10-09-2009, 06:58 AM
This tutorial is going to be based on finding a host (paid).
Remember, there is no perfect host, only the perfect host for you.
What you will need:
1. Money to pay for a site.
2. Specs you are looking for.
3. Budget on how much you want to spend.
4. Know if you want shared, reseller, VPS, or dedicated hosting.
5. A Domain.
What we will go over
1. Registering a Domain
2. Disk Space and Bandwidth
3. Server Resources
4. Finding a Host
5. Research
6. Overselling
7. What to look for?
8. Types of Hosting
9. OS?
10. LiteSpeed
11. Dedicated IP's/SSL's
12. Control Panels
Registering a Domain
To register a domain, I recommend you go with www.namecheap.com and NOT your host. There are many registrars available, but, namecheap is the best IMHO. They offer whois guard protection (so personal info is kept personal) as well as a free 1 year SSL.
Disk Space and Bandwidth
First things first, lets go over disk space and bandwidth. Servers are basically large computers. They have hard drives just like a computer does, and as with your computer, anything on there is going to take disk space. Know this, the average site uses less than 100MB of disk space / month. What does this mean? Well, don't go falling for ridiculous offers such as unlimited disk space/bandwidth. Or thinking you're going to get a whole dedicated server (price is $100+/month normally) for shared hosting prices ($5-15/month).
Now, bandwidth, bandwidth is the amount of data transfer you get. If you are on a shared account, normally when you exceed your bandwidth, your account will just be suspended. If you're on a dedicated server account, you will be billed, normally on a 95th Percentile Billing Method. Keep that in mind. However, know this, if you are just starting a site, or are part of the norm, the average site utilizes less than 1GB of bandwidth a month, maybe even sometimes as much as 10GB/month. What exactly is data transfer/bandwidth? Well, each time a site loads, it must lode the code, the images, etc. So each time it does that, the transfer of X amount of kb's, mb's, or maybe even GB's happens.
Server Resources
Now, we'll go on to server resources. These are things like CPU/RAM. If you read a hosts TOS/AUP carefully, 99 times out of 100 you will find something in there about resource abuse, server resources, or words to that effect. The industry norm is about 25% for no longer than 60-90 seconds. What does this mean for you? If your site is nothing but static .html pages, probably nothing until you start getting thousands of hits at a time. But, if you have a dynamic site, such as a PHP powered site, this could pose a problem as you grow. Lets take a forum for example. Clean installs of forum softwares (such as MyBB, PHPBB, vB, SMF, etc.) can usually handle anywhere from 40-60 users online at the same time before you start reaching server issues. This is on a shared environment mind you, dedicated servers is MUCH different.
When you go adding customizations, plug ins, extra database queries, things like that, the load will steadily increase. This is something to keep in mind. Why? Because, especially with unlimited disk space/bandwidth providers, as your site grows, you will be suspended, and maybe even not given a backup of your site (more on that later). As I stated earlier, you're not going to get a dedicated server for shared hosting costs. Same thing goes for those that offer 50GB disk space, 500GB transfer for $8/month. Not going to happen. What they are doing is betting you will not use all your allocated resources, this is called overselling (also more on that in a bit).
When starting out, you should purchase the SMALLEST shared hosting package available. Most hosts offer seamless upgrade services where it takes less than 6 hours from time you decide to purchase to time your account is upgraded.
Finding a host
Now, you have pretty much your budget and the type of host you are looking for correct? Well, best thing to do now is head over to Web Hosting Talk (WHT) and everyone's favorite search engine. On WHT you can browse the forums, take a look at the Offers Section and try to get a steal. Why do I recommend WHT? Well, the community there is really the only community that is so dedicated to the Web Hosting Industry that reviews are verified as being from an actual customer of the company by them providing the domain name of the site(s) they have hosted with them. The community members then are able to verify the review (a mod will usually verify the review as well and post something about it, especially if the site is submitted by the report button)
Research
So, you think you found your host? Well, time to do a Gearch (lets see if we can get that word circulated around, it means google search). Something as arbitrary as host name review should yield you several results.
A lot of times you will run into these top 10 web hosts review sites. Where they have links to sites such as Yahoo! (don't EVER host with them, they're a search engine, not a hosting company. 72+hours for a simple lvl 1 support request), GoDaddy, HostGator, and other large companys. These are not real review sites, but, top 10 payouts for affiliates. And about 3/4 of them will be from a small unknown host trying to break into the industry by throwing themselves up.
You want to research, research, research. Finding a host shouldn't be a 20 minutes affair. It should take you really a few days. Heck, post a thread about WHT. Most of the members there are web hosts themselves, so be careful what they say, as 80% of them are more interested in spamming their signature than actually helping you out. Most of them are 1 man shops. Not what you want to get with. Which is why I say research. Also, note, take each negative review with a grain of salt. For every unsatisfied customer there are usually hundreds of satisfied customers. Think of it like this, the average person has nothing to say if things are going good and the way they expect, but, the second something goes wrong, BAM, they're all over the internet reviewing it.
Submit an email to their support team at random hours, testing their response. If you don't get a response back within 2 hours find another host. The standard should be 2 hours if you have a support request. Bear in mind on shared hosting you can't do a lot of things you can on a VPS or dedicated. Many hosts can and do reply in 15 minutes as their standard response times. Be careful of any host promising this, as it could lead to a "thank you for your inquiry, we'll get back to you shortly" reply.
Overselling
Overselling: This is a HIGHLY debated topic within the web hosting industry. Why? Well, some see it as unethical. Others see it as a way to maximize profits, lower costs, and provide a better service to the end user (you). What is my opinion? I like the idea. Do not confuse poor server management with overselling. I oversold my servers all the time. You just keep servers to spare, money to spare, and resources on the servers people are on to spare. You can balance the servers by taking off the higher resource users and putting them off on their own, creating a semi-dedicated environment (get to that in a minute). Gross overselling annoys me. Oversellers that still give you realistic limits that you can still achieve on their servers, thats what you need to look for. Gross oversellers (dedicated servers for shared prices) are liars, period, IMHO. Overselling is merely the act of selling more resources than you have available at the time. It drives market prices down bringing more and more people the ability to start that site about dogs they've wanted to do for so long. I'm sure there are some here that remember the days of $65-100 domain names, hosting costing over $50/month for 10MB of disk space and 100MB of bandwidth. Hosts must now compete in price as well as service.
What to look for?
What should you look for in a host? At the bare minimum they need to be offering (and delivering) a 99.9% uptime guarantee backed by a Service Level Agreement. What is that? That is basically something that says (usually starting anywhere from 95%-99.5%) that if they don't provide you that amount of service, you get X amount of credit towards your next bill. You need to look for a live chat (average company's offer live chat during normal business hours, so if it's not 9-5, Monday-Friday, and they're not on, don't fret). They need to have 24/7 support. That is non negotiable. What happens if your site goes down and they only work support during office hours? Also, what kind of a control panel do you want? The standard is cPanel, or Direct Admin. Most offer cPanel for shared hosting accounts, and for reseller, cPanel/WHM, for VPS/Dedicated you can usually get several choices, but each one costs a different amount. Also, you need to find a host with a MINIMUM 30 day money back guarantee. Some companys offer 45+ days, but the standard is 30. If it's not advertised on their site, then it's probably not a legit company. Also, if it's a UK based company, UK law requires a money back guarantee to be posted and followed on any internet web site that sells goods or services.
Types of Hosting
Different types of hosting?
Shared: A lot of users on the same server. All share resources with each other. One user can bring down up to 200+ sites by abusing resources. Starting average $5.
Resller: Shared reseller hosting allows the creation of separate control panel accounts. Usually cPanel/WHM are paired together here. I recommend this for people trying to get into the hosting industry themselves, whether you just want to host a few friends, or actually get up to your own servers co-lo'd somewhere. Many hosts now offer WHMCS or ClientExec, or Modernbill with each account for free.
Starting average $25
Semi-Dedicated: Shared hosting with less accounts/domains on the server, so more resources available to each account.
Starting average $20.
VPS (Virtual Private Server): Great for people starting their own hosting company. You can get cPanel/WHM on it. Ability to create Reseller accounts in WHM (and give them access to WHM). The first step off shared hosting when your site starts growing. A mini dedicated server that requires you to either manage it yourself (not recommended if you have no idea how) or have your hosting company/someone else manage it. If you are going to get cPanel, I recommend you get at least 512MB of RAM with it so you don't experience too much slowness. But, if your site is already outgrown a shared environment, time to look at 1 or 2 GB's.
Starting average
managed: $45. (512MB RAM)
unmanaged: $25-30 for 512 MB RAM
Dedicated: This is for people that have the need for their own resources, want to run something the host won't allow on a shared account (such as IRC), or if you are going to get into hosting. Again, control panels require you to pay for them. And you must manage them yourself or hire the host/someone else. These are rented. Average bandwidth connections go from 1mb/s to 1gb/s. Remember that is mega BIT, not mega BYTE.
Starting average:
managed: $150
unmanaged: $100
Co-location: You have already purchased your own servers and want to put them in someone else's DC (Data Center). You will pay for bandwidth, power, rack rental, probably hands on tech support (so you don't have to go in every time).
Starting average:
$1000
I don't recommend you trying to run a server out of your house. More than likely it is against your ISP's tos (and they will find out eventually and terminate your account) and they probably have the required ports blocked, buggers. Not only that, upload/download speed will be horrible!
OS?
Windows or Linux?
Well, the answer is simple, if you are not planning on running Microsoft Proprietary code off your website (.ASP, etc.) than there is absolutely no reason to get Windows hosting. It's usually more expensive, and less stable.
The average site utilizes LAMP (Linux - Apache - MySQL - PHP). Windows can run .php, but, it was designed for Linux. There are many types of Linux distro's available, most are similar. Most are free!!!!
LiteSpeed
Recently emerging is LiteSpeed which is handy and does make a site fly. The forum in my sig runs on a LiteSpeed server.
Dedicated IP/SSL
Do you need a dedicated IP? Probably not. If you are not transferring sensitive information such as payment details your probably don't need a dedicated IP. Generally a host requires some sort of justification to get a dedicated IP. You really only need it if you are using an SSL (and you must have one if you are).
Control Panels
There are many, many, many control panels out there for you to work with. And actually right now there is a debate on this forum about which is better: Direct Admin or cPanel. Well, here is some information on the more common control panels.
cPanel is the next generation site configuration and management software application. Supporting many operating systems while allowing endusers to control every aspect of their webhosting experience. cPanel © and WHM ™ (WebHost Manager) is the next generation web hosting control panel system. Both cPanel & WHM are extremely feature rich as well as include an easy to use web based GUI (Graphical User Interface).
WHM allows you to but is not limited to administering individual accounts, reseller accounts & performing basic system and control panel maintenance via a secure interface. cPanel is designed for the end users of your system and allows them to control everything from adding / removing email accounts to administering MySQL databases. cPanel is also one of, if not the, most expensive control panels when you start looking at VPS/Dedicated Servers. Also, with WHM you can do A LOT of server management through it, at least the basic stuff most end users need to worry about.
Direct Admin = Ease of use. DirectAdmin is the easiest to use control panel, period. Speed. DirectAdmin is programmed to be the fastest running control panel available. Stability. DirectAdmin avoids downtime by automatically recovering from crashes. Support. We offer lightning-fast support by phone, e-mail, forum, and live online chat.
Helm is capable of providing a complete, flexible Windows Web hosting management solution for both single-server service providers and suppliers of thousands of servers including dedicated and co-located customer services. Key features of the control panel include : - support for unlimited domains and users. - automatic billing and multi-lingual user interfaces Helm also focuses on making the administrator's work effort both minimal and uncomplicated.
Plesk is a comprehensive control panel solution used by leading hosting providers worldwide for shared, virtual and dedicated hosting. The control panel is designed to simplify the management and administration of web sites. Plesk control panel automates a large number of tasks that allow service providers to reduce operating costs and resources while at the same time increasing profitability, efficiency and customer satisfaction. There are four login levels in Plesk with each level having its appropriate roles and responsibilities: Administrator. The highest individual server level login which allows web hosting administrators to set up and manage all system items. Multiple servers can be centrally managed with the Master level login of Plesk Expand. Client/Reseller. Second tier login account where the users are given domain creation rights from the System Administrator. Clients can administer to groups of domains using a single login. Domain Owner. These are third tier individual domain owner accounts with predetermined permission sets and interface for single domain administration. Mail User - This is the fourth tier individual mail account which allows the user to log in to their own private interface and manage passwords, spam filters, anti-virus settings and much more.
These are just the top few control panels out there, there are MANY MANY different ones. For more information see http://www.web-hosting-top.com/web-hosti...rol-panels
Links to different control panels.
cPanel
Direct Admin
Helm
Plesk
Links to Billing/integrated support Software for hosting company's.
WHMCS
ClientExec
Modern Bill
You are now ready to proceed to the next tutorial: Just purchased hosting | Now what do I do?
Remember, there is no perfect host, only the perfect host for you.
What you will need:
1. Money to pay for a site.
2. Specs you are looking for.
3. Budget on how much you want to spend.
4. Know if you want shared, reseller, VPS, or dedicated hosting.
5. A Domain.
What we will go over
1. Registering a Domain
2. Disk Space and Bandwidth
3. Server Resources
4. Finding a Host
5. Research
6. Overselling
7. What to look for?
8. Types of Hosting
9. OS?
10. LiteSpeed
11. Dedicated IP's/SSL's
12. Control Panels
Registering a Domain
To register a domain, I recommend you go with www.namecheap.com and NOT your host. There are many registrars available, but, namecheap is the best IMHO. They offer whois guard protection (so personal info is kept personal) as well as a free 1 year SSL.
Disk Space and Bandwidth
First things first, lets go over disk space and bandwidth. Servers are basically large computers. They have hard drives just like a computer does, and as with your computer, anything on there is going to take disk space. Know this, the average site uses less than 100MB of disk space / month. What does this mean? Well, don't go falling for ridiculous offers such as unlimited disk space/bandwidth. Or thinking you're going to get a whole dedicated server (price is $100+/month normally) for shared hosting prices ($5-15/month).
Now, bandwidth, bandwidth is the amount of data transfer you get. If you are on a shared account, normally when you exceed your bandwidth, your account will just be suspended. If you're on a dedicated server account, you will be billed, normally on a 95th Percentile Billing Method. Keep that in mind. However, know this, if you are just starting a site, or are part of the norm, the average site utilizes less than 1GB of bandwidth a month, maybe even sometimes as much as 10GB/month. What exactly is data transfer/bandwidth? Well, each time a site loads, it must lode the code, the images, etc. So each time it does that, the transfer of X amount of kb's, mb's, or maybe even GB's happens.
Server Resources
Now, we'll go on to server resources. These are things like CPU/RAM. If you read a hosts TOS/AUP carefully, 99 times out of 100 you will find something in there about resource abuse, server resources, or words to that effect. The industry norm is about 25% for no longer than 60-90 seconds. What does this mean for you? If your site is nothing but static .html pages, probably nothing until you start getting thousands of hits at a time. But, if you have a dynamic site, such as a PHP powered site, this could pose a problem as you grow. Lets take a forum for example. Clean installs of forum softwares (such as MyBB, PHPBB, vB, SMF, etc.) can usually handle anywhere from 40-60 users online at the same time before you start reaching server issues. This is on a shared environment mind you, dedicated servers is MUCH different.
When you go adding customizations, plug ins, extra database queries, things like that, the load will steadily increase. This is something to keep in mind. Why? Because, especially with unlimited disk space/bandwidth providers, as your site grows, you will be suspended, and maybe even not given a backup of your site (more on that later). As I stated earlier, you're not going to get a dedicated server for shared hosting costs. Same thing goes for those that offer 50GB disk space, 500GB transfer for $8/month. Not going to happen. What they are doing is betting you will not use all your allocated resources, this is called overselling (also more on that in a bit).
When starting out, you should purchase the SMALLEST shared hosting package available. Most hosts offer seamless upgrade services where it takes less than 6 hours from time you decide to purchase to time your account is upgraded.
Finding a host
Now, you have pretty much your budget and the type of host you are looking for correct? Well, best thing to do now is head over to Web Hosting Talk (WHT) and everyone's favorite search engine. On WHT you can browse the forums, take a look at the Offers Section and try to get a steal. Why do I recommend WHT? Well, the community there is really the only community that is so dedicated to the Web Hosting Industry that reviews are verified as being from an actual customer of the company by them providing the domain name of the site(s) they have hosted with them. The community members then are able to verify the review (a mod will usually verify the review as well and post something about it, especially if the site is submitted by the report button)
Research
So, you think you found your host? Well, time to do a Gearch (lets see if we can get that word circulated around, it means google search). Something as arbitrary as host name review should yield you several results.
A lot of times you will run into these top 10 web hosts review sites. Where they have links to sites such as Yahoo! (don't EVER host with them, they're a search engine, not a hosting company. 72+hours for a simple lvl 1 support request), GoDaddy, HostGator, and other large companys. These are not real review sites, but, top 10 payouts for affiliates. And about 3/4 of them will be from a small unknown host trying to break into the industry by throwing themselves up.
You want to research, research, research. Finding a host shouldn't be a 20 minutes affair. It should take you really a few days. Heck, post a thread about WHT. Most of the members there are web hosts themselves, so be careful what they say, as 80% of them are more interested in spamming their signature than actually helping you out. Most of them are 1 man shops. Not what you want to get with. Which is why I say research. Also, note, take each negative review with a grain of salt. For every unsatisfied customer there are usually hundreds of satisfied customers. Think of it like this, the average person has nothing to say if things are going good and the way they expect, but, the second something goes wrong, BAM, they're all over the internet reviewing it.
Submit an email to their support team at random hours, testing their response. If you don't get a response back within 2 hours find another host. The standard should be 2 hours if you have a support request. Bear in mind on shared hosting you can't do a lot of things you can on a VPS or dedicated. Many hosts can and do reply in 15 minutes as their standard response times. Be careful of any host promising this, as it could lead to a "thank you for your inquiry, we'll get back to you shortly" reply.
Overselling
Overselling: This is a HIGHLY debated topic within the web hosting industry. Why? Well, some see it as unethical. Others see it as a way to maximize profits, lower costs, and provide a better service to the end user (you). What is my opinion? I like the idea. Do not confuse poor server management with overselling. I oversold my servers all the time. You just keep servers to spare, money to spare, and resources on the servers people are on to spare. You can balance the servers by taking off the higher resource users and putting them off on their own, creating a semi-dedicated environment (get to that in a minute). Gross overselling annoys me. Oversellers that still give you realistic limits that you can still achieve on their servers, thats what you need to look for. Gross oversellers (dedicated servers for shared prices) are liars, period, IMHO. Overselling is merely the act of selling more resources than you have available at the time. It drives market prices down bringing more and more people the ability to start that site about dogs they've wanted to do for so long. I'm sure there are some here that remember the days of $65-100 domain names, hosting costing over $50/month for 10MB of disk space and 100MB of bandwidth. Hosts must now compete in price as well as service.
What to look for?
What should you look for in a host? At the bare minimum they need to be offering (and delivering) a 99.9% uptime guarantee backed by a Service Level Agreement. What is that? That is basically something that says (usually starting anywhere from 95%-99.5%) that if they don't provide you that amount of service, you get X amount of credit towards your next bill. You need to look for a live chat (average company's offer live chat during normal business hours, so if it's not 9-5, Monday-Friday, and they're not on, don't fret). They need to have 24/7 support. That is non negotiable. What happens if your site goes down and they only work support during office hours? Also, what kind of a control panel do you want? The standard is cPanel, or Direct Admin. Most offer cPanel for shared hosting accounts, and for reseller, cPanel/WHM, for VPS/Dedicated you can usually get several choices, but each one costs a different amount. Also, you need to find a host with a MINIMUM 30 day money back guarantee. Some companys offer 45+ days, but the standard is 30. If it's not advertised on their site, then it's probably not a legit company. Also, if it's a UK based company, UK law requires a money back guarantee to be posted and followed on any internet web site that sells goods or services.
Types of Hosting
Different types of hosting?
Shared: A lot of users on the same server. All share resources with each other. One user can bring down up to 200+ sites by abusing resources. Starting average $5.
Resller: Shared reseller hosting allows the creation of separate control panel accounts. Usually cPanel/WHM are paired together here. I recommend this for people trying to get into the hosting industry themselves, whether you just want to host a few friends, or actually get up to your own servers co-lo'd somewhere. Many hosts now offer WHMCS or ClientExec, or Modernbill with each account for free.
Starting average $25
Semi-Dedicated: Shared hosting with less accounts/domains on the server, so more resources available to each account.
Starting average $20.
VPS (Virtual Private Server): Great for people starting their own hosting company. You can get cPanel/WHM on it. Ability to create Reseller accounts in WHM (and give them access to WHM). The first step off shared hosting when your site starts growing. A mini dedicated server that requires you to either manage it yourself (not recommended if you have no idea how) or have your hosting company/someone else manage it. If you are going to get cPanel, I recommend you get at least 512MB of RAM with it so you don't experience too much slowness. But, if your site is already outgrown a shared environment, time to look at 1 or 2 GB's.
Starting average
managed: $45. (512MB RAM)
unmanaged: $25-30 for 512 MB RAM
Dedicated: This is for people that have the need for their own resources, want to run something the host won't allow on a shared account (such as IRC), or if you are going to get into hosting. Again, control panels require you to pay for them. And you must manage them yourself or hire the host/someone else. These are rented. Average bandwidth connections go from 1mb/s to 1gb/s. Remember that is mega BIT, not mega BYTE.
Starting average:
managed: $150
unmanaged: $100
Co-location: You have already purchased your own servers and want to put them in someone else's DC (Data Center). You will pay for bandwidth, power, rack rental, probably hands on tech support (so you don't have to go in every time).
Starting average:
$1000
I don't recommend you trying to run a server out of your house. More than likely it is against your ISP's tos (and they will find out eventually and terminate your account) and they probably have the required ports blocked, buggers. Not only that, upload/download speed will be horrible!
OS?
Windows or Linux?
Well, the answer is simple, if you are not planning on running Microsoft Proprietary code off your website (.ASP, etc.) than there is absolutely no reason to get Windows hosting. It's usually more expensive, and less stable.
The average site utilizes LAMP (Linux - Apache - MySQL - PHP). Windows can run .php, but, it was designed for Linux. There are many types of Linux distro's available, most are similar. Most are free!!!!
LiteSpeed
Recently emerging is LiteSpeed which is handy and does make a site fly. The forum in my sig runs on a LiteSpeed server.
Dedicated IP/SSL
Do you need a dedicated IP? Probably not. If you are not transferring sensitive information such as payment details your probably don't need a dedicated IP. Generally a host requires some sort of justification to get a dedicated IP. You really only need it if you are using an SSL (and you must have one if you are).
Control Panels
There are many, many, many control panels out there for you to work with. And actually right now there is a debate on this forum about which is better: Direct Admin or cPanel. Well, here is some information on the more common control panels.
cPanel is the next generation site configuration and management software application. Supporting many operating systems while allowing endusers to control every aspect of their webhosting experience. cPanel © and WHM ™ (WebHost Manager) is the next generation web hosting control panel system. Both cPanel & WHM are extremely feature rich as well as include an easy to use web based GUI (Graphical User Interface).
WHM allows you to but is not limited to administering individual accounts, reseller accounts & performing basic system and control panel maintenance via a secure interface. cPanel is designed for the end users of your system and allows them to control everything from adding / removing email accounts to administering MySQL databases. cPanel is also one of, if not the, most expensive control panels when you start looking at VPS/Dedicated Servers. Also, with WHM you can do A LOT of server management through it, at least the basic stuff most end users need to worry about.
Direct Admin = Ease of use. DirectAdmin is the easiest to use control panel, period. Speed. DirectAdmin is programmed to be the fastest running control panel available. Stability. DirectAdmin avoids downtime by automatically recovering from crashes. Support. We offer lightning-fast support by phone, e-mail, forum, and live online chat.
Helm is capable of providing a complete, flexible Windows Web hosting management solution for both single-server service providers and suppliers of thousands of servers including dedicated and co-located customer services. Key features of the control panel include : - support for unlimited domains and users. - automatic billing and multi-lingual user interfaces Helm also focuses on making the administrator's work effort both minimal and uncomplicated.
Plesk is a comprehensive control panel solution used by leading hosting providers worldwide for shared, virtual and dedicated hosting. The control panel is designed to simplify the management and administration of web sites. Plesk control panel automates a large number of tasks that allow service providers to reduce operating costs and resources while at the same time increasing profitability, efficiency and customer satisfaction. There are four login levels in Plesk with each level having its appropriate roles and responsibilities: Administrator. The highest individual server level login which allows web hosting administrators to set up and manage all system items. Multiple servers can be centrally managed with the Master level login of Plesk Expand. Client/Reseller. Second tier login account where the users are given domain creation rights from the System Administrator. Clients can administer to groups of domains using a single login. Domain Owner. These are third tier individual domain owner accounts with predetermined permission sets and interface for single domain administration. Mail User - This is the fourth tier individual mail account which allows the user to log in to their own private interface and manage passwords, spam filters, anti-virus settings and much more.
These are just the top few control panels out there, there are MANY MANY different ones. For more information see http://www.web-hosting-top.com/web-hosti...rol-panels
Links to different control panels.
cPanel
Direct Admin
Helm
Plesk
Links to Billing/integrated support Software for hosting company's.
WHMCS
ClientExec
Modern Bill
You are now ready to proceed to the next tutorial: Just purchased hosting | Now what do I do?
