Frequently Asked Questions

What are some of the features and services that come with shared & reseller web hosting?
All vexxhost shared & reseller web hosting plans come with your own online Control Panel to manage your account, 30-day money-back guarantee, the ability to add or update services at anytime, 24x7x365 technical support, and much more.

Do you put advertisements on my website?
vexxhost never place adverts on any hosting packages.

What is this "Add-on domain"?
Add-on domains are pretty simple, they are domains that can be hosted on your web hosting account but that share the same control panel, there are no redirects involved so any other person would not know that it is an add-on domain.
Can You Host Database Driven Web sites?
Absolutely! The majority of the sites we host are database driven.

Wait, then what is a Database Driven Site Anyway?
A database driven web site is a site with a little (or a lot of) programming that allows it to retrieve and display information from a central location (the database itself). There are endless applications for this: ecommerce, shopping carts, sites with content management systems, inventory management, etc.

Do I have to change my ISP (Internet Service Provider) to host my website?
If you are happy with your current ISP, there is no reason to change. Web hosting is totally unrelated to how you access the internet. As long as you get on, it makes no difference to us who you use. We just want to make sure you have the ability to get online and receive your email. Of course we are willing to help you find a good ISP if you are not happy with your current one. While we don't offer Internet access itself, we've been around the block a few times so we can get you on the right track.

How soon will my web space be set up?
Your web space will be set up within 15-20 minutes, and usually much sooner. Once the setup is complete you will receive a User ID and password to allow you to upload your web site.

Can I upgrade my hosting?
Certainly. You can do this at any time. Please contact us as we calculate the time left on your present package and trade that in against the time difference on the new package. We will confirm the price with you, send you information on how to pay for this and upgrade the account.

How secure is your server?
We take security very seriously and apply patches and new stable versions of software when available.

Can I use flash animation (.swf files) on my hosting?
Yes, you can use flash animation with any of our hosting packages.

What is your uptime rate?
We are one of the top hosting companies in the US for reliability. It would be unusual for us not to have a 100% figure for any given month. Obviously we occasionally need to take the server down for planned maintenance. When this happens, we inform our clients that the service will be down and try to give an indication as to how long for.

What is the difference between an email alias and an email account?
An email account is your main mailbox, which stores your email. An email alias (also known as an "email forward") is simply a pointer to send other email addresses to the same mailbox. Email aliases can point either to a vexxhost-maintained email account, or to an email account at your ISP. A typical email alias might refer to departments in your company like "support@thedomainname.com" or "info@thedomainname.com," whereas a typical email address is likely to relate to your own identity like "jdoe@thedomainname.com".

How can I access my web space?
You access your web space using FTP. This can be used from the command line or using an FTP program. Information will be provided to you by email when your web space has been set up.

What type of servers are you running?
All of our servers have at least two physical CPUs with two logical cores on each of them, each core has 2.33 Ghz which makes up for a total of 9.32 Ghz on our least powerful server. That assures us and the customer that they'll always be getting the best service at all times. We run Linux and Apache on all of our web hosting servers.

I don't really like/trust hit counters. Is there an alternative?
If you have a hosting package with us, then yes. This will give you an indication as to the number of visitors on all your web pages rather than one with a hit counter on it.

Someone has told me my website is down. He recommends I buy some monitoring package.
It's likely to be a scam to make you buy this package. Do not trust the word of anyone who tells you your site is down and are selling anything. It's incredibly rare that our hosting is down.

What FTP client programs can I use?
You can use almost any FTP client. If you don't already have one you could try WS_FTP or CuteFTP. These are not free but you may be able to download a demo version to allow you to evaluate them. As an alternative it is possible to use Internet Explorer.

I wish to sell your hosting on at a profit. Is this allowed?
Certainly, no problem. We only contact the administrator of an account and not the registrant of the domain name.

Why do I only see a directory listing when I view my site?
When you type in a domain name in the address bar of your browser, the server will try to return the default page for the website. If no default page is found it will return a directory listing instead. To stop this happening a default page must exist in the root directory of your site. The default page can have any of the following names: index.htm, index.html, index.php, index.php5

What is bandwidth and how does it affect to me?
Bandwidth is the amount of data downloaded from your web site. For example, if your web site is 1MB and ten visitors browse the whole site each day, your total data transfer used that day would be 10MB. In practice visitors rarely download a complete site, just visiting certain pages.

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