Webhostable Web Works, Inc

Out of all the options for web hosting control panels, cPanel is by far
the most popular, and the most user-friendly. It’s also the most well
known version of web hosting panels available on the market today.
While this program is useful and can really do wonders for your
website, most newbies are not familiar with how to use it, and so it
often goes to waste for the web designer. It can sometimes take hours
or even days to figure out how to use a cPanel account, and some
people even have difficulty logging in just to use it! Fortunately, there
are some tips and tricks to get into the cPanel control and use it to the
best of its and your ability.

In order to manage and update your website, you must first be able to
log into cPanel. The first thing you’ll need to do is enter the address of
your cPanel account into your web browser, as if you were going to
visit a website.
For example, if your domain is groovyshoes.com, you’d need to enter
it in this format: http://www.groovyshoes.com/cpanel. Sometimes you
are given a user access ID number or something similar to notify
cPanel that this is an official account, and that it’s your account. In
cases like this, you’d enter: http://www.groovyshoes.com:9088 if your
user ID number was 9088. This is just an example of course, but it
gives you an idea of how to get to the log in screen or prompt quickly.

(You will be prompted to enter your user name and password to access cPanel)
Once you enter the cPanel domain name into the browser, a prompt
screen will pop up that asks for your user ID and password. Simply
enter your user ID and password into the corresponding fields. This
should allow you access into the cPanel account that you have set up.
Once you’ve logged in, there are a plethora of options to choose from
that allow you to manage your website, emails, and much more. For
example, there is an option to manage all of the domain related email
accounts you have set up. This will allow you to add and remove email
accounts, set up web mail, create an auto responder, and filter out
emails and email content. There is also an option to create email lists
and manage them, as well as use Spam filters to prevent the spread of
viruses both to you and from your customers or other contacts.
Another great feature of cPanel is the ability to manage your site with
just a few basic commands such as the FTP manager, a simple password change tool, sub domains and domain management,
creating backup, and managing IP addresses. In other words, you will
be able to block certain IP addresses from accessing your website, and
you can also use the web protect tool as well. There is an error log
which comes in handy for troubleshooting in the event your website
runs into any problems. A bandwidth checking tool allows you to see
how much is being used, if you’ve gone over your limit, or how the
website’s bandwidth usage has progressed over time.

If you’re into watching who visits your website, cPanel also has a log
that shows all visitors, as well as highlights the visitors or IP addresses
that visit your website the most. This can really come in handy when it
comes to tracking customer bases or finding out where most of your
business is coming from if you operate an e-commerce website.

For scripts, there are tons of options with cPanel. The web master can
manage Apache, Cron jobs, FTP transfers, Java and CGI, as well as
shopping cart software. There are also mods for language and themes,
so the web designer can alter or edit these as much as they see fit.
The index manager allows you to determine how the web indexes are
used. In other words, you can control how the information in each
index is displayed to the visitor or viewer, and you can also control
whether or not this information is displayed at all. With the Web
Protect feature, you can password protect different directories. This
means that only you and certain other people can access the websites’
directories and they must be accessed using a private password.
Another excellent feature of cPanel is the custom error pages option.
You can change the error message to customize your needs so that
visitors can get a more detailed idea of what is going on with the
website. For example, if you’re taking the site down due to
maintenance or upgrades, the error customization tool allows you to
tell this to your visitors in your own words. It makes for a much more
personalized and personable experience and it can also give visitors an
idea of when the website will be back up and running so they will
return. Instead of the old “404 error-Page Not Found” message, they
will see your own words and updates, giving them a sense of
confidence that someone is working to bring the website back up as
soon as possible.
When you register your website, you’ll most likely choose a main
domain name. This will be the “parked domain” that you host most of
the data on the server onto. This domain will serve as the root of your
account, so be sure that you choose a domain that will be the main
URL. There is also an option for sub domains, which is basically the
secondary domain names that can help to separate different areas or
parts of your website, as well as the choice to create separate
accounts.
The term hotlinking refers to when someone puts links to your files on
their own website and it ends up eating or using up your bandwidth. In
addition, it does not give your website credit for the files being
displayed or used. This can usually cause problems with images and
pictures since people tend to hotlink to these. You can prevent this
with cPanel, and block access to hotlinking so that other web masters
and website owners are not stealing up your data or bandwidth.
Another great feature is the option to manage redirects. Basically, this
means that you can determine what link or web page will redirect
people to another site. Often, this is important when you’ve updated a
page and want the users to see the new website. Managing the
redirect gives you control over what people click on and how it leads
them to go to another site or page.
MySQL is one of the most commonly used databasing solutions for
online and is easily compatible with both Perl and PHP, making it a
very user friendly and adaptable database software.

Within cPanel, you can set up new databases and also manage the
ones that already exist. It is also nice to know that each database
within your account has your account name as a prefix so you can
easily identify and track them. You can also browse, modify, delete,
and create new databases. All changes within this tool are not able to
be reversed once they’re made, however, so be especially careful
when making changes within your database. Also, there is no
command to save these changes; they just happen as you make them,
so it’s important that only experienced users are able to access the
MySQL database information.

As mentioned earlier, you can ban IP addresses within the IP Manager
command area. This is an important tool for protecting your website
from potential hackers, or from people who want to cause a problem
for your website. You can ban the IP address within the manager, but
note that once it’s been banned, anyone with that exact IP address will
not be able to get access to any area of your website whatsoever. It’s
a nice feature but it should be used with caution.
The error log displays the last 300 errors that people have received
when they visit your website. It includes all access related errors,
permission errors, and any other possible errors they might
experience. It provides great insight to where potential problems are
coming from, and what you can do to fix or prevent them in the
future. The raw log manager allows you to schedule a raw log backup
or removal at the end of each month so you can keep or delete
important information.
CPanel offers many more options for the web host and web designer.
Its interface is simple to use once you’ve logged in and can understand
how to use each of the commands. Having the ability to log in and
make changes as necessary can make running and operating a website
much easier and faster than imagined. With a little bit of practice and
some know how, cPanel can do wonders for your website, and make
operating it on a daily basis so much easier.