Web hosting FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Please review this list of frequently asked questions, and do not hesitate to contact us if you have more questions or if you are uncertain about something.

These FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) is not specific to NetSA but a general guide to non-technical questions often asked about hosting.

Web hosting is the service provided by an ISP (web host) to publish your web pages on the internet.

In order for your web pages to be visible on the internet, a web server (hardware and software) must be permanently connected to the internet so that it can send pages to people who request them.

In it's simplest form (sending HTML pages when requested), hosting is neither complicated nor expensive, but the trend is to build more sophisticated web sites with dynamic (automatically changing) content.

Dynamic content sites are made possible by web servers able to execute scripting computer languages such as ASP, ASP.NET, PHP or PYTHON. In most cases scripting languages also require access to some form of database to retrieve and store information like catalogue items, user names and passwords and so on.

The role of your ISP is to maintain the web server, keep it secure (protect your site from malicious damage or viruses), keep it online on the internet, and to provide you with technical support and advice.

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Web marketing is the science, magic and skill of firstly marketing your web site on the internet and secondly to motivate visitors to your web site to buy your product or service.

A very important part of web marketing is to ensure that your web page is "visible" to search engines, in other words, when a potential customer searches for "large trees", your site must be listed on the first page if that is your line of business.

At NetSA we provide a free 297 page ebook explaining all the fundamentals of web marketing.

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Web sites are "published" (ie made available on the internet) by uploading files from your PC to the server.

Most people use HTML authoring software such as Microsoft FrontPage or Dreamweaver to design web pages on their PCs. Once this design process is completed, the pages must be sent (published) to their web server to be made visible to the internet.

While almost all web authoring software enables one to publish pages by using FTP (file transfer protocol), Microsoft FrontPage uses a simpler but proprietary publishing mechanism. If your web host installs FrontPage server extensions on your web server, the process of publishing your web site becomes as simple as pressing a button in FrontPage.

Naturally your web server will require you to supply a user id and password (supplied by your ISP) before it allows you to publish to the server.

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As often as you can build new content!

There are no limits on how often you can update your site, in fact, it is a good idea to update at least once a month by adding new information, removing old or outdated info and making sure that everything is current.

This will not only improve your search engine position, but it will also ensure that first time visitors are never "turned-off" by old or incorrect information. ("Dead" web sites with old and out of date information is a sure-fire way to loose potential clients)

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A web page is a text file containing HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language) commands.

HTML "commands" instruct web browsers how to display a page, ie fonts, bold, underline, set margins and so on.

In most cases you will never have to work with or understand HTML because most modern web page editor software "hides" HTML completely by presenting you with a what-you-see-is-what-you-get interface - almost as if you are working in a word processor program.

There are a great many resources on the internet to help you with site design and writing web pages - but the basics are a no-brainer. Given the right software (eg Microsoft FrontPage or Dreamweaver) you will be producing a web page in 5 minutes.

Of course, if you host with NetSA, you can use PageBreeze, which will enable you to build a web site in less than an hour - without any technical knowledge required at all!

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This is the essence of web marketing, and quite an evolved subject. For the sake of brevity we can cover only the basics here - see the rest of the NetSA site if you need more information, or contact us.

If you have an established business, you will draw visitors to your site by publishing your web address (eg: http://www.netsa.co.za/ ) on your business cards, letterheads and everywhere where you would normally publish contact information.

In addition to this both new and established businesses list their sites with the major search engines (http://www.google.com/, http://www.yahoo.com/, http://www.altavista.com/, http://www.msn.com/, etc) by visiting the engine and filling in a form asking to be "indexed" because while your site is new, people will mainly find your site by searching for keywords on search engines.

There are several issues involved with getting a good listing on the engines - like selecting the "right" keywords for your site, optimizing your pages so that the search engine software rates them as important, etc. These are not computer technical issues, but they do require careful and creative analysis of what you intend to achieve with your web site and who your target market (or audience) is.

(Your ISP should provide help if you need it. At NetSA we provide articles and e-books to help you understand the process, hands-on direct and practical advice to improve your listing)

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You are looking at one.

Other ways of locating a ISP to host your web pages are by asking your friends / contacts for recommendations, or by searching for key phrases like "web hosting south africa" on the search engines.

Evaluate the ISP carefully - your internet business depends on their reliability, service and advice. We always recommend that you contact the ISP before you do business with them. If you have to wait a day before they reply to you...

Visit their web site. Is it friendly fast, and, most importantly, does it contain valuable advice and information or is it a SELL-IN-YOUR-FACE knock-off of a glossy magazine page? In other words, do they understand the issues of doing business on the internet?

Remember: anyone can be an ISP, but only experienced, reputable companies can help YOU be successful.

Last rule of thumb: Don't go for the cheapest service you can find, unless you believe that it is a good strategy to have a haircut at the cheapest place you can find too.

Price and value is not the same thing.

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Mainly it does not matter, but there are some practical issues you should consider:

Depending on your level of experience with building and maintaining your web site, you may need to be able to telephone your ISP's support department. In this case you need an ISP that is roughly in the same time zone, but preferably in the same country to avoid international telephone costs.

Currency fluctuations and money transfer issues (if you can't use your credit card) may make it difficult or unexpectedly expensive to pay your service provider if they are in a foreign country.

Other than the above issues, there are no technical reasons that would prevent you from selecting an ISP on the other side of the world if you so choose: Even response time is not an issue - for example a Cape Town to Washington transfer would be about 1 or 2 seconds slower than Washington to New York - not a big deal if you are browsing the web.

In some cases you might be forced to host your site in a foreign country to circumvent local laws and regulations.

In South Africa we have very liberal freedoms of speech and expression enshrined in our constitution. Example: hosting a news site in Zimbabwe, North Korea or China might be impossible without censorship, but in South Africa you will be able to publish that content without any problems.

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An Acceptable Use Policy is a standard set of rules employed by most reputable ISPs to enforce rules about how their services may or may not be used.

It protects the integrity, security and reliability of the ISPs service and promotes the safe and effective use of the internet for everybody.

Another document which is in place to support and compliment the AUP is the Customer Service Agreement. NetSA's CSA can be viewed here.

(The NetSA AUP is here.)

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We will review your site or your existing content and give you a full report on our findings. If you need professional design or development services, we will be able to assist.

You should first check out DotNetNuke if you want to build complex interactive web sites, or PageBreeze for most common web sites, however. Designing and building a web site is a LOT easier than you think.

Still want us to design your site? Then click here

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Do I need a domain name?

Why else would you be here right?

Seriously though, let's just make sure we are on the same wavelength when we say that registering your own domain name makes a lot of sense:

Unless you register your company or product name as soon as possible someone else might - and it will take a lot of trouble and time to get it back. (Even if you have a trademark or registered copyright)

You realize that the internet is not going away. It is an irresistible market force and a basic requirement for doing business - you need to prepare for it and benefit from it!

The first person to register a "generic" domain name, like "cars.co.za" will have a permanent advantage over any other business selling cars. This holds true for virtually any business you can think of: computers, shoes, flowers, news, construction, programming, etc.

See "what is in a domain name" for more detail...

You can now register your domain for R 90-00, and renew it annually for R 90-00 (including VAT for South African residents on a .co.za domain name). We also do .za.net and .za.org domain names for R 50-00 for four years with the renewal cost also R50-00

To view the prices of other domains like .com, .org, etc. click here

For information on how this price is arrived at and what is included, please see "NetSA domain name registration prices" or "Why are domain name registration costs not standard?"

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You get a co.za, .za.org ,.za.net, or any other domain name of your choice, a sophisticated and easy to use web page design program to edit your own home page, forward your domain to another URL, statistics on the number of visitors your home page had and optional email. See the full details under hosting packages...

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It is very important to register your domain name as soon as possible: domain names are limited and assigned on a first-come-first-served-basis.

If you park your domain or subscribe to even a small hosting package from NetSA, software like PageBreeze (which is available for free from us), allows you to build a home page (without any programming or HTML knowledge) so that you can place a "business card" or a "full page advertisement" on the internet. Compared to any other advertising medium, this is the cheapest global advertisement you can possibly invest in

Think of it:

• Domain name registration: www.yourdomain.co.za @ R90-00 per year
• Domain parking with NetSA: @ R60-00 per year

So for a mere R150-00 per year you can have your company visible to the globe.

Your clients may not want to purchase your products and services directly from the internet, but you can be assured that they will at some stage check out your home page - if only to verify that you are a reputable and established company. If you don't have your own domain name in this day and age...

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For .co.za domain names, literally minutes.

We developed unique software to register your domain and setup your home page in about 15 minutes.

.za.net and .za.org domain name registrations unfortunately takes longer with periods between three and seven days as it is done by hand and not live on the internet.

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You can use any one of the following links to check if the domain name you want is available:

A quick check to see if it is available can be found here This link is 99% accurate with a 1% chance of giving you a domain available when it is not. When you order a domain name registration from us we will confirm availability for you.

A more comprehensive check is available here, which also gives you the option of viewing those domain names taken. NB! this link only work for the indicated domain names and does not support .co.za, .za.net, or .za.org

We will give you full access to all features before you pay. If you are not 100% satisfied within seven days - simply send our invoice back with an email stating that you are not interested and we will cancel your application. No questions asked.

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Your home page is served by our unique software system - just like the page you are reading right now.

With your login ID and password, you can login at any time and change the content of your page, fonts, colors, layout and even upload a logo or graphic to display on your page. (This is on domain parking)

If you need more than one page, or database access, or other more sophisticated features found in web sites, then please contact us so that we can discuss full hosting for your site. Remember: domain parking specializes in registering your domain name with a home page - it is not a substitute for full web hosting...it's a quick start to your online business.

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Yes, but the process is only automated for co.za domain names.

Please contact us here and give us the domain name you would like to register and we will be at your service. You can view the costs of some other domains here.

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Please click here to get a quote to register your domain name...

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To register domain names in South Africa is a lot less complicated and painful than you might think!

Here are a few pointers to help you in the process of registering your domain name, with some domain name pricing information you should consider.

If you prefer, you can jump directly to get a free (no-obligation)
online quote for domain name registration...

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Domain names are low-cost investments in "internet real-estate":

You can increase sales by marketing on the internet - either exclusively or to power-up your offline marketing efforts. (To help you do this, we give you a free 300+ page internet marketing course when you register your domain name).

Establish an identity and permanent home page for your business on the internet - no matter how many times you change ISPs.

Create a very cost effective "online business card" or "flyer" online advertisement.

Pull more visitors to your existing web site (an additional domain name pointing to an existing site is a neat trick to get more visitors from search engines.)

You have free hosting space provided by your ISP (or others - like facebook) and would like a real domain name to point there.

You do not have the budget for full web hosting services yet

Provide a professional email address @your-own-domain-name

(For more info on this see the non-technical article: How internet domain names work)

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Your domain name should match your company or product name, but if that is not possible or practical, consider to register domain names containing keywords you would like to attract visitors with:

Search engines "prefer" long domain names with hyphens between keywords, for example sell-cars-online-for-profit.co.za while people prefer short, memorable domain names like sellcarsonline.co.za ("co.za" if you are in South Africa)

General tips for picking a domain name:

• Use your business or product name
• Try to include search phrases in your name - for ADDITIONAL domain names pointing to your primary (business) name
• Register short and long versions of your name if necessary
• Think about the "Yahoo" and "Google" domain names - be creative!

Read the article: What is in a domain name for more information.

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How do I choose an ISP wisely?

Your service provider will literally become your internet business partner, so it is important that you pick a trust-worthy ISP.

Be careful to make sure that your domain name will be registered in your own name: some service providers use their own contact details and this can cause problems later if you need to move the domain or a dispute arises on the right of use for the domain name.

Caution: Read the fine print when you are offered a free domain name. In many instances the "free" domain name is the property of the service provider - and not yours; and if the registrar is not in South Africa you might buy yourself quite a few expensive and frustrating international telephone calls.

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Many service providers will register a domain name and point it to their own web site or some arbitrary under construction page, or even an advertisement for your ISP! You do not want this.

At a minimum you should publish your contact information (or at the very least your own "under-construction" page)...after all, if you go through the trouble of registering a domain name you might as well spend 10 minutes to make it work for you!

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How can I be creative with my web page?

Use your page to:

Publish an online business card (your paper card can point here)
A nice and clean page explaining who you are (your business)
A graphic of your logo / office / map / product / yourself / work
A brief introduction to your product, company or service
Use up to 300 words to tell your potential customers why they need to contact you
Etc...

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Our clients are often surprised at the amount of visitors they receive at their brand new domain name home page. Some are pleasantly and others not.

The point is you won't really know how many of your existing and potential customers are looking for your site on the internet until you actually have something online.


Whether you are taking a brand new business or an established one online, you should use your web page to market your domain name right away - then keep a close eye on your visitor stats.

If you are receiving many more visitors that you expected, it might be time to consider a full-blown web site to capitalize on your newly discovered hot leads.

No point in looking a gift horse (visitor) in the mouth - if you get potential customers to your page, go to work to turn them into confirmed clients!

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Internet experience and working closely with our clients allowed us to build this domain names registration service:

All NetSA services and products excluding domain name registration, are backed by an unconditional, no-nonsense30 day money back guarantee! For full details and explanations of refund policy please see our Customer Service Agreement

We offer:

• A quick and simple online process to register domain names ending in .co.za, .za.org, .za.net, and several others
• Immediate registration for co.za domain names in your own or company name.
• Publish your own web page immediately after registration
• Instantly create a web page as an online business card, single page advertisement, information leaflet or anything else when downloading PageBreeze for free.
• Initial registration:
  R 90-00 (first year) (.co.za) R50-00(first year for .za.net or .za.org)
• Annual renewal: R 90-00 for .co.za and R50-00 for .za.net and .za.org

Fast facts :-

• Risk free - try before you buy
  
• Immediate registration
  
• Publish a web page and edit online
  
• Optional email
  
• Convert to full web hosting at your leisure
  
• Optional URL re-direction
  
• No long term binding contracts or hidden costs.
• 30 DAYS Money back guarantee

What you get
Included with your domain name registration, you get:

• Formal registration of the domain - in your own name.
  
• Exclusive use of your domain name for a year, with the option to renew indefinitely.
  
• Easy to use downloadable editor to update your home page as often as you like if you take the domain parking option.
  
• Statistics on the number of visits your home page received.
  
• Re-direction to another web page of your choice.
  
• Search-engine ready.
  
• Ability to upload your company logo / graphic with domain parking.
  
• No long term binding contracts or hidden costs.
  

Click here to get your
free no-obligation quote for domain name registration

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Depending on the hosting package you are using, you can create email accounts from 10 to 200 people.

Each email account (POP3 Account) has it's own login ID (email address) and the password you designate - for personal and private email access - and can be set up to download to Outlook or Outlook Express. Each also has it own unique webmail function where you can view it online.

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To create a new POP account, click on the email accounts icon

in your HELM control panel and then on the "Add new" button. Now complete the following fields:
Email Address
The email address is the full email account address that email which has been addressed to will be delivered.

Email Server
This is the server name that you should use within your email client to connect to the server and retrieve your email. If you can not connect using this name because your domain name is yet to fully complete registration you can use the Email Server IP instead.

Email Server IP
Use this IP address to connect to the Email server if you can not connect using the Email Server name because your domain name is yet to fully complete registration.

Password
The password is used when collecting mail from this POP3 email account using a POP3 email client such as Outlook.

Confirm Password
You will need to type in the POP3 password again to verify that it has been correctly entered.

Enable Responder
Check the enable responder check box in order to set the auto responder to be sent whenever an email is received. When this check box is ticked, the text in the next field (below) will be used to reply to the sender immediately and automatically. Auto responders are often used for out of office replies (when you are on leave) or to acknowledge receipt of an enquiry or order.

Auto Responder
Enter into the auto responder text box the message you would like to be sent to the sender of mails you receive.

Store & Forward To
You can specify an email address for which email sent to this email account gets forwarded to after it has been stored in the POP mailbox. This is much like a standard email forwarding account, except the email is first stored in the POP mailbox and you have several other options such as a vacation message being sent before the email is forwarded to another location.

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You can access your email (to send / receive) by using a web browser and logging in in to:
http://mail.yourdomain.co.za/
(where "yourdomain" is the name of your domain).

If your domain name registration is still in the process of registration or move, you can use the following URL:

http://mail.mytempurl.netsa.co.za/

With the web interface you can setup inbox rules to automate tasks like processing orders, bouncing spam, etc.

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We are currently working on compiling a complete FTP user manual, which will be available for download here shortly. For help in the meantime please read on.

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When we say "publish" a web site, it means that you create and upload content to your web server so that other people on the internet can view it.
The process of creating content is called web design and is done with an HTML editor (see the recommended list) or a content management system like NukeX. An HTML editor looks and works like a word processor, but it produces a file with HTML code. This HTML file must then be uploaded to your web server so that other people can download the file (with their web browsers) in order to view it.

There are several HTML editors around (see the recommended list), but if you do not have one already, give PageBreeze a try. It is freeware and it compares very well with expensive commercial alternatives. Get a copy from their web site here .

If you need help to create (design) your site, then please see our list of resources for webmasters.

A web site can be updated in 3 ways:

• With FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
  
• With Microsoft FrontPage
  
• With an online content management system
  

Two of these methods are discussed below.



FTP - File Transfer Protocol

Your web hosting package includes access to your own FTP server.
An FTP server is a server designed to upload and download files.

To use an FTP server, you have to install FTP client software on your PC. (We recommend FileZilla, which is freeware) Most web browsers (like Internet Explorer) have simple built-in FTP clients, but they are generally neither as good nor as easy to use as dedicated FTP clients.

Browsers are normally used to browse web pages via the HTTP protocol, for instance http://www.netsa.co.za. To use your browser as an FTP client, point your browser to an FTP server like this: ftp://ftp.saix.net.

In order to publish (upload files) to your web server, you will need the following information:

The name of your FTP server (this is typically ftp.[your-domain-name.co.za])
A user id (created in your control panel)
A password (set / created in your control panel)
All the information required to publish your site is listed in the email you received when signing up with NetSA to let you know your server is ready.

Steps to publish content to your web server:

1. Download and install FileZilla.

2. Open file FileZilla on your computer and use the left pane to navigate to the content you want to publish on your computer

3. Type your server name (eg "ftp.netsa.co.za"), user name and password into the address, user and password into the blocks provided on the FileZilla menu bar and press the "Quick Connect" button.

4. Once connected, select the files you want to publish from the pane on the left (on your computer) and drag and drop them to the pane on the right (your ftp/web server)

Note that your home page should be called default.asp or index.htm and you should publish the content to the (existing) /wwwroot folder on your server.

That's it! If you visit your web site now (and press F5 to refresh the content) you will be able to view the pages you just uploaded.



Publishing with Microsoft FrontPage

Microsoft FrontPage is not only a tool to design web sites, it can also publish your design directly to the server.
Before you can publish with FrontPage however you need to enable FrontPage server extensions on your server - this is done in your control panel.

Note that once you enabled FrontPage server extensions, you will NOT be able to use FTP to publish your site due to the way FrontPage handles security and version control.

After you enabled FrontPage extensions, follow these steps to publish your web site:

1. Start FrontPage on your PC and open the web site on your computer

2. On the main menu, select "File" and then "Publish Site"

3. When prompted, supply the server you want to publish to (eg http://www.[your-domain-name.co.za]), the user ID as listed when you installed the extensions and the password you chose.

Note that you home page should be called default.asp or index.htm.

That's it! FrontPage will now publish to your web server.

For more information, help and tips on using FrontPage, please see the Microsoft FrontPage web site.

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An email forwarder is an email address @yourdomain which will forward any incomming email to another email address of your choice. You can use forwarders route multiple addresses to one pop account, or to distribute email for any address in your domain to any other email address.

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To create an email forwarder, click on the email forwarders icon

in your HELM control panel and select Add new. Now complete the following fields:
Email Server
This is the server name that you should use within your email client to connect to the server and retrieve your email. If you can not connect using this name because your domain name is yet to fully complete registration you can use the Email Server IP instead.

Email Server IP
Use this IP address to connect to the Email server if you can not connect using the Email Server name because your domain name is yet to fully complete registration.

CatchAll
No longer supported due to spam.

Email Address
The email address is the full email account address that email which has been addressed to will be delivered.

Forwarding To
The 'forwarding to' address is the email address which mails will automatically be forwarded to.

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Depending on your hosting package you can add one, five, ten or twenty FTP accounts - each with their own user id and password and each with access rights to the directory you specify.

Use additional accounts to grant your staff or clients rights to upload or download files from specific areas on your web site, and, of course, one for yourself to publish your web pages.

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To create FTP accounts, logon to your control panel and click on the domains icon. Now select your domain and once in the control panel for your domain, click on the FTP Accounts icon

and then click on "Add new". Now complete the following fields:
FTP Username
This is the username required to log into the FTP account. You can set this to anything you like.

FTP Server
This is the server name that you should use within your FTP client to connect to the server. If you can not connect using this name because your domain name is yet to fully complete registration you can use the FTP Server IP instead.

FTP Server
Use this IP address to connect to the FTP server if you can not connect using the FTP Server name because your domain name is yet to fully complete registration.

Password
The password is used when connecting to the FTP server using this FTP account.

Confirm Password
You will need to type in the FTP password again to verify that it has been correctly entered.

Can Read From Folder
When set as 'Yes', this means that the FTP account has permissions to read the contents of the folder.

Can Write To Folder
When set as 'Yes', this means that the FTP account has permissions to write and modify the contents of the folder.

FTP Folder
This is the folder to which the FTP account has access. The FTP account will not have access to the parent of this folder, but will have access to any sub folders of this folder. Note that the (existing) /wwwroot folder holds the root of your web site. When the account logs in, his default directory will be the one specified here...in other words, if an account is set up with /wwwroot as the ftp folder, the user will be "in" that folder after he logged on and will not be able to access any folders "above" the current one.



FTP Client software

In order to use an FTP server to upload or download files, you will need FTP software installed on your PC. We recommend the free ware (and open source) program FileZilla.
It is easy to use, flexible and fast - and you can't beat the price!

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An "alias" is another name for the same thing. It is a pseudonym.

A "domain alias" is a second (or third or fourth) domain name - closely related to your first. Examples: netsa.za.net is a domain alias of netsa.co.za. google.co.za is a domain alias of google.com.

For example, you might register the domain name mybusiness.com and then realize that you want the mybusiness.co.za domain name too.

Since you are already hosting mybusiness.com as "main" domain, you can add mybusiness.co.za as a domain alias TO mybusiness.com.

A domain alias is an alias (or pseudonym) in every sense of the word. All email addresses, web addresses, or even server addresses that exist for the main domain also AUTOMATICALLY exist for the domain alias.

For example if you create the email account name@mybusiness.com then name@mybusiness.co.za also automatically exist. The same is true for a web page, ie http://www.mybusiness.com/home.html is exactly the same thing as http://www.mybusiness.co.za/home.html.

When two domains are hosted on the same web server and they are NOT related (ie you run two separate businesses), the second domain is typically packed in a folder of it's own and a redirect script (NetSA will supply on request) on the main site will direct visitors to the correct content automatically.

Depending on your hosting package, you can add several domain aliases - to protect alternate spellings of your domain name or even to run multiple web sites from the same server.

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To create a domain alias, login to your HELM control panel. Now select your domain and once in the control panel for your domain, click on the Domain Aliases icon

and then click on "Add new". Now complete the following field:
Domain Alias Name
This is the name of the "alias" domain. In the example we used above, it will be "mybusiness.co.za"

Note: As is the case with all internet domain names, a name must be registered by a domain authority in order to be visible on the internet. If you need help to register a domain name, get a quote from NetSA here..

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Owners of domains with hosting packages can manage all their servers and domains from a central control panel here: http://helm.netsa.co.za/ or you can log onto your own personal control panel at http://cp.yourdomain.co.za/
To login to your control panel, use the user ID and password as was supplied with your setup instructions.

After you logged in, click on the domains icon and select the domain name you want to manage from the list. Now you can:

FTP Accounts
Set up FTP accounts, grant access to specific directories on your server and change FTP account passwords to publish your web site.