With InMotion Hosting you can always expect to get more while paying less. Our most popular hosting packages are routinely updated with more of everything you need to build powerful websites. As newer technology becomes available, more resources become “unlimited.”

In this article, you will learn what it means to have an “unlimited” resource available in your server arrangement as well as a rundown of some of the exciting upgrades you have available to you.

What Does “Unlimited” Mean?

Resources available in your server are unlimited in the sense that there is no predetermined cap on how much you use. For example, if you want to host images on your website, you have no set limit on how many you can host, but the images must be used as an integral part of your website.

Likewise, as you will read below, shared hosting plans have received numerous improvements in terms of computing and disk allocation. However, if your website spikes in traffic or resource usage beyond initial expectations, we will happily assist in transferring your site to a more powerful server or in reducing your usage as needed. Be sure to check out our full terms of service for more information.

NVMe Hosting

The power for these upgrades comes from new hosting accounts being provisioned on NVMe servers as opposed to SATA-powered boxes. NVMe radically increases data transfer speeds. Faster hardware means your website runs faster on the front-end and the administrative side, resulting in a better experience for you and your visitors.

More PHP Power

Much of the web runs on PHP, so InMotion has upped PHP power across all shared hosting plans, increasing the amount of workers and PHP requests. Our proprietary UltraStack recipe also provides powerful reverse-proxy caching for your PHP applications.  This means WordPress, or any other PHP-based content management system, will run at blazing fast speeds right out of the box.

cPanel and Email Hosting

cPanel still provides the backbone of the shared hosting platform. It’s your hub for managing every aspect of your hosting, from creating email accounts to managing databases. Launch, Power, and Pro plans now provide support for unlimited websites, addon domains, subdomains, and databases. Likewise, disk quotas have been slashed, giving you all the space you will ever need to host your website’s critical content.

Communication between you and your team has also never been easier. All shared hosting plans now include unlimited email account creation as well as increased space for attachments: 1GB for Core, 5GB for Launch, 10GB for Power, and 20GB for Pro.

With all of the power, speed, and security you need, there’s no excuse not to create the website you’ve always imagined.

Establish your web presence today with one of our Shared Hosting plans.

In This Article

• cPanel and AMP
• Email
• Website
• Backups and Security 

cPanel and AMP

Before you dive in, it’s important to learn about two important applications: cPanel and AMP. cPanel is a control panel interface that allows you to make changes and customize your Shared Hosting account. With cPanel, you’ll be able to create, view and modify email accounts, change email passwords, configure domains, create subdomains, create/manage FTP accounts and more. 

Your Account Management Panel, or AMP, is primarily used for managing the billing aspects of your account. With AMP, you’ll be able to register new domains, update your domain Whois details, and purchase SSL certificates if you choose. As a reminder, your Shared Hosting account comes with free SSLs for all sites hosted here!

Make sure you log into cPanel and AMP to familiarize yourself with the platforms.

Email

Once you’ve toured cPanel and AMP, it’s time to set up your email accounts. It’s a good idea to set up your email accounts before you begin creating your website as you will need an email address for website creation. You can easily create your email accounts in cPanel. When you’ve created your accounts, you can then set up your email client to access your email, configure a desktop application, and add your email to your mobile device.

Website

With your email created, you’re ready to start creating your website. For many small businesses, WordPress is the easiest platform to use to establish a web presence. With plugins and builders, you’ll be able to quickly create a beautiful website that meets your business needs. Make sure you also add Google Analytics to your website to monitor how users interact with your content. You can then use the data to make informed decisions about content updates to ensure users are viewing the best version of your site.

Backups and Security 

The Shared Hosting plan has great security benefits. As mentioned above, all Shared Hosting accounts come with free SSLs that you can enable. You’ll also enjoy free server scans and if you suspect malicious activity on your server, you can submit an account scan ticket request. For enhanced security, you can also purchase Sucuri.

Shared Hosting users can also take control of their own backups and restorations, which is recommended, with the Backup Manager. Through cPanel, you can use Backup Manager to perform restorations, monitor backup storage capacity, and control which data is backed up and how often.  

Now that you know where to start after purchasing a Shared Hosting plan, you can begin establishing your web presence. If you get stuck on a step or need advice, feel free to reach out to our 24/7 live support.

• How to View Disk Space Usage in cPanel
• How to View your Bandwidth Usage in cPanel

How to View Disk Space Usage in cPanel

When you view the disk space usage from a shared server account, you will see that it looks like this:

You can find the displayed statistics by following the steps below:

Step 1. Login to the cPanel.

Step 2. Look at the right-hand column when you have logged in. In some versions of the cPanel Paper Lantern theme, you may have to click on Statistics in the left-hand column in order to see the statistics. Look for the label Disk Usage.

Step 3. You can also find version numbers or account usage numbers that may help to manage your account. Here’s a short list of the other items that you will see in regards to disk space and bandwidth usage:

• Monthly Bandwidth Transfer – directly beneath Autoresponders in the right hand column. This is the amount of data that is transferred between the web server and a visitor’s internet browser for that day. Click on the link in order to see further bandwidth details for your account.
• MySQL Disk space – this data is not calculated as part of Disk Space Usage, but is a good number to watch when you are running multiple databases or if a database is getting so large that the website appears to be running slow.

How to View your Bandwidth Usage in cPanel

The cPanel provides a few different ways to view the bandwidth being used by your website. When you see this statistic in the Statistics column, you are looking at the bandwidth consumption for that day. Remember that bandwidth usage is the amount of data (in bits or bytes) transferred between the web server and the visitor’s internet browser. You can see even more specific data using clicking on the Bandwidth link.

1. Login to the cPanel.
2. In the right hand column, click on the link labeled Bandwidth.

When you click on the link, it will open and show you three graphs of the website traffic labeled Past 24 hours, Past week, and Past year. After that, you will see summary pie charts of usage. Each graph is broken down to HTTP, IMAP, POP3, SMTP, and FTP usage.

If you click on a pie graph you will see a breakdown of the month for ALL traffic and just the HTTP traffic.

Using these graphs, you can determine your bandwidth usage and break it down by year, month, and each day of the month. If you require further information, you can submit a support ticket.

cPanel VPS administrators view more server info in WebHost Manager (WHM).

• Use Your Domain
• Creating Staff Email Addresses
• Generic Email Addresses 

You can start creating email accounts today with a Shared Hosting plan from InMotion. It’s a fast and affordable way to host your email and website too. Enjoy a secure environment that’s ready to grow with your business.

Use Your Domain

When creating business email addresses, it’s important to have and use your own domain. Using your domain for your businesses’ email addresses builds authority around your brand and helps instill trust in your prospective customers. It’s more professional than using Gmail or Yahoo for your email accounts and can establish your business as reputable for both customers and other businesses. 

Also, when using your own domain, you don’t have the naming restrictions you would have if creating an email with Gmail or Yahoo. For example, when creating an email address with an email service like Gmail, chances are your first name and last name combination, or a similar variation, will already be taken. Though Johndoe@gmail.com may not be available, you can create Johndoe@yourdomain.com easily on your own domain. 

Registering a new domain name is easy, however, keep these four things in mind when deciding on a new domain. Also, here are a few tips for choosing a great domain.  

Creating Staff Email Addresses

Before creating business email addresses for you and your staff, consider the format you want to establish for your company emails. Do you want to use johndoe@yourdomain.com, JDoe@yourdomain.com, or Doe@yourdomain.com? Deciding on a format and sticking to it will help customers email and contact your business more easily. It will also help your employees when they are reaching out to each other via email. Conforming to a standard also assists in building and maintaining your professional reputation. 

Think about it, if you were considering a web design agency but the account manager, web designer, and developer all had different email formats, how would that affect your customer experience? The frustration of trying to remember each email address would cloud positive experiences and amplify negative experiences. Put your best foot forward and make sure your email addresses have a naming standard. 

With your Domain Email Hosting, you can create email addresses quickly and easily in your cPanel. 

Generic Email Addresses

Staff emails are an important element of running a successful business, but so are generic emails. Creating email addresses like info@yourdomain.com or contact@yourdomain.com gives you the ability to centralize important information and initiatives. Using a generic email for your contact form submissions or newsletters allows multiple parties access to the information and ensures the information is always accessible to the company. Accessibility is especially important when purchasing software and tools. Using a staff email to establish an account with an important 3rd party could prove disastrous if the staff member moves on without giving you access to the account. 

The creation of your business addresses should be considered carefully. Use the information above to set up accounts that will grow with your business and facilitate easy communication with customers and staff. Need additional assistance with email set up? Check out our informative email tutorials and guides. 

• The Fail2ban Security System
• The Accidental Lockdown
• Solving the Problem for Good

The Fail2ban Security System

At InMotion Hosting, we use a variety of methods to help secure our servers against attack. One such tool is ‘Fail2ban,’ a popular piece of software that helps prevent intrusion. Fail2ban blocks or limits a number of attack vectors, but the one we’re concerned with here is something called a ‘Brute Force Attack’.

A brute force attack (BFA) is when a hacker or program tries to login to an administrator account or email address by trying thousands of passwords. The attacker will simply try to log in to an account over and over again using different passwords. The idea is that, with enough attempts, a common password or a random string of characters will end up being the right password and let the attacker in. Fail2ban has a simple way of blocking these attacks: if a particular IP address fails to login a certain number of times in a given period of time, access to the account from that IP address is blocked.

Get the protection of Fail2ban on your accounts with our Shared Web Hosting Security Plans!

The Accidental Lockdown

Fail2ban is a helpful piece of security software– how can it cause trouble for users on Shared Web Hosting accounts? The problem is that any incorrect logins can trigger a block from fail2ban– even logins from your computer!

Some mail clients like Mac Mail and Outlook will continuously retry failed logins. This is a design feature meant to be helpful but can cause problems with security software like fail2ban. If some details like the password or email address are incorrect, the mail client will activate fail2ban’s IP block. This is why your website appears to be inaccessible only from your home or office.

Solving the Problem for Good

If you are blocked from your site due to the fail2ban security system, you must fix the connection issue causing it. Our Support Team can temporarily unblock you, but unless the origin of the problem is fixed the same issue will occur again.

To solve the problem permanently, you must find which device and mail client is causing the issue.

Start by checking any mail clients you have active. Be sure to check all clients and all devices. A tablet you rarely use may have outdated, leftover login information in its mail client that has never been updated. A secondary mail client you only set up for troubleshooting could now be the cause of trouble! Find out which clients are active and which aren’t connecting. You can always update your email passwords in cPanel and make sure the change is carried over to all of your devices.

Don’t try to solve the issue by deleting the email address from cPanel or removing the email address from the server. The mail client will still attempt to login to the now missing email. This will still count as a failed login. You must find the mail client with the incorrect login and either correct the information or deactivate it in the client itself. 

You may need to deactivate some email addresses inside of your mail clients until the temporary ban expires. Usually, the IP block will expire half an hour after the ‘problem’ email address is removed or corrected. Sometimes an IP address may have been blocked for a longer period — a week or more– if there were enough failed login attempts in a row. If that is the case, you’ll need to contact our 24/7 Technical Support team to get the block lifted so that you can finish re-configuring your mail clients.

If you run into trouble, our Support team can also help you check the mail logs to see which addresses seem to be the problem. Lastly, there are a handful of other logins that can result in IP blocks: FTP clients, SQL software, and cPanel itself can cause similar issues. Usually if you fix the login details the issue will resolve itself. If you run into trouble and the usual solutions don’t seem to work, our Support Team can help you narrow down the issue!

In This Article:

• The Cheapest Option
• Specific Software And Configurations Are Not Needed
• Low Server Resource Use
• Root Access Not Needed

Establish your web presence quickly and easily with our Shared Hosting.

The Cheapest Option

On occasion, the cheapest option is still a good option, especially when you’re just starting out. In the initial stages of launching a web presence, or refreshing what you already have, until your website builds momentum, opting for the lowest priced option is a smart business decision. Though Shared Hosting is our cheapest plan, it’s still packed with features to improve your website and the experience of your users. 

Software And Configurations Are Not Needed

If you do not need specific software or configurations then Shared Hosting is perfect for you. Some installable software requires root — which gives the user authorization to access all resources and execute any command — or more CPU usage than allowed on Shared Hosting. However, if you’re just starting out or don’t require specific elements, the easy setup and use of Shared Hosting will be the best choice for launching your web presence.

Low Server Resource Use Is Okay

Most small businesses, when starting out on the web, only need a small informational website to help build awareness and nurture leads. Further, when first launching a website, traffic will probably be low until the site gains rank on search engines. Because of this, a new or small website will probably not overuse server resources and will do well with a Shared Hosting account. Overuse of server resources can disturb your server neighbors and result in account action or a recommendation to upgrade to a VPS or Dedicated server. 

Root Access Not Needed

Installing WordPress or BoldGrid, or applying basic coding like HTML or CSS does not require root access and can be easily done with the basic setup of a Shared Hosting account. Email, basic security methods like ModSecurity, Sucuri, and SSL certificates also do not require root access and can be applied quickly without needing to have extensive knowledge and know-how. Unless you need root access to install specific software or configurations, Shared Hosting is the perfect start. 

No matter if you’re trying to establish a web presence or refresh an existing website, if you’re a small business or have a small website, Shared Hosting is perfect for you. Without the need to apply advanced configurations or settings, you will be able to quickly and easily set up your email and launch your website. 

Get a Shared Hosting account online today or contact our live sales team either by phone (888-321-4678 (continental US only) +1-757-416-6575 (international)) or by our Sales Chat. 

Like with most industries, as marketing trends and customer needs shift, so will the name of the product or service. Shared hosting, business shared hosting, and business hosting all refer to the same product. That product being a hosting account on a shared server that allows for the easy setup of a quick web presence. A business shared hosting account is also perfect for small to medium-size businesses and individuals with smaller websites. 

Other Shared Hosting Plans

In addition to business hosting or business shared hosting, there are other plans and services that fall under the general shared hosting umbrella. 

Users who have decided to use WordPress to create their website can opt for a WordPress Hosting plan. The WordPress Hosting plan provides the user with space on a server that has been optimized for high performance and security for WordPress. For more advanced users, there are also Reseller Hosting plans, that allow the reselling and managing of hosting space to others. Both the WordPress and Reseller hosting plans are shared hosting plans as they still require users to share server space and resources. 

For most users, as they begin their digital journey, a Business Shared Hosting account is a perfect start. Without the need to apply advanced configurations or settings, you can launch a website quickly and easily. Also, as the business or website grows, you can always upgrade your hosting plan.

Get a Business Shared Hosting account online today or contact our live sales team either by phone (888-321-4678 (continental US only) +1-757-416-6575 (international)) or by our Sales Chat.

PHP Composer comes pre-installed in every InMotion Hosting Shared Hosting plan. That is great news! If you’re thinking about hosting your PHP app with us, we’ve got everything you need to get started.

$ composer -V

$ composer -h

Find out how to…

In this article, GTMetrix will provide us with example data, but you can use whichever measurement tools you prefer.

Fully Loaded Page Time

The fully loaded page time of your site is how many seconds it took to completely render a page. This number is the most important one, and it should be low. Generally, less than 4 seconds is considered good, but you should be shooting for about 2 seconds for a fully loaded page.

Waterfall

If you get a slow loading page (more than 4 seconds fully loaded), you’ll need to start investigating the causes. A “waterfall” feature will show you every file your website calls into action during load time and how long it took to load each file. This data is incredibly helpful in isolating which specific file is the slow culprit.

Creating FTP Logins

If you need to provide access to your files, you can create an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) account. They can then fully download, upload, and modify files on your server. You can even limit the account to a specific folder if necessary. Any FTP logs would identify the username of the person connecting and manipulating files in case you want to track individual accounts.

• How to Create an FTP Account in cPanel
• FTP Getting Started Guide

Creating Database Logins

Providing database access takes a couple of steps but cPanel has tools to help you. First, you must create the username and password, then assign the user to a database. If the user needs to connect remotely you should add their IP address to the server’s firewall. Once their IP address has been added they can connect and manage databases using a third-party client such as Navicat for MySQL, MySQL Workbench, or Heidi SQL.

• Creating a database user and assigning to a database
• Adding an IP address to allow a remote MySQL connection

Creating Email Logins

With Shared Hosting accounts, you can create many email addresses. These custom addresses add a level of professionalism to your email transmissions since they are from the same domain name of your website. Use a client such as Outlook, Thunderbird, or Webmail to send or receive email. You can also use an email account for transmitting emails from a website using SMTP.

• How to Create Email Accounts in cPanel

Create CMS Logins

If you need to provide access to a CMS such as WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal this can be accomplished in the Admin Dashboard of the site. After creating a user account, they can use it to access the site’s admin section. You can limit their access by assigning them to a group and editing the group permissions.

• How to Create a WordPress User in the Dashboard
• Creating a new user in Drupal 8
• How to Create a Joomla Administrator