Subdomains are basically separate hostnames that are part of a larger domain.

 For instance, “example1.my-best-domain.com” and “example2.my-best-domain.com” are subdomains to the larger domain “my-best-domain.com“.

You can have a further subdivision – “english.example1.my-best-domain.com” and “spanish.example1.my-best-domain.com” are subdomains to “example1.my-best-domain.com“.

In theory, this subdivision can go down to 127 levels deep, and each one can contain up to 63 characters, as long as the whole domain name does not exceed a total length of 255 characters. In practice, some domain registries have shorter length limits than that.

Subdomains are commonly used to assign a unique name to a particular department, function, or service related to the main site or organization. For example, the forum on a given website can have its separate subdomain – forum.my-best-domain.com.

From the Hosted Domains area of the Control Panel, you can create a subdomain for a domain name that is already hosted in your account. 

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Click on the “Create a Subdomain” button on the top right and make sure the option “Create a Subdomain” is selected.
2. To create the subdomain webmail.my-best-domain.com, type in “webmail” and select “my-best-domain.com” from the the drop-down menu, containing all hosted domains.
3. Advanced Settings – this section is optional. Please leave the default settings if you are not sure what to do. (Read further below to learn more about the Advanced settings)
4. Click “Add a Host” to create the subdomain. The new host will need about 10 minutes to start working.

Here is what the Advanced settings are about:

Path: this field enables you to choose the folder that the subdomain will point to. By default that is: /www/subdomain/. For instance, the default path to example1.my-best-domain.com is /www/example1.my-best-domain.com/. 

IP Address: here you have a dropdown menu that enables you to select the shared IP address of your account or assign a dedicated IP address for that particular subdomain. For more information on dedicated IP addresses, please refer to the respective articles in this knowledge base.

After that you have the option to specify a custom error page for errors 400/401/403/404. You can also use the system (Apache) page or the default error pages.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL): this option enables you to use secure pages on this subdomain. For more information on SSL, please refer to the respective articles in this knowledge base.

ModSecurity: the ModSecurity firewall option allows you to protect your subdomain-installed applications from most common hacker attacks; 

Further below you have the option to Activate Access & Error Logs. The Access Logs show you when the subdomain was accessed and by what IP address. The Error Logs show when and what errors occured on the subdomain.

You can see all subdomains in your account listed in the table of hosted domains.

In this table, you can find the following information per subdomain: the current name server status, the number of pertaining mailboxes, an indicator if an SSL certificate is installed, an indicator if DNSSEC is enabled, a button that will open the folder that this subdomain is pointed to, a button to check the traffic stats for this subdomain, a button to edit this subdomain and finally a button to delete this subdomain.

IMPORTANT: The “www” subdomain is the default subdomain of your domain. You cannot delete the “www” subdomain. Instead, you can simply delete the domain name from the Hosted Domains section of the Control Panel. Editing the “www” subdomain also updates the domain name itself. In other words, if you want to edit the domain name my-best-domain.com, then simply edit the www.my-best-domain.com subdomain.

In this article we will cover some of the reasons why your website loading is slow.

Unoptimized Images
A large volume of unoptimized images is usually the most common reason behind website slowness. High-resolution images can consume lots of bandwidth while loading. Uploading larger sized images and then scaling them down can unnecessarily increase the size of your web page – causing your website to load slowly.

The image format is another important factor to consider. For example, JPEG images are much smaller in size compared to other image formats like PNG or GIF. Quite naturally, your web page will load faster if you are using JPEG images instead of PNG/GIF.

Solutions:

– Check the file size of your images, anything above 1MB is really unacceptable.
– Use JPEG instead of PNG, especially for larger images. Icons are ok.
– Use waterfall tests to easily scan image sizes and take corrective action.

JavaScript Issues
The availability of JavaScript/jQuery plugins has made it really convenient to add dynamic content to websites. However, if implemented incorrectly, JavaScript can cripple your website’s page load speed.

Solutions:

– Audit your JavaScript scripts to see what you really need and remove the rest.
– Consider using something like Google Tag Manager – a single script for all your tools.

Excessive HTTP Requests
Having loads of JavaScript, CSS, and image files can lead to too many HTTP requests. When a user visits your web page, the browser performs several requests to load each of these files – which can significantly reduce the page load speed.

Solutions:

– Reduce the number of files on your pages where possible. Includes CSS, images, javascript.
– Minify your CSS and Javascript files reduces the number of total files users will have to download.

Not Making Use of Caching
Whenever you visit a website, certain elements are stored in a cache, so the next time you visit the site it can easily access those parts and load much faster. With caching, instead of your browser having to download every single resource, it only has to download a few of them.

By turning on caching you can considerably improve your site’s loading for return visitors. If you’re using a CMS like WordPress you can install a plugin like W3 Total Cache, either of which will let you enable sitewide caching, or caching of certain site elements.

Another great tool for speeding up dynamic database-driven websites is Memcached. Memcached reduces that load by storing data objects in dynamic memory.
For more details see the following articles as well:

– How to use Memcached? 
– How to Enable Memcached on WordPress? 
– How to Enable Memcached on Joomla ? 

Too Many Ads
No doubt display advertisements are great for monetizing your websites traffic.

But that shouldn’t come at the cost of compromised performance or user experience. Don’t let too many ads be another reason why your website is slow!

The most obvious impact of overloading your website with advertisements is the addition of HTTP requests, which would need additional processing time.

Especially the rich media ads – like pop unders, interstitials and auto downloads – may create hundreds of HTTP requests making your website unresponsive.

If you are running low on certain resources in your account, you can explore the options for upgrading.

You have two basic options – to upgrade just certain features of your plan (such as disk space, the number of hosted domains, email accounts, etc.) or upgrade to a more advanced package (if one is available).

You can find both options in the My Plan area on the left side of your Control Panel.

* If you do not see the Add or Upgrade Services menu at all, please go to Help -> My Tickets to open a ticket (or use the button below) and request assistance from our support staff.

The Change/Upgrade Plan option allows you to upgrade to a more resource-rich package. All available packages are displayed together with a list of the features they are offering and their price.

Once you choose the package that you want to upgrade to, you have to select it, then choose the payment method you would like to use and then click on the Continue button to proceed to the payment page where you will have to fill out your payment information. If none of the payment options listed is suitable for you, please refer to this article: Alternative payment options

The Add or Upgrade Services link will take you to a page where you can upgrade certain features of your current package. Here is a list of all available upgrades:

• Hosted Domains – this upgrade allows you to host more domain names in your account
• Subdomains – this upgrade allows you to create more subdomains; (For more information, refer to: What is a subdomain and how do I create one?)
• IP Addresses – this upgrade allows you to purchase a dedicated IP address. (For more information, refer to: What is a dedicated IP and do I need one?)
• SSH – this upgrade allows you to have SSH access to the server; (For more information, refer to: What is SSH?)
• MySQL Databases – this upgrade provides you with additional MySQL databases. (For more information, refer to: What is a MySQL database?)
• MySQL Quota – this upgrade provides you with additional disk space for your MySQL databases
• PostgreSQL Databases – this upgrade provides you with additional PostgreSQL databases. (For more information, refer to: What is a PostgreSQL database?)
• PostgreSQL Quota – this upgrade provides you with additional disk space for your PostgreSQL databases
• Disk Space – this upgrade provides you with additional storage on the server for your files and emails
• Traffic – this upgrade allows you to increase the monthly traffic limit
• Email Addresses – this upgrade allows you to create more e-mail accounts
• FTP Accounts – this upgrade allows you to create more FTP accounts. (For more information, refer to: What is an FTP account and (why) do I need different FTP accounts?)
• Backup – By default, we keep a backup of your account only if the data is below 5 GB. This upgrade allows you to increase the backup limit
• Cronjobs – this upgrade allows you to set up more cron jobs. (For more information, refer to: What is crontab?)
• CPU Usage – this upgrade allows you to increase the CPU usage limit of your account. (For more information, refer to: What is meant under CPU usage and how do I monitor it?)

Next to each feature, there is a drop-down menu that allows you to choose the quantity that you wish to purchase. Next to it you’ll also see the monthly price, the remaining period and the total price that you’ll have to pay for the particular upgrade. You can make multiple upgrades at the same time.

Once you select all the services that you wish to add, you have to choose the payment method you would like to use and click on the Continue button to proceed to the payment page where you will have to fill out your payment information. If none of the payment options listed is suitable for you, please refer to this article: Alternative payment options.

The EPP code, which may also be called a domain password or an authorization key/code, is a special code that is required in order to transfer a domain name from one registrar company to another.

You can obtain the EPP transfer authorization key from the company you registered the domain name with.

If you want to transfer a domain name to us, you will be required to enter the code during the order process.

If you are trying to transfer a domain name away from us or you simply want to acquire the EPP transfer authorization key of a domain name that is registered with us, you can do that via the Domain Manager section (My Domains > Registered Domains) of your Control Panel.

Next to each domain name there are three icons – you must click on the EPP icon.

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Once you click on the EPP icon you will see a small pop-up window with the following text “From here, you can request the EPP Key for your domain name. This key is needed if you want to transfer your domain name to another registrar.“, click on the button Request EPP.

After you click on that button, the EPP key will be sent via email to the registrant contact email address specified in the WHOIS record of the domain name.

If you do not receive the EPP transfer authorization key within one hour, please make sure that you have provided a correct e-mail address in the WHOIS record.

If you need to change that e-mail address, please refer to the article How to change the WHOIS details of a domain name?.

You cannot obtain the code and transfer a domain that you do not own already.

Generally, there are two cases in which your domain name may appear with the red X mark in the Hosted Domains section of your Control Panel: either the domain name does not have the required name servers set or the DNS update has not been completed yet.

Domain name registrations and DNS modifications could take up to 24 hours to update after they have been initiated.

You can find the name servers that you should use for all your domain names above the hosted domains table.

If you’ve registered your domain with us and you haven’t made any changes to the name servers yourself, it should already be using our name servers.

However, if the domain was registered or added to Hosted Domains more than 24 hours ago but you still see a red  mark indicating that the name servers are not correct, you can try to refresh the name servers’ status manually. 

You can do that by clicking on the NS status icon in the first column of the table of hosted domains. 

If this does not work, you will need to check if you have the correct name servers set for your domain.  

To do that, in the Registered Domains section right click on the given domain name and then select the NS status option. 

This will bring up a window with two fields (one for each name server). These fields show you the two name servers that the domain name is currently using. 

To change the name servers, just type in the ones that are featured in the Hosted Domains section and click on the Change NSes button.

Make sure that domain names registered with another company and added to your Hosted Domains here are using our name servers – usually you can do this from the domain management panel provided by your registrar (the company you registered the domain(s) with).

If you are sure that your domain is using the correct name servers and more than 24 hours have passed since you registered/hosted the domain or updated the name servers, then it is most likely our system that hasn’t “noticed” the change yet.

If that’s the case, we can force the system to check the name servers of your domain.

To request this, please open a ticket from the Help center or the button below.

With the growing number of websites on the Internet, it is becoming harder and harder to find a suitable domain name to register – one that is short, simple, to the point, and easy to remember.

That’s why, if you come across such a domain name that is suitable for your business or personal website, it is recommended that you register it right away.

Even if your website is not ready yet. You can register unlimited domain names through your account with us and there is no need to host them all. To find more information on hosting a domain name, please refer to the article: How do I host a domain name?

You can easily register a domain name via the Registered Domains section (My Domains > Registered Domains) of the Web Hosting Control Panel. Once you open that menu you should click on the Register/Transfer Domain button on the right-hand side.

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To find our Domain Search form, click on the Domain Search button on the left sidebar of the page. This form will help you find an available domain name for you to register. In the section that is titled Search for a domain: you should input the domain name that you would like to register (what you enter will replace the predefined text my-best-domain.com).

Below that you have a list of all domain types (TLDs) that we can register and you have the option to select and deselect any of them. That way you will be able to choose what domain TLDs to search for.

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After that you must click on the Search button. That will execute a search based on the parameters that you have provided and you will be forwarded to the next page Domain Search Results to see the results.

If a domain name is available for registration you will see a Register button next to it. If you are trying to register a domain name, yet only a Transfer option appears, this simply means that someone else already owns the domain name and it is not available for registration.

If you own this domain name you can transfer it to our company by selecting the Transfer button. For more information on transferring a domain name, please refer to the What is a domain transfer? article. If you find the desire domain(s) you have to click on the Proceed with the order button.

On the next page, you also have the option to make a new search if the results from the initial one are not satisfactory. You can keep modifying the search parameters until you find a domain name that you wish to purchase.

There you will find a checkbox named Host this domain name with us. This gives you the option to immediately host the domain name after you submit the payment for the registration. If your current hosting plan does not allow hosting more domain names, you will be provided with the options to purchase an additional hosted domains upgrade or upgrade to a higher package, if one is available.

As soon as you find the domain name that you are looking for and you are ready to proceed with the registration, you must click on the Register button. That will take you to the next step – the contact information for the WHOIS record. Please make sure that you provide accurate contact details. This information will be publicly available.

For some domain TLDs you can purchase an additional service – WHOIS protection (also called ID protection) – that will conceal and protect your contact information. For detailed information about that service, please refer to the What is WHOIS ID protection? article. Once you fill out the registrant section, and if you wish to use the same contact information for all the other sections, there is an option to copy the same information in the other sections as well.

Before proceeding any further, you must agree with the Domain Registration Terms, the Domain Resolution Policy & the eNom Registration Agreement. It is recommended that you familiarize yourself with these documents.

And last, but not least, you need to choose the payment method you would like to use and then click the Continue button on the right to proceed to the payment page, where you will enter your payment information. If none of the listed payment options is suitable for you, please refer to the How to Pay Without a Credit/Debit Card or PayPal article.

A domain name transfer involves a domain name that you’ve already registered with another company but wish to transfer over to us. 

There are four general requirements for a successful transfer of a domain name to go through:

1. The domain name must be at least 60 days old – should not be registered less than 60 days ago
2. The domain name must be unlocked for transfer (For more information, please refer to: How to lock/unlock a domain name?)
3. The domain”s EPP transfer authorization key must be provided (if the given TLD supports such) – it could be acquired from the domain name’s current registrar (For more information, please refer to: EPP (authorization code))
4. The transfer verification emails must be responded to – they are sent within 24 hours after the domain transfer is initiated to the Administrative Contact email address specified in the WHOIS record of the domain name

Once the domain transfer is confirmed by following the instructions in the transfer verification email, the transfer procedure becomes fully automated and may take 3-5 business days to complete.

Some specific domain types (TLDs) have different requirements for transferring a domain name. Some TLDs cannot be transferred at all.

However, the afore-mentioned requirements are valid for the majority of the TLDs (domain extensions).

The Cron Daemon runs on Unix-based Operating Systems and, in essence, is closely similar to the Windows Task Scheduler.

It allows you to post your own ”magic rules” for useful and time sparing automation of any of the scripts you will be working with.

Cron is what enables users to schedule jobs, which run automatically at a certain date or time and thus perform system administration or script-related tasks.

The crontab is the virtual ”scoreboard” for setting up cron jobs and represents a configuration file to which users write shell commands that run periodically, at a given schedule.

The Cron Daemon is a long running process that executes commands and performs scheduled tasks at a specific date or time.

The stored commands are what we call cron jobs and the utility, which is used to keep a record of them is Crontab.

For your convenience, we have created a visual interface for creating cron jobs.

It is located under the Advanced > Cron Jobs section of your Control Panel.

Learn how to set up a simple cron job in this tutorial: How to set up a cron job?

In this tutorial, we will show you a few useful examples on how to create a cron job for your script-based websites.

Scripts usually include a working environment, which is sophisticated enough to work as a multi-structural base for performing a wide variety of tasks.

Those tasks altogether are easily implemented and combined into forums, informational portals, blogs, billing management systems, etc.

Although most often the implementation of a given script is done in real time and the users operate with a web-driven GUI to navigate through what the given script might offer, there are still some ”assignable” tasks that only site administrators can schedule.

Those tasks are what we call cron jobs – they carry important site/script maintenance information and pass system commands to the Cron Daemon via Crontab. Cron jobs are scheduled to execute shell commands or scripts at a given time or date.

Below you will find a few examples, which represent a shell command execution cron job and a script (cgi / php) execution cron job.

Cron jobs have the following formatting that we will divide into groups:

Cron job time schedule – [ Minute – Hour – Day – Month – Weekday ]

Cron job shell command – [ARGUMENTS]

Cron job script command – [PATH OF PHP/PERL] [ARGUMENTS] [PATH OF PHP SCRIPT]

Here is an example of cron job time scheduling and the allowed cron job operators:

.—————- minute (0 – 59) 
| .————- hour (0 – 23)
| | .———- day of month (1 – 31)
| | | .——- month (1 – 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr … 
| | | | .—- day of week (0 – 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat 
| | | | |
* * * * * command to be executed

* * * * * => Execute every minute
0 * * * * => Execute every Hour
0 0 * * * => Execute every midnight
0 0 0 * * => Execute every Month
0 0 0 0 * => Execute every Weekdays

You can create cron jobs from your Control Panel.

To do that – navigate to Advanced > Cron Jobs and click on the ‘Create a New CronJob‘ button.

There you can also see the cron jobs that have already been created.

To set up a cron job – you must specify the email address where the results will be sent to, the date and the time when the job should be executed and the command, which should be executed.

Here is an example of running shell command driven cron jobs and script execution cron jobs:

0 * * * * rm -f * /home/www/my-best-domain.com/temp/

This command will initiate the rm (remove/delete) utility for file/folder deletion and will forcibly delete all the files under /home/www/my-best-domain.com/temp/

Let us say that you want to mail newsletters, site updates, etc. to your clients on a daily basis.

Most script systems have already prebuilt scripts for this purpose and many more automated services.

The cron job would look like this:

0 0 0 0 * /usr/bin/php /home/www/my-best-domain.com/mailcron.php

You can learn more on the allowed file types when using Crontab in the following tutorial: Files that could be executed with crontab – allowed file extensions.

There are no specific file types that can or cannot be executed from your account.

During our tests, the three most commonly used scripts showed excellent cron job compatibility.

These are PHP, Perl/CGI and bash scripts – with the corresponding extensions – *.php, *.pl and *.sh.

Files included in a cron job entry should be Unix executables; in other words – should have execute permissions set.

You can do that using our File Manager (Files > File Manager section of your Control Panel).

Simply click on the desired file and set the permissions to 700 or 755 (the more commonly used format).

When specifying a new Perl cron job from our Crontab menu, we strongly recommend that you include the command perl at the start of the Command to execute field in order to achieve optimal level of support.

If you skip that step, the cron job may not be executed properly and the output may not be sent at all.

Also, when receiving the output of a cron task to your email address, you may get an error stating TERM environment variable not set in addition to the rest of the output.

The easiest way to resolve this error is by starting your bash script files with the following code:

#!/bin/bash
TERM=linux
export TERM