Signing up with a Hosting Provider

A hosting provider is essential for anyone who wants to have a website on the internet. The hosting provider is the service that stores your web pages for display when someone accessing your website’s URL, or domain.

Owners of any WebAssist product that wants to go live with their website, needs to purchase a plan with a hosting provider.  This How To covers the process of creating an account with an inexpensive and reliable hosting provider, 1and1.com.

 
NOTE:If you already have a plan with a hosting provider, you do not need to follow these steps, since you most likely will be able to use that provider for your site.
Signing up for a 1&1 account

1&1 is a hosting provider that has been tested with WebAssist tools to successfully display your PHP pages and store your MySQL databases.

  1. n your browser, navigate to http://1and1.com.
  2. Choose the Web Hosting option to view the various options available.
  3. Choose a package that works best for you.
    We recommend that you choose one of the Linux hosting plans.
  4. Complete the registration process, including choosing the domain (web address) that you will be using for your website.
    You can always purchase additional domains once you have created an account with 1&1.

    5. Once the registration process is complete, it will take up to 24 hours for your domain to be registered. You will receive an email once this is done.

Obtaining an SSL Certificate

If you intend to sell products on your website and have customers enter sensitive data such as credit card numbers, you should have an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificate.  This can be purchased through your hosting provider and usually requires an annual fee.

 
NOTE:Once you obtain an SSL certificate your website will be accessed via https://yourdomain.com instead of http://yourdomain.com. You can still use the insecure (http) version, however, you should apply a redirect on your cart page to navigate to the secure address (https). Contact your hosting provider for assistance in setting up these redirects.
Obtaining the FTP credentials

For uploading your files, you are most likely going to use and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) application.  Dreamweaver has this functionality built-in and is part of the process for defining your site.  The following steps detail how to obtain your 1&1 FTP log-in credentials and entering them into Dreamweaver.

  1. Navigate to https://admin.1and1.com/ in your browser.
  2. Referring to the email confirmation you received from 1&1, enter your Customer ID and enter the Password you created when signing up.
  3. Choose Login.
  4. From the Administration page, click the FTP Account option.
    The FTP Account page displays your User name and Password for uploading files via FTP.
  5. Take note of your User name and Password.
    You can also change your password here by clicking the Edit button.
What to do next...

Now that you have your FTP credentials, you can use these to create a connection with an FTP program. Once you establish this connection, you can upload your website, or your Solution Pack files easily.

For more information, see the following tutorials.

Last Updated: October 27, 2010
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