Below you'll find an extremely comprehensive list of our most frequently asked web hosting questions.
If you can't find the answer you are looking for, please don't hesitate to
contact us.
General Questions
New Hosting Accounts
Hosting Features:
Email
Billing
Additional Policies
Hosting Services
Who is Surf22Hosting.com?
We were created as part of the Surf22
family of web sites when they were unable to find a qualified hosting
company that understood Internet Marketing as well as they did hosting.
Our servers have been hosting sites since 1999 and we operated under
the MarketingHosting name from January of 2001 until May 2003 when we
re-branded to Surf22Hosting.com.
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New Hosting Accounts
When Will My New Account Be Setup?
Within 24 hours (usually sooner) of receiving your order we will set up
your disk space and send you an email with complete instructions for
getting started.
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Which Plan Should I Choose?
We have a variety of hosting plans for all budgets. The main
difference between our hosting plans is the amount of disk space you have
for your web site. You can see a comparison of our
plans here. Contact Us to discuss your
hosting needs if you are unsure.
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What Do I Do If I Don't Have A Domain Name?
We provide domain name registration services at
excellent prices. You can register your domain name
online with us by clicking here and choosing the name you want.
Note: Our hosting customers get access
to a discount domain name registration box you can use once you order a
hosting package. If you order the domain name from us at the higher price
before ordering a hosting package we will credit your hosting account the
difference in price!
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Can I Use My Current Domain Name?
Absolutely, in your welcome package will be complete instructions on
updating your domain name so you can use it with our servers.
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How Do I Make a Web Site?
There are many online tutorials explaining how to use languages like HTML
to create web pages. There are also a variety of software programs you can
use to create your web site.
All of our hosting packages include a Site Creation Tool which allows you
to create a very basic web site
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How Do I Upload My Files?
You can upload your web site using standard FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
or if using Microsoft FrontPage you can use FrontPage to transfer your web
site. You can also use our
File Manager
to upload one file at a time.
Note: make sure to upload to the WWW
folder!
More details on FTP can be found here.
More details on Publishing with FrontPage
can be found here.
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I Have Uploaded My Site, But I Still See the UNDER
CONSTRUCTION Page?
-
Did you upload the files to the /www folder?
-
If you are trying to access your web site using your domain name
first make sure you have updated the DNS information. Try accessing
your site using the IP address provided in your welcome email.
-
The filename for the Under Construction
page is called "index.html". In order for your
visitors to see your new main page you must overwrite/delete this file
and put your own file named "index.html", "index.htm",
"default.html" or "default.htm" in lowercase, in
its place. Keep in mind this file must be located in the www
directory.
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How Do I Change/Update My DNS Information
To have your domain point to our servers you'll need to update the DNS
name info as follows:
Primary Name
Server:
ns.surf22hosting.com
Secondary Name Server: ns2.surf22hosting.com
If you registered your domain name with us simply use the Domain
Manager located on the registration box otherwise you will need to log
into your domain name via your registrar.
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How Long Does It Take the DNS to Update?
Usually 24-72 hours. Here is how the process works.
Once you request the change that information is sent to the registry
(where all DNS info is stored) for submission to the Root Servers (the
network of Servers that make up the world wide DNS database).
The root servers add the change to themselves, one after another. This
process could take up to 72 hours (extreme cases can be longer).
When you access your web site using your domain name you will access
one of the root servers (Dependant on the area in which your Internet
connection is located), and if it has
been updated, then you will be pointed to the new DNS info (new hosting
servers). If it has not been updated
yet (could be one of the last ones to get updated) then you will be
pointed to the old DNS info (the last web hosting company or where the
domain was parked).
Depending on where you are located in the world, the process could take
between 24-72 hours. This process does not require human interaction and
therefore you are not at the mercy of human subjectivity, but rather you
are waiting for the number of root servers to totally update themselves.
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What platform does Surf22Hosting.com use for
their servers?
and 
Recent security concerns concerning Microsoft servers have caused this
to be a popular question. Fortunately none of the recent viruses were able
to attack our servers as we use Linux Apache Web servers.
Apache servers: (Apache/1.3.33 (Unix), MySQL 4.0.22 , Sendmail, Procmail, Perl 5.006001, Python, FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 and PHP 4.3.10.).
Our High Power
Network:
Surf22Hosting.com is OnNet with GlobalCenter (GC), Qwest
Communications, and GTE through three separate bandwidth-on-demand.
GC, a Tier 1 provider whose 13,000-mile fiber optic network and Dense Wave
Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology provide an enormous 460 gigabytes
per second (Gbps) of capacity worldwide, has an Asynchronous Transfer Mode
(ATM) fiber node.
Qwest comes with an OC-12 line and plans to upgrade their connection to
an OC-48 in the near future. Our Qwest connection enables us to offer
additional redundancy and better routes to Europe, Latin America and Asia.
With our carriers, our router has up to 150,000 possible routes to send
each packet of traffic.
Genuity, a division of GTE, is our third Tier One Internet backbone.
Genuity provides excellent network performance as a result of their
high-speed peering arrangements with other Tier One Internet backbone
providers. The GTE global network delivers customers directly onto the
Internet via a high-speed connection to its private, super-capacity
backbone, including 17,000 miles of fiber and OC192 capacity. It is
comprised of more than 800 U.S. local access points and approximately
1,500 international local access points in more than 150 countries.
Furthermore, because of these unique connections, Surf22Hosting servers
do
not need to link to the Internet though an OC3 or T3 Telecom circuit.
Instead, independent cables run directly from the NOC to all three carriers points of presence. These lines can
handle the bandwidth of a T3 or an OC3 with DWDM. Plus, they handle
several times the bandwidth of an OC3.
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Can I access my domain address with or without the
"www"?
Absolutely, you can access your web site with or without the
"www" in front of the domain name.
Example: [http://www.your-name.com]
or [http://your-name.com] is acceptable, whichever you prefer.
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Hosting Features
Do You Support Microsoft FrontPage?
Absolutely, from your Control Panel you can quickly and easily install or
remove the FrontPage Extensions
required to maximize the benefit of this software.
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Do You Really Offer Unlimited Bandwidth?
Yes, we do not set bandwidth restrictions on our clients. The only
restrictions we apply are the type of sites we host. To
maintain the integrity of our service, the following restrictions apply as
we do not allow:
-
Multiple host resolving at an
IP or domain name that we provide.
-
Sites with excessive banners,
graphics or cgi's running from their domain used on other domains.
-
Sites with excessive archives
or galleries (.gif, .jpg, exe, zip, tar, etc.)
-
Sites offering a large number
of download files. (This is any site where 20% or more of their
monthly traffic is from file downloads.)
-
Sites using more than 20% of
system resources.
This way we can provide top
quality, fast servers for all our clients.
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Am I Limited In Accessing My Site?
There are no limits in accessing your web site. You have regular FTP and
Telnet access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
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Can I Set Up Anonymous FTP accounts?
Absolutely, you can get full instructions
here.
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Do You Have a Search Engine For My Site?
One of the many free bonuses we offer is a site search engine you can set
up from your control panel. Is is extremely customizable and saves having
to install or run additional software. You can see the basic search
function in action here.
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How Can I Track My Web Site Traffic?
We are often told this is the most attractive part of our hosting packages
as it comes from our roots as a marketing company.
From your Control panel you can set up standard hit counters but more
importantly you have access to a full access log analyzer program
(http-analyze) that presents the raw data in an easy to read graphical
format.
Major Statistics tracked are as follows:
|
Hits
|
Files
|
Cached
|
Pageviews
|
Sessions
|
and you have the option of viewing them by month or by day over the
last 12 months. They are displayed in both an easy to read graph and table
format.
There are also many other statistics available,
click
here for more details.
You also have access to your raw logs for additional analysis if
required.
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Can I Run My Own CGI Scripts?
Of course, all our hosting packages include your own CGI-Bin at no extra
charge. Setting file permissions is easy using the file manager.
Note: Scripts used to send Spam, set up Telnet access or any other
script in breach of our server policy will result
in your account being put on hold or terminated.
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Do you Offer Telnet Access?
Telnet is extremely insecure and we do not allow Telnet access to our
servers. In special cases SSH access can be enabled.
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Do You Have URL Redirection?
From the Control Panel you can easily and quickly set up URL redirection
from any page on your site.
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Do You Support Server Side Includes?
Even though they are server intensive we do support Server Side includes.
You can get more information on using them here.
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Can I Create My Own Customized Error Messages?
Tired of seeing the dreaded error 404 Page Not Found standard browser
message? With our hosting packages you can set up custom error messages so
when people hit an error you can guide them back to your site.
Full instructions are here.
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Can I Add Password Protection To My Site?
Password protecting part or all of your site is easy, simply choose
Password Protect Directories from the Control Panel and follow the
instructions
here.
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Can I Set Up A Database For My Site?
Absolutely, using MySQL it is easy. The program PHPADMIN is installed on
each account automatically. Via your browser you will be able to create
your database, add columns, delete, modify, change names, drop, etc.
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Do You Offer A Shopping Cart?
All our packages except for the Personal Package do include a basic
shopping cart to get you started.
You can get more details and see a demo
here.
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What Type Of Customer Support Do You Offer?
We always offer 24 hour a day, 7 day a week support. If you have any
problem, please contact us here.
We monitor our servers 24/7 via paging technology and are aware of server
problems before you even notice them.
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How Do Your Monitor Your Servers?
In addition to our onsite technicians our servers are monitored 24/7 via
paging technology allowing us to correct any problems as quickly as
possible.
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Email Accounts
How Do I Send/Receive My Email?
Full instructions on setting up and sending/receiving your email can be
found
here.
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What Are The Mailing Lists?
The mailing lists we offer are handy to maintain a subscriber list in an
automated fashion. Using the mailing list software to actually send mail
is somewhat more complicated but if you contact us we can provide
resources you can use to learn more.
We no longer offer full tech support on the mailing list script as they
are simply a free bonus we include with our hosting packages.
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Do You
Offer Email Aliasing?
Through the Mail Manager in all our hosting accounts you can set a default
email that catches any email sent to your domain so you don't lose
messages sent to the wrong user name, instead all misspelled messages are
forwarded to a master email of your choice.
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What About Auto responders?
You can set up a unique autoresponder for each email account you have,
this is another free potent marketing tool we offer.
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And Email Forwarding?
For easy management you can forward all your email addresses to one main
account (username@yourdomain.com), an outside ISP email account (username@yourISP.com)
or even multiple email addresses.
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Can You Help Me Set Up A Feedback Form?
From the Control Panel you can set up the Formmail free script to get you
started. If you like we can also help set up custom forms for you at extra
cost.
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Billing
How Will My Invoice Be Sent?
Invoices are sent by email on the first of the month every month, 3 months
or 6 months depending on the payment plan you chose when you signed up.
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How Do I Make Payment?
You can choose to pay by credit card, check or money order.
We accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Eurocard, Novus,
and Debit cards. Cards from any country are accepted.
Instructions are included in each invoice.
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What Happens if a Payment is Late?
Past Due Policy:
7 days past due - Remote Telnet/FTP access
disabled
14 days past due - Disk rebuilt for other customer
If you know of a problem please contact us to
avoid unnecessary interruption of service.
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Additional Policies
Can I Spam?
No, Never, Ever. This is something we
can't stress enough. Do not ever use unsolicited email to promote
your web site. Not only will we shut your account down immediately but we
will bill you $20 for each complaint we receive. No refunds will be
provided to any account shut down for spamming.
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Do You Host Adult Sites?
To maintain the integrity of our servers we do not host adult/pornographic
web sites.
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Where Can I Read All Your Restrictions?
All of our restrictions can be found in our
User
Agreement which all users must read and agree to before using our
hosting services.
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