Q. What is "Web Hosting"?
A. When you visit a web site (like BBC or Yahoo) that web page has to be physically stored somewhere. Web Hosters, like Burton Hosting, offer the space to store web pages. The space the pages are stored on is called a server. Leasing space on a server is comparable to leasing office space. For a monthly/yearly fee, a company resides in that space, and all maintenance is the responsibility of the property. As part of the lease, the company has access to additional services that would otherwise be a costly investment. Burton Hosting stores Web sites on its secure servers, enabling programmers to affordably leverage the power of the latest in programming technology and redundancy over a high-speed network.

Q. Why pay for hosting when my ISP provides free webspace?
A. Burton Hosting give you a permanent, unique address for your web pages. No matter which ISP you are using your web address and e-mail address will stay the same. It also gives a much more professional image of your business or organization. Your own domain name is easier for you to remember too

Q. What is a Backbone?
A. A Backbone is the fiber optic network on which your website's information travels. Burton Hosting's servers are directly tapped into redundant Fiber Optic Networks.

Q. What is Bandwidth and why do you limit?
A. Bandwidth is the term used to describe the transfer of data to and from a server to the person who requested it. There is no such thing as "free bandwidth", it has to be paid for somewhere, and we impose a limit per package so customers know exactly how much they are using and when they reach their limit. This can also be an indication of how busy the site is. Bandwidth limits can be increased at any time. Please contact us for more information.

Q. When will my account be ready for use?
A. Your account will be setup within 24-hours of signing up. This applies to shared (website) hosting. We will give you means of using your account so no time is wasted. Domains however have to propagate to us once you change the name servers or we register a domain, and this can take 24 - 72 hours to process. You can access your account's Control Panel and FTP during this time by replacing your domain name with the server name you are hosted on, using the information supplied in your welcome email. For example, If you are hosted on server PHOENIX you would use http://phoenix.burtonhosting.com/cpanel to access your individual control panel, and direct your FTP program at phoenix.burtonhosting.com to upload content during the propagation period.

Q. When do I have access to my account?
A. We aim for you have access to your account 24/7 and your account to be view-able from the Internet 24/7.

Q. Do you perform backups?
A. Yes, every day our systems will backup all your files. Every day your backup is replaced with a newer version. All users are recommended to keep backups of all their files locally and you can download a backup of your site from your cpanel. Though we work hard to ensure our backup cycle runs smoothly and to different hardware, we always recomend you to backup your own files. We do provide a tool within the control panel to download a "site backup".

Q. Do you filter my email?
A. At present we do not filter based on dnsbl lookups. We only filter for KNOWN virus' via definitions aquired and placed in our filter files. We block extensions of the type .exe, .pif and .bat amongst others. If you need to exchange these files you should first ZIP them up and relay.

Q. Can I use FTP to upload files to my account?
A. Yes, we recommend popular FTP clients such as smartFTP or CuteFTP. There are however many clients available, each on their own merits. You can download a copy of smartFTP by visiting www.smartftp.com.

Q. I'm in FTP. Where do I put my files?
A. You need to upload all your files to "public_html" for them to be visable from the internet via your http://www.yourdomain.com.

Q. What are FrontPage Extensions and will they work on my account?
A. FrontPage extensions are designed to give added functionality to sites designed with Microsoft FrontPage web design software - which you will need a copy of to use. FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions can be installed on all accounts, free of charge, from your cpanel. If you encountered difficulties please contact support.

Q. Do you offer support and what do you offer?
A. We offer E-mail Support as well as Support Ticketing System and Discussion Forums. All emails to common addresses (not individual staff addresses) are sent through to the Ticket System. We recommend logging into your Billing area and clicking the support button so that you can review your past tickets if the need arises in the future.

Q. I need to upgrade / add extra features to my account. Can I do this?
A. Yes, you can upgrade your account at anytime, to another plan or just add more features. Please contact us to discuss your requirements. There are no setup fees to upgrade your account and in most cases we can pro-rate the upgrade for your account.

Q. How do I use Secure Socket Layers? (SSL)
A. You must purchase your own certificate to use this feature. Please contact us for current pricing via us for certificates. They can range in price but are roughly $150 USD. Certificates can be purchased from companies like Thawte or VeriSign too. When you are ready to purchase your certificate, please contact us and we will supply you with the necessary information if needed (certificate signing request). Note, that to utilise https:// you will require a Static IP address which can be added to your account via contacting billing.

Q. Does your Hosting price include domain registration?
A. Our hosting prices quoted on both our UK and US websites have two options, one of which includes the registration of a Domain name of your choice that is available for registration. Prices quoted on the UK site are for UK domain names and prices quoted on the US site are for US or UK domain names.

Q. What domain names are available for me to use?
A. You can choose to register any UK or US domain name that is not already registered. .co.uk is primarily intended for UK Domains and .com is primarily intended for US Domains etc.

Q. Can I update my whoIS information after registering a domain?
A. gTLD domains can have their whoIS information updated throughout their registration. You can do this by either logging onto http://manage.burtonhosting.com or submitting a ticket online.

Q. How many domain names can I use on my account?
A. Your account is intended for the use of one domain name only, which is the domain name you chose when you signed up. Please contact us if you wish to have more than one domain name.

Q. What is "Domain Parking"
A. Domain parking is where you can have multiple domain names show one site on your account. E.g. www.mydomain.com and www.mydomain.net can be setup to show your site "MyDomain". When you park a domain on your account, you can also control the email features for this domain too!. Please submit a ticket if you would like to park a domain and we can help you with this.

Q. How do I pay for my account?
A. We currently accept payment by Check, PayPal or Major Credit Cards via a third party processor. Please make all Checks payable to Burton Hosting in £ UK. If paying by $US check there is a $20 surcharge to cover administration costs. This is not included in the price of a package.

Paypal payments can be made directly from your billing account at http://billing.burtonhosting.com

To pay by Credit Card, please log into your billing account as well. All payments can be made through our billing system and link directly to your account to mark an invoice as paid.

Please Contact Support with any queries.

Q. What is "Dedicated Hosting"?
A. Dedicated hosting with Burton Hosting is a full server dedicated to your needs. Dedicated servers have substantially more bandwidth available than a standard shared "virtual" hosting package, and a full hard disk of space available.

Q. How can I see how much bandwidth I have used.
A. You can logon to the extranet system at http://mrtg.burtondns.org to view how much bandwidth has been metered on the switch over the last 30 days on your port, as well as previous bandwidth trend graphs for the last 12 months. For accurate bandwidth usage for your own records / monitoring we recommend installing an mrtg / bandmin system. Remember that if you use a control panel such as cpanel/whm on your server, though it may report a set figure for bandwidth, your server also uses bandwidth on other ports for other services which count against your total allocation with us. All bandwidth that is measured at the switch is actual traffic.

Q. My server is down, what should I do?!
A.The first port of call should be to use your APC remote reboot port. Allow upto 5 minutes after issuing a reboot for the system to come back. The second step is to open a ticket. This then opens the call on our system so we can update you with any progress. An emergency call can then be placed to our office or the on-call at the time in order to get the fastest resolution.

Q. Can I upgrade packages?
A.Sure! Pop a ticket in to the billing dept / sales, and they can advise on how to go about it. It is possible in some cases to simply move your primary (and/or secondary) hard disk to a new specification server.

Q. Can I have unlimited bandwidth?
A.Unfortunately not! All bandwidth has to be paid for somewhere.. we operate a WYSIWYG setup. What you see is what you get. We promise to offer you everything that we advertise we will.

Rev 2.7 MJB/MJH Jan 2005