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Getting started with your web hosting account

Article Information
Article ID: 1
Author: Saurabh Gupta
Created: 5/28/2005
Modified: 5/28/2005
Views: 1,890

This tutorial is designed for beginners and those who would like to know in advance how the account set up process works. Here you will be able to find information on all the steps that are taken to get your web site up and running. We are going to cover a few topics in the process. This includes ordering the hosting account, setting up the email users and changing the Domain Name Server information with your registrar, the company that you registered the domain at. We are also going to give you a few helpful hints on how to make the best of your site and get it found in the search engines.

Below you will find our Table of Contents. You can see the main topics and a small description of each one. Just click on the link on the left of the table and it will take you to that section on the page. It's best to go ahead and bookmark this page in case you want to come back to it later. Well, let's get started!

Getting Started
Order Web Hosting The process of ordering a web hosting account with us
After Ordering The steps that occur after you order a web hosting account
Uploading Files The steps that you will take to upload your files and content to the server with FrontPage or FTP
Email Setting up your different user accounts on the mail server and also setting up your mail program
Changing Domain Name Servers Changing the DNS information so that your domain points to our servers
Support Help Desk Registering a user account for the Help Desk
Promoting Your Site What you can do to get your site listed in the search engines


Order the Hosting
This is the first step you will take to setup hosting with us. To actually order the hosting account. This is a pretty simple process. You will just start on our order page and enter your domain name there.

After you submit the domain on the next page choose your payment method, Credit Card, PayPal, Western Union, or a Check or Money Order. When you select your payment type, you will be taken to a new form that you will enter all the account information on. Please make sure that you spell everything correctly. If you pay with Credit Card, be sure all the card information is correct and you use the same exact billing address that your bank has on record. This will help us get your account set up as quickly as possible.

After you submit the form, or mail in your check or money order, our sales and billing department will process the order and we will then setup the account. If the domain must be registered by us, it will be about 24 - 36 hours before the account can be setup. If you already have your domain name registered then the set up process will be within 24 hours or less.

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After Ordering
After you have ordered the hosting account, these are the steps that we take to get your account setup. Our sales and billing department processes the form and logs into the systems and sets up the account under your information. After the account has been setup, they will email you the "Welcome Letter" that contains all the server information that you will need to connect to the server and upload files, create email users, and also check your site statistics. There will also be a few links to some tutorials that may help you with setting all that up.

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Uploading Files
Now your account is all setup and you have received the email for the server information. Now you need to upload your files to the servers. Below you will find the two most common ways that people upload their files, FrontPage and FTP. Just take a look at either one of these to see the steps you need to take to upload your files. If you have created your site with FrontPage, you will need to use the FrontPage instruction. If you do not use FrontPage, you can use the FTP instructions.

Please note: If you do not use FrontPage to create the site, you can use FrontPage to upload the files. However, if you do use FrontPage to build and maintain your site, do not use FTP to upload your files. FTP can corrupt the FrontPage server extensions and when that happens, we must reinstall the extensions. This can sometimes cause the navigation that you have created in FrontPage to disappear and it can also corrupt FrontPage themes.

To see your site on our servers, you will need to go to the temporary address that we provided for you in your welcome letter. This will allow you to get everything looking right and working before you change the domain name servers at your registrar.

 

 FrontPage Publishing Information 

There are a couple things that you need to know when publishing with FrontPage. Here are some helpful hits to avoid possible problems in the future.

  1. You must use the temporary address that is provided until you change the DNS information and the domain resolves to our servers.
  2. FrontPage extensions need to be installed from the control panel. If you need help installing FrontPage extensions, please let us know by creating a ticket on the Helpdesk and we will install the FrontPage extensions on the account.
  3. Do not use ftp.yourdomain.com when publishing with FrontPage as this will corrupt your FrontPage server extensions. Only use http://www.yourdomain.com or the temporary address when publishing with FrontPage.
  4. Do not attempt to set any user account, file or folder permissions in FrontPage as this will also corrupt your FrontPage server extensions and disable your server permissions. If you need file or folder permissions set, please go to our Helpdesk and request them there.

Now that we have that covered, I'm sure you want to get your files up now and the site running. So let's go ahead and link to a couple of tutorials that we have on FrontPage.

Creating a FrontPage Web Site - Creating a FrontPage site on your computer
Opening Your Web Site With FrontPage - Either live on server or on your local computer
Publishing Your FrontPage Web Site - From your computer to web server and/or vice-versa

The first step you will want to take is to create your FrontPage web site on your computer. You should do this for one main reason. That being so you will always have a current backup of your web site. For the steps involved in this, take a look at the "Creating a Web Site" tutorial.

Step two takes place after you have created your FrontPage site and all files on your computer and you want to connect to the server to publish the site files. This is pretty easy as FrontPage will automatically connect to the proper directory. To see the steps in connecting to the server, go to "Opening Your Web Site".

Now for the third step, take a look at the "Publishing Your Web Site" tutorial. This tutorial covers the steps involved in actually sending the FrontPage files to the server. Now, depending on how large your site is, and how many files you have, this can take anywhere from a couple minutes, to a couple hours. Like connecting to the server, this is also a pretty simple process as FrontPage will put all the files in the proper directory.

Well, you should now be able to see your site online at either the temporary address, or the actual domain. If you have any problems, or questions, please create a support ticket on the Helpdesk and we will be glad to assist.



 

 FTP Upload Information 

As with the FrontPage information, we are going to list a few helpful tips here as well.

  1. We recommend that you use a program such as WS_FTP, CuteFTP or another FTP program.
  2. You cannot view your site in a browser by using the IP address since it is the IP address for the entire web server. Typing ftp.yourdomain.com into the browser does not work.
  3. To view your site, you need to use the temporary address that is given in your welcome letter.
  4. Be sure that you upload all files that you want to be visible online inside the /wwwroot folder. The /wwwroot folder is where ALL of your files need to go except for an optional database file which can go into the /db folder on the same level as /wwwroot.

You can immediately begin uploading your site via FTP! You can see a few tutorials on setting up your FTP program so that it connects to the server. Below are three common FTP programs

WS_FTP
CuteFTP
Fetch FTP - for Mac

Most FTP programs have the same fields that you must enter so these tutorials can be used for other FTP programs if needed.

You should now be able to see your site online at either the temporary address, or the actual domain. If you have any problems, or questions, please create a support ticket on the Helpdesk.


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Email
To setup the email accounts, you will login to the control panel at https://admin.efextra.net and once you are logged in, click the "Domains" link. Next, click on the domain that you want to add email accounts to. Then click on the "Email Accounts (POP3)" link. After this screen loads, click the "Add New (+)" link to add your email accounts. The user must be at least 3 characters and the password must be at least 4 characters.

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Changing Domain Name Servers
Now that you have all your files uploaded and your email accounts created, you will want to change the domain name servers (DNS) so that your domain starts pointing to your account on the server. This step will vary from registrar to registrar so we cannot provide a tutorial for every one of them. You can see general instructions for changing name servers here.
 

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Help Desk
If you should run into any problems, or need certain permissions set for your web site, you will need to create a support ticket on our Helpdesk. Please try to be as specific as possible in your tickets and provide links to any pages you are having a problem with. This will help us to provide faster support to you and help resolve any problems.

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Promoting Your Site
There are many things that you can do to promote your site. From submitting your site directly to search engines to optimizing your site with meta tags, image naming, and content. You can either do it yourself, or you can hire someone to do it for you. Normally if you hire someone, they can sometimes get better results than you doing it yourself because they may know all the "tricks of the trade".

If you would like to learn some of the things that you can do to promote your web site please contact us. We also offer search engine optimization and submission services for various fees. Contact our sales department if interested.

This URL: http://helpdesk.efextra.net/Customer/KBArticle.aspx?articleid=1