before your gTLD (say a ‘.com’) in the URL structure. You will be surprised to know the various factors that are involved in keeping your website URL SEO friendly.

◈ Relevance – The domain name associated with your website must be in context with your professional establishment or whatever may be the purpose of the website that you have created. SEO specialists prefer to purchase exact match domains, which are meant to match the preference of keywords that inputted by internet users. For example, if an NGO wants a website up and running exclusively for stray animals to be put up for adoption, it should ideally purchase a ‘www.adoptastray.ngo’. Search engines have no trouble in filtering out words that have no spaces in between (like the above example). Hyphens and underscores count as alphanumeric characters and not word spaces. Therefore, they must only be used when it is necessary to separate words. Also keep in mind that excess hyphen use could come across as spam for search engines.

◈ Length – The shorter and concise the domain name, the better. You wouldn’t want to keep one that is pointlessly long because people show a tendency to click on shorter URLs (say bitly links that you come across on social media) than those long, nasty ones. Long URLs could also lower your Search Engine Ranking.

◈ Easy to remember – Once you’ve kept the above pointers in check, make sure you incorporate easy to register words that do not take much time for web users especially your customers to recall.

◈ Defensive Registration – Businesses register multiple domain names that are relevant with their products or services to ensure that they are not registered by others and used for their own purpose. Keeping the domain – real estate analogy in mind, think of it as a form of aggressive expansion. From a business point of view, it is essential and not really an SEO tactic.

◈ TLDs – The introduction of the new gTLDs was to help internet users associate the same with the functionality of a website. For example, people know that a .tv will be about a sitcom or any television show in general. .BEER will be for brew fanatics and beer lovers.

New gTLDs do not directly influence positive SEO. Although Google is indifferent to gTLDs by themselves, it highlights all the search keywords that are a part of the URL. Say you own a website www.fitness.club and the search includes ‘fitness club’ then the chances of your search engine ranking is definitely higher. In spite of ‘club’ coming after the dot, it is still highlighted because it is recognized as a keyword in this case.

If you are planning to purchase a domain from the after market, be pragmatic and consider if it is worth the purchase. One of the most important factors to consider is if the domain name that you are wanting to purchase gives a good brand association.

Hosting:

People normally do not associate web hosting with SEO. But don’t be surprised about the fact that Web hosting plays a pivotal role in boosting your search ranking. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

◈ Uptime & Downtime – Uptime refers to how long your website is online and active because of your hosting provider. The most obvious criterion you would need from your hosting provider is to stay live and running on the web 24×7. If you have an e-Commerce website, even 99% uptime could make you lose out on customers. Downtime refers to how long your is unavailable. Another factor that affects your search engine rankings is web site availability. Search engines and especially Google don’t like to redirect their users to websites that are not available.

◈ Website speed – Search engines have now made page load speed into their over all ranking algorithms. In other words, search engines prioritize websites according to the their overall loading speed and is thus crucial for your search engine ranking.

◈ Easy SEO features / Plugins from the host – If your web hosting provider offers you Content Management Systems like Softaculous or WordPress which are well tuned for SEO, it could be advantageous to opt for them and use them to help you boost your search rankings.

There are also a few SEO scripts that web hosts may provide in their web hosting packages. These scripts are bundled with tools to help you track and increase the performance of your websites. Here are a few examples of SEO scripts that you could use:

1. Phplist

2. SEOpanel

3. Open Web Analytics

◈ Type of Web hosting package – Shared hosting is the cheapest available package but is least efficient from the perspective of SEO. That’s because websites hosted on a shared hosting server share a common IP address. This could obscure your search engine visibility and thus decrease your rankings. The other option is to choose a VPS hosting where you basically pay to have your own server, thus having your very own IP address with dedicated resources and isolated from any other websites.

Now that you understand the various components of a website and the impact it provides to your SEO, you don’t really need a magic wand or rabbit out of a hat.

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