What is FTP?
FTP is File Transfer Protocol, an internet protocol used to
transfer materials over the Internet. It is very fast, very efficient, and very reliable.
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What does "Unlimited FTP Site Updates"
mean?
This means that you have access to your site via FTP over the
Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can "upload" files to your site - in
other words, transfer files from your computer to the Sites Hosting webserver on the
Internet - and you can also "download" files from your site - in other words,
transfer files from your site on the Sites Hosting webserver, to your computer.
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What is the first step in setting up a website?
The first step is to gain FTP access to your site, and upload
the initial file to the proper directory. This initial file is generally named index.html,
and it is the web page that will be returned when you call up www.yourdomain.com
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How do I gain FTP access to my site?
First, get the best FTP program on the Internet, which in our
humble opinion is CuteFTP. You can download it at: www.cuteftp.com
After it's installed, run the program (double click on the yellow icon), and then click
Add Folder - this is where you will store your FTP site info. Then click Add Site. In the
panel that comes up, enter a name - call it anything you want - ftp.yourdomain.com. Then
in Host Address, put: ftp.yourdomain.com. (Obviously if the extension is NOT .com - if
it's .nu or .edu or whatever, you would use the appropriate extension) In User ID, put
your User ID - this is usually the same as the domain name - and then in Password,
carefully type your password - I say carefully because it will be masked, so you won't be
able to read it - this password is CASE SENSITIVE!
Now click OK in the lower left of the panel, and you will see your domainname in the right
hand panel - highlight it and click Connect - lower right part of panel. If all goes well,
the program will establish an FTP connection with your site and take you to the
htdocs/userid directory. This is the right place to put your index.html file.
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How do I "upload" and "download"
files using CuteFTP?
CuteFTP is VERY easy to use, and has a very intuitive, easy
to use interface. The lower left panel is YOUR COMPUTER - the lower right panel is THE
REMOTE SITE - in this instance, your Sites Hosting ftp site. Everything is drop and drag -
to upload, drag the appropriate file from the left panel to the right panel. To download a
file on the remote server, simply reverse the process - drag the file on the remote server
- lower right hand panel - over to the lower left panel. Easy!
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Where do I put the index.html file?
When CuteFTP opens the site ftp.yourdomain.com, it initally
goes to the correct directory - home/userid/public_html/ This is the place to put
index.html/ Make sure you do NOT put the file into one of the folders you see there - put
it UNDER those folders. Also put all your pictures and other files for you site in this
same directory.
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What does "updating the site" mean?
Basically what a webmaster does is download files from a
website, operate on them and/or change them with an HTML editor such as Arachnophilia, and
the upload the changed file back to the site.
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What is HTML, and what is an HTML editor?
HTML is HyperText Markup Language - it is essentially a kind
of typesetting language, and is used to create images on the web. Our recommended editor -
for creating and manipulating these images - is Arachnophilia. It is freeware and can be
downloaded at: www.arachnoid.com Read the Help file, practice a while, and you'll pick it
up in no time.
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How do I set up email accounts with my
domain?
One account is automatically set up when the domain is set up
- yourdomain@yourdomain.com However, you are entitled to additional POP3 email boxes free
of charge. Go to out online control panel at http://www.siteshosting.com/cpanel/
or http://www.yourdomain.com/cpanel/ to
setup your pop3 accounts.
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What about Email Autoresponders?
Email autoresponders are very useful in Internet commerce.
Essential, an autoresponder is a robot which resides on your site, and does one thing -
when it receives an email - from anywhere - with its name on it - it sends its text back
to the source of that email. Uses for these little robots are limited only by your
imagination.
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How do I set up an Email Autoresponder?
It's a bit tricky, but once you get the hang of it, it's
easy. First of all create a text file using an HTML editor such as Arachnophilia - do NOT
use Notepad or any other word processing program - it will not work! This text file is the
text your Autoresponder will return to whoever emails to it. Let's say it's called
text.doc. Now, using CuteFTP, upload the file text.doc to your HOME directory. Note, this
is NOT the same place you put your html documents. Once the file text.doc is on the remote
server in your HOME directory, you must RENAME it so that it does not have an extension.
Do this in CuteFTP by going to COMMANDS, then RENAME - rename your text.doc file, simply
text Once this is done, any email sent to: text@yourdomain.com, will immediately receive
an email back from text@yourdomain.com, and the body of the email will contain the text
file. Please note also: make sure you do NOT have an actual POP3 email box called
text@yourdomain.com - this would create a problem. Autoresponders are unlimited! Use as
many of them as you like.
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What is an email redirect account?
These "aliases" are simply lines of code in your
HOME directory which "bounce" emails from one email address to another. Let's
say you have a webpage and you want people to email you, but you don't want your personal
email address to appear on the page. Solution? Use a forwarding email account. Emails sent
toJoe@yourdomain.com(the address shown on the webpage) will automatically be forwarded to joe@personal.com
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How do I set up email redirect accounts?
Go to your online control panel at http://www.siteshosting.com/cpanel/.
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How can I track who is requesting email from my
Autoresponders?
You will often want to know who is requesting information
from your various Autoresponders. Tracking is easy. Simply add an additional line to your
Redirect file. Let's say you have an autoresponder called info, that sends information on
your products. Add the following line to your redirect file:
info you@yourdomain.com
Now, the autoresponder will send the info to whoever requests
it, AND the redirect line will send YOU a copy of the requesting email - so you'll know
who's interested in the product. Great for building a mailing list of interested
prospects!
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What is a MailBot or ListServ?
A MailBot is a robot which resides on your site, and which redirects
a single email sent to it, to a list of email recipients. There are companies out there
specializing in setting these up - many of them charge plenty for it too! With your Sites
Hosting Web Domain, however, you can set up as many as you like - free!
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How do I set up a MailBot?
Basically, the MailBot is just a variation on the email redirect
account, covered in (.13) above - all the same rules apply - it goes in the HOME
directory, and you must rename it .redirect - it's thus a file that is invisible to FTP.
Create it with an HTML Editor - NOT a word processor. It will look like this:
myclub jim@aol.com , joex@ix.netcom.com ,
sally@fugio.org , jimmiep@thorn.com , sevent@moet.com , bing@crosby.com
NOTE: Now any email sent to: myclub@yourdomain.com will
automatically bounce from your domain, back to all the folks on the list above. NOTICE:
this is the drill: From the hard left margin: alias name tab tab email space comma space
email space comma space etc If you alter the list, which you probably will, to add and
subtract members, be sure to maintain the spaces and commas as shown here.
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How do I get access to traffic
statistics for my site?
Very easily - go to this URL:
http://www.yourdomain.com/logs You'll find detailed reports in various formats on your
traffic, including where hits are coming from, at what hours of the day, month, etc. Also
you'll be able to tell which files are being requested. Essential for fine tuning your web
marketing strategy!
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Does Sites Hosting really offer
unlimited hits?
For the
vast majority of domains, traffic never becomes an issue and yes, within reason, you
should never worry about the number of hits your site receives, but as a practical matter,
no provider can provide you with unlimited resources for a fixed price. Bandwidth costs
money, and unlimited amounts of it are not available to anyone. Therefore, we set a limit
of 5 gigabytes of transfer per month on your domain - anything over this we bill at
$12/gigabyte. We reserve the right to shut down any site without notice that is in arrears
on payments for overage on traffic.
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What is Sites Hosting's policy on
"spam," or unsolicited email?
The sending of unsolicited commercial email, or
"spam," is strictly prohibited. We have a "zero tolerance" policy on
spam, and reserve the right immediately to terminate without warning any domain, without
refund, that sends out unsolicited commercial email, in any amount.
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What about Microsoft Frontpage
98/2000?
Sites Hosting's servers fully support the Microsoft
Frontpage HTML Editor and Publisher. However, there are two ways to approach using
Frontpage 98. If you want to PUBLISH your web pages to your Sites Hosting domain using
Frontpage, we structure your domain as a Frontpage domain. This has some downsides - for
example, Frontpage basically takes over the domain - it disables FTP, and it disables
Telnet access as well. In other words, once you convert your site to full Frontpage - both
Editor and Publisher - ONLY Frontpage can be used to access your domain. Many of our
clients prefer to use the Frontpage Editor only, and then use an FTP client such as
CuteFTP to upload webpages - this is in our opinion the 'best of both worlds.'
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Hey I just checked out my new site -
and the counter does not work!!
Most everything will work on the site immediately;
the counter and a couple of other functions, however, are set to begin working when your
'alpha' name begins answering - if your site is brand new, this will take 24 to 48 hours.
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Do you have an 'uptime' guarantee?
Yes. We guarantee that your site will be up a
minimum of 99.9% of the time. If we fail in any given month, you receive one full free
month of hosting service.
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Can you help me with my HTML, webpage,
CGI programming, etc?
Time permitting we give advice via email on these
issues but remember, we are providers of webspace and can help you with 'content' only as
time permits.
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Can I change a password to my email
account, FTP account, or main account?
Yes, you can do this yourself easily. Be aware, however, if
you change your password, we will not be able to go in and fix some problem on your site
without your telling us the new password - OR - we may have to go in and change your
password ourselves. To change your password, open your online control panel at http://www.siteshosting.com/cpanel/
or http://www.yourname.com/cpanel/.
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I don't want to learn HTML or design a
web site - can you design it for me?
Yes! We offer highly competitive design services through a
network of talented professionals. Email us at info@siteshosting.com for more details.
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I
can't get my CGI script to work. HELP!!
We do have free support if your cgi script is not working. For more information,
e-mail
support@siteshosting.com.
If you are going to use perl, buy a Perl book. If you can't figure it out, ask us and we
will help you by email on a time permits basis.
Any more questions please click here.
virual hosting
