Advantages and Disadvantages of Shared Website Hosting

Shared website hosting is the most basic type of web hosting, in which you share the server on which you are hosted with a number of other users and websites; one thing which sets shared website hosting apart from other types is the fact that users who are hosted on the server are not allowed root or administrator access to the server, thus meaning that you are limited as to what you are able to do with your shared website hosting account.

Almost everyone starts off with shared website hosting, since it is cheap and affordable for many, and the fact that you don’t have to worry about the administration of the server on which you are hosted is one factor which attracts many people who are new to website hosting to shared hosting plans; most shared web hosting plans also come with easy to use and feature rich control panels that allow users to administrate almost any part of their domain or website without the need for any intervention from their web host or anyone else for that matter.

The support available for shared hosting is also much better than that of higher up plans in most cases; this is because the web host that you are using is able to give you more direct support if you are using their control panel, and if they are providing you with a third party control panel then it is easier for them to provide you with support still, and the official documentation is also there if you still need extra help after your web host’s support team has intervened. Shared web hosting accounts come with many different features that you can use to help build your website from the bottom, meaning that if you are completely new to web hosting and web design in general, then you can easily get a website started up under your new web hosting account without having to have any technical knowledge; in this case, you could use an included script auto-installer for example, to install a CMS system within your hosting environment so that you can start adding content to your new website.

In some cases you are able to host multiple domains under your shared website hosting account, meaning that if you are new to website hosting then you can easily expand your use of your website hosting account by gradually building up the amount of domains that you host within it; this means that if you do want to host more websites under your account, then you can with the only limit being the amount of disk space that you have available and the amount of bandwidth that you have available to assign to each new website or domain that you are adding - in some cases web hosts only allow you to host one domain per shared website hosting account, meaning that if you want to host more than one website within your account you will have to purchase another shared website hosting account or upgrade your existing account to a reseller one. Shared website hosting allows you to easily expand your possibilities, allowing you to start at the bottom of the web hosting ‘ladder’ and work your way up to a dedicated server, in the case that your website becomes too resourceful for reseller or VPS hosting; this means that if you are wanting to start a new website and anticipate that over time the visitor numbers will increase, then you can easily start off with a shared website hosting package to get your new website based on, then as your website expands and your visitor numbers increase you can easily upgrade to a VPS server and then onto a dedicated server with ease and ensuring that your website will be fast and available at all times.

Compared to other types of web hosting, shared hosting can be particularly slow at some times, which could effect your website in a negative way meaning that if you receive a lot of visitors, shared web hosting is not something that you want; this is because shared web hosting servers are shared amongst many users meaning that it can take only one user on the same server as you to slow it down or to even make it shut down completely.

Advantages of Shared Website Hosting

Shared website hosting is something that is perfect for people who are new to website hosting, since the support provided is more than enough to get most people started, and the reliability is normally high enough to satisfy most people. One main factor that attracts most to it is the fact that you don’t have to worry about the administration of the hosting server, since that is taken care of by the web host from which you have purchased your website hosting plan; this allows you to effectively run your website without the need to worry about any type of server upkeep or administration.

Support and Maintenance

The good thing with shared website hosting when compared to other types of hosting is that you don’t have to worry about the maintenance of the server on which you are hosted; the money that you pay your web hosting company pays the support staff that they employ to look after the servers which people like yourself are hosted on, and to make sure that they have the latest updates and are as secure as possible to ensure that no hackers or other malicious attackers are able to gain unauthorized access to the shared web hosting server.

Another factor related to the maintenance and general up keep of the server is the support that is provided to you as the customer, in the event that you need help with a certain aspect of your shared website hosting account; support staff are able to provide you with more assistance when on a shared website hosting package rather than on an upper level one, since the your account is normally fully managed enabling you to request support for almost any issue. Most support staff will be able to help you out with issues ranging from a slow server, to installing a new program under your web hosting account which you might not be able to if you don’t have the necessary knowledge; support with upper level packages such as VPS and dedicated server hosting is normally limited, for example most web hosts only provide reboots and rebuilds of VPS and dedicated servers leaving customers to sort out their own issues if they happen to have a problem with their VPS or dedicated server - something which turns many people who don’t have much knowledge regarding the subject away from VPS and dedicated servers.

Support staff are also there to help you configure your website once you have uploaded it into your new shared website hosting space, meaning that if you have had a technical website designed on your behalf, you can easily have it uploaded and configured with the help of the support staff at your web host; this also means that the most technical of websites can be uploaded and configured without the need for any prior knowledge about the environment in which you are hosted.

It is important that the server on which you are hosted has the latest updates and is kept secure from hackers since if malicious attackers do manage to gain access to the server on which you are hosted, not only the data that is hosted under your hosting account but all the data that is hosted on the server is then vulnerable meaning that a hacker can easily steal the contents of a database and sell it on if the information fits the right category - it is for this reason that it is important to encrypt any data that you store either in your web space or databases that you have hosted within your shared website hosting account, because at the end of the day if a malicious attacker does happen to gain access to any of your website’s information, the consequences could prove to be very serious

Reliability and Security

Depending on the specifications of the server that your shared web hosting account resides on, shared website hosting can be more reliable than both VPS and dedicated server hosting in some cases; however, the reliability of a shared web hosting server is dependent on the hardware specifications of it as well as the other users who are hosted on the same server as you.

Most shared web hosting servers these days are of high specification, for example most now have quad core processors meaning that the odds of the hosting server crashing because of a CPU overload are incredibly low; most are also stacked up with RAM, again meaning that the odds of a shared web hosting server crashing because there is no memory left are incredibly low. However, the reliability of a shared web hosting server can depend on the other people who are hosted on the same server as you; for example, someone might be hosting a rather resource intensive PHP application which is regularly accessing a database to get the required information - this type of application is something which is bound to have an effect on the server’s performance, meaning that if it carries on to be resource intensive then the hosting account in which it resides might end up being suspended or terminated.

Since shared web hosting server contain many users, most web hosts try their hardest to ensure that their shared web hosting servers are as secure as possible to ensure that no malicious attackers are able to gain entry to the server in any way; for example, most web hosts have RootKit Hunter installed on their Linux shared hosting servers to ensure that no hackers are able to gain entry to the server and install malicious programs without being detected. You will also find that nearly every web host employs some sort of anti-virus on their shared website hosting server to ensure that the server itself contains no viruses, and to scan incoming and outgoing email to ensure that your email accounts don’t receive any virus emails and to ensure that no emails that contain viruses are sent from the server; this itself will ensure that the server and your data are secure to an extent.

At the end of the day, you want to make sure that you choose a web host who uses shared hosting servers with high specification hardware, since this increases the chances of your website and the services related to it being more stable, which is one that that you want to achieve. You also want to make sure that the shared web hosting provider that you choose to utilizes some type of anti-virus and firewall softwares within their shared website hosting servers, since you want to ensure that the data contained in your website hosting account is secure in the event that a malicious attacker manages to gain access to the server.

Disadvantages of Shared Website Hosting

Although shared website hosting provides many advantages for people who are new to the world of website hosting, for those who have websites which expect more of a web hosting server, shared website hosting does prove to have some disadvantages which can affect how some websites work and how some people are able to utilize their shared website hosting account. The following are disadvantages which might prove that shared hosting is not for you or your website, meaning that upper level packages such as VPS servers and dedicated servers are what you might need to ensure that you are able to provide your website visitors with a stable level of service and so that they are able to access your website with ease and when they need to.

The Sharing of the Server

One factor which many people don’t take into consideration when searching for shared hosting for their important website is the fact that the server on which they will be hosting their website will be shared with other people, meaning that the actions and usage of the other websites that are hosted on the same server as you have the ability to impact on the performance of your own website, which in some cases is something that can effect your website in a negative way. If resource intensive websites are hosted on the same server as you, then they can easily impact on the other sites that are hosted on the same server if they happen to be using up too much CPU or physical memory (RAM) of the server; in this case you would notice the impact of the other website on yours since you will experience slower response times to certain requests, such as those which include your website or web page having to access a database to gather the required data - you would probably see your website timing out when loading in this case.

If your web host happens to setup a ‘spam‘ user on the same server as you by accident, then you might also find that the server will crash because the user is using up too many server resources; for example, most spammers exploit shared website hosting accounts so that they can send out their spam, in most cases by the gigbyte (GB). If a spammer is exploiting your server then you might find that your website is slow to load either because it is timing out because their is not enough CPU left to process the request, or because the actual internet uplink on the server has been jammed up with all the spam which is being sent out. By sharing a server with other people, you’re website is still prone to attack through the means of another website or hosting account on the same web hosting server as you; this is because another website on the same server as you, or hosting account might be compromised meaning that a hacker or other sort of malicious attacker can easily gain access to the entire server due to that one compromised website hosting account.

Limitations

Although with VPS and dedicated server hosting packages you are limited by the amount of bandwidth and disk space that you have assigned to your server, with shared hosting you are limited by a larger amount of factors including the number of email accounts that you are able to create as well as the number of databases, amongst other things; this means that if you are wanting to only be limited by disk space and bandwidth, you will have to think again since in some cases you will only be able to create a certain amount of email accounts and databases under your website hosting account.

In most cases you are also limited as to what you are able to do with your web hosting account technically, meaning that you can be limited as to how your website can run, for example you might not be allowed to set file permissions under your web hosting account which means that certain scripts and programs won’t be able to run within your shared website hosting environment; in this case you would have to find a web host who provided a shared website hosting package that did allow you to set file permissions otherwise you are limiting yourself to only being able to use certain scripts and programs under your web hosting account.

Conclusion

In conclusion, shared website hosting is a type of web hosting which is perfect for those who are new to the world of web hosting, and don’t have much knowledge when it comes to the management and administration of a web hosting account; it is also fine for those who just wish to host a couple of small websites, since the features provided will allow for you to effectively manage small websites without the need for any intervention from your web host, although they will probably be more than happy to help you out if you happen to run into any problems regarding your shared hosting account. For those who are wanting to host resource intensive websites, or dynamic websites which will be using databases and will wanting to be accessing them often, shared website hosting may not be for them; this is because your website might end up using too many server resources, which in the eyes of most web hosts will lead to the suspension of your hosting account, especially if your website or account is impacting on the performance of other websites and domains hosted on the same server as you.

If your website handles important data, such as credit card numbers and other personal information, then you might want to consider a VPS or dedicated server solution since shared website hosting might be a little insecure for hosting such important information; with a more higher level solution, you are able to configure the server security the way you want it to be meaning that if you have a certain security infrastructure to ensure that the information you host isn’t compromised, you can easily deploy it giving your customer ultimate assurance when it comes to data security.

Every now and then you might experience a period of slowness with your shared website hosting account, which might be being caused by a ‘rogue’ user who was accidentally setup on the server by your web host and is actually a spammer using the server to send out all their spam; in this case your account’s information is not compromised, but spammers do have the ability to slow down servers by using up a lot of the available CPU and RAM meaning that the server is more vulnerable to crashing. So basically, if you are hosting a website which isn’t mission critical and you are able to deal with the occasional occurence of downtime, then shared website hosting is for you; if you are wanting to host an important website which is handling important information then you might want to consider a more higher level web hosting solution.

Control Panels for VPS Hosting

If you have a VPS, whether it be Linux or Windows based, you are probably using some sort of control panel with it so that you are able to manage the websites that you have hosted on it, or in the case that you are using it for a standalone service you might have some sort of service management control panel on it in order to monitor and configure the service concerned. If you are using your VPS server to host multiple domains or web hosting or design clients, then you might have a control panel installed that allows you to administrate almost every aspect of your VPS, meaning that you only need one control panel in this situation rather than multiple control panels which you might be using in other situations. Control panels are powerful programs that allow you to carry out the relevant actions on your server, for example if you are using a web hosting control panel such as cPanel then you will be able to add, edit and delete clients that you have hosted on your web hosting VPS; you will also be able to manage the more technical aspects of the server if necessary, such as the Apache configuration although extra features such as these are dependent on your choice of control panel.

Other control panels such as the popular Webmin control panel are designed solely for server administration, and not for web hosting administration; this is because they have features built into them that allow you to manage the more technical parts of the server such as the configuration of programs and services that you might have installed on your VPS. Control panels are programs that you only really need if you are unsure on how to use your VPS either through SSH in the case of Linux or via Remote Desktop if your VPS is Windows based; this is because most tasks that can be carried out through control panels are relatively easy to replicate over SSH or via Remote Desktop, meaning that if you don’t have the knowledge to use either currently then you can easily use a control panel until you have the necessary knowledge to administrate your VPS either over SSH or Remote Desktop.

In some cases, when you purchase VPS Hosting you will get a control panel free with your VPS and will be unable to uninstall it, ultimately meaning that you have a control panel stuck to your VPS; in some cases, you are able to choose the control panel of your choice and sometimes don’t even have to have a control panel for your VPS, this means that you should always try and purchase a VPS with which you are able to have a choice over your control panel and whether you want one or not, since at the end of the day you want your VPS to be the way you want it to be and not how someone else wants it. If choosing a hosting control panel, then you will most likely want one that allows you to customize the theme which is applied to the control panel which you customers will access; this is because you will want to extend your corporate identity so that any part of the control panel that your customers visit or use will still have your branding on, thus keeping up a professional and stable corporate identity - if you are unable to change the theme then the default one will be used which in most cases is advertising the company that have provided the control panel, and you don’t want another company to be making money off your customers.

In the case that you are unable to use the control panel that you have install on your VPS server, you can search the net and this blog for article and tutorials related to the control panel of your choice, thus allowing you to learn how to use it; it is because of this reason that it is suggested you know how to use the control panel that you have chosen before you purchase a VPS with it installed otherwise you might not be able to change your choice - there are many tutorials and articles available for the most popular control panels such as Plesk and cPanel, meaning that if you choose either of these two then you are guaranteed to be able to find a large amount of resources in order for you to learn how to use it.

Web Hosting Control Panels

If you are going to be using your VPS to host web hosting or design clients, then you will want to consider installing a control panel on your VPS so that your clients can easily manage their domains and web space without having to hassle you. If your clients are able to manage any aspect of their website and domain themselves, then they are able to achieve the most simplest of tasks themselves which can help speed you up if they don’t have to hassle you and can also speed them up since they are able to ensure that actions are carried out and applied as quick as possible. There are many different web hosting control panels for you to choose from, although your choice is mainly dependent on the resources of your VPS such as the amount of guaranteed RAM that you have available; for example, the more popular and feature packed control panels use up more VPS resources than the lower range control panels, also some control panels are designed for use with the Linux operating system whilst others are designed for the Windows website hosting environment.

You should consider whether or not the control panel that you have chosen to use is able to hard large amounts of websites, since you don’t want to have a control panel that ends up buckling under large demand; this factor is especially important for large web hosting companies, since control panels can become uneconomical if they start causing downtime or start to become unavailable because they can’t cope. You will want to be using a feature rich web hosting control panel, since you want to ensure that your clients are able to manage as many different aspects of their domain and website as possible, and if the feature isn’t there then they won’t be able to manage it; if you choose a web hosting control panel that doesn’t contain many features, then you are basically limiting yourself to what services and features you are able to provide your clients with, which is not something you want - this is the main reason why you should choose a more expensive and feature filled control panel. cPanel is a web host control panel currently designed for use with the Linux operating system only, thus meaning that you are limited to using it for Linux based web hosting at this current time; however, a Windows version of the popular control panel is currently in production.

A new version of cPanel has been designed specifically for use on VPS servers, meaning that you can easily provide your Linux web hosting and design clients with stable Linux based web hosting at a fraction of the cost of a dedicated server with a standard cPanel installation; the VPS version of cPanel has been designed to use less resources, meaning that your VPS will most likely run faster with this version of cPanel, and will in the long term please your clients if they are able to access their websites more quickly and efficiently. If you want to use a control panel that is available for both Windows and Linux, then you can always try the Plesk control panel; Parallels has created Plesk for both Windows and Linux meaning that you can easily offer the two different types of web hosting without causing any confusion that might occur if you are providing both types of web hosting but at the same time are using different control panels for clients. There are many different web hosting control panels that you should consider for your requirements, although most come at a premium meaning that you should make sure that the control which you have chosen is exactly what you want before you decide to depart with any money. Popular web hosting control panels that you should check out include:

• Parallels Plesk - http://www.parallels.com/en/products/plesk/ - this control panel is available for both Windows and Linux, meaning that you are able to provide your clients with both Windows and Linux based website hosting but still have the ability to use the same control panel
• cPanel - http://www.cpanel.net/ - cPanel is said to be the best Linux web hosting control panel, since it uses shells and Perl scripts to run meaning that it has a fast loading interface
• Helm - http://www.webhostautomation.com/ - Helm is a Windows based control panel which contains many features that will allow your clients to manage their Windows based website hosting
• LXAdmin - http://lxlabs.com/software/lxadmin-sse/ - LXAdmin is another light weight control panel for Linux based web hosting, it has been specially designed for use in VPS based environments meaning that it has a fast loading interface when compared to other Linux based web hosting control panels.

Standard Server Control Panels

If you are not using your VPS to host website hosting or design clients, then you will probably have no need for a web hosting control panel; in this case you might want to consider using a standard server control panel so that you are still able to manage many aspects and service of your VPS, much in the way that you are able to with a web hosting control panel. Unlike web hosting control panels where you have to use certain pieces of software like a certain mail server so that the control panel is able to function, most standard server control panels give you the ability to use any program that you want for any purpose; this means that you are able to install programs as you like and configure your VPS server the way that you want it to be with the use of a standard server control panel.

Most standard server control panels allow you to add on separate modules to them, so that you can easily expand the uses of them and to allow you to administrate different parts of your VPS and other services, if the ability to isn’t one that is included as standard with the control panel. The most important point about a standard server control panel which you should consider is the features that it has and what services/programs you are able to control with the use of it; this is because a standard server control is useless to you if you are unable to modify and configure the services that you have installed and running on your VPS, it also means that if you go for a control panel which isn’t feature rich, you run the risk of ending up with something which won’t let you manage the more complicated aspects of your VPS, which might be one thing that you were aiming to achieve.

One of the most popular standard server control panels is Webmin; Webmin is a web based control panel meaning that you are able to control many different aspects of your VPS server over the internet from any internet connected location in the world. Another factor that makes Webmin so popular is the fact that it can be easily expanded through the use of extra modules; the extra modules that you can add to Webmin differ meaning that you can easily make this standard control panel the one that you want it to be, for example you might want to administrate a service or program through Webmin which doesn’t have a Webmin module - in this case you could check the module database to see if the module you want exists, and if it doesn’t then you can create your own module for the program or service concerned. Most standard server control panels allow you to manage your VPS or dedicated server effectively, since you are able to configure services as well as start, stop and restart them meaning that you will have no need for SSH or Remote Desktop in the case that you don’t have the necessary knowledge to administrate a VPS server through either method; you can also configure the control panel to cluster certain services of your VPS or dedicated server with those of other servers, meaning that you are able to ensure maximum uptime when compared to a single server solution. Standard server control panels that should fit your needs and which you should take a look at include:

• Webmin - http://webmin.com - Webmin is a server control panel which you can easily expand with the use of modules
• EasyAdmin - http://www.easyadminservers.com/ - EasyAdmin is a program designed for easy server administration.

The great question which many resellers face when setting up, or when the time comes to upgrade is which type of platform they should be upgrading to; for some resellers it might just be convenient to upgrade their current reseller package, but for larger resellers it may be high time that they upgraded to a VPS Server or Dedicated Server since they have outgrown Reseller Hosting packages. Reseller Hosting packages are hosted in more or less the same environment that normal shared hosting packages are, which is not always the best thing for resellers as they are restricted to what they can control; with VPS servers and dedicated servers the reseller has full access to the root of the system and control any aspect of their hosting they want - the difference between the two being that a VPS is virtual and hosted on a node with several other VPS, whereas a dedicated server is a completely single physical server.

Reseller Hosting Packages

Reseller accounts are accounts which allow resellers to create accounts meaning that they have the ability to host multiple domains and clients. As mentioned previously, they are normally hosted within a shared environment meaning that they are open to the elements that can cause downtime within a normal shared environment - this puts reseller accounts at a disadvantage when compared to a VPS server or a dedicated server. However, unlike VPS and dedicated servers, reseller accounts are relatively cheap meaning that anyone can become a web hosting these days - this fact is also what is fueling something which is known as the ‘kiddie host market’.

Reseller Hosting is perfect for you if you are new to the concept of web hosting and don’t require custom server modifications or if you only want to start out small and grow from there. With most hosts you have the option to upgrade your reseller package to a VPS or dedicated server at any time without any downtime which ensures if you grow out of your reseller account then you can upgrade to a dedicated environment without causing yourself or your customers any trouble.

VPS Servers

VPS Hosting stands for ‘Virtual Private Server’ hosting and is seen as a separate server by you and any other computer on the internet, but in reality it is actually a virtual environment hosted on a node (main) server with several other VPS. They are seen by many as the step in between a cheap reseller account and a costly dedicated server - however, costs for VPS can vary greatly. By having a VPS you have your own server, more or less, meaning that you can add programs and features as you like within your own environment without being at the mercy of other users; this can prove to be an advantage for some resellers since they might require special security settings which they’d never be able to get set on a reseller account - but which they will be able to set in a VPS environment.

A VPS is perfect for you if you require a dedicated environment but are not able to afford a dedicated server or if you have outgrown your standard reseller account and have no choice but to upgrade to a dedicated environment. If you are using a control panel such as cPanel then you should be able to get all your data and websites moved over without causing any downtime or hassle to your customers.

Dedicated Server

A Dedicated Server is the last step within the reseller ladder, as it is at the top of the chain. A dedicated server is actually a physical server and the resources of the machine are not shared with anyone else - the opposite being the case for both reseller accounts and VPS servers. Bring a physical server allows dedicated servers to have their hardware upgraded at anytime without any limits, whereas with VPS servers you can only upgrade the system resources by a certain amount since you are limited by the resources of the node. By having a dedicated server you have greater flexibility in all areas since you are able to do things such as overselling - something which you’d not really be able to achieve within a VPS environment or on a reseller package; the bandwidth allocation is also much greater than anything you’d receive on a lower-level package.

You should only really buy a Dedicated Server if needs be since they can be either very expensive or very cheap. If you need the assurance that your system resources are not going to be shared with anyone then by all means go with a dedicated server, but if you are only a small company or are not hosting sites in a serious way then you should consider either a reseller hosting package or a VPS server.

Getting Started with Web Hosting Business

Platform and Control Panel Choice

The platform on which you are going to base your first reseller hosting package or server is an important choice, since it can affect the final choice of prospective customers because of their needs; the control panel which you choose to provide your customers with can also affect your ability to gain customers - this is because some might be more familiar with one control panel which they have used in the past rather than the one that you have chosen to provide them with. In terms of the platform which you choose to base your web hosting packages on, you are limited to two options which are used by most of the main players within the website hosting industry - these are Windows and Linux; Windows is a commercial operating system which you can only use upon the purchase of a license from its manufacturer, Microsoft - Linux on the other hand is an open source operating system which requires no paid for license to allow you to run it, which means you are able to install it on as many computer as you want without the need to pay for any licenses what-so-ever. Platforms and operating systems you should check out include:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and 2008 - http://www.microsoft.com/servers/default.mspx
• CentOS Linux - http://www.centos.org/
• Ubuntu Linux - http://www.ubuntu.org/

There are many different web hosting control panels out there on the market for you to choose from, although your final choice normally boils down to what your web host is able to provide you with since their prices are normally a lot cheaper than if you were to buy a license for a piece of control panel software direct from the supplier; this means that although there may be many different control panels for you to choose from, you are in a sense limited by your web host since they will most likely be unable to provide you with every control panel. When choosing a control panel on which you are going to base your web hosting packages, you should check out all features of the control panels which you are testing - this means that you should always check out the client and reseller panels as well as the administration panel to ensure that you get a good idea of how easy the control panel will be for your customers to use, as well as for the customers of customers to use in terms of resellers; you should also get other people who aren’t so computer ’savvy’ to test out the same control panels as you, since this ensures that the control panel which you choose to base your web hosting packages on is usable for all people. In most cases, the control panel which you choose to base your web hosting packages upon is chosen in relation to the operating system on which you want to base your web hosting packages, since some control panels are only able to work with one operating system whereas others come in multiple versions so that they can be run on most well known operating systems; for example cPanel has been designed for use on Linux distributions only, although a version for Microsoft Windows 2008 is currently in development, and Plesk is a control panel that has been designed for use on both Microsoft Windows and Linux website hosting platforms - this means that you can use the control panel for either operating system. There are many different web hosting control panels on the market, although the main ones which you should take a look at include:

• cPanel - http://www.cpanel.net/
• Parallels (Formally SWSoft) Plesk - http://www.parallels.com/en/products/plesk/
• LXAdmin - http://lxlabs.com/software/lxadmin-sse/

The actual choice of operating system on which you are going to base your web hosting packages can be affected by the skills which you have to administrate a server, in the case that you have opted to go for either a virtual private server or a dedicated server; this is because administering a server can be a complicated task at the best of times, which means that if you don’t have the necessary skills to administrate the server which you have purchased, you might not be able to provide your customers with good service, since it means that if a problem does occur with the server, you won’t be able to fix it. Although your web host might provide support for their virtual private server and dedicated server hosting packages, the support provided might not cover all issues - this might be because it is limited to upgrading third party software that is provided, and that the support staff are not obliged to fix any internal problems with the server; this means that you should try and get your server administration skills up to scratch before embarking on purchasing a hosting package which would provide you with a dedicated environment.

Billing Systems

One of the main components of a successful web hosting business is a web based billing and account management system, so that your customers are able to pay their web hosting bills online and so that you are able to manage and view your customers details as well as packages that they have purchased through a web interface with ease; this means that if you have a numerous amount of customers, you can easily manage them online and contact them quickly and easily as appropriate, if needs be.

Most web host billing systems are not just billing systems, for example some have help desk systems built into them, and as mentioned before, you can also use them to easily manage your customers - even if you happen to have millions of them; this means that you can have an all in one system where you can meet your customers needs in both the areas of support and management. A support help desk system within a billing system allows your customers to open ‘support tickets‘ which are then assigned a unique id so that you are able to manage them easily, and are able to refer to tickets quickly if a customer was to quote you the ticket’s unique id via some other method of communication, such as over the telephone. Most support ticket systems allow correspondence for any ticket via 2 methods - email and a web interface; most systems employ a technology known as ‘email piping‘ which collects the emails from a specified email inbox and them processes them to be displayed within the web interface which should be provided - ticket replies from staff members are emailed back to the email address of the person who opened the ticket and replies from the customer are piped through to the web interface, the web interface itself shows the correspondence between the two parties in order so that you can quickly read through the correspondence if you have the need to.

All good web host billing systems incorporate a large range of payment gateways, so that you can are able to use the payment gateway of your choice to receive payments from your customers for the web hosting services that they have purchased from you - this process is a lot quicker than having to process old fashioned types of payment such as personal cheque; when looking for billing systems, you might also discover API systems for third part fraud detection systems - these are in place to safe guard the security of both your business, and the potential victims - these systems normally mark certain orders as fraud if they are believed to be fraud.

If you are starting out in the web hosting market, then you should always consider buying a license for a piece of billing software that you are able to pay for on a monthly lease, since this means that you are not loosing any money on your billing system if your web hosting business was to fail for some reason or another - if funds do not allow for a monthly lease then you can easily consider a free alternative, although the features of these can be relatively limited when compared to those of their commercial counterparts. As is the case with control panels, you and others should always test both the client and administration side of any web host billing system before you purchase anything; this is because it will allow you to gain the feedback of others apart from yourself which you can then use to help you make your final decision about which web hosting billing system you are going to use for your new web hosting company. You should also consider the installation service for your chosen application which is most probably provided by the company from which you purchased the application; this is because you can ensure that a full and secure installation of the application concerned has been done, to give you peace of mind - it also means that you can have the application installed for you in the situation that you don’t have the necessary knowledge to carry out the task. Although there are many different web hosting billing systems, the main ones which one should have a look at include:

• WHMCS - http://www.whmcs.com/
• ModernBill - http://www.modernbill.com/
• PHPCoin - http://www.phpcoin.com/

Marketing Your Web Hosting Business

Once you have the basics of your new web hosting business laid out and operational, you need to start promoting it where possible so that you can start receiving new customer sign ups, which in turn will help boost your business’s income and customer base. There are many different ways in which you can market and promote your new business in the beginning - some of these options being ones which you have to pay for, and others which are free but require your hard work and will power to ensure that they produce the results that you want; an example of a paid for method which you could use to help promote and market your new web hosting business would be you buying an SEO package from either your web host or from another specialist to ensure that your business’s website gets listed and indexed by all the major search engines on the internet, an example of a free method would be you optimizing your own website so that search engines will give it a higher page rank, and in turn send more visitors to your website through the use of key word searches.

If you have the necessary funds to do so, then you can consider using certain PPC (pay per click) programs to help get adverts for your new business placed on participating publisher websites; most PPC programs deploy adverts on publisher websites based on keywords which you enter when creating the advert, as well as the category which the webmaster of the publishing site has decided to place their website in - this means that your advert will be targeted at people who are on websites most likely looking for web hosting, which ensures that the right people will be sent to your website and will hopefully in turn purchase a web hosting package off you. SEO can play a big roll in the amount of visitors which you receive to your website, this is because the more SEO friendly your website is, the higher the page rank search engines will give you. A higher page rank means in the terms of most search engines that your website will appear higher in the results for certain key word searches. Main different companies run PPC programs, although the main ones which are used by many include:

• Google Adwords - http://www.google.com/adwords/
• Yahoo Overture - http://www.overture.com/
• AdBrite - http://www.adbrite.com/

Basic SEO involves the editing of content on your website to ensure that it is as keyword rich as possible - the more common key words which you decide to use within your content, the more subjects and searches that search engines will link your website to; other basic SEO techniques including the building up of back links to your website from other websites of a similar subject - this will help since it will mean that people who are looking at web hosting related websites might actually be looking for web hosting - and when they see a link to your website, they will most likely click and if they like the look of your packages and prices, will buy their web hosting off you. In some cases you can also do link exchanging with websites of a similar subject to yours; this process involves the placing of a link to your website on that of another website, and then you will link back to the other website involved. Although you might be tempted to purchase a program or plan from another web host which claims to increase the amount of traffic to your website, you should always be cautious when looking at these plans and should never spend too much money on things such as this; this is because all these plans do in most cases is submit your website to other search engines which it might not already be in - although this may sound good at first, it might not give the increased amount in visitors which it claims to provide. If you don’t have the necessary knowledge for SEO, nor the funds to splash out on a special package then you could always hire a professional who might be able to do it for you at a cut rate.

Conclusion

In conclusion, with the use of the correct domain name you can help make your business’s name memorable for your customers; this in itself can help you out since it means that if your name is memorable, then it will be easier for your customers to refer their friends and colleagues who need web hosting to your business. You should also now know to consider the client side of a control panel when you are testing it and deciding whether to use as part of your web hosting business or not; by putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and getting the opinions of others on certain things can help produce the best results for your business, and can make your customers happier with the service which they are receiving.

Even though you might be putting yourself in the customer’s shoes, you should still consider how usable the administration side of an application or control panel is for you; this is because you will be using the administration panels day in and day out if your business is to be successful, and it is because of this that you should ensure that you can easily familiarize yourself with the applications and control panels which you will be using. Marketing your web hosting business is one of the most important tasks that you will ever carry out; this is because the amount of customer which you receive to your business will depend on how well you market your website, and whether you carry out a good level of SEO - this will mean making sure that your content is keyword rich, and that you have a large amount of back links so that people can find your business from other websites, and so that search engines give you a higher page rank.

cPanel provides many advanced features that you can use to help improve your website from a technical aspect as well as from a functionality aspect if you choose to use certain features. Some of the advanced features can help you choose how the installed web server processes requests for files of a certain extension from your website; this means that you are able to choose specific programs that are installed on the shared hosting server on which you are hosted to process requests for certain file extensions which a user or website visitor might enter into their web browser under the domain name or website which you own - in basic this means that you can choose how the web server that is installed on your server, in most cases Apache, deals with some of the files that you have hosted within your web space. A Frontpage Extension manager is provided built-in to cPanel to allow you to manage the extensions which will affect how some of your files that you have created within Microsoft’s now defunct Frontpage web page creator are handled by the server; this feature can be quite important for some people since if they don’t have the Frontpage Extension options for their domain configured correctly then the web pages which they have spent time creating within Frontpage will not function within their shared cPanel website hosting space, which in turn might mean that they will have to move web hosts to ensure that they can find one at which their website will actually function correctly. Other features provided with cPanel allow you to manage custom error pages for your domain, in the case that you have this option enabled; this means that if an error does happen to occur on your website then you can still keep up the graphical identity of your website by carrying on your website’s design into the error pages, in turn meaning that your logo and design will still be displayed to your visitors even if your website does happen to go down due to an error with either your website and its code or on the actual server on which your website resides. Some people also use scheduled tasks to ensure that the important functions of their website are run automatically without the need for any manual intervention; this enables them to ensure that important tasks such as invoicing can be carried out automatically at any time of the day without the need for anyone to be there to run the task automatically - tasks which are run automatically are normally ones which are of the utmost importance and require for the tasks which they carry out to be done at a regular interval otherwise major problems could be caused. Another feature allows you to find out any information about a domain in terms of the technical side of things; this means that if you are trying to link some part of your site up to that of another website then you can use this feature to find out the technical information which you might need to ensure that you can carry out the task which you need to.

Within this article the ability to configure the web server on your hosting server to handle certain file extensions which might be individual to your website will be discussed; this means that you can tell the web server how you want certain parts of your website to be handled by the website by defining what program is used to handle requests for certain file extensions that are contained within your website. Image features unique to cPanel will also be discussed within this article; this means that you will be given the ability to change the size of images which are contained within your website as well as be able to generate thumbnails of images contained within your website which you can then place within your web pages as links to the larger images which can then decrease the loading time of your web pages if larger versions of th images concerned were being used beforehand, you will also be given the ability to change the format of a picture if needed with the use of cPanel - this means that you might be able to gain a higher quality picture of a lower size picture which can help decrease the use of the disk space within your account which you can then assign to more useful tasks. Other features allow you to set up custom error pages for your website and domain name that you have chosen to host under your shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that you can still present your visitors with web pages branded with your design, even if an error does happen to occur with either your website or with the website hosting server on which you are hosted. The ability to schedule scripts and tasks to execute when you want will also be discussed; this means that you will then be able to make the important tasks of your website run automatically without the need for you to be at a computer to execute the script or task concerned manually, it also means that you can almost ensure that the task will be run on time and when needed which is one thing that a human can’t guarantee because of time accuracy and the fact that someone might not be able to get to get a computer to execute the necessary task or script when it needs to be done. The ability to configure the necessary extensions to ensure that your dynamic web pages which have been created with the use of Microsoft Frontpage will also work and function correctly as needed within your shared hosting environment; this means that you can build near dynamic websites for use within a shared hosting environment without the need for any technical work such as the use of databases and file permissions. If you face a problem with either your hosting account or the server that you are hosted on, then there is a cPanel feature that will allow for you to contact your web host to report the problem if your web host does not provide an external help desk for customers who face problems with the services that they have chosen to purchase from the web host that they have chosen. If you need to find out certain information about a domain, then there is a feature built into cPanel that you can use to find out the necessary technical information; this means that if you need to know certain information about a domain which is live on the internet then you can do certain lookups to find out the necessary information if you are in the situation that you need to use it for a specific reason. The option to define certain mime types for file types which you might have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account is also discussed; this means that you can tell the web browser of a visitor how to handle a particular file which the visitor is trying to access - this is good for you if you have chosen to use files on your website that have their own unique file extension for some reason or another - you can also use this feature if you want serve web pages to mobile phones that are based on the WAP technology, this is because some web servers don’t have the necessary mime types set to allow WAP browsers view websites properly, which means that you have to configure the correct mime type in your web hosting account if your host doesn’t have them set to allow you to start serving pages to WAP devices almost immediately.

Apache Handlers

The Apache Handlers feature of cPanel allows you to control how Apache handles requests for files of a certain type or extension from search engines and visitors; this means that you can choose how Apache handles files that you have contained within your shared cPanel website hosting space, and how they are handled when search engines come crawling or when people come to visit your website through their web browser. This feature gives you the ability to be able to run files with custom extensions from within your shared cPanel website hosting space; this is because you are able to specify the program or action that you want Apache to use when a request for a file of the extension concerned is made - this can help you in terms of security since it means that if you specify a custom file extension when configuring the required Apache handlers, hackers will not be able to distinguish the server side language that your website has been created in, which means that without this information they can’t make an accurate attack on your website because their attacks can only be done if they know what language the pages have been written in, since they can only find script or page vulnerabilities with this information. You can also use this feature to help give it a unique identity in terms of the technical side of it; this is because your website will look more professional in the eyes of a specialist such as a programmer or website designer, since the use of a custom file extension throughout your website makes it look like that the person who has created it or maintains it is very knowledgable in terms of technology - when in fact a basic cPanel feature has been used to ensure that a certain program has been used to execute files which take the file extension concerned. As well as being able to create your own Apache handlers to allow Apache to handle files which have a custom file type by using a particular program, you can also use this feature to see Apache handlers which have been automatically set up by cPanel when it was installed as well as custom ones which your web host might have set up to be used by all the occupants who have their website hosted on the same server as yourself; this means that you might not have to create custom Apache handlers since there might be server wide rules already in place for the particular extension which you want to tell Apache how to handle. The good thing with this feature is that any rules which you create yourself will only affect the files and websites that you have hosted under your shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that those custom rules which have been created by people with accounts who are hosted on the same server as you are not going to affect your websites or files which you host within your web space, nor will the custom rules that you create affect your ‘neighbours’ who are hosted on the same website hosting server as you are - but system wide rules will affect all websites and accounts that are hosted on the server concerned.

Image Tools

The image tools feature of cPanel allows you to carry out many actions on any image which you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that you can carry out necessary image editing without having to be at a computer with which you have the necessary tools installed to edit the images that you have edited within your web hosting space, instead you can do the necessary editing on the fly from any internet connected computer from which you can access cPanel. Within this cPanel feature you are able to create thumbnails of images that you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that you can create smaller versions of larger images for displaying within standard web pages - this means that you are able to create fast loading web pages which still contain the images that you want - one thing to note is that thumbnails are usually used as a link to the full sized image so that visitors can still see the image that they have come to see on your website. Another feature within the image tools feature of cPanel allows you to change the size of images which you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that if an image which you have located within a web page is taking up too much space on the page, or is too big for its purpose then you can easily resize it to a smaller size on the fly through cPanel without the need for any specialist photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Fireworks - both of which can cost hundreds of pounds - you should consider resizing as many images that you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account as possible, this is because the bigger the dimensions of the image, the bigger its file size, which means that images could be taking up unnecessary disk space that you have assigned to your shared cPanel website hosting account. The third and final feature of the cPanel image tools feature is an image file format converter; this convenient feature allows you to change the file extension of images from one type (e.g. .jpg) to another (e.g. .bmp) - this feature can be handy in saving the amount of disk space which is used by some images that you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account, this is because images of one format can take more space than those of which possess a different file extension since the type of file extension used normally links back to the quality of the image concerned - one thing to note about this tool is the fact that by converting images to a file format such as Bitmap (.bmp) could result in a loss of quality from the image concerned. You should always be careful when using the image tools that cPanel provides you with to manage and edit images that you have contained within your shared cPanel website hosting account effectively; this is because the changes you make are in most cases irreversible, which means that if you are doing the managing or editing from a remote location when you don’t have an original copy of the image you are editing, and you end up making an incorrect edit then you won’t be able to replace the edited image with the original which could cause some inconvenience and annoyance for both you and your website’s visitors.

Index Manager

The index manager feature of cPanel allows you to customize the way in which a directory appears to a passing website visitor when there isn’t any default page within the directory to be shown to visitors; this means that if a visitor does happen to stumble across an open directory within your website with no default/index page, they will still be shown the index which has been styled to ensure that it looks the way you want it to look - this is a big plus for cPanel since many other control panels do not give you the ability to do this. When using the index manager, you are presented with several different options; you are able to specify whether you want indexing for certain directories that you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting allowed or not - if you have indexing disabled then visitors and search engine spiders will be presented with a 403 error page, which will say that they are forbidden from being able to access the directory concerned - files within the directory will still be directly accessible, it just means that the actual index page showing all the files which are hosted within the directory concerned is not displayed. If you have indexing for certain directories that are contained within your web space enabled, then visitors will be openly able to browse the directory concerned and will have the ability to see all the files that the directory concerned holds within itself, meaning that the security of certain files can be easily compromised; however, unlike directories which forbid external access, search engine spiders will be able to crawl open directories which means that any files that you have contained within the directories which you have left open for people to browse will be accessible directly from search engines if a user was to enter keywords that are linked to files that might be hosted within the directories concerned that are contained within your shared cPanel website hosting account. There are also two other options that you can choose from when using the index manager feature of cPanel; those two options are text-only indexing as well as graphical and text indexing. Text only indexing means that the index page which is shown is only text based; this means that the file list will still be displayed, but will only have basic formatting when displayed - this feature can be handy for you if you are to have open directories that are going to be accessed by many people, since this type of index page will not use up much bandwidth since it won’t contain any images. Graphic and text index pages will be slightly more bandwidth heavy than their text based counterparts; this is because images can use up slightly more bandwidth and just plain text based pages, graphics and text based index pages should only be used in the situation where you are going to have a small amount of people accessing the directory concerned, because of the reason of bandwidth usage in relation to the amount of graphics that the actual index page contains.

Error Pages

The error pages feature of cPanel allows you to configure Apache to display custom error pages that you have created for display when your website suffers some sort of error or problem; this means that if your website endures a problem, an informative error page will be shown to the visitor containing your website’s design, meaning that your website can still retain its corporate identity even during a problem whether it be with the website’s code or one with the server on which the website is hosted. Custom error pages mean that you can display a custom message to visitors when a problem occurs with your website or the server that it is hosted on; this means that you can display an informative message to your users which you have written yourself, and not an uninformative message which has been generated automatically by the server which you are hosted on - automatically generated error messages are normally very technical and are usually of no use to the visitor or the person who is viewing the message unless they either have a sufficient amount of technical knowledge to understand the server, or if you are the server administrator who can then take the necessary action to rectify the problem if it is within a script that is hosted within your web space, or contact your web host with information of the problem if it happens to be a server side one which you are unable to fix yourself since you are on shared hosting, therefore meaning that you have no root or administrator access to the hosting server. cPanel allows you to setup custom error pages for five of the most common website and server side errors which could occur with either your website and the code that has been used to create it, or with the main host node on which your shared cPanel website hosting account is hosted; the error codes which can have custom error pages are 400, 401, 403, 404 and 500 - a 400 error normally refers to a bad gateway which means that a connection can’t be established to the server on which your website is hosted, a 401 error is one which will ask somebody for login details in order for them to be able to access either a password protected directory or file which you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account, a 403 error will be displayed when someone has tried to gain access to either a protected directory or file to which they are not allowed access, a 404 error page will be shown when a visitor tries to reach a directory or file under your domain name that doesn’t exist and a 500 error page will be displayed when there is an internal problem with either the code in which a page has been produced with or with the server itself which means that the directory, page or file that is trying to be accessed can’t be processed and in turn displayed properly because of either a code or server problem.

Mime Types

The mime types feature of cPanel allows you to set up certain settings that will tell the browsers of visitors to your website how to handle specific file extensions which users might be trying to access. This means that if you are using custom file extensions within your website for whatever reason, you can use this feature to tell your visitor’s browsers how to handle the files with custom extensions, and with another feature you can configure the server to run a specific program for files of a certain custom extension that are hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account. The main idea of mime types if to help you as the account holder to make use of new web technologies as they become available, even if your web host doesn’t - one thing to note though is that some technologies might require some server side work in order for them to function, and not just the simple adding or modification of mime types within your web hosting account; for example when WAP technology started to enter the world of web development, many web hosts did not have their servers setup correctly to allow WAP browsers to visit and view pages which people have designed for WAP compatible devices and have chosen to host within their shared cPanel website hosting account. For the most common file extensions which you and other people who are hosted on the same server as you will most probably using, the mime types have already been setup and correctly installed for use by everyone who is hosted on the server; this means that if you are new to the concept of web hosting and want to get your website started up trouble free and are not planning on using any complicated technologies within your website, then shared cPanel based website hosting is the right type of hosting for you since with the mime types being already installed, you needn’t alter anything complicated within your shared website hosting account. As mentioned previously, if you have the necessary knowledge and want use your website a custom way in relation to the server, then you can use the mime types feature to set up custom mime types for the files which you might have hosted within your shared website hosting account; the good thing with this feature is that any custom mime types that you set up within your shared website hosting account will not affect any other websites or hosting accounts that are hosted on the same web hosting server as you, and any custom mime types which other people who are hosted on the same server as you will not have any effect on the files which you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account. Also, most of the main mime types have been set up by either cPanel or your web host which means that the most basic files can be run without the need for any custom mime types.

Cron Jobs

The cron jobs feature of CPanel allows you to setup certain scripts that you might have running under your website to be run automatically at a certain time to carry out certain tasks which they have been designed for. The most common use of cron jobs (sometimes referred to as ‘Cron Jobs’ in terms of Linux website hosting) is to carry out tasks which need to be carried out on a regular basis without manual intervention; an example of a cron job in use would be in a web host billing system, where invoices for customers need to be generated at the beginning of the day without any manual intervention. You might also find cron jobs running in the situation where notifications of some sort need to be sent out to website visitors on a regular basis to ensure that they are aware of the latest information or of a new update in their account which they need to be made aware of. When setting up a cron job within CPanel, you are given the option to enter the full command for the script to ensure that it is executed correctly so that you don’t have to come and run the script manually to make it carry out its assigned task correctly. You can also choose the exact time for the script to be run by CPanel automatically - right down to the last minute, you can also choose for scripts to be run every minute of the day but this isn’t recommended since it could easily use up many server resources, and if you are on shared website hosting, could lead to your CPanel shared website hosting account being suspended because of server resource hogging as it is known. You can also choose for CPanel to send you an email notification to tell you whether the cron job has been executed successfully by the server that you are hosted on. You can also select the priority of the task which means that if it is of a high priority, it will be executed before other tasks which might be of a lower priority but still being executed at the same time as yours. You can also specify extra arguments for the execution of the task which you have not specified in the text box labeled for the command. Cron jobs can be incredibly handy in the situation where you need to run a script or task on your website at a certain time or at a certain period and aren’t able to be at your computer to run these tasks or scripts yourself when you need to during the day; this is because the cPanel cron jobs feature gives you the ability to schedule tasks or scripts related to your website to run at any time of the day and at regular periods if it is really necessary for the running of your website.

Frontpage Extensions

Frontpage extensions are the extensions that web hosts install on their servers to allow people who have built their websites in Microsoft’s now defunct WYSIWYG editor, Frontpage, to run correctly if special Frontpage functions have been used during the development of the website. Frontpage provides website builders with many different functions that they can insert into their website to help make it more appealing to their visitors; addable functions include ones which can display the weather for a certain location on the same day that someone visits your website, as well as a visitor counter so that your visitors can see how many people have visited your website since you first put the counter on display. You can also add a guestbook to your website that visitors can then sign when they visit your website; you can allow them to comment on anything including the design and layout of your website - you can even use the guestbook as a source of feedback when you are looking to give your website a makeover or an upgrade of some sort in the future. The Frontpage extension manager that is built into CPanel allows you to configure certain preferences regarding the sending of email from web pages which have been designed and configured in Microsoft Frontpage; this means that Frontpage web pages have are able to have the same dynamics as their server side equivalents, but have no need for the use of databases or the setting of permissions to ensure that they are able to function correctly. Access to the Frontpage web admin is also provided so that you are able to manage and configure other features that may play a part in the running of your web pages that you have designed in Frontpage and then uploaded to your shared CPanel website hosting account space. You are also able to setup extra Frontpage management accounts with many configurable preferences including the amount of disk space that they are allowed to use. If you are new to the concept of website design and scripting then you should try and build your first web pages in Frontpage; this is because Frontpage provides you with many components and add-ins for your website which you can use to expand its interactivity since you could add a guestbook, for example, to allow your visitors to comment on your website as well as the content and design of it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, cPanel provides you with many advanced features that can help you advance your website in terms of the technology that you have used to build it and to allow it to function correctly; some of the advanced features that cPanel provides you with are unique to it as a control panel, meaning that some of the features would only be achievable in a dedicated environment such as that which is provided by both VPS and dedicated server hosting since no other website hosting control panel is able to provide you with the same features at such a high level. We have discussed the fact that you can use certain features from the advanced section of cPanel to help you use your own file extensions within your website, to help aid its technical identity which website designers and internet professionals might take a look at - the use of custom file extensions can also be used as a security measure to help deter hackers and other malicious attackers from attacking your website in any way; you can also tell a visitor’s internet browser how to handle a file of a certain extension which you might have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account. The use of custom error pages has also been discussed within the context of this article; this means that if an error was to occur with your website, you can use custom error pages which will ensure that the graphical/design identity of your website will still be displayed, even if there does happen to be a problem with it - you can also take advantage of this feature to assure your website’s visitors that you are working your hardest to try and fix the problem as quickly and as  efficiently as possible. Another advanced feature of cPanel can also be used to schedule tasks to automatically run, meaning that the most important tasks required for your website to run efficiently will still take place, but automatically meaning that you don’t have to be sitting at your computer to ensure that the task or script that you want to run at certain times of the day is run successfully and efficiently. Another advanced feature of cPanel allows you to configure and run the settings that are needed to ensure that you can run web pages which you have designed within Microsoft Frontpage, and then uploaded to your cPanel web space from your desktop so that they can be viewed by your website visitors; this means that you can easily design feature rich web pages from within Microsoft Frontpage and utilize the the advanced components that it supplied, safe in the knowledge that any web pages that you create using it will run and display with ease from within the context of your shared website hosting space. Another feature built into cPanel allows you to edit any pictures or images that you have contained within your website hosting account on the fly; this means that you can carry out complicated operations on images from any internet connected computer as long as you can access cPanel without the need for any expensive desktop image editing packages. You are also able to set how unprotected directories with no default/index page in them are displayed; you are given a range of options which means that you can choose whether to save on the amount of bandwidth used or not by unprotected directories that have no default web page contained within them.

cPanel provides you with many different features based around domains which you can use to expand the capabilities of your cPanel shared website hosting account in the form of being able to host more websites as well as features that you can use to expand the corporate identity of your website and products that you might market on it. The domain that you use for your website is the main identity that is given to it, and it is of the utmost importance that the domain which you use for your website relates both to the content that the site contains as well as the main subject of the website; this is because search engines normally relate the title of a domain name to the content that it contains, as well in reference to the main subject of the website - domains and content which relate more to each other normally receive a higher page ranking when search engines come down to scoring the pages of websites once they have been indexed. Your domain is also the most important factor of your website since it is what people will type in to the address bar of their browser when they want to visit your website, or what they will see when they visit your website through the means of a search from an ordinary search engine. The fact that you can have any domain you want is brilliant for both marketing and general branding; this is because you can create a brandable identity which you can then create a business around, or purchase domains entitled for special offers which you might be offering since this would ensure that if you have created a separate mini site for such offers, people are able to access them without having to type in any long confusing addresses and will only have to enter a standard domain name address. If you are unable to afford a new domain then you can use certain features within cPanel to gives the affect of a separate domain to the user or visitor without having to purchase a new domain; you can use this type of feature to aid with corporate branding when creating a new sub or mini-site for a new product or area of your website which might still be in the development stages. Other domains features within cPanel allow you to just attach your domains to your hosting account, but not necessarily use them - this is perfect for you if you are just planning to buy domains to sell them on at a later date at a higher cost.

The domain features within cPanel allow you to use it to help build your business portfolio if you are in a business such as the selling of high quality domains which people might be willing to pay a high price for; you can also use the built-in features to aid you in the creation of separate ‘mini-sites’ for your business as well as to create separate corporate identities for services and products which you might be wanting to promote and sell via the means of the internet which means you won’t have to pay the high costs to have them in shops. You can also use another feature to help shorten down the length of long URLs within your website which might confuse users then they are trying to navigate or search your website for content; you can also use this feature to send users to another web page on the internet when they try to access a specific one which you have stored within your shared cPanel website hosting space. With the use of the domain features within cPanel you can ensure that you can create separate corporate identities under your main corporate identity without the need to invest extra cash into new domains every time you want to market or promote one of your new products or services on the internet under your main identity. One thing to remember with domains is that they are the most important necessity of your website; this is because they are what your visitors see or type in when they want to visit your website - apart from content, a domain defines your website as well as your brand, for example if you are creating a company website then you should always try and get the branding of the domain as close as is possible to your real company if the main domain that you wanted has already been bought for use by somebody else - however, if it has been bought then it might just have been bought for parking which means you might be able to negotiate a purchase price with the owner of it. With the use of this article you should be able to understand what sub-domains, parked domains, add-on domains and redirects are as well as what their uses are; you should then also be able to apply their uses across your website appropriately in order to help boost your website’s search engine score as well as how visitors come across products and services as well as how the different types of domains can be used for the branding and promotion of products and services which you might want to sell through your website. You will also be given the ability to expand the use of your shared cPanel website hosting account by being able to host a number of domains on your account, if possible, and how you can use this to manage all the domains which you own effectively. All this put together means that you will discover how powerful cPanel is when it comes to managing multiple domains as well as how you are able to strategically market and promote your internet based products and services with the use of domains through cPanel; this should all help you increase your overall search engine ranking/score as well as the amount of visitors and products that you sell through your website.

Sub-Domains

Subdomains are domains that you can create under your hosted domain name; they take on the form of a new name as the forename, and then the second part of the address is your main domain name. Subdomains are a good way to section your website off into different parts if you are providing many different services, or if you want to give different parts of your website their own identity without the need for directories which can easily become very messy. Search engines can also favour subdomains in some situations because they see them as separate domain names, and will rate them above directories in most situations. If you are wanting to sell different products or services under the same company name, but don’t want the websites for each product to be collectively dumped under one domain name, then you should try and utilize subdomains within your website setup where possible. Subdomains are basically address DNS records that have been automatically setup by CPanel to point back to the same server that your website is hosted on; however, you can also utilize the advance DNS settings feature if you wish to use subdomains but want to have the content that they are going to display or the service that they are going to be used for hosted on another server - this will be done via the setup of advanced address records and with the use of IP addresses of other servers through the CPanel control panel. However, most people rarely use subdomains since they are seen as ‘tacky’ by some and others prefer to just use the simple structure of directories when they are designing and building their website which they will then host within their CPanel shared website hosting account. The good thing with subdomains though, is that like directories you can choose what you want the name of the subdomain that you are setting up to be - this means that you can use subdomains for hosting absolutely any content you want. Sub-domains can aid in the marketing and promotion of products or services that you might be selling through your website, and can even help increase on your current amount of sales through your website; this is because they can aid in the creation of ‘mini-sites’ for products and services which you might sell which inturn can help promote and increase products since it allows a product or service to have its own corporate identity under your main corporate identity - it is also much easier for a visitor to type in a subdomain address rather than a very long ‘directory’ address which could consist of many forward slashes before a user actually reaches the final destination of the product or service which they want to purchase. You can also use sub-domains if you wish to segment your website off into smaller parts if you feel that it is too large to be hosted under just one domain; this again can help aid in giving the separate areas of your website their own identities since they will more or less be ‘minis’ of your main website since you have made your main website much smaller, and the subdomains will be relatively small.

Add-On Domains

Add-on domains are domains that you can attach to your main website hosting account; this feature allows you to extend the use of your hosting account since it allows you to host multiple domains, and a website for each domain if you feel that each domain does need to have its own website - if it doesn’t then you could simply create a parking page for each domain. Add-on domains can be linked back to subdomains which you have created within your shared cPanel website hosting account; this allows you to host more websites since in most cases you have an unlimited number of both add-on and sub domains, which means that you can host as many websites as you want under your hosting account with the only constraints against you being the amount of disk space that you are supplied with as well as the amount of bandwidth that your account has been assigned - in some cases you might be limited by either the number of sub of add-on domains which you can use in your website hosting account, which will mean that you are only able to host as many separate websites in your account as is stated by the amount of each. This feature of cPanel is perfect for you if you wish to make the most of your website hosting account without having to spend any extra money; this is because you can try and get the most value for money by utilizing both this and the sub-domain features to ensure that you can host as many websites on your account as is physically allowed by the specifications of the website hosting plan which you have purchased from your web host. One other thing which can affect how many domains you host in your shared cPanel website hosting account is the amount of money that you have available to spend on things such as domains; this is because the cost of domains is relatively high, and means that every time you want to buy a new domain, you have to spend money. Add-on domains can also help in providing a separate corporate identity for other products or services which you may be wanting to sell or provide through the use of the internet and your existing website; you can use the add-on domain feature to host individual domains for the products and services that you have chosen to provide - you can then specify an individual layout for each website to help provide that much needed unique corporate identity for each product or service. If you own a business such as a website design agency then you can make use of this feature to help you host all the websites that you design for clients if you don’t have the finances to pay for a higher end reseller package - however, this situation should only be used if your customers don’t require control panel access to control their website and domain name; this is because only reseller packages give you the abilities to create separate client accounts for each individual website or domain - this in turn means that with a standard shared website hosting account there is only one set of login details for all the websites which you host which means that you are the only one who can control all the details about client’s websites such as email addresses and the contents of their actual website.

Parked/Pointed Domains

The parked/pointed domain feature of cPanel allows you to point existing domains which you might own back to your existing shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that when a user or visitor enters a parked/pointed domain into their web browser, they will reach your existing website which you have already set up under the main domain which you have attached to your shared cPanel website account. Parked/pointed domains are handy for you if you are wanting to reserve one name under an array of different TLDs, they will all lead to your existing website which means that you don’t have to develop an individual website for each domain - meaning that you have to do less work; this can also mean that if you are developing a large website which is going to be used in many countries accross a range of TLDs, then you will only have to place one parking page under your main hosting account then attach all the needed domains to your account - this means that you don’t have to upload a parking page for each individual domain that you are planning to use for your finished website. Parked/pointed domains is also a feature which you can utilize if you are a domain purchaser who purchases domains purely for the reason of then selling them on at a higher price to help you make a profit on your purchases - in this case you could use the parked/pointed domains feature to attach all the domains that you own to your shared cPanel website hosting account; you can then proceed to create one holding page under the main domain for your hosting account which will be displayed on all the domains that you have hosted under your account - this can help you out since it means that you don’t have to place up a holding page for every domain which you own - which means that if you own many domains, you can save yourself a lot of time by using this relatively simple method. One thing to note is that when using or adding add-on domains to your website hosting account, you should always make sure that you point your domains to the DNS servers which you use for your shared cPanel website hosting account; this is because you will then be able to control all aspects of your domain from your shared cPanel website hosting account, and if you don’t or forget to change the DNS servers then your add-on domains might not work at all with your shared cPanel website hosting account - you can normally change your DNS servers for your domains yourself over at the registrar from which you purchased the domain, as long as you know the new DNS servers which you want your domain to point to, if you aren’t able to do it yourself then you can normally contact the support department of your registrar who should happily do it for you at no extra cost than what you have paid for the domain.

Redirects

The redirects feature of cPanel allows you to automatically redirect your website’s visitors to another part of your website when they try to access a certain file or folder which you have hosted under your shared cPanel website hosting account; the redirects section of cPanel allows you to use different method of redirecting - permanent and temporary, permanent redirections (sometimes referred to as 301 redirects) are ones which tell the visitor’s browser to update any bookmarked URLs which link to the file or directory on the website which is trying to be accessed and is in turn telling the browser that it is redirecting the visitor, temporary redirections (sometimes referred to as 302 redirects) work in a similar fashion to permanent redirects, apart from that they don’t tel the visitor’s browser to update any bookmarked URLs which link to the resource such as the file or directory located on the website which is trying to be accessed by the visitor. The redirects feature is popular among most blogging programs, such as Wordpress - although it is normally found in its more technical form via the use of the .htaccess file rather than a simple panel contained within cPanel; this is because it can be used to shorten down long URLs - most blogs normally produce posts with long URLs so that informative information such as the date it was published as well as the full title of the post - however, thy normally shorten the lengths down with the use of a 301 redirect to only leave the title of the post so that others can refer to it in their own blog posts or in their websites without the need of posting a confusing URL but with the ability to post a much shorter and much more understandable URL to the actual blog post. This feature is generally used within websites to help make their web pages much more accessible if they have long URLs as well as to help boost their search engine ranking since this feature can help improve the search engine friendliness of a website’s URL; with a boosted search engine ranking, your website will probably receive more visitors that have been sourced from a search engine keyword search. If you utilize the wild card feature of the redirects feature of cPanel then you can redirect any requests for any file within a directory to another directory with the ability to maintain the file name in the web page request; this means that you can move directories within your website as well as renaming then without the need to change any links in your main website since any requests for files within the old directory will be forwarded to the new directory with the file name being requested retained in the request for the file in the directory concerned - this also means that you can create much more search engine friendly URLs for less search engine friendly URLs that are being used in your website.

Conclusion

In conclusion, you are able to use the domain features of cPanel to help give your products and services their own individual corporate identities which you can then use to market and promote them; this use of a separate mini-site and corporate identity for each product or service that you supply or sell can also help you get an increased search engine score which in turn can increase the amount of visitors that you actually receive from search engine searches of particular keywords which link to your products and services in some way or another. You can also use the domain features provided by cPanel to increase the amount of domains and websites that you are able to host on your standard shared cPanel website hosting account; this feature can help you make the most out of what you have paid for your hosting account since you are able to host more websites than just one without the need to purchase any new website hosting packages - this feature is perfect for you if you feel the need that you want to host more websites or if you just want to separate your site more into different segments so that is much easier for both you to manage and for your visitors or customers to navigate. The ability to park and manage your many domains which you are not using effectively has also been discussed, this means that if you own many domains of the same subject and want them all to display the same website then you can do that at ease without having to upload the website or parking page for each website individually, which in turn can help save you a lot of time and fuss when it comes to both the management of the domains and the uploading of the necessary files; you can also use this feature if you have a large corporate website which you want to have shown under many domains which you have purchased for this purpose - in this case you might want to build some sort of language translation feature into your website so that the text for visitors from foreign countries using a separate TLD is displayed in their native language and not the English that you have most likely written the content of your website in. Other features discussed allow you to make the URLs and file paths in your website much more search engine friendly thus giving your website a much higher search engine ranking (sometimes referred to as search engine score); this is done in the way that the URLs for your website are made much more readable and keyword rich which means that search engines are more likely to like your web pages because of this since the content will most likely link back to the title or the URL of the web page which it might not have done originally - this feature is heavily involved in the design of software such as blogs and content management systems where the URL of the content must be easily readable as well as where the title and URL of the web page must link back to the content that is will display in some way or another, in the case of blogs you might also find this feature being used since the originally generated URL is much longer and confusing and is not appropriate for use for people who want to link back to the article concerned in their own blogs or websites or for those who might want to refer others to the article via the use of email.