Plesk is a web hosting control panel that is available for both Windows and Linux, and helps many web hosts provide customers with both standard shared web hosting as well as reseller hosting. Plesk was developed by a company known as SWSoft, who also own other industry leading web hosting controls panels such as Helm and HSPComplete. The interface for Plesk has been designed around the look of Windows XP, to help give users more confidence in using the control; this is because since the control panel has more or less the same look as the customer or user’s operating system, the customer or user might find it easier to get around the control panel and in turn, make it easier for them to use in general. Plesk is generally used for Windows hosting by most web hosts, since cPanel is the preferred choice for Linux hosting for both the host and its clients and customers. You will generally find Plesk bundled with VPS hosting plans provided by web hosts that use Virtuozzo as their VPS hosting software; this is because Plesk and Viurtozzo are both produced by the same company - SWSoft. Plesk has many features packaged with it which helps make it superior over other web hosting controls panels, most specifically the SiteBuilder application which customers can use to build their own websites. For our example, we will be basing this article on Plesk for Windows since that is what eUKhost use for Windows shared, reseller and semi-dedicated web hosting. Plesk, like cPanel, allows people to manage many different aspects of their shared website hosting, which can be based either on Linux or Windows; this compability with both systems means that if a user wanted to move from one type of hosting to another, they won’t end up having a new control panel that they’ll have to start working out from the ground up again. Plesk also gives webmasters the ability to control and change many different aspects of their website hosting account without the intervention of others. Plesk gives you the abilty to manage many different parts of your web hosting account from the ability to see how much bandwidth your website has been using as well as when, you can also manage the DNS entries that are functioning under your account - this is perfect for you if you need to add custom DNS entries so that you can utilize the services of other web hosts or servers that you might be using.
Other features in Plesk allow you to avoid any images or other files in your website being linked to which could inturn mean that you bandwidth is in affect ’stolen’ if files you have hosted in your account are displayed on another website which is busy; you will even be able to change the PHP settings if you happen to be hosting any PHP files that require custom settings within your shared website hosting space. Other included features allow you to setup directories which you can then restrict access to with the use of the protected directories feature that is built into Plesk. You are also given the ability to manage any scheduled tasks which you might need to setup in order to allow your website to function corrcectly; this can be very helpful for you if for example your website is running something such as a billing system where it is important that certain tasks are scheduled to run automatically to ensure that requests are fulfilled on time without the need for any manual intervention. You will also be given the ability to manage any databases that you choose to create in your Plesk account; this includes the management of MySQL databases, as well as MSSQL databases if you happen to be coding in classic ASP or ASP.NET and are hosted on the Windows version of Plesk. If you are hosted on the Windows platform then ODBC data sources will also be discussed to aid in the activity of connecting to databases from dynamic web pages. The ability to manage SSL certificates will also be discussed, since this is one of the most important features and can make or break the control panel choice for someone when they are looking around at web hosts.
Mail
The mail feature of Plesk allows you to manage all the different email aspects of your website through Plesk; this feature allows the control of individual email accounts as well as that of mass mailing lists that you might have configured within your shared Plesk website hosting account. When modifying individual email accounts, many different options are presented to you to ensure that you are able to configure your emails accounts the way that you want them to be; you are able to disable a mailbox so that you can just use it as a forwarder address, as well as setup an auto-responder for the email account concerned. If needed, you can also choose for the owner of the email account to have the ability to login to the Plesk control panel so that they can manage aspects of their own email account; you as the web master as well as the owner of the email account can also setup custom spam and anti-virus rules for individual email accounts if you find that you may need them for whatever reason. A preference panel is also provided for each individual email account so that you can reset the password if needed or even change the actual email address of the account, this means that you can change the actual address but still retain any email that it contains. You can also set up the account to ensure that any email received can be retained in the actual email account, and at the same time be forwarded to another email account of your choice - if you disable the mailbox feature of the email account but retain the redirect address then the email account will act like a forwarder. You can also setup multiple email aliases for any email account; this means that any email account can accept email for any aliases that you have attached to the email account that you have setup within your Plesk control panel. As the web master you can also set the size of each individual email account to ensure that one email account doesn’t end up using up all the space that you have assigned to your Plesk shared website hosting account. You can also setup multiple mailing lists through your Plesk control panel website hosting account which gives you the ability to communicate with a large group of people without having to enter each individual email address every time you want to send a message to all the people who are contained within the mailing list.
DNS Settings
The DNS settings feature of Plesk allows you to manage all the different DNS settings that you might have attached to your domain that you have hosted under your shard Plesk website hosting account. DNS allows you to control where requests for certain services for your website; you can set where visitors looking for your website are sent to in terms of the server that they reach - as long as the server that you point your domain to hosts a copy of your website then your website will be displayed if you have entered the correct IP address when setting up the ‘A’ (address) records. You can also define where email for your domain is sent to, if you are wanting to utilize the mail services of another web host or that of an external mail server that might be run by you; this is perfect for you if you are looking to use some sort of enterprise email service such as Microsoft Exchange Server or Zimbra, both of which aren’t available within a Plesk environment since they won’t work along side the mail server that is installed along with Plesk. The fact that you can setup address records from Plesk gives you the ability to setup subdomains for your website but then point them to other servers; this is different from the subdomain feature that is built into Plesk since the Plesk feature sets the address records up but points them all back to the same server that you are hosted on, therefore meaning that the files for the subdomain will also be hosted on the same server as your main website at the end of the day. If your host has not already done it for you, you can use the DNS settings feature of Plesk to setup a TXT (text) DNS record in the form of an SPF record; this ensures that email sent from your domain can be verified and received by email recipients who are utilizing free email services such as Hotmail and Yahoo! - this is especially important if you run a website such as an online shop which requires easy interaction with any email address, whoever hosts it.
Databases
Plesk gives you the ability to create MySQL databases in both its Linux and Windows forms; if you purchase the necessary add-ons then it can also connect to PostgreSQL and MSSQL servers to create both types of database; PostgreSQL is only normally found on Linux, and MSSQL is for Windows hosting only. Third party web based database control panels are built into Plesk and Plesk automatically logs you in to the relevant one when you want to administrate a database over the internet from a location that might happen to not be your own computer; in the case of MySQL databases, PHPMyAdmin is supplied to allow you to manage any MySQL databases that you might have hosted within your shared Plesk website hosting account - if you are hosted on the Windows platform and are utilizing Microsoft SQL databases then ASP.NET Enterprise Manager is supplied to allow you to view and manage any MSSQL databases that you have hosted under your account. In most cases you will be using a database along with a dynamic web page language within your website so that your website is able to communicate with the database so it can pull data to be displayed, as well as store it within the database so that it can be easily accessed again. Plesk also gives you the ability to create users so that the databases you create can be accessed by the scripts that you have created within your web space; without these database users, scripts and other programs that you want to use to access your database or databases won’t be usable since they won’t be able to access the database. Since Plesk gives you the ability to create multiple databases under many different database platforms, it gives you the ability to host many different web applications in a number of dynamic server side scripting languages so that the applications that you do create can easily interact with the databases that you have created within your shared Plesk website hosting account.
Certificates
Plesk gives you the ability to generate the needed codes for as well as the ability to install SSL certificates within your shared website hosting account without the need for any intervention from your web host, or the administrator who is responsible for the server that you are hosted on. SSL certificates encrypt any information that is sent between your website and the computer of the person that is visiting your website; they are highly recommended for situations in which the data being transferred is of the utmost confidentiality, and an example of this situation would be an online store where confidential information such as credit card details is being transferred over the internet - if information such as this was to fall into the hands of fraudsters then the results for the owner of the credit card could be disastrous. Since Plesk generates the needed codes for you such as the CSR and the private keys, all you have to do is copy the relevant information over to your certificate supplier then download and then upload the certificate once the relevant processing has been done; this process doesn’t require any intervention from your web host since most of the processing is done automatically by both your web hosting server as well as the servers that belong to the company that you are buying your SSL certificate. The only manual intervention that might be needed from your web host will be the assigning of a static IP address to your website; SSL certificates can’t run on shared IP addresses, meaning that you must purchase a dedicated IP address from your web host before you can actually install and run your certificate within the environment of your own website. The assigning of the IP address can only be done by your web host since they are the ones who retain ownership of the IP address, since you are only renting it. If you don’t need a dedicated SSL certificate, but still want to make use of secure web space then most web hosts provide shared SSL space within Plesk web hosting accounts which you can then utilize as per your need.
Subdomains
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 Plesk 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 Plesk 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 Plesk 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.
File Manager
The file manager section of Plesk allows you to view and manage all the files that you have stored within the web space that has been assigned to your shared Plesk website hosting account; you can manage both the files in your directories that are accessible from the main internet as well as the directories which aren’t accessible from the internet - also known as the private directories. The file manager feature differs from the web directories feature in the way that it allows you to manage all the files that you have stored under your web hosting account, whereas the web directories feature only allows you to manage the files and directories within your web space that are directly accessible by all computers on the internet. The file manager allows you to differentiate between files and folders via the use of icons which are individual to each different type. The management abilities of the file manager allow you to remove/delete files and folders which you feel that you no longer need; you can also create new files and directories within directories that are below your ‘main’ or ‘parent’ directory which is where your website and all the files which are related to it physically reside on the main website hosting server’s hard drive - this means that you can create new web pages or other files which you may need others to view quickly and on the fly which means that you can do it from any internet connected computer which has a web browser installed on it. If the size of a particular directory or file is not displayed in the file manager within Plesk then a calculator is built in which you can use to calculate the sizes of certain files or directories automatically without the need for any hard technical work or any head scratching. You can also copy and move directories and files between directories if you feel the need that you want some files or other content to reside in other directory so that it can be kept more private or so that you can remove content from your website which you no longer want to display for your visitors to see.
Protected URLs
The protected URLs feature of Plesk allows you to setup directories within your website that you can restrict access to via the use of login credentials such as usernames and password; this means that people will require a username and password to be able to gain access to a protected directory. When a user tries to access a protected directory, a login box will popup from within their web browser; there is certain text that goes along with the login box which will normally appear above the option boxes which users enter their usernames and passwords into - Plesk gives you the option to set the text that is designed to appear above the two mentioned text boxes. You should use the password protected directories feature if you want to store certain documents or files within a directory, but don’t want the general public to have access to them; in this situation you could assign usernames and password to the people who will need access to any files that you choose to store within a password protected directory. Password protected directories can also be used in the case that you want to offer a private membership area on your website that users must pay to be able to access; although this will mean that you have to set up the accounts for users manually, you will still be able to provide the membersip area that you want without having to pay for a more expensive server side scripting language based solution. The protected directories feature is available in both the WIndows and Linux versions of Plesk, which means that you can move between the two different platforms but still retain features of your website that might help make it distinct, such as the protected directories or password protected membership area that you provide your visitors with. The protected URLs feature is only good for a certain amount of users, which in most cases is 50; if you intend to setup more user accounts than this then you should invest in a more stable and scalable system that utilizes a database backend to make sure that it is always accessible. One thing to note is that on Linux systems, you can use the .htaccess file of your website to ensure that certain directories are password protected.
Domain Templates
The domain templates feature of Plesk allows you to set up web hosting plans for domains to enable you to start selling hosting on your Plesk based Linux or Windows VPS or dedicated server. This Plesk feature gives you many configurable options besides the standard bandwidth and disk space options to ensure that you are able to allocate the domains that you are going to host on your Plesk web hosting server with the correct amount of resources such as the number of databases that one is allowed to host under one of your packages as well as the number of email accounts that you want to limit your customers to within their shared Plesk website hosting account. If you are selling hosting on a Windows based server, and you have purchased the necessary MSSQL server add-on for Plesk, then you will be given the option to choose how many MSSQL databases that you want customers under your web hosting plans to be able to create; this option will be there automatically for MySQL databases on both the Windows and Linux versions of the Plesk web hosting control panel system - if you have the PostgreSQL add-on for Plesk for Linux then you will also be given the option to limit the number of PostgreSQL databases that people hosted under your hosting plans will be able to create. Other options given to you allow you to choose whether or not people under certain plans can run web pages or scripts that have been written in certain server side scripting languages; for example you are able to choose whether or not people under a certain plan have access to the ASP programming language, if you choose to disable this option then people under the web hosting plan concerned will not be able to run scripts or web pages which they have chosen to code in the classic ASP programing language. You are also given the option to limit the amount of CPU usage that websites under the hosting plan concerned can use; this means that you can put a cap on the amount of CPU used to ensure that people with CPU hogging websites will have to upgrade to the next plan above the one that they are on currently to get their website back online since the amount of CPU that they are able to use will increase as they upgrade their website hosting plans. If you have multiple versions of PHP installed on the server that you want to use for selling hosting, you will be given the option to choose which version of PHP that you want websites which are hosted under the plan concerned to run; this means that you can design one plan with the intention of allowing people who want to host their PHP applications in a PHP 4 environment the ability to, and then providing another package for people who want to host their PHP website or application in a PHP 5 environment. You can also limit the amount of visitors that websites are allowed to have connected to them at one time; this option shouldn’t be used in most situations since your customers could find themselves not being able to access their websites after a certain amount of visitors have connected to view it. Another option within this Plesk feature allows you to limit the size of the data pipe to the websites which are hosted under the package concerned - this means that if you make the pipe smaller, then websites will load slower - the opposite is applicable to a larger data pipe.
Web Directories
The web directories feature of Plesk allows you to view and manage all the folders and files in your Plesk shared website hosting account that are viewable and accessible from the internet. This feature can be helpful for you if you need to navigate through some of the files that you stored within your web space, but only need to view and edit the ones which are actually part of your website - files that are part of your website will be viewable from the web directories section of Plesk. If you are on the road and need to edit certain parts of your website by don’t have access to either a WYSIWYG editor or aren’t able to establish an FTP connection to your web hosting space, then you can use this feature to edit your files, and since you are editing them online, you won’t have to upload any changes that you make since they will be automatically applied when you click save after you have made the necessary edits. With the use of this feature you can also set custom settings for PHP and ASP.NET, both of which are server side scripting languages that you can use more dynamically to carry out tasks such as interaction with databases which would not be achievable with regular static HTML based web pages. You are also able to setup new physical directories as well as virtual ones; the difference is that physical directories are ones that actually exist on the server, and virtual ones generally link back to other directories which might still be hosted within your web space but aren’t accessible from the internet. The ability to setup custom error documents for your website is also provided through the easy to use web directories interface; this can be handy for you if you want to make sure that your website still retains its identity, even if errors occur when a visitor is browsing your website. You can also set certain preferences for all the folders in your shared Plesk website hosting account that are accessible from the internet - the preferences that are settable include the default file names which browsers will automatically be forwarded to when no file name is provided, as well as whether anonymous access is allowed and whether an SSL connection is required for files to be viewed.
FTP Accounts
FTP accounts are the accounts which are used in order for users to gain access to your web space via the use of the FTP protocol in the event that anonymous FTP access has been disabled by either you or your web host. Plesk gives you the ability to add, delete and edit the details of FTP accounts that you have already created within your shared Plesk website hosting space; and if you have a dedicated IP address assigned to your website, you are given the ability to enable or disable anonymous FTP access to your web space - however, it is highly recommended that you don’t enable it since it can pose a big security risk for you as well as the other customers of your web host who might be hosted on the same server as you. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and is used for the transfer of files between your web space and your desktop; FTP can also be used to set permissions on certain files and folders if the need arises - without the correct permissions, some files and programs might not function correctly within your shared Plesk website hosting space. When setting FTP accounts up in Plesk, you are given the option to specify a certain directory that the account is allowed to have access to; this means that any directory below and including the one that you specify are the only ones which can be accessed by the FTP account that you are setting up. You are also given the ability to choose whether an FTP account is even allowed to see the files that are contained within the directories that it has been allowed access to; you are also able to choose whether or not it is allowed to save and edit files that are contained within the web space that the FTP account has been assigned to. You can also setup individual directories for each FTP account which means that you can allow others to store their files in one centrally accessible location; you can limit the size of directories for FTP accounts which means that you can always ensure that any FTP accounts you setup are not going to end up using up all of the disk space that you have assigned to your shared Plesk website hosting account.
Scheduled Tasks
The scheduled tasks feature of Plesk 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 scheduled tasks (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 scheduled task 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 scheduled tasks 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 scheduled task within Plesk, 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 Plesk 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 Plesk shared website hosting account being suspended because of server resource hogging as it is known. You can also choose for Plesk to send you an email notification to tell you whether the scheduled task 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.
Site Preview
The site preview function that is built into Plesk allows you to view and interact with your website, even before the DNS for it has fully resolved if your domain is new or if you have decided to move to a new web host for whatever reason. This feature can be helpful to you if you have just finished your website off and have uploaded it, and are wanting to test it out but your new domain or existing domain still hasn’t propogated over to your new web host yet meaning that you can’t use it to view and test your website and its features out. The site preview function is one of Plesk’s most advanced features since it is one which isn’t available in most other web hosting controls that are used in the mainstream hosting market. The feature is a particularly handy one since most people are wanting to test their new website ASAP once they have uploaded it, but DNS propogation can take up to 48 hours, meaning that they will have to wait that long until they are even able to view their website, let alone interact with it. You can also use the site preview feature if you don’t even intend to attach a proper domain to your shared Plesk website hosting account; this is because a domain is not needed for the feature to be able to function properly, since the IP address of the server that you are hosted on is used to access your website. You might not want to attach a proper domain to your website hosting account because you might be intending to use it for the testing of your new website before you put it live for your visitors to see; any problems that your site might being up can be viewed through the site preview function since it displays your website just as if you were viewing it under a proper domain in a live environment, instead of a testing one. You can then proceed to fix any problems which might have been brought up whilst you were testing your website out in the site preview function; once you are sure that your website is functioning correctly, you can move it over into a live environment for your visitors to see it or attach a proper domain to your web hosting account so that people can start visting your new 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 Plesk 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 Plesk 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.
ASP.NET
The ASP.NET section of Plesk allows you to view and edit the settings for ASP.NET which are being used on your domain; you are able to see information specific to both your domain as well as the server on which you are hosted - information which is specific to your website is editable. Plesk allows you to choose the version of ASP.NET which is operating under your domain - this means that if you have an ASP.NET application which is written in an older version of the language, you are able to run it within your shared hosting environment effectively without it being affected by the constraints of newer languages which might be a problem in a shared environment provided by web hosts who use other control panels - you can set the version of ASP.NET that is running under your domain to any that your web host has installed on the host node. If you are new to ASP.NET, and the concept of using it to access Microsoft SQL databases, then Plesk automatically generates connection strings which you can easily alter to work with your ASP.NET based website applications which you are then going to host within your shared hosting environement; you can also add and remove connection strings from within the ASP.NET panel of your shared web hosting account for the different Microsoft SQL servers that you might be connecting to, as well as the one which is hosted locally on the same server as your website, which you can then refer back to when needs be in the future. You can also add and edit the settings related to custom error pages within your ASP.NET application; you can choose whether to have the errors as remote only - or you can switch custom errors off completely, or just choose ‘On’ - if you have chosen ‘On’ then you can specify where your websites visitors should be sent to when a specific error is encountered, this means that if an error does happen to come up with your website, you can send your visitors to specific pages to let them know what the problem is, but at the same time be able to keep up your corporate identity which is something that isn’t possible with standard website error pages since most are actually browser defaults. Other configurable features include the ability to set the debugging mode for ASP.NET applications within your website - this will come in handy if you are testing your website, as well as globalization settings such as the different encodings which have been used on files as well as on the data which may be stored in databases.
Web Applications
The web applications feature of Plesk allows you to install any script which has been added to the script respitory; this means that you can setup any script which is listed easily since all the technical work such as the setting and up and configuring of the database as well as the setting of file permissions is all done automatically by Plesk for you. Also, if you want to host either Java based or ASP.NET based applications within your shared hosting environment, then interfaces are provided to ensure that you can setup applications of either type without any fuss and without the need for any intervention from your web host. If you are just starting your website, then you might find this feature helpful since it gives you a chance to get the applications that you might need for your website in place, thus cutting down the amount of work that you will have to carry out when you get around to actually opening your website to visitors; the fact that all the technical work such as the setting up and the configuring of the database needed for most applications to function as well as the setting of file permissions ensures that you can easily install complex applications without the need for any expert knowledge. You can also use this feature if you simply want to expand on your existing website; this is because programs such as blog and forums are provided which means that you can install these to create a community for your visitors to communicate with each other as well as a place where you can write articles for the general public to comment on or for them to just view at their leisure. You could also install a CMS (content management system) if you wanted to help you manage the content of your website - this can the especially handy if you are finding that your website is starting to expand as well as the content which it contains for visitors to view. Other installable programs include shopping carts which you could make use of if you wanted to start selling products or other things on your website to help make a return on your investment into your web hosting package - although the cost of your package might be low, if you receive a large number of visitors then it is worth trying to make a return on those visitors since at the end of the day it could help finance the cost of your hosting package and you could spend any left over profit on anything that you wanted to. You could also install a groupware feature for the purpose of allowing you and your employees to manage resources online as well as have the ability to communicate with each other with ease.
Hotlink Protection
The hotlink protection feature that is built into Plesk allows you to control whats with particular extensions can’t be access by external websites; this means that if other websites do try to link to a particular file or image that is hosted under your domain then the website’s request will be fulfilled meaning that the file concerned will not be displayed on any website apart from yours or the one which is hosted under your shared Plesk website hosting account. You can protect any type of file that is hosted within your Plesk website hosting account; this is because you are able to specify the exact file types that you want to be banned from being linked to by external websites. You should always have hotlinking enabled for certain file extensions, especially images, on your website, especially if your website is one which receives a high volume of traffic; this is because if external websites which receive many visitors link to images which are contained within your web space, and they are images which are large in file size, then you could end up having this external website eating up all the bandwidth that you have assigned to your shared Plesk website hosting account - even if you don’t have high traffic websites linking to the images or files that you have stored within your shared hosting account, your bandwidth could still be eaten up by smaller websites which are hotlinking to files within your web space since the files which are being linked to could easily be large in size meaning that they are eating up a large chunk each time they are used - in the case of smaller files, the amount of bandwidth being eaten up each time is considerably less. If you require for external websites to link to files and images which might be contained within your web space, then you should consider a dedicated hosting solution such as a VPS or dedicated server since the bandwidth which is supplied with these types of products is much more than that which is supplied with standard shared hosting products.
Backup
The backup feature if Plesk allows you to configure the backup settings for all the files that you have contained within your web space which is part of your shared Plesk website hosting account; you are given the option to schedule automatic backups via FTP to an external FTP or backup server, or you can simply create a manual backup to download there and then which you can then store on your local computer for use if you feel that you have incorrectly configured something or have accidentally deleted all your data. Although your web host might take full automatic backups of all the accounts and the data which they contain on the server, it is always a good idea to take your own backups either manually or automatically regularly since those taken by web hosts might not always be that reliable for one reason or another, or your web host might not just take backups at all - one thing to note is that if you ask your web host to restore a backup of your account because something has gone wrong with it because of your own fault then they might actually charge you for the restoration of the backup - some might not even allow this arguing that it might affect the other shared or reseller web hosting accounts that are hosted on the same server as you and your domain do. Backups are a necessity in this day and age though since the risk of data loss is quite possible through many different means; hackers can easily gain access to hosting servers due to lapse security which means that they can easily delete the data which is contained on the server, the hard drives on which the data is contained can also fail and your most might not employ strategic techniques such as RAID to ensure that there is another hard drive available which is a carbon copy of the one which has failed for whatever reason - power failures can cause this and can also cause the whole hardware which is contained within the server to malfunction. One thing to note is that you should only use the FTP backup feature if you have access to an external backup or FTP server over FTP.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Plesk provides you with many features that you can use to manage the most important and technical parts of both your website in terms of what your visitors see, as well as your domain. Plesk provides you with tools to ensure that you can easily manage any databases that you wish to setup under your account which you can then utilize to make your website more dynamic with the use of server side scripting languages which are able to communicate with certain database types to pull and store data within the database; third party web based tools are also built into Plesk to ensure that you are able to manage your databases as well as the information that is contained within them even when you are on the move and only have access to an internet connected computer, and not to one which has the tools installed that you would normally use to administer your databases and the information that they contain effectively. A DNS manager is also provided so that you can control the DNS records that are attached to your domain - this means that you can easily control which servers visitors to your website are sent to, as well as the server which email for your domain is sent to; this means that you can utilize the services of other hosting providers if you feel that your current web host meets your criteria in terms of service and support in one area, but not in another - for example the hosting for your databases and main website might be excellent, but the services that are provided for email might not meet your expectations. If you want to host websites and web pages that you have created within Microsoft’s Frontpage web editor then you can since Plesk comes with Microsoft’s Frontpage extensions and Frontpage manager by default; this means that you are able to utilize any of the special features that Frontpage builds into your web pages for you without the need for the use of any server side scripting languages which create the same affect as the use of Microsoft Frontpage web pages. If you run an online shop or a website where the data being transferred between your website and the visitors who are using your website is sensitive, then you will most likely use something called an SSL certificate to ensure that the information that is transferred is encrypted, which means that if someone such as a hacker does manage to get hold of it, its useless to them since it will be encrypted and they won’t be able to decrypt it; Plesk provides a control panel to ensure that you can generate the needed codes to ensure that you can purchase an SSL certificate and give the vendor the necessary codes without the need for intervention for your web host, Plesk also gives you the ability to install an SSL certificate on your account as long as you have a dedicated IP address for your website without the need for intervention or help from your web host. A directory protection feature is also provided to ensure that you can password protect any directory that you want to, to ensure that only people who have login credentials for the directory concerned can access it; you might want to password protect a directory since you might want to store sensetive information in it which you don’t want the general public to get hold of, you might also want to use this feature to create a private section of your website which only members of your website who have paid for entry to it or your staff can access it. An FTP account manager is also provided to ensure that you can manage all the FTP accounts that you want to have access to your web space so that they can upload and manage files as well as set file permissions to ensure that certain files and programs can run effectively without any problems.
