cPanel VPS Hosting

cPanel has released a new version of its control panel product for use specifically on VPS servers, since it has been specially optimized to use a lower amount of memory when it is idle and not being used. cPanel for VPS contains the same features as the standard cPanel, but has certain parts of it tweaked to ensure that the amount of memory that it uses at idle time is reduced by up to 60% in some situations. For web masters and web hosts who are hosting their clients on cPanel based VPS, this will allow them to host more domains per VPS since there will be more memory that will be available for websites which are hosted on VPS, which means that web hosts can cash in on this extra memory so that they can host more customers per VPS. For example, testing with a VPS that has 500MB RAM has shown that with the standard installation of cPanel, the server only has 248MB RAM free at any given time, even when its idle, which means that cPanel is using up 252MB of RAM when it isn’t even being used by anyone; cPanel for VPS was then installed on this VPS to see what the change would be, and it was found that when idle, cPanel for VPS using up a maximum of 90MB RAM leaving at least 495MB of RAM free for use by other programs.

cPanel has managed to optimize its control panel to ensure lower memory usage by tweaking the Apache instance that is installed along with it, which is what serves the websites that are hosted on the VPS to the people who are viewing them; Apache is known to be a bit of a memory hogger on Linux machines, which means that with some tweaking it is able to run at the same speed, but without using so many resources - other programs that are installed alongside the cPanel control panel have also been optimized to reduce the amount of memory which they use. Since the amount of memory used has been reduced, it enables web hosts to provide clients with a more economic hosting solution, since they don’t have to have as many physical machines since they can use VPS which means that they only need to have one physical machine for a certain amount of VPS. cPanel for VPS is still in its EDGE build, which means that there isn’t a stable release of it available for wide use at this moment in time; for now, you should only test cPanel for VPS and should stick with a regular cPanel install in a live environment since the fact that it isn’t stable yet could mean that it would affect the performance of your VPS.

E-Commerce Shopping Cart Hosting

One of the main things which many people and businesses want to add to their websites these days are shops so that they are able to sell their products or services via the internet; this is because that many are discovering what a powerful selling tool the internet can be for them, thus meaning that they want to sell their products via the internet as well just face to face or through their retail store since it gives them an extra source of income. The number of online shops has started to grow over the last few years since adding one to your website has become much easier than it previously was since there are now methods which allow you to add a shop to your website yourself which mean that you don’t have to pay a website designer or developer to install the application for you.

By adding an online shop or e-commerce store to your website, you are giving yourself an extra source of income since it means that you are able to sell the products which you might otherwise sell through your retail store or face to face directly to be public, meaning that you are also able to grab yourself another audience which might otherwise not be aware of your brand and the products that you sell. By optimizing your website and online shop with the use of previous articles within this blog, you are able to make sure that visitors who are looking for a product or service which you happen to sell or provide find your website and online shop through the use of a keyword search on a search engine that your website happens to be listed; this means that you are able to get customers which you might not otherwise get if you were to not have an online shop, and were to sell only through your retail store if you have one, or just face to face if that is the sales method which you use.

When setting up an online shop for your website, the main decision that you will come across is choosing the application that you want to base your online shop on; although this decision might sound like a basic one, it can be a fairly hard one to make because there are many different shop applications that might meet your needs in some areas, but not in others - you might also have limitations that you will have to take into consideration when choosing a shop application, although most are designed to function in range of different environments.

The main items that you will take into consideration when choosing a shop application for your website will include how many products or services you are able to list within your chosen shop application, whether it is commercial or open source and how it compares to other shop applications that are available; these features are important to consider since you don’t want to keep on adding new products or services to your online shop and then find that you aren’t able to add any more since you have reached the limit in that area, you also want to check whether the application which you want to use is open source or commercial - and if it is commercial you should consider the cost of it, and finally you should always see how your chosen shop application compares to other both commercial and open source applications since you might want to purchase a commercial application since it meets the needs of you or your business but there might be an open source application which is just what you want and suits you or your business’s needs more.

You should also consider whether or not your chosen shop application makes SEO friendly URLs with the use of a URL rewriting program out of your product listings to ensure that search engines see your product pages as search engine friendly, thus increasing the amount of visitors that search engines deliver to your website; you should also consider whether or not your chosen application has a search facility to ensure that your customers can easily search through your products or services if you happen to have many listed - this also means that your visitors and customers will be able to find their way around your online shop hassle free.

SEO Friendliness

One major feature that you should consider within a shop application is how search engine friendly it is, since if your chosen shop application isn’t that search engine friendly then search engines might not take kindly to it thus giving up on indexing your shop at a certain point, or might end up lowering the score that they gave you after your first crawl; if you happen to choose a search engine friendly shop application then you will find that search engines will take more of a liking to your online shop, meaning that they will give you a higher score thus giving your website and online shop more visitors which might even mean that you receive more sales through your shop in turn increasing the amount of money which you are able to earn from your shop.

The most basic SEO function which most shop applications under take is the generating of search engine friendly URLs for categories and products which are keyword rich to ensure that they are related to the content of the page that they have been generated for - the page titles of the pages for categories and products are also keyword rich as well since it gives visitors an idea of what they are about to view without having to wait for the entire page to load; both of these basic SEO methods are favoured by search engines since they allow search engines to match your website to more keyword searches that are made through them, meaning that search engines are more likely to place your shop higher up in the search engine results for certain keyword searches that are made by people who are looking for a shop or website which happens to be along the same lines as yours.

You personally should also try and ensure that the descriptions for your products are as keyword rich as possible, since search engines will also favour this since as is the case with keyword rich title tags and URLs, because of the fact that they can then relate them with more keyword searches thus providing your website and shop with a higher rank in the results page as well as an increased search engines score; this means that ensuring that your new online shop is search engine friendly is something which you have to make sure of as well, meaning that you can’t rely on the built in functions of the shop systems that you have chosen to use.

Choosing the Application that You are Going to Use

Choosing a shop application which you are going to use for your website can be a hard decision to make, since there are many different factors that you should take into consideration based on your requirements within this type of application; you should always ensure that you make your final decision based on information that you have read on your chosen application - this is especially important if you are planning to purchase a commercial application since you might not be able to get a refund if you purchase the application but then realize that it isn’t what you want.

The main factor which you should consider when choosing a shop application is whether it will run within your hosting environment or not - this is especially important since you don’t want to purchase an application but then find that it won’t run within your hosting environment, in this case you will probably not be able to get your money back; this means that you should always start out by using open source shopping applications, since you are then able to gain the knowledge of the hosting environment in which your hosting account resides, meaning that you know what kind of specifications to look out for when you look to upgrade to a commercial shop application in the future - this also means that if you decide to use an application that isn’t compatible with your hosting environment, you won’t loose any money since you haven’t paid anything for the right to use the application since it is open source meaning that anyone is able to use it for free.

You should look around at the different applications that are available for you to use as a shop on your website, since some may meet your needs in certain areas whilst others do in the areas which aren’t covered by some shop applications; you should always look around at both commercial and open source applications, meaning that you shouldn’t dismiss open source applications if you have the money to spend on a commercial application, and shouldn’t dismiss commercial applications if you want to use an open source applications but do have the necessary funds to cover the cost of a commercial application.

Conclusion

In conclusion, with the use of SEO friendly shop application, you will be able to bring more visitors to your main website as well - but you can’t just rely on the application itself to be SEO friendly, since it is up to you to make sure that your product and category descriptions are keyword rich since it will give search engines something else to favour in your website.

You should also be aware of the many factors that you should take on board when considering a shop application that you want to use on your website - the most important factor being whether you want to pay for the application that you are going to use, or whether you just want to use a free one which you can easily setup; this is because you don’t want to purchase a shop application for your website but then find that it doesn’t suit your needs, or find an open source application which happens to meet your requirements more than the commercial application does - however, one thing to note in this situation would be that you will not be able to get a refund on the license that you have purchased for the commercial application that you were using.

You should also make sure that before you purchase any application, or before you try and install any shop application within your hosting space, that the application which you want to use is actually usable within your hosting environment - whether you’re on a shared, VPS or dedicated hosting package; this is because if you want to use a commercial application but find that it doesn’t work, you won’t be able to get your money back and you could cause yourself a lot of frustration if you don’t use the right type of package.

Limitations of a VPS

Although VPS hosting might seem like the perfect solution for you if you want the ability to have and administrate your own dedicated server, but don’t have the necessary funds to pay for a dedicated server and that your budget will not stretch much further than what a top level shared website hosting package; however, VPS hosting does have limitations which differentiates them from dedicated servers, and if you don’t take the necessary steps to ensure that your VPS doesn’t reach reach these limitations you could end up having your VPS temporarily shut down because its affecting the performance of other VPS which are hosted on the same node as you. In the case that the software which your hosting provider uses to virtualize their servers to ensure that they are able to host multiple VPS doesn’t automatically close your VPS down for the over usage, you might find that processes which are being run within your VPS are being killed off instead; in most cases the process within your VPS which is the resource hogger will be shut down, meaning that the rest of your VPS will carry on running as normal.

Many people go for VPS since they seem to think that they are just a virtual version of a regular dedicated server meaning that there aren’t any virtual limitations - in the end these people often find that the applications which they want to host on their VPS server are too resource intensive meaning that the programs which are being used to run them, for example in the case of a website this would be Apache, is being killed off to ensure that the performance of other VPS servers which are hosted on the same node is not being affected. If a VPS starts to take up too much of a certain resource, and exceeds the limitations without having any processes killed off or being shut down itself, then it can easily take down the host node on which it resides meaning that it can easily take down the rest of the VPS that are hosted on the same node as it; something like this would result in the suspension of the VPS concerned, and might even lead to the hosting company asking the customer concerned to leave or terminating their contract since otherwise it could leave the hosting company with more unhappy customers than happy ones, and nearly any business would rather have pleased and satisfied customers rather than ones which are threatening to leave since they are not happy with the level of uptime that they have received - in other words the hosting company concerned would rather keep 10 customers and lose 1 rather than keep 1 customer and lose, the 1 customer being the one who has taken down the hosting node, and the 10 customers being the others who are hosted on the same node as him.

In some cases, hosting companies restrict you as to what software you are allowed to install your VPS, since some programs are able to interfere with the performance of other VPS servers who are hosted on the same node as the one on which the program concerned is installed; in most cases, this is only because of the virtualization program which your web host uses to ensure that they can easily split a physical server up into many VPS, since most web hosts do allow you to install any programs of your choice on your VPS meaning that you can use it for almost anything that you want to - if you do happen to be with a web host that does limit you on the programs that you are allowed to install on your VPS server, then you should move to another web host that does allow you to install any programs that you want to within your VPS hosting environment.

The fact that some resources of VPS are limited means that they are somewhat different to a dedicated server, not only in the way that they run but in the way that they manage their resources as well; for example certain commands on Linux VPS return the details wanted of the actual host node, and not those of the VPS server meaning that you might have to learn some VPS specific commands to ensure that you can get the information that you need from your VPS.

CPU Sharing

One of the main resources of the host node which has to be shared amongst all the VPS which the host nodes is the CPU - this is what the VPS will use to run their processes effectively; the one thing with the CPU of a host node to note is that in most cases it isn’t even shared between all the VPS, meaning that any VPS on the node can use as much of it as it wants - however, the virtualization software used by the hosting company will in most cases shut down a VPS or kill a hogging process after it has started to use a certain amount of the CPU and is starting to affect the performance of other VPS that are hosted on the same node. Every program which is hosted on any VPS will be using a small amount of the host nodes CPU, or some of the CPU which has been individually assigned to your VPS for your use only, some programs and applications use more CPU than others; CPU intensive applications tend to be ones which are used and accessed more regularly, and you will find applications which have to do a lot of processing such as the Apache web server can easily become CPU intensive applications.

At the end of the day, it is your responsibility to ensure that programs and applications which you have installed within your VPS are not taking up too much CPU, since if you use too much of the host node’s CPU then your VPS will most likely be automatically shut down, and if too much of the CPU which has been individually assigned to your VPS gets used then you will find that your CPU will just automatically crash without any prior warning. Depending on the virtualization software which your web host uses, you will find that you either have to share the main CPU of the host node with the other VPS servers that are hosted on the same server as you, or if you are on a higher end server or VPS hosting package then you might find that you have a certain amount of the CPU assigned directly to your VPS meaning that it will always be available for your use; the second CPU scenario is perfect for you if you are planning to hosts CPU intensive applications within your VPS since it means that you are able to do so without interrupting the performance of other VPS which are hosted on the same server as you - the first scenario is fine for you if you are planning to just use your VPS for testing applications of some sort, since it means that you can easily get a large amount of CPU for a second or so when you might need it.

If you happen to be on a VPS hosting package in the scenario where the CPU is not evenly split between all the VPS hosted on the node and that all the hosted VPS can use as much of it as they want (unless they happen to get shut down after a certain amount of usage) then you might find that the node on which you are hosted can be easily bought down by either your VPS or the others which are hosted on the same server as you; this is because if a VPS on the same node as you or your VPS start to use CPU intensive applications which are driving the CPU crazy, you will find that the server will just crash after a certain amount of time because there is just no CPU left for it to use. If you find that the node on which you are hosted is starting to go down at regular intervals because a certain VPS on the same node has started to use too much CPU, then you should consider asking your host to move you to another VPS node to ensure that you are no longer affected, but if you want ultimate assurance that you won’t be affected again then you should consider moving to another web host who provides a VPS hosting package similar to the one which you are currently on.

RAM

In most cases, RAM is individually assigned to each VPS hosted on a node - this RAM is known as guaranteed RAM since it will always be available for use by your VPS, and not by any other VPS which may be hosted on the same node as you; most VPS packages also come with ‘burst’ RAM, which is additional RAM which your VPS can use for a certain amount of time if it happens to go over its guaranteed RAM limit - burst RAM is available for use by all the VPS which are hosted on the same node as you, meaning that there might not be burst RAM available for you when you need it. RAM is used by programs which are hosted within VPS environments to temporarily store data to allow the program concerned to operate as quickly and as efficiently as possible - as it goes, the more RAM that you have available for your VPS, the more programs that you are able to run at one time; this means that if you want to host many different applications on the same VPS, then you should consider a higher level package since this will mean that you can easily achieve this without affecting the performance of the other VPS which are hosted on the same node as yours is, but you should note that if you do happen to need to reach into your burst RAM at times then you should consider purchasing a second VPS so that you can take a certain for certain uses since you might find your VPS crashing if it happens to run out of RAM.

In some cases, web hosts allow you to purchase more guaranteed RAM that you can then use for your VPS server since most hosting nodes have a lot of spare RAM both for use as burstable RAM and so that the RAM of VPS currently hosted can be easily expanded - for example most modern hosting nodes have between 12 and 32GB of RAM, meaning that there is more than enough extra RAM for you to purchase; this means that you won’t have to purchase an extra VPS for those extra services, which can save you a lot of money - one thing to note is that web hosts which don’t allow you to increase your share in particular resources will allow you to upgrade your existing VPS to the next highest plan - in some cases this can be cheaper than buying extra of certain resources and also means that you will have increased the amount that you have of other resources.

The only time when you will need extra RAM is when you want to increase the usage of your VPS, or if you are looking to install other programs on it so that you can make more use of it; this is because more use will mean that there are more programs that will need to store there data temporarily somewhere, which means that you will have to beef up the amount of RAM which you have - you will also notice a general performance increase if you beef up the amount of RAM which you have, since existing applications will have more space in which they can store their temporary date, and your VPS will happily run along without the need for the use of burst RAM. Like many resources, RAM is a limited resource because the amount that you are able to assign to your VPS is limited by the amount which is physically installed within the hosting node chassis, as well as by the amount which has been taken up by the other VPS which are hosted on the same VPS hosting node as you; this means that you should be careful as to what programs you use on your VPS since if you use too RAM intensive applications then you might just find your VPS crashing every so often, which is not something that you want or need.

Conclusion

In conclusion, when compared to dedicated servers, the resources that VPS servers come with are very limited meaning that you should be careful as to which programs and applications you install on your VPS server; this is because if you install applications which are too resource intensive, you will find that your VPS will crash or will be automatically shut down by the VPS daemon software to ensure that your VPS does not start to affect the performance of other VPS which are hosted on the same node as you are.

CPU and RAM are precious resources when it comes to VPS hosting since they are limited ones which means that you should be very careful as to how you use them, since CPU is one resource which you can’t expand on unless you replace it physically within the host node, and RAM is a resource which is limited by the physical amount which your web host has installed within the host node; this means that if you do need to increase your CPU share or the amount of RAM that you have then you may be asked to upgrade your VPS hosting package or to even move to a dedicated server since your requests for resources are becoming unmeetable because of the other VPS which are hosting on the same server.

Another limited resource assigned to VPS servers is bandwidth - bandwidth is the amount of data that can pass between your website or server and the client computers which happen to visit it, normally during an assigned time frame which in most cases is a month, although this can vary to a year in some cases; the price of bandwidth is one which is ever increasing meaning that you should try and keep down on the amount of it that you use - this can be helped by using low graphics web pages and if you don’t need that many people to, then try and minimize the number of visitors which you receive to your website is you don’t have the money to fork out on extra bandwidth if you happen to go over your limit.

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.

Many people want to start a web hosting business in this modern technical age, in most cases because people see it as a cheap and easy way to make a quick bit of money - but for those who want to make a success out of their hosting business in the long term, time, hard work and dedicated are needed to ensure that their business turns out to be the success that they want it to be; however, establishing yourself in the web hosting market these days is becoming ever more difficult since most people have had the same idea and also because the main companies within this market are offering good quality hosting at dirt cheap prices - although this might sound daunting, a more competitive market means that you have the opportunity to make the most of your business by trying to promote it and get it out there in front of the consumer as much as possible. For most people, starting a web hosting business is a process which needn’t require any large amount of money, since most existing web hosts are able to provide cheap reseller package which allow you to resell the web space that you are assigned to your customers; some reseller packages also include useful tools which are there to help you get your web hosting business off the ground - for example your reseller package might include a license for a web hosting billing system so that you are able to bill your customers who have purchased your hosting automatically online without the need for any complicated and frustrating paper work. You should only start a web hosting business if you are dedicated to making your business successful, and are able to provide your customers with the necessary support so that they are satisfied with the experience that they have with you, and not if you are in it purely for the money and plan to just abandon your customers after a certain amount of time; this is because great frustration can be caused to customers if the web host that they have signed up with decides to cease existance after a certain amount of time since in most cases it means that the data they have stored within their shared website hosting space that they have purchased is wiped meaning that they are unlikely to retrieve it - on the other hand, if you want to make your business successful then it is important that you provide your customers with a good level of support since it means that they are then highly likely to refer you to their friends and colleagues who might need hosting, and it is commonly known that ‘word of mouth’ can easily help make a success out of any business. If you are completely new to the world of web hosting and web design, then it is important that you do a good amount of research before embarking on setting up your own web hosting business; this is because you will most likely require server administration skills amongst other skills as your business starts to grow - these skills will most probably not be needed at the establishment of your business since you will probably be using a reseller hosting package, which means that the administration of the server on which you are hosted is taken care of by the trained technicians who are employed by your web host. Website design skills would also be a big bonus for you if you were to start a web hosting business; this is because you will need a website on which you can show case your products, although you can eaily purchase a template to use on your website, these are known to turn customers away from web hosting businesses since they interpret it as saying ‘we can’t be bothered to build our own website, so why should we be bothered with anything else’. In terms of money to start a web hosting business, domains and reseller packages are cheap these days which means that you should be easily able to start a small web hosting business for under $50; although that price only covers the basics such as a domain and a reasonable specification reseller package, free or cheap alternatives of other expensive components of a website hosting business such as a billing system or help desk can be easily picked up.

Domains and Business Names

The first thing you need if you are to start a web hosting business is a domain name, so that people are able to find your business and website easily via the use of a search engine; a domain is used so that people can easily access your website from any web browser, at any internet connected location in the world. When choosing a domain that you are planning to use for your web hosting business, you should make sure that it is one which is linked to the subject, so that prospective customers get an idea of the purpose of the business before they actually reach your website; by using a domain name which is relevant to the subject of the actual website, you ensure that customers are able to easily recall your business’s name and its sole purpose - even if they do forget the purpose of the business, they can easily work it out again through the meaning of the name of the business. You should also make the domain which you want to use for your web hosting business short in length, as well as easy to spell; this means that it is easier both clients current and prospective to remember - for example, the sort length means that the word ordering won’t be forgotten easily, and the fact that it is easy to spell means that your current customers can easily refer their friends and colleagues who need web hosting to your business. As is the case with a domain for any purpose, you should always try and make your domain name as individual as possible; this is because it can help your customers prospective and current to remember your website’s address as well as your business’s name - an individual name also means that you are less likely to end up using the name of an existing company or finding that the domain name which you want has been taken for use by somebody else. It is highly important that the name which you have chosen to use for your business is not being used by another person or company which is already in existance, its for this reason that you should always make the necessary checks within your country to ensure that no one else is using the desired name; if someone does find that you have started to trade under their name, and have owned the name or have been trading longer than you, they have the right to sue you to ensure that you stop using the name in question if a dispute over the name does break out or if you refuse the original owners calls t stop using the name or brand. When purchasing a domain from any good domain regsitrar, they will ask the TLD which you want the domain have - the TLD is the ‘Top Level Domain Name’ which in most cases is relevant to the country which you want to aim the website in question towards, for example the TLD for the United Kingdom is ‘.uk’ with variations being ‘.co.uk’ and ‘.me.uk’; you should always ensure that the TLD which you choose to use for your business is relevant to the country at which you want your hosting to be purchased from, if you have no target country in question then you should use the ‘.com’ domain extension. One thing to note is that you can pick up domains cheaply from any good domain registrar on the internet; it is advise that you buy domains from an American registrar since in most cases they work out cheaper than UK based or other foreign domain registrars. Once you have chosen your business name and domain name, as long as it has not already been done so by someone else who is using the same brand, you should register your company name as a trademark to ensure that no one else is allowed to trade under that name; this means that if someone else does try to setup a business which has the same name as yours, they will not be able to since you will be able to sue them since a registered trademark is basically means that you own the name in question and that no one else is able to use it without your prior permission or consent - this is especially important if you are planning to make your business last and if you want to start earning a good income out of your investment - if you don’t then someone could easily come along and start trading roguely under your name, and even ruin your company’s reputation.

Reseller Package, VPS or Dedicated Server

Before you start taking on customers for your web hosting business, you need to have something on which you can host them; there are three choices for you to choose from when you are starting your web hosting business, these are: reseller hosting packages, virtual private servers or dedicated servers. Reseller hosting packages are packages which you buy from an established web host which allow you to sell on the disk space and bandwidth that it assigned to you to your customers - your customers in turn will have their own client accounts which they can then use to manage the domains and websites which they have chosen to host with you; the good thing with reseller packages is that the server administration is taken care of by your web host, which means although you aren’t allowed direct root or administrator access to the server to install the programs that you want to, you don’t have to have any advanced server administration skills since all that work is carried out by the trained technicians who are employed by your web host. Virtual private servers are not real servers in terms of them being physical, but they still provide you with a dedicated environment similar to that which is provided by a dedicated server when you are using it - this means that you can get the same control as you would have with a dedicated server, but at a fraction of the cost; the thing with virtual private servers that sets them apart from dedicated servers is the fact that you are still sharing a server with other people, since there are normally multiple virtual private servers hosted on one physical node - although you are assigned your own guaranteed bandwidth, disk space and RAM, the CPU of the physical node is normally shared between all the VPS hosted on a single node but not equally, but in some cases web hosts will split the CPU between the VPS so that each gets a fair share. Dedicated servers are the most expensive solution for any web host who is starting out in the industry; this is because what you are paying for is a physical server which is not shared with anyone else in any way what-so-ever. Dedicated servers, like virtual private servers provide you with a dedicated environment in which you are able to install any program of your choice, which in turn means that you are able to customize the server to work in the way that you want it to; this means that if you want to focus on a specific type of web hosting which requires for a special program to be installed on the hosting server, then you can - an example of this would be if you wanted to provide ShoutCast radio hosting for your customers via the cPanel control panel, in this case you would have to install ShoutCast and the necessary cPanel add-on which is required to allow your customers to manage their ShoutCast accounts through the cPanel control panel. Your choice of package should reflect which stage you are with your web hosting business; this means that if you are just starting out with your business then you should consider a reseller hosting package since they are fairly cheap and give you lots of room to allow you to expand over time - once you have outgrown your reseller hosting account you can then decide to move up to a virtual private server if you feel the need to and if your funds allow you to, if you have been running your business for a while and have built up a small customer base then you should consider a virtual private server - the same is applicable if you have a large customer base or if you want to provide your customers with a different type of hosting which means that you will need a certain program installed on the server which wouldn’t be available if you had a standard shared or reseller hosting package. If you have a relatively large customer base, but don’t have the funds to purchase either a virtual private server or a dedicated server then you could easily go with a higher end reseller package; this means that as your business starts to grow you can then upgrade through the various reseller plans that are provided by your web host, and as time and money allows you can then upgrade to either a virtual private server or dedicated server as you see fit. If you are starting out with a dedicated server of a virtual private server, then you should consider the resources that have been assigned to you; this is because you might have a server with a large amount of disk space which will allow you to host many websites, but you might not have a high enough specification processor or enough bandwidth to match the amount of disk space that you have been provided with.

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 disasterous. 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.