BuffaloWebHosting - Help and FAQs
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General Questions
About Websites:
Getting Started:
Working with Your Website:
Miscellaneous Questions: About Websites What do I need in order to have a website? In order to have a website that can be seen by others, you will need to have three basic components:
Domain Names A domain name is your "address" on the internet that signifies your location on the world wide web. You need to register a domain name through any company (registrar) that is approved by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to do so. Registration of a domain name gives you exclusive rights to use a domain name on the web, for email addresses, etc. The cost of the registration varies between companies, and is renewable on an 1-year, 2-year, 5-year, or 10-year basis. BuffaloWebHosting offers domain registrations for $15 per year (or less if you decide to register for a term longer than 1 year). Once your domain name has been registered, we assign your domain name to a numeric IP address (eg, 123.45.67.890) which is the "behind-the-scenes" actual address of your domain name. It will then take 24-48 hours for this domain information and IP number assignment to be "propagated" across the internet. Propagation is the process whereby every ISP (Internet Service Provider, eg, AOL, Earthlink, etc) updates their databases with the information we send to ICANN, so that their customers will be directed to the correct location when they type in your domain name. Website Design Website design refers to the process of creating the pages which others will see when they go to your web address. There are many third-party software programs available which you can use to create the graphics and coding necessary for your site. Some of the more popular software packages available for creating web sites are FrontPage and DreamWeaver. Some webhosting companies also offer online site creation tools (such as BuffaloWebHosting's SitePro) which will allow you to create your website without having to understand HTML (hypertext mark-up language), the programming code needed to translate a web page on the world wide web. Webhosting Once you have a domain name registered and a website created, you will need to rent space on a web server which can host your site. A web server is a high-performance computer that is located in a high-security, controlled environment, and is connected to the rest of the internet via multiple secure telecommunications lines. Pricing of web space will depend primarily upon the amount of web space you are renting, the amount of traffic or "bandwidth" you will need, and the various other services you may choose in conjunction with your hosting package. BuffaloWebHosting offers a wide range of hosting packages, sized to fit the needs that are typical of most customers. What about "Free" Webhosting? There are many companies that offer "free" hosting. The truth is that in many cases, this is simply a ploy to collect information about you and your visitors in order to build a database for sale to junk mailers. "Free" hosting companies need to make money to cover their costs somehow, and if they are not selling your information to spammers, then they will often support themselves by running their banners and advertisements on your website. Most important for you to keep in mind though, is the sub-standard service and performance offered by "free" hosting companies. In order to keep costs down, these hosts routinely over sell the space on their servers - thus overloading them - in the same way that airline companies overbook their flights. This will eventually result in extremely poor performance for your site. Further, their "rock bottom" prices tend to attract a multitude of fly-by-night spammers, who can sign up for little or no money, and use the same server that you are on to send out their massive mailings for next to nothing. The volume of mail that they send will crash or severely cripple the server. (Of course, the spammer doesn't care - they simply move on to the next free host). Not only could this bring a sudden halt to your website, but once the spam which they have sent gets detected by the increasing number of companies that monitor spam activity, the entire server which the spam originated from will be banned from being able to access or communicate with other networks. In other words, your site will be banned from being accessed by millions of users as well! With this in mind, you need to be confident in who you are dealing with when selecting a company to host your website. See what existing and former clients have to say about their experiences with them. Have any existing customers granted them permission to post their testimonials? Most importantly, call any prospective host (make sure they have a phone number) and talk to them. Any reliable hosting provider will be happy to spend some time answering your questions. Remember, you get what you pay for, so kick the tires and make an informed decision! What services do BuffaloWebHosting provide? BuffaloWebHosting provides domain registration, web design, and webhosting services. We offer a broad range of additional features and enhancements to these services such as online site building tools, user control panels, etc. We do not currently offer ISP services such as dial-up access, DSL, or other broadband internet access. Getting Started How does the sign up process work? To sign up for services, simply go to our Order Wizard to begin. The order wizard will start by asking you for a domain name that you would like to use. If it is a new domain name, the wizard will check to make sure that the domain name is available. If it is a domain name that you already own, you can choose to either transfer the domain name to our registration service, or to keep it registered through your current registration provider (in which case you will need to update the nameservers to point to our servers yourself). Next, you will be asked to select whether you want to add a hosting package or if you just want to register/transfer your domain name. Assuming that you want to set up web space for your domain name, you will select which hosting plan you want to purchase in the drop down box. We offer a "Personal" series of plans for personal use, and a "Professional" series of plans for business use. Keep in mind that even a start-up or small business has needs which are better served by the Professional series. Once you have selected your hosting plan, you will be asked to select a billing cycle, and to let us know if you intend to use FrontPage to build your site, whether you would like to use our SitePro system to build your site, and whether or not you have a promotional coupon. You will then be shown the total for your order, and whether you are a new customer or an existing customer. New customers will then need to fill in the form with their contact information (it is best to use a "permanent" email address that is not hosted on our servers for your primary email address). You can also choose to enter different contact information for your domain registration, or to use your default contact information. You then need to enter a user name and password for your hosting account, and will enter your billing information (please be assured that this is a secure connection, so you are safe to enter this information!). Finally, you will be asked to verify and submit your order. What is a site map? A site map is simply a list of pages that are in a website. Similar to a book's table of contents, it defines what pages are in the site, and how they are related to one another. Some sites may include a site map page within their site to allow visitors the ability to quickly the location any page in a site. However, this can become counter-productibve with large sites as they would have so many pages to list. Further, the ability to quickly find a page should be accomplished primarily by having a well-thought out navigation menu. When you are just beginning to build your website, creating a site map is an essential step in that it forces you to think through how you will present information to your site's visitors, for example:
How long will it take for my site to be live? It usually takes less than 30 minutes for us to activate your webhosting account after you have placed your order with us. Once your account has been activated, you will receive a "Welcome Letter" which will provide you with information on how to access your site and the various features of the services which you have ordered. Eventhough your site may not be viewable until your domain name has completely propagated (as explained above), you will still be able to access it via it's numeric IP address. Working with Your Website I can't see my website! Many new customers will report that they can't reach their website during the first few days after they sign up. This is normal in most cases for the following reasons:
I made a change to my website but I don't see it! If you are sure that the change was made correctly (eg, others can see the changed site, but you see the old site), then you are likely seeing a "cached" copy of your site. Your browser (eg, Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc) is by default set to retain a copy of each page you view in your own PC's local memory. This is done so that you do not have to wait for your browser to go out and "fetch" the actual current page every time you go back and forth from one page of a site to another. To force your browser to grab the actual current page, you can press Ctrl+F5 (hold down the "Ctrl" button on your keyboard while pressing the F5 button). You can also check your browser's help files for instructions on changing your cache settings. I've uploaded my page, but I still see your "Welcome" page!
Why must my site's main page be called "index.htm"? When someone goes to "http://www.yourdomain.com" (without specifying a particular page's filename, like home.html, aboutme.html, etc), the server knows that it must display your site's main page. However, if the main page does not have a specific name, the server wouldn't know which page to display. So, a standard was established which dictates that the main page would be called "index" and that it must go inside the /public_html/ directory. Why must my files go inside /public_html/? What is /public_html/ for? As above, standards dictate that your publicly viewable files would be in a directory called "public_html". When people access a file on your site, it is being accessed from inside /public_html/. Anything that you upload to a directory that is not inside /public_html/ is only accessible via FTP or Telnet. I uploaded my site, but some links and images are broken/don't appear, even though they work fine on my computer. Why? This is most often due to case sensitivity. On a web server, Myfile.GIF and myfile.gif are not the same. If you are linking to myfile.gif but the file is actually called Myfile.GIF on the server, the web server will just generate a "404 - Not found error" and the image will appear broken. The same applies when you make links to files. Tip: It is good practice to always name your files using lowercase letters. It will make your life easier! My password is not working! Passwords are case sensitive. If your password is "MyPassWord", enter it exactly when logging in. Don't enter the "M" in lowercase form, or the "y" in uppercase form. How do I publish my site with FrontPage? To learn how to publish via FrontPage, check our FrontPage FAQ for details. How do I get my site ranked with Search Engines?
Miscellaneous Questions How do I enable cookies in my browser? Many web pages require "cookies" to be enabled on your web browser, especially those requiring you to login to access account information. The "cookie" is a small file that gets saved to your computer to enable your browser to "talk" to the web page (eg, "who am I logged in as?"). Some browsers are set to not accept cookies by default. Here's how to enable cookies: 
Microsoft Internet Explorer (6+, PC Only)
Firefox (PC and Mac)
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