Questions
Basic questions
What is web hosting?
Web hosting is a place to store your website to let people (your clients) see it. Your domain name is your address on the Internet. Web hosting includes email services so that people can send you email on your domain name.
To make all this work we run a large number of high speed computers (servers) with built in redundancies so that we can guarantee your website and email will be working at least 99.8% of the time.
All this is provided to you in the form of website hosting plans. Depending on the size of your website or the number email accounts you need, you can choose a plan that best suites your needs.
What does disk space refer to?
It is the amount of storage space you can use on our servers to hold all (web pages, images and scripts) files associated with your website. It means the amount of space that the files would take up on your computer’s hard disk drive.
What does data transfer refer to?
Data transfer is the volume of information that is transferred to or from your website. Every time a visitor looks at your website data is transferred. Data transfer also includes any email sent to you at your domain name.
All website hosting plans include a generous data allocation. If you exceed this allocation, you will need to upgrade to the next hosting plan.
How much disk space do I need for my website?
Most business websites need less than 5MB to store all of their files. Remembering that the average user on a 56Kbps modem connection can only download approximately 20MB in 1 hour, if your site is much large than 5MB, it will be too slow for people to download.
Is 1 GB of data transfer enough?
Yes. Only very large or high volume websites will ever exceed 1 GB of data transfer in a month. An average business website would support up to 10,000 different people looking at their website every month and still not exceed 1GB of data transfer. The way we look at data transfer is that, if you ever have to pay for more data transfer, your website will be generating so many benefits for your business that it will by far out weigh the cost of the excess data charges.
Which web hosting account should I choose?
All hosting plans include the same set of tools and features to build your website. You should choose the hosting account size based on the size of your website. If you are unsure, it’s best to start with the ‘Starter plan’ as you can always upgrade at a later date.
More detailed information on hosting plans and services, and pricing is available online.
What is domain delegation & which domain delegation option should I choose?
In order for your website and email to be handled by Anchor, your domain name needs to be delegated to us so that requests for information (such as your website) are directed to our servers.
You have a number of option for delegation:
If this is a new domain, ie, it hasn’t been registered yet, we will register the domain name on your behalf and have it delegated to our servers.
If you have already registered the domain, or it is an existing domain we can redelegate the domain for you. For .com.au or .net.au domains you will need to provide the registry key or domain password. For other domains a username and password may be required, which should have been provided to you at the time of registration.
If you have an existing domain and would like to arrange redelegation yourself, you can do this by providing your domain name registration provider with Anchor’s name servers.
Are you able to support webpages designed through dreamweaver or frontpage?
Yes. Dreamweaver & Frontpage are well supported, and can be used to build and publish websites on our servers. A guide for publishing your website with Frontpage is available in our support area.
New Account Questions
How long does it take to set up a new account?
If your order is received within support hours, new accounts are set up within 1 hour. Orders received outside these hours are set up on the next business day.
What is involved in setting up a new account?
The first step is to submit an order either online, by fax or by post. Once your order is received we will configure your account with the requested components. You will then receive a comprehensive email containing all account settings, along with a temporary website address. The temporary address allows you to use your website hosting account immediately whilst you wait for your domain name to be registered or moved to our servers, and provides a staging area to configure your website before going live.
What if I already have a domain name?
If you already have a domain name that is pointed at a different provider it can be moved to Anchor by a process called ‘domain re-delegation’. To do this you need to supply us with the authentication details for the domain name. These details are automatically issued at the time of domain name registration. The authentication details are usually comprised of a username and password.
Pricing and Billing
What forms of payment do you accept?
Payment can be made via:
- Credit card (VISA, Mastercard)
- Cheque or Money order
- Electronic funds transfer (EFT)
Every invoice issued contains full details of the payment options available. This includes bank account details for electronic funds transfer.
How are invoices issued?
All invoicing is carried out via email. Invoices are sent to the email address provided at the time of order. Invoices are never posted to you.
Can you automatically charge my credit card each month?
Yes. Payments will be deducted and you will be issued with a combined invoice and receipt on the day the charge is made.
Monthly vs Annual billing
If you pay your account on an annual basis you will save approximately 10% on the cost of the account.
Can I upgrade my account if I pay annually?
Yes. Regardless of whether you pay monthly or annually you can upgrade your web hosting account at any time without penalty. If you pay on an annual basis and half way through the term you decide to upgrade to a larger account, we will simply invoice you for the difference between the value of the accounts for the remaining period.
Are there any set up fees?
No, we do not charge set up fees for web hosting accounts.
What charges apply if I exceed my usage quota?
There are two types of usage based charges for web hosting – Disk space and data transfer.
Disk quotas are in place to prevent you from using more space on the server than has been allocated for the given account. If you try and upload more data than this quota, you will get an error.
Transfer charges – if your website receives a lot of traffic or you send/receive a large volume of email, you may exceed your transfer quota. If you exceed your quota by more than 10% for two consecutive months we will contact you and arrange an upgrade to a larger account which accommodates your data transfer volume. This is based on total data transfer (the sum of all inbound and outbound data in relation to your account including email, ftp uploads and website traffic).
Note: You cannot incur excess usage fees on any Anchor shared hosting plans. This ensures you know how much you will be paying for hosting each month with no surprises.
Technical Questions
Can you host Windows/Access/ASP/.Net web sites?
Yes. We have a shared Windows server running Windows Server 2003 for this exact purpose!
By default we set up all new hosting accounts on Linux servers, as we find these are ideal for sites which are serving up static content or using most common web technologies. However, if you require ASP, Microsoft SQL server, .NET or Frontpage extensions then we can certainly accommodate this on a Windows server.
Please let our sales team know when ordering.
How is the total data transfer per month calculated?
Total data transfer for your hosting account, includes data transferred via:
- Web Traffic – Visitors to your website
- FTP Transfer – Data transferred to/from your site using FTP
- Email – All email handled by our mail server
‘Total data transfer’ is the sum of both inbound and outbound data over the mediums listed above.
Multiple sites per hosting Account?
For each hosting account you can only have one website. Each website can have multiple sections, pages, etc. You can have as many domain names as you like pointing to the one website, but all of the domains will point to the same home page on your website.
How do I add a database to my hosting account?
In the control panel for your account, you will find the option to create a PostgreSQL database. If you would like to create a MySQL database or add multiple databases to your account, please contact us.
How do I manage MySQL or PostgreSQL databases?
phpMyAdmin and phpPgAdmin are web based management tools for MySQL and PostgreSQL respectively.
You can also manage databases via shell access using ‘mysql’ or ‘psql’ programs.
Detailed information to assist with managing PostgreSQL databases and MySQL databases is provided in the support area.
Do you support InnoDB and MyISAM in MySQL?
Both InnoDB and MyISAM table types are supported.
Can I make a script run periodically (using cron)?
Yes. A program called cron can be used to automatically run any script or code contained within your hosting account, based on a specified time period or frequency.
Each user has full control over their crontab via SSH.
We’ve put together this article to help you with configuration automated cron jobs on your web hosting account.
Email services
What are my options for receiving email?
There are three different methods of handling email on your domain name with our web hosting service:
- Redirect/Forward to another mail server
- Store mail on Anchor’s mail server and retrieve it with a mail client
- Operate a mail server on your own hardware
Control over the way email is handled on your domain can be changed at any time. The control panel allows you to update email settings for your hosting account quickly and easily.
Option 1. Redirect/Forward mail
If you already have an email account, we can simply forward mail on your domain to existing email addresses.
E.g john.smith@webdeveloper.com.au → webdeveloper@bigpond.com.au
The advantage of having your email forwarded to an existing email address is that you can receive email from both addresses and you do not have to reconfigure your email client.
Mail is generally forwarded to an ISP provided email account or existing corporate email account.
Option 2. Store Mail on Anchor’s mail server
Mail is stored on mailboxes on our server. As a general rule you should setup one mailbox per person. All hosting accounts allow for multiple mailboxes. By using mail aliases you can direct muliple email addresses to a single mailbox.
If email is stored on Anchor’s mail server, you have three options for retrieving your email. All options can be used concurrently if required.
POP3
Supported by all popular mail clients, POP3 allows you to download mail from our mail server to your local machine. We’ve published Illustrated guides for configuring popular email clients to help.
Webmail
A webmail client is available requiring only a web browser to collect your email.
Webmail is useful if you are travelling/roaming or just out of your office, but is generally not suitable as long term option for handling email.
Mutt/Pine
Text based email clients running in a terminal are supported. These are accessible via SSH. Text based email clients provide a quick and powerful means of managing email for the Unix power user.
Option 3. Operate a mail server on your own hardware
An external mail server can be operated to handle all mail on your domain. This removes the reliance on our mail servers and provides a number of advantages in office environments.
Advantages of an mail server in your premises include:
Internal mail is delivered quicker and does not need to go through your Internet connection.
Lower data usage costs on your hosting account, as mail data does not go via Anchor’s servers.
Increased flexibility in control over mail accounts.
In order to operate an internal mail server you must have a fixed IP address for the machine which runs the mail server. Please note that many ADSL services do not provide a fixed IP address. External mail servers can be operated using software such as: Sendmail, Postfix, Qmail, Microsft Exchange Server, or a variety of windows based shareware mail servers.
Outbound Mail
Mail sent from your machine must always be sent via a mail server which is connected directly to the network to which you use for Internet access. This means you need to use the mail server provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). These measures are required to prevent abuse of the service by spammers. If your ISP doesn’t provide access to a mail server AND you are connected with a fixed IP address you will be able to use our mail server on request.
How does email spam and virus protection work?
Anchor provides a combined spam and virus protection service. Detailed information on how the service works is available here.
Why can Anchor not send my outgoing mail?
In order to download email, you are always required to enter a password, however this is not the case for sending mail. So, if we were to allow you to send mail via our servers, we would also be allowing anyone else on the Internet to send mail that looked like it was sent from you. This poses an obvious security problem.
When you dial up to your Internet service provider, you must enter a password to connect. This means your ISP knows that only authorised users (those that have the password for your account) are logged into their network. This in turns means that they can let you send mail via their servers and still maintain a secure system.
Spammers use unsecure mail servers to send out junk mail. By restricting access to the mail servers, we are doing our part to prevent spam. Further to this, the service providers that provide the connection to the Internet backbone require that the mail servers be prevented from allowing unauthorised emails being sent out.
Most hosting companies implement the same policy in regards to outgoing mail.
Please note: If your ISP does not provide access to a mail server and you are connected via a fixed IP address, you can use our mail servers on request.