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Basic Web Hosting Questions

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1. What are the setup fees and monthly costs involved?: The full rate charts for available hosting packages are shown on the Hosting Packages - Comparison Table page.
2. How do I set up my email?: All clients can set up POP Accounts, Forwarders/Aliases, & Auto-Responders in the Web Browser Control Panel that comes with every YourMagicHost web hosting package. This can be done by yourself and without any assistance from the YourMagicHost staff.
3. How do I upload my files?: All YourMagicHost web hosting packages allow the usage of FTP, File Manager, MS FrontPage™, and other web development publishing programs, to upload files to your website.
4. Is there a trial period or money-back guarantee?: YourMagicHost offers a full 30 day money back guarantee. No questions asked. If you are not happy for any reason, cancel your YourMagicHost service within 30 days of signup and your monthly costs will be refunded. The only exception to a refund, is if you violate YourMagicHost Terms of Use. Violations of the Terms of Use usually are due to spamming, hacking, and illegal content. You can cancell your account ONLY by submitting service cancellation form. Other methods of cancellation are not valid.
5. How fast are websites set up?: YourMagicHost strives for a setup time of no more than 60 minutes per order. If an order is placed during normal business day hours, orders may be processed in only a few minutes.
6. Does my website get a control panel?: Yes. Every YourMagicHost web hosting package comes with a web browser based control panel. The control panel includes many features including: email configurations, mailing lists, pre-installed cgi scripts, databases, chat rooms, and much, much, more... A demo of the control panel can be found here
7. How am I billed?: You can choose monthly or yearly recurrent payments. Your PayPal account or credit card will be billed once a month or once year untill you terminate your account. You have to submit service cancellation form to terminate your account.
8. How much assistance do you provide for my website?: YourMagicHost will assist you with all support for services provided directly thru YourMagicHost. YourMagicHost will help you with basic settings for your email software and ftp client, as well as assist you with using the web browser control panel. YourMagicHost is not responsible for teaching you how to use another company's products. Example: YourMagicHost will assist you with the settings for using MS Frontpage™, but we will not teach you how to actually use the product itself. You need to contact the software maker in such a situation, who provides tech support for how to use their product. YourMagicHost cannot even attempt to support all the thousands of software products on the market. YourMagicHost will attempt to provide some tech support for the most popular programs our clients use. YourMagicHostis not responsible for assisting with your own programs and cgi scripts. If you choose to install your own programs and cgi scripts on your site, you are responsible fully for installing them. YourMagicHost will provide support for any program or cgi script that we provide pre-installed with your web hosting package. YourMagicHost is not responsible for designing, nor developing, your website, including HTML and/or images. YourMagicHost will attempt to give a quick look at your design/development problem, and offer a suggestion if it is a small issue. Anything complicated relating to design/development is not the responsibility of YourMagicHost.
9. What if the hardware fails?: Hardware failures are uncommon, but they do happen, and are a part of the hosting business. YourMagicHost repairs all failed hardware promptly, to minimize any downtime caused by such.
10. Are there any hidden costs?: No. All costs are stated plainly on our website. We do not hide fees in fineprint, or in our terms of use pages. The only costs that are commonly found to occur beyond your expected flat monthly rates per service, are those due to increased disk space or bandwidth usage. Pricing for such is plainly stated on our website. YourMagicHost very often will allow you to upgrade your packages to the next size up, should you see an increase in disk space levels or bandwidth usage for the current month, and not want to pay for such additional usage. Disk space usage and availablility is available to you in the control panel included with the hosting packages.
11. What is Cpanel™? Do you have a Demo?: CPanel™ is the brand name of the web browser control panel software that YourMagicHost utilizes on its web hosting packages. A demo of the control panel can be found here.
12. What happens if I decide to leave YourMagicHost: You are free to leave at any time.
13. Is there a discount if I pre-pay for several months in advance?: YourMagicHost offers 1 month free for all yearly advanced payments. Pay for 11 months of service, and receive 1 months free.
14. Does my website have its own IP number or is it shared?: All YourMagicHost hosting packages come with a shared IP address by default. Static IP address is available for extra charge ($5 setup and $5/month)
15. What type of support do you offer? Average Response Time?: YourMagicHost offers support to our clients 24/7/365 via web based ticket system, email. We strive for response times of no more than a few hours. Response times of just a few minutes are quite common during normal business hours.
16. What are the hardware specs of the servers?: Every server at YourMagicHost has different specifications. Whenever a server reaches what we feel to be the limit, another server is built. YourMagicHost Corporation is constantly upgrading the server hardware on our network. If more drive space, memory, or faster processors are needed, they are added in at that time. The average shared server is a dual processor system, with 512-4048MB RAM, and 160mbps SCSI hard drive(s). All YourMagicHost servers run spare hard drives for backup requirements.
17. Can I have adult content on my website?: No, YourMagicHost does not allow adult websites.
18. May I view your Terms Of Use?: The YourMagicHost terms of use, including policy and service guidelines, are available online.
19. Do you support International domain names and clients?: YourMagicHost can host all international domains on its servers. YourMagicHost can accept foreign clientele, just please be advised that all correspondence must be conducted in English. The client is responsible for handling the registration process of domain name(s). YourMagicHost will assist you however, with any technical information need to accomplish this.
20. How do I transfer my domain name?: You need to change name server pointers in you domain registry so they point to names you receive in YourMagicHost setup e-mail for you account.
Most of registrars allow to do this with account management panel.
If your registrar does not have any control panel - contact them and ask to change Name Servers for your domain.
21. What if my site breaks your "acceptable usage policy" rules?: Users' sites may be suspended for violations of policy, or if extreme, or second time offenders, sites may be cancelled. Each occurance is dealt with on a case by case basis, and we try to work things out with every client. Notifications will be sent, if YourMagicHost takes any action on your account.
22. What if I want to upgrade my website?: You may upgrade or downgrade your YourMagicHost web hosting package at any time. You will be required to pay the difference in the setup fee for your current plan, and the plan you are upgrading to, should you decide to choose a larger plan. You will then pay the new monthly fee for the new account package that you select.
23. How is my website monitored?: YourMagicHost maintains internal and external monitoring systems for every server in the YourMagicHost Data Center. The servers are checked every 5 minutes via network monitoring software. YourMagicHost monitors uptime as well as individual features and services running on each server. YourMagicHost staff is notified via alarms, email, screen popups, and paging, if a problem occurs. You can check your server status thru a control panel.
24. What is the uptime?: YourMagicHost strives to maintain a 99.5% network and server uptime service level. This uptime percentage is a monthly figure, and does not include any scheduled hardware/software upgrades, nor "Acts of God". Our definition of "Act of God" includes: fire, flood, tornado, earthquake, telco fiber issues (ie...Verizon™ cutting a fiber line somewhere), backbone peering point issues (ie...UUnet™ having a router go down in Virginia that wipes out internet service for the entire East Coast), hard drive failure (faulty hardware is rare, but cannot be predicted nor avoided), as well as network floods, hacks, and attacks. If YourMagicHost fails to meet it's 99.5% uptime guarantee, and it is not due to one of the above reasons, partial downtime credits will be made available to each client, upon request, on a case by case basis. YourMagicHost does not credit a full month's service if we only have 99.4% uptime. This would not be financially healthy for YourMagicHost, and in turn would only negatively affect the service level YourMagicHost provides to you. "Partial refunds for partial downtime" is our standard policy.
25. Do you have a Service Level Agreement (SLA)?: The YourMagicHost Service Level Agreement (SLA) are available online.
26. What is your connectivity to the Internet?: The Network Operations Center is connected via a fiber connection to our backbone provider. YourMagicHost utilizes a DS3, running at 45mbps thru Sprint™. A 2nd DS3, thru AT&T™, Broadwing™, Cable & Wireless™, or Global Crossing™, is being planned for installation in May/June 2001, for redundancy. A third DS3, or an OC3, is being planned before the end of 2001. After this, YourMagicHostwill then be peering (sharing capacity) with major backbones, to exchange connectivity. The connection will run BGP4 (border gateway routing protocol) & SONET to maintain the speed and uptime. If one backbone line goes down, it will balance the load to the others. If one line gets congested, it will load balance the traffic. SONET technology is a high capacity, 100% fiber optic network deployed in a ring topology with a working, or "hot," path carrying data in one direction and a standby, or protect, path transmitting in the opposite direction around the ring. In the event of a fiber cut or service degradation, SONET equipment at the edge of each failing fiber segment isolates the failure and uses both working and standby fibers to create a new temporary ring. All of this happens within 50 milliseconds.
27. Do you have battery backups and generators?: Our Network Operations Center is backed up and protected by UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) systems. In a very rare case of utility outages, our auto-start generators start automatically, taking over for the UPS system and supplying all necessary power for our Network Operations Center. APC™, Tripp-Lite™, & Liebert™ UPS Systems provide the power backups, along with Kohler™ generator systems.
28. What kind of security does the YourMagicHost Data Center have?: The YourMagicHost Data Center in Scranton, PA USA is a high security facility. Double metal security doors, with interior gating, protect the main entrance to the facility. The windows-less facility has advanced security, fire, temperature, and flood alarms, directly piped into the Security Monitoring Company via phone, cellular, and internet connections. A Scranton Police Station is less than two blocks away, and a Fire Station less than six blocks. A 16-camera digital video system monitors the interior and exterior of the Data Center. This video system is monitored internally at the facility and externally from the YourMagicHost Sales/Support office. The video data is recorded live both on and off site, and stored for several months ahead. Visitors cannot gain access into the faclity without employee escort. The physical servers and equipment area is secured from the visitor's area by huge metal doors, as well as metal sheeting and bulletproof glass walls. Armed guards are planned for the future, but not a necessity at this junction.
29. What about software upgrades?: YourMagicHost handles all software upgrades/patches on the shared hosting servers. We fully follow all trends in the industry, and monitor all support/bug announcement groups. If a new bug or security vulnerability is found, we immediately upgrades our systems. YourMagicHost auto-updates the Linux systems every night from security patch websites. As new software is released, including new versions of operating systems, YourMagicHostevaluates the new software. If the software's new version does not have any security issues, or bug problems, the upgrade is implemented.
30. What if the server my website is on gets hacked or attacked?: Individually hacked websites are rare. If such occurs, usually they are a target for a reason; hate sites, pirated software, etc... YourMagicHost does not host such websites. If such materal is found on a YourMagicHost server, it is deleted immediately and the user's account cancelled. Usually the target is the whole server itself. Hackers usually go after a server just to say that "they did", or to use the server to bounce off of to hack something more important. Rarely are any users' files on the server damaged, erased, or modified. For this reason, once a hacker is detected, a server can usually be cleaned up and the hacker locked back out within a matter of hours. At that time the server is restored to full security levels, as if the hack has never occurred. Most hackers get into a system thru valid user accounts. We recommend you use complicated passwords for your account. YourMagicHost strictly reviews all orders for new clients, to make sure they are legitimate. Unfortunately, some fake orders do get thru the system, and that is one way a hacker can gain initial access. YourMagicHost runs security checks on the servers daily, so even if hackers do get in, they are found and dealt with quickly. Most hackers are not malicious, they are just playing or testing their abilities. If an individual attacks the whole YourMagicHost Data Center, measures are in place to cut off such floods and attacks automatically at the backbone level and the router level. YourMagicHost also uses firewall technology to fend off most common methods of flooding and attacks to the network.
31. How is extra bandwidth billed?: YourMagicHost maintains software on every server and on the switches to monitor individual website usage and server-wide usage. Bandwidth is billed per Gigabyte (GB) over your monthly allocation, rounded up to the nearest Gigabyte. Usually between the 3rd and 5th of the month you will receive your bandwidth overage billing, if applicable, for the preceding month's usage.
32. What is included in my website package?: YourMagicHost provides full hardware, software, support, and system administration for your YourMagicHost shared hosting solution. The software provided includes the operating system, ftp & email software, web server software, and a control panel. YourMagicHost even includes e-commerce shopping cart software for some packages. Everything you need to conduct business on the Internet, or maintain a personal website, is included in your YourMagicHost hosting solution. YourMagicHost will provide basic support on services/software that we provide you with your account. YourMagicHost does not develop your website for you, nor provide tech support on how to use software products that we do not provide to your directly...even if we do support them. We are always more than willing to help you if we can though with external issues, time permitting...
33. How many sites are currently running on per server?: YourMagicHost does not have a set quantity of domains running on each machine. We find that ten domains can utilize more resources than 200 others. YourMagicHostmonitors each server's performance levels and attempts to maintain a low server load average and high cpu availability. As needed, YourMagicHost will upgrade the hardware, to increase server performance. Individual domains that become to much for the server to handle, and utilize too much server resources, are moved to servers set up specifically for such resource intensive accounts.
34. Can I host more than one domain name per account?: Most YourMagicHost packages allow to host unlimited domains. Each additional domain name parked on top, or to a sub-directory, receives one catch-all email POP account or forwarder for all mail to that domain name. Additional domains do not receive a control panel of their own. YourMagicHost usually recommends the very inexpensive "Budget" accounts ($4.95 monthly) instead, due to the fact that they come with their own control panel functionality.
35. Why should I choose YourMagicHost as my webhost?: Simple. YourMagicHost maintains the most feature rich hosting packages on the market, so advanced that many hosting companies cannot compete. YourMagicHost offers a 30 day full money back guarantee for new clients that sign up...so you really cannot loose by selecting YourMagicHost.
36. How do I get started?: Simple! Just choose one of the hosting packages and follow "Order Now" link. You will receive setup e-mail shortly afterwards your payment about how to proceed with your new YourMagicHost Web Hosting Account!