Managing Your Hosting Files with cPanel

CPanel is a program that allows you to control your hosting accounts. CPanel is an extremely user-friendly program that can even be used easily by people who aren't completely computer literate. The Cpanel comes with some wonderful features which we will discuss below:

Tools for Managing Your Site:

There are many tools available which you can use to manage your hosting environment. This is where all the files and databases for your website will belong, and conveniently the Cpanel will have a file manager. Some of the other tools on CPanel are Web Protect (.htaccess editor), the ability to edit MIME types and also control over Custom Error pages. There are also redirects which will send a visitor from one page to another. This helps if an old page has been renamed and the content has been moved. The user may only know the old address or link but the redirect will send them to the new page.

Control over Emails:

The email program on Cpanel will help you to manage a number of email accounts. You will be able to add, change and remove passwords. There is the option of Cpanel being provided by Webmail, which will make control of your email accounts easier. The Webmail option in your Cpanel enables you to read your emails through a web browser directly online without Outlook. This is convenient for travelers and people who use more than one PC to access their email. There are a number of different functionalities which you can access and maintain, namely Auto Responders, Spam filtering, Email Forwarding and Mailing Lists, to name the basics.

Website Statistics:

This is a very useful tool for tracking the efficiency and popularity of your website. There are various statistics packages available with your Cpanel hosting. You will be able to see how many unique visitors you receive on your sites, how many per day and you can also view the statistics over the period of a month or year. This assists you in determining whether the number of people visiting your site is increasing. You can also see which keywords are being used that direct people to your site. This helps greatly with search engine optimization, and altering your site accordingly for better traffic. Some of the Cpanel tools which will help achieve the statistical knowledge you require are the Webalizer web stats, the Analog stats, the Webalizer FTP stats, the AWStats, View latest visitors, the View Error Log modules and View Bandwidth Usage.

Backup Functions:

The backup function of the Cpanel is extremely important. It is important to backup information should there be loss due to any number of causes. The backup on Cpanel will allow you to make copies of account files and databases. The backup menu is comprehensive and will also allow you to download any automatic backups that were saved by your Cpanel administrator.

FTP Accounts Module:

This module controls all your FTP accounts. FTP is the program that is used to upload files to your server. With this module you will be able to control who has access to your site, and you will even be able to end their session if they are busy on FTP. You will be able to add, remove and change passwords and there are also Anonymous FTP controls and the ability to change the FTP Login message.

Advanced Cpanel Functions:

With Cpanel you can add and remove subdomains, Subdomain Redirects and their statistics. There are many more advanced functions on Cpanel which will be very useful to you when hosting your sites. These include Pre-Installed CGI Scripts, the CGI Wrapper, a random HTML generator, an Advanced Guestbook, and assorted chat facilities such as Java Chat, HTML chat and PhpMyChat. There are also Network Tools such as DNS Lookup and Traceroute. Your database can be managed using the MySQL module as well as PhpMyAdmin.

Christine Anderssen is the owner of Tailormade4you, a web design and web hosting company that specialises in building cost-effective websites and hosting for small business owners in South Africa.