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General Hosting FAQ:
Email FAQ:
Statistics FAQ:
Domains FAQ:
General Hosting
- Why do I need a host for my website?
Every site on the internet usually wants to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to reach its full potential. That way, when a visitor or customer types in your address, the site comes up in their browser and they can navigate through it without thinking twice. You probably also want this connection between your site and your site's visitor to be fast, reliable and secure so that their experience is worth every penny you invested in getting your site created in the first place.
For this, you must have your site on a server that also is fast, reliable and secure. It is most likely beyond your own resources to setup a server in your business or home that is all of these things all of the time. That's where a hosting company comes in. We place your site on our fast, reliable and secure servers that have been tested and re-tested to make sure they stay that way…all of the time! And we don't stop at the initial setup…we monitor our servers 24 hours a day to ensure smooth and fast responses so you never have to worry about the availability of your site again.
And a good webhost also provides many other useful tools for your site to make it easy to perform changes, like adding and modifying associated email addresses, and viewing statistics of your visitors. Adventure Hosting gives you all of this, and much more!
For more information on what makes a host for your site a great host, view the 14 point Web Hosting Checklist.
- What do I need to transfer my site to you?
We must obtain the following information from you before we can initiate the transfer of your site to our hosting servers:
- Basic account information (your name and contact information)
- Billing information (by valid credit card or check)
- Current website files or valid FTP information
- Domain login information (to transfer DNS records. You may perform this step yourself if you request, but we must confirm the updated records.)
- How long does it take to transfer my site to you?
Once we receive all of the information we need to begin your hosting account, and when we receive full payment for the terms you selected, we will initiate the transfer of host process. This usually takes about 48-72 hours to fully complete due to the propagation of your Domain Name Server settings associated with your domain. These settings tell your domain where your host is located on the internet, and this information must pass to every Internet Server Provider's records before it is fully implemented.
IMPORTANT: Once your site is fully transferred, it is your responsibility to ensure cancellation of your account with your previous hosting provider. Even after the transfer has fully occurred, you previous hosting provider usually will not know that your site has left its hosting servers until you tell them. To avoid any billing problems in the future, you should cancel that account as soon as you receive confirmation that your site has fully transferred. Adventure Hosting, Inc. does not accept any liability regarding hosting accounts with other businesses not directly related to our relationship with our customers.
- How do you compare to other webhosts out there?
Though Adventure Hosting is relatively new as far as some hosting companies go, we still outweigh even the longest-running hosting companies in customer service and overall customer satisfaction. That's because we give you the most dependable hosting servers paired with the friendliest customer support at a truly fantastic value. If you want to know more about how we can meet all the needs of your website, view the 14 point Web Hosting Checklist.
- How do I login to my Control Panel?
Make sure you have your current login information for your website's account (this was sent to you by email when your account was first created with us). Then visit the Adventure Hosting login page and enter in your username and password.
Once logged in, you can access all the features of your account, including emails, statistics, FTP info and more.
- What do I do if I lost my password to login to my Control Panel?
Visit the Adventure Hosting login page and click the "Forgot your password? Click here." link at the bottom of the center box. You will be prompted to enter your domain name. When you do, then submit your request, an email will be generated and sent to the address we have on file for your account (you will be shown this address after the email has successfully been sent). Then use this information to login to your control panel.
- How do I get access to the physical files of my web site?
To gain access to the physical files that make up your site, just login through an FTP program using the FTP information found in your Adventure Hosting control panel. If you do not already have an FTP program to connect with, we recommend WSFTP made by Ipswitch. FTP is a very useful way of making a backup of your entire site.
- What happens when my hosting contract ends with you?
At Adventure Hosting, we do our best to make it easy for you to renew your web hosting when your annual or bi-annual contract ends. We will send you correspondence by email AND by postal mail reminding you 30 days prior to the date your contract ends to renew. Simply send back the invoice with the amount due and we will renew your contract for another period without any further energy on your part.
If you still find this to be too much work, consider using a credit card and let us know which billing period you would prefer: annual, bi-annual, quarterly or monthly. We will send you a receipt automatically each billing cycle to inform you of the charge. We can also send you a receipt by postal mail as well at your request.
Email
- How do I setup email for my site?
You can setup any email inbox or email forward with your Adventure Hosting control panel. Just login and visit the 'Email Access' area from the main navigation, then click 'Create New Mailbox' or 'Create New Forward' to create your new email account. You can view and access any existing emails from the main page.
Note that if you transferred your hosting to us, we will do our best to setup your email addresses as close as possible to the arrangement you had previously. That way, your should experience very little difference in the way you access email as you did previously, and you will not lose any incoming email during the transition.
- How do I create an email that forwards its email to my personal address?
In your Adventure Hosting control panel, visit the 'Email' area from the main navigation, then click 'Create New Forward'. Then, just enter the name of the new email address (i.e. me@mydomain.com), and right below enter the address you want this new email to forward to. There may be a delay of up to 12 hours before your email address is created to prevent email fraud.
- I'm getting a lot of Spam! How do I stop them?
Spam is one of the biggest problems associated with the internet today, and the one we dislike here at Adventure Hosting the most. We have worked hard to put in place measures to slow the reign of Spam and to keep your inbox easy to manage.
If you are getting a lot of Spam, visit our Stop Spam! page to find out how you can control the flow of Spam in your mailbox.
- What is email "spoofing"?
Email spoofing may occur in different forms, but all have a similar result: a user receives email that appears to have originated from one source when it actually was sent from another source. Email spoofing is usually an attempt to trick a user into making a damaging statement or releasing sensitive information (such as passwords).
Examples of spoofed email that could affect the security of your site include:
- email claiming to be from a system administrator requesting users to change their passwords to a specified string and threatening to suspend their account if they do not do this
- email claiming to be from a person in authority requesting users to send them a copy of a password file or other sensitive information
If you receive such an email, just delete it. If you are unsure if the message actually came from an administrator or certain company, call them to make sure.
- What do I do if I get a virus on my computer?
A virus can enter your computer in many ways: via email, a rogue web site, by file-sharing, even by hand or just being connected to the internet. If you think your computer has been infected by a virus, do not panic. Most viruses will not cause harm to your computer or files on your system; most just send themselves to other computers using your email or are present to attack a specific website on the internet using your computer's resources.
If you do not have an antivirus program installed on your computer, follow these steps:
First, you should try hard to find out as much information as possible about the virus. Look for specific messages it gives you, such as popup messages or warnings, or if it arrived by email, look for specific messages in the subject line or body. Use the information you find to perform a search on the internet with your favorite search engine (i.e. Google). Many times you will find a good hit in the first few results that will lead you to much more information about the virus itself and steps you can take to remove it. They may even have application tools that will automate the removal of the virus. Sites commonly containing these tools are McAfee and Norton.
Never try to remove a virus yourself, or reformat your computer just because of a virus infection. You may cause more damage than good, or remove files that your system needs to operate. If you are ever unsure or apprehensive about making a change to your system, try to consult a knowledgeable friend or relative. Also, we can provide courtesy support as long as you understand that we accept no liability in doing so over your system and files.
Statistics
- How do I check the statistics of my web site?
Adventure Hosting gives you access to full-featured website statistics generated daily from your site's traffic log files. To view them, just login and visit the 'Site Statistics' area from the main navigation. You can view and access any of the statistics programs running on your site from this page by clicking each. If prompted for a password by the statistics package, enter the same username/password combination you use for FTP access (visit the 'Account Settings' page for more information).
- What are hits, and how does that differ from visits?
Hits represent the total number of requests made to the server during the given time period (month, day, hour etc..). A request to the server could be for any file associated with your site, such as an HTML file, image file, or JavaScript file. One web page can be made up of many such files, so one hit usually does not equal one web page view on your site. Also, not all hits will send data, such as 404-Not Found requests and requests for pages that are already in the browsers cache.
A visit, by contrast, occurs when some remote site (a visitor) makes a request for a page on your server for the first time. As long as the same site keeps making requests within a given timeout period, they will all be considered part of the same Visit. If the site makes a request to your server, and the length of time since the last request is greater than the specified timeout period (default is 30 minutes), a new Visit is started and counted, and the sequence repeats. Since only pages will trigger a visit, remotes sites that link to graphic and other non- page URLs will not be counted in the visit totals, reducing the number of false visits.
- Can I have access to my raw log files?
You can gain access to your raw log files upon request only if you do not have any statistics programs activated for your site. This is because statistics programs parse the raw log files for your site to get the information for your statistics reports, then delete the log file so it does not re-parse it in the future and duplicate any information in your statistics.
For access to your raw log files, just login via FTP to your site and enter the 'logs' directory in the root folder.
Domains
- What is a domain name?
Every site on the internet has an IP address, a string of numbers similar to a phone number that allows your browser to connect to it. To make the internet easier to use, domain names were created which allow a website to have a memorable name and domain extension that points to the IP address, for example: mywebsite.com.
The primary domains extensions of the internet are .COM, .INT, .NET, .MIL, and .ORG, which refer to Commercial, International, Network, Military, and Organization. These domains are administered by InterNIC. There are also two-letter domains associated with specific countries.
- How do I renew my domain?
Renewal is done directly through your domain's Registrar. When your domain is about to expire, your Registrar usually contacts you by email or by phone to let you know the cost of renewal and ask how long you would like to renew for, usually in annual terms.
As a courtesy, we always send a notice that your domain expiration is near to the email address we have on file for you 30 days, then once again 7 days before, the expiration.
To find out when your domain expires, just do a WhoIs lookup.
If we assisted you in registration of your domain, we can also renew your domain for you at no charge as long as your site is currently hosted with us. The renewal costs will be added to your current balance.
Please note that failing to renew your domain by the expiration date usually increases your re-registration charges for the same domain greatly (by about 400%). That's why it's important to renew early, as soon as you receive your first notice.
- What is a Registrar?
A Registrar is a company in the business of registering domain names. An accredited registrar is permitted to update the domain name database (maintained by the Registry) directly. Other registrars work through partnerships with accredited registrars. Registrars pay a minimum fee per domain name to the Registry for the right to record the ownership of the domain name.
A registrar provides direct services to domain name registrants. The registrar database contains customer information in addition to the DNS information contained in the Registry database. Registrars process name registrations for Internet end-users and then send the necessary DNS information to a Registry for entry into the centralized Registry database and ultimate propagation over the Internet. There are multiple registrars providing registration services through the NSI Registry. (See InterNIC)
- Can you register my domain?
Although we are not a accredited Registrar of domains, we can perform the registration for you through a Registrar that we've worked with before for a small fee. This small fee will be waived if you will also be hosting that domain's site with us, but any registration fees charged by the Registrar still apply and will be added to your current balance. We recommend finding an inexpensive, yet reputable, Registrar who charges less than $10 per year for the registration of your new domain.
- What is a WhoIs lookup?
A WHOIS search allows for the finding of public information specific to a registered domain on the internet. This information includes the domain creation, expiration, and last modification dates, as well as contact information for the administrative, billing, registrative, and technical entities responsible for the domain.
To perform a WhoIs lookup, just visit InterNIC.
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