# iFastHosting

> Find the perfect domain name and cheap hosting packages — NVMe cloud power, free SSL, free migration, 99.9% uptime. Prices in your local currency. iFastHosting sells shared and business web hosting, managed WordPress, a drag-and-drop site builder, cloud VPS, reseller hosting, dedicated servers and domain registration across 25 extensions. Every hosting plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and a free migration.

Plan prices below are monthly starting rates in US dollars, taken from the plan catalogue that seeds our billing system; the price shown at checkout is the one charged. Domain prices are read live per extension and are quoted on each extension's own page rather than here.

## Hosting
- [Fast, Reliable Web Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/web-hosting): Cheap, fast shared web hosting with NVMe storage, free SSL, free migration, unlimited bandwidth and 99.9% uptime. Plans: Starter $2.99/mo, Premium $5.69/mo, Ultimate $8.59/mo.
- [High-Performance Business Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/business-hosting): Business-class hosting with premium bandwidth, SSH access, dedicated resources and priority 24/7 support. Plans: Business Standard $19.99/mo, Business Ultimate $39.99/mo.
- [Managed WordPress Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/wordpress-hosting): Managed WordPress hosting - pre-installed, auto-updates, staging, free SSL and blazing NVMe speed. Plans: WP Starter $3.99/mo, WP Pro $6.99/mo, WP Business $10.99/mo.
- [Drag-and-Drop Website Builder](https://ifasthosting.com/website-builder): Drag-and-drop website builder with beautiful templates, free SSL and hosting included. No coding needed. Plans: Builder Lite $2.49/mo, Builder Pro $4.99/mo.
- [Powerful Cloud VPS Servers](https://ifasthosting.com/vps-hosting): Powerful KVM cloud VPS with guaranteed RAM, NVMe storage, full root access and DDoS protection. Plans: VPS Economy $9.99/mo, VPS Standard $19.99/mo, VPS Advanced $39.99/mo, VPS Ultimate $65.99/mo.
- [Start Your Own Hosting Business](https://ifasthosting.com/reseller-hosting): White-label reseller hosting with unlimited client accounts, private nameservers and overselling enabled. Plans: Reseller Starter $14.99/mo, Reseller Pro $29.99/mo, Reseller Max $59.99/mo.
- [Enterprise Dedicated Servers](https://ifasthosting.com/dedicated-servers): Enterprise dedicated servers with Xeon CPUs, up to 128GB RAM, unmetered bandwidth and full management options. Plans: Dedicated Start $149.99/mo, Dedicated Pro $249.99/mo, Dedicated Max $399.99/mo.
- [Hosting For Agencies](https://ifasthosting.com/agency-hosting): Manage every client site from one place — with the margins, tools and support your agency deserves.
- [Plesk Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/plesk-hosting): Prefer the Plesk control panel? We arrange managed Plesk environments on VPS and dedicated hardware.
- [Secure Web Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/secure-hosting): Security is not an add-on here — firewall, malware scanning, SSL and backups are standard on every plan.

## Applications & Platforms
- [Fast WooCommerce Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/woocommerce-hosting): Sell more with WooCommerce stores that load instantly, stay secure and never miss a sale.
- [Ecommerce Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/ecommerce-hosting): Whatever you sell and whatever platform you choose — hosting built to convert visitors into orders.
- [Powerful Magento Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/magento-hosting): Magento demands muscle — our high-resource plans give your store the power it needs.
- [OpenCart Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/opencart-hosting): A fast, secure home for your OpenCart store — installed in one click, backed by real support.
- [Reliable Drupal Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/drupal-hosting): Enterprise-grade Drupal hosting with the speed, security and stability serious sites demand.
- [CMS Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/cms-hosting): WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or any CMS — one-click installs on hosting that keeps them quick and safe.
- [Laravel Hosting for Developers](https://ifasthosting.com/laravel-hosting): Composer, queues, crons and SSH — everything your Laravel app needs, without DevOps headaches.
- [Modern PHP Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/php-hosting): Every PHP version you need, the extensions you expect, and the speed your code deserves.
- [Node.js Hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/nodejs-hosting): Run Node.js apps, APIs and bots on fast infrastructure with full control when you need it.

## Domains
- [Domain Search](https://ifasthosting.com/domain-search): Find and register your perfect domain name; renews with no hidden fees.
- One page per extension at https://ifasthosting.com/domain/<extension>: .com, .net, .org, .shop, .pk, .co.uk, .uk, .io, .co, .online, .store, .xyz, .site, .app, .dev, .me, .info, .biz, .us, .tech, .cloud, .live, .pro, .club, .website.

## Add-ons
- [SSL Certificates](https://ifasthosting.com/ssl-certificates): Free SSL on every iFastHosting plan — plus premium certificate options for businesses.
- [Mail Filtering](https://ifasthosting.com/mail-filtering): Keep spam, viruses and phishing out of your inbox with layered mail protection.
- [WHMCS Licenses](https://ifasthosting.com/whmcs-license): WHMCS billing automation licenses for resellers — arranged with your reseller hosting.

## Company
- [About iFastHosting](https://ifasthosting.com/about-us): iFastHosting is a global web hosting and domains company — fast NVMe hosting, honest prices in 20 currencies, and real human support.
- [Contact Us](https://ifasthosting.com/contact-us): Get in touch with iFastHosting — email, support tickets and answers around the clock.
- [Customer Reviews](https://ifasthosting.com/reviews): What customers say about iFastHosting — speed, support and honest prices.
- [Careers](https://ifasthosting.com/careers): Join iFastHosting — we look for people who love the web and love helping others succeed on it.
- [Acquisitions](https://ifasthosting.com/acquisitions): Selling your hosting business or client base? iFastHosting offers fair, fast acquisitions.

## Legal
- [Terms of Service](https://ifasthosting.com/terms): The terms that govern your use of iFastHosting services — plain-English and fair.
- [Privacy Policy](https://ifasthosting.com/privacy-policy): How iFastHosting collects, uses and protects your personal information.
- [Refund & Cancellation Policy](https://ifasthosting.com/refund-policy): Our 30-day money-back guarantee explained — what's covered, what isn't, and how to claim.
- [Acceptable Use Policy](https://ifasthosting.com/acceptable-use): The rules that keep the iFastHosting platform fast, safe and fair for everyone.
- [Cookies Policy](https://ifasthosting.com/cookies-policy): How iFastHosting uses cookies — the essential ones, and nothing sneaky.
- [Report Abuse](https://ifasthosting.com/report-abuse): Report spam, phishing, malware or other abuse hosted on the iFastHosting platform.
- [Website Terms of Use](https://ifasthosting.com/website-terms): The terms that govern your use of the iFastHosting website itself.
- [GDPR & Your Data Rights](https://ifasthosting.com/gdpr): Your rights under the UK and EU GDPR and how to exercise them with iFastHosting.
- [Data Processing Agreement](https://ifasthosting.com/data-processing): How iFastHosting processes personal data as your processor, and the sub-processors we use.
- [Data Security](https://ifasthosting.com/data-security): The technical and organisational measures that keep your sites, data and account safe.
- [Anti-Spam Policy](https://ifasthosting.com/anti-spam): Zero tolerance for spam — the rules for sending email from our platform.
- [Copyright & Takedown Policy](https://ifasthosting.com/copyright): How to report copyright infringement and how our notice-and-takedown process works.
- [Service Level Agreement](https://ifasthosting.com/sla): Our 99.9% network uptime commitment and the service credits you can claim.
- [Complaints Procedure](https://ifasthosting.com/complaints): How to raise a complaint, our response times, and how to escalate.
- [Accessibility Statement](https://ifasthosting.com/accessibility): Our commitment to WCAG 2.1 AA and how to report a barrier.
- [Modern Slavery Statement](https://ifasthosting.com/modern-slavery): Our stance and the steps we take to keep modern slavery out of our supply chain.

## More
- Every page of this site as plain text, with the full plan specifications: https://ifasthosting.com/llms-full.txt
- Sitemap: https://ifasthosting.com/sitemap.xml

<!-- KB:START -->
## Knowledgebase
Guides, tutorials and FAQs at https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase — 500 articles across 18 topics. Written by the iFastHosting support team; hosting tutorials describe the StackCP control panel our customers use.

### Getting Started
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started — 26 articles.
- [Eight mistakes people make launching a first website](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/common-mistakes-when-launching-a-first-website): The same handful of mistakes account for most first-launch problems. Here they are, and the simple way to avoid each one.
- [Do I need both a domain and hosting?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/do-i-need-a-domain-and-hosting): Yes. A domain is an address; hosting is what the address points to. A website needs both before it can go live.
- [How long does hosting take to set up?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-long-does-hosting-take-to-set-up): Usually minutes for the account itself — the parts that take longer are a domain transfer or pointing an existing domain at it.
- [How to add a domain to your hosting account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-add-a-domain-to-your-hosting-account): A domain has to exist inside your hosting account before DNS can point at it. Here is where that setting lives and how to use it.
- [How to build a website without writing code](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-build-a-website-without-coding): Not knowing how to code is not the obstacle it used to be. Here are the real options and what each one actually trades off.
- [How to choose a hosting plan you will not outgrow](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-choose-a-hosting-plan): The right plan depends on what your site actually is, not which one has the biggest numbers printed on the pricing page.
- [How to create a staging copy of your site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-create-a-staging-copy-of-your-site): A private copy of your site on a subdomain, so changes and updates can be tested somewhere that is not the live website.
- [How to give a developer access to your hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-give-someone-access-to-your-hosting): Give a developer exactly what they need without handing over your own login — here is what a scoped account actually looks like.
- [How to install WordPress in one click](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-install-wordpress-in-one-click): The fastest way onto WordPress from a fresh hosting account, with no database to create by hand and no files to upload yourself.
- [How to log in to your hosting account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-log-in-to-your-hosting-account): There are two separate logins, and knowing which one you need saves a lot of confusion in your first week.
- [How to point a subdomain at a folder](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-point-a-subdomain-to-a-folder): Creating blog.yourdomain.com or shop.yourdomain.com is a control panel setting, not a DNS change alone. Here is the whole process.
- [How to preview your site before changing DNS](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-preview-a-site-before-dns-changes): Two ways to check a site works before a domain change goes live, so the domain switch is the last step rather than the first.
- [How to read your hosting welcome email](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-read-your-hosting-welcome-email): One email holds nearly everything you need for your first weeks of hosting. Here is what each section actually means.
- [How to put up a holding page while you build](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-set-a-holding-page): A simple page that says something is coming, uploaded once and left alone while the real site gets built behind it.
- [How to set up your first email address](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-set-up-your-first-email-address): Creating a mailbox at your own domain takes a few minutes in the control panel. Here is the whole process, including where to read the mail.
- [How to upload your first website](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-upload-your-first-website): Two ways to get your files onto your hosting account, which folder they belong in, and how to tell the upload actually worked.
- [Shared, VPS or dedicated: which do you actually need?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/shared-vs-vps-vs-dedicated-hosting): Three ways to host a website, one real question underneath all of them: how much of the server do you actually need to yourself?
- [The website launch checklist](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/website-launch-checklist): Everything worth checking before you point a domain at a new site and tell people about it, in the order that actually makes sense.
- [What is a CMS, and do you need one?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/what-is-a-cms): Software that lets you add and edit pages without touching code. Here is what it actually does, and when you can skip it.
- [What is a subdomain?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/what-is-a-subdomain): A prefix added to a domain you already own, letting you run a separate section of your site under the same name.
- [What is an IP address, and does my site need its own?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/what-is-an-ip-address): The numeric address DNS translates your domain into. Most websites share one with other accounts, and that is normal.
- [What is bandwidth and how much do I need?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/what-is-bandwidth-and-how-much-do-i-need): The total data your site sends to visitors each month. Most sites use far less of it than the number on the plan suggests.
- [What is disk space and how much do I need?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/what-is-disk-space-and-how-much-do-i-need): The total storage on your hosting account, shared between your website files, database and email. Most sites need surprisingly little.
- [What is the public_html folder?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/what-is-public-html): It is the one folder on your hosting account that visitors can actually reach. Everything your site shows has to live inside it.
- [What is web hosting, and how does it work?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/what-is-web-hosting): A website is files sitting on a computer that never turns off. Here is what a host actually does and why you need one.
- [What you get with your hosting plan](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/getting-started/what-you-get-with-your-hosting-plan): Every hosting plan bundles the same handful of things together. Here is what each one is actually for.

### WordPress
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress — 43 articles.
- [Do I need managed WordPress hosting?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/do-i-need-managed-wordpress-hosting): It depends on whether you would rather pay for automation or do the maintenance yourself. Both routes end up in the same place.
- [How many WordPress plugins are too many?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-many-plugins-is-too-many): There is no magic number. What matters is what each plugin actually does, not how many are listed on the Plugins page.
- [How to switch WordPress to HTTPS](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-add-an-ssl-certificate-to-wordpress): Issue the certificate, update the site URLs to https, force every visitor onto it, then clean up the mixed content this always leaves behind.
- [How to back up a WordPress site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-back-up-a-wordpress-site): Files and database, together — a backup missing either one is not a backup. Three ways to take one, and how to prove it works.
- [How to change a WordPress site URL](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-change-a-wordpress-site-url): Three ways to change the WordPress site URL, and why a search-and-replace on the database is usually still required afterwards.
- [How to change the WordPress admin username](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-change-the-wordpress-admin-username): WordPress will not let you rename a username directly — create a new administrator account instead, or rename it through the database.
- [How to clean a hacked WordPress site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-clean-a-hacked-wordpress-site): Isolate the site, find every piece of the infection, remove it, close how it got in, then confirm it is actually gone.
- [How to remove a WordPress plugin properly](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-delete-a-wordpress-plugin-properly): Deactivating a plugin leaves its files and often its database tables behind. Here is how to remove one completely.
- [How to disable plugins when you cannot log in](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-disable-wordpress-plugins-without-admin): Rename the plugin folder over FTP, or edit the database directly, when a broken plugin has locked you out of the dashboard itself.
- [How to find the plugin that is slowing your site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-find-a-slow-wordpress-plugin): A methodical way to find out which plugin is actually responsible before you start deactivating things at random.
- [How to recover from a failed WordPress update](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-fix-a-wordpress-update-that-failed): What to do when a WordPress update stalls halfway, leaves a maintenance message stuck on, or breaks the site outright.
- [How to fix mixed content warnings in WordPress](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-fix-mixed-content-in-wordpress): Why a site on HTTPS still triggers a "not fully secure" warning, and how to hunt down and fix every http reference causing it.
- [How to fix a WordPress login redirect loop](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-fix-the-wordpress-login-loop): Submitting the login form just bounces you back to it — usually a URL mismatch, cookie problem, or a plugin, worked through in order.
- [How to fix the WordPress white screen of death](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-fix-the-wordpress-white-screen-of-death): A blank white page with no error message, caused by a plugin, a theme, or a memory limit — and how to work out which one.
- [How to fix WordPress not sending email](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-fix-wordpress-not-sending-email): The built-in mail function WordPress uses by default is unreliable — the fix is an SMTP plugin configured with real mail server credentials.
- [How to fix WordPress permalinks returning 404](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-fix-wordpress-permalinks-returning-404): The home page loads, but every post and page 404s. Almost always a permalinks or .htaccess problem, and almost always fixable in minutes.
- [How to increase the WordPress memory limit](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-increase-the-wordpress-memory-limit): Raise WP_MEMORY_LIMIT in wp-config.php first, then the server-wide PHP limit behind it if the error keeps coming back.
- [How to increase the WordPress maximum upload size](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-increase-the-wordpress-upload-limit): The upload limit shown in Media, Add New actually comes from PHP settings, not WordPress — raise it in your control panel first.
- [How to install WordPress manually](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-install-wordpress-manually): Create a database, upload the files, edit wp-config.php, and run the installer — five steps, no one-click installer required.
- [How to install WordPress on your hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-install-wordpress-on-your-hosting): The one-click route, the manual route, and the handful of setup choices that are annoying to change later.
- [How to limit WordPress login attempts](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-limit-wordpress-login-attempts): WordPress does not limit failed logins by default. Here is how to add a lockout, and what to pair it with for it to actually help.
- [How to migrate WordPress with a plugin](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-migrate-wordpress-with-a-plugin): The simplest way to move a WordPress site between hosts, what its size limits are, and how to confirm it actually worked.
- [How to move WordPress out of a subdirectory](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-move-wordpress-from-subdirectory-to-root): Use the WordPress Address and Site Address split to serve from the root without moving files, or move the files properly if you would rather.
- [How to move WordPress to a new host](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-move-wordpress-to-a-new-host): Copy the files and database across, update the configuration, test before anyone sees it, then switch DNS with the old site still live.
- [How to clean up and optimise the WordPress database](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-optimise-the-wordpress-database): What actually accumulates in a WordPress database over time, and how to clear it out safely before optimising the tables.
- [How to reset a WordPress password](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-reset-a-wordpress-password): Three ways to reset a WordPress password, from the ordinary email link to editing the database directly when nothing else works.
- [How to restore a WordPress backup](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-restore-a-wordpress-backup): Restoring files and database together, whichever way you took the backup, and the checks to run once the site is back.
- [How to replace WP-Cron with a real cron job](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-schedule-wordpress-cron-properly): WP-Cron piggybacks on visitor traffic rather than running on a real schedule. Here is how to replace it with one that does.
- [How to secure a WordPress site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-secure-a-wordpress-site): Updates, strong unique logins, two-factor authentication, a minimal plugin list, and backups that actually restore — in that order of importance.
- [How to set up a WordPress child theme](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-set-up-a-wordpress-child-theme): The small amount of setup that lets you customise a theme without losing every change the next time it updates.
- [How to set up caching on WordPress](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-set-up-wordpress-caching): Page caching turns a rebuilt-every-visit page into a stored copy — how to set it up and avoid caching the parts of a site that must stay live.
- [How to speed up a WordPress site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-speed-up-wordpress): Measure first, then work through caching, images, plugins, PHP version and the database in the order that gives the biggest gain.
- [How to stop WordPress comment spam](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-stop-wordpress-comment-spam): The built-in settings, the anti-spam plugin, and the moderation rules that between them stop nearly all of it.
- [How to update WordPress without breaking your site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-update-wordpress-safely): Back up, update one thing at a time, and check the site immediately — the order that keeps an update from becoming an outage.
- [How to use WP-CLI on your hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-to-use-wp-cli): Manage updates, plugins, users and search-and-replace from the command line over SSH, faster than clicking through the dashboard for the same job.
- [How WordPress auto-updates actually work](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/how-wordpress-auto-updates-work): Minor releases update themselves silently by default. Major releases, themes and plugins do not, unless you tell WordPress otherwise.
- [Is WordPress secure?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/is-wordpress-secure): Core WordPress is actively maintained and reasonably secure. Almost every real compromise comes from something added on top of it.
- [Should you use a WordPress page builder?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/should-i-use-a-page-builder): A drag-and-drop page builder buys visual control and costs some site speed. Whether that trade is worth it depends on who is building the site.
- [What is the wp-content folder?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/what-is-the-wp-content-folder): The one folder in a WordPress install that is entirely yours — themes, plugins and uploads, none of it replaceable by reinstalling core.
- [What is wp-config.php and what is in it?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/what-is-wp-config-php): The one file that connects WordPress to its database and controls a handful of settings nothing else can reach.
- [Why is my WordPress site slow?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/why-is-my-wordpress-site-slow): A handful of causes account for almost every slow WordPress site. Here is what to check, roughly in order of likelihood.
- [WordPress.com vs WordPress.org: the difference that matters](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/wordpress-com-vs-wordpress-org): One is a hosted platform you sign up to. The other is free software you install on hosting of your choice. The gap between them is bigger than it sounds.
- [A monthly WordPress maintenance checklist](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/wordpress/wordpress-maintenance-checklist): The routine checks that keep a WordPress site from quietly accumulating problems, done monthly rather than only when something breaks.

### Email
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email — 33 articles.
- [How many emails can I send per hour?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-many-emails-can-i-send-per-hour): Why sending limits exist on shared hosting mailboxes, and what to do if legitimate mail is being held back by one.
- [How to change an email account password](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-change-an-email-password): How to reset the password on an email account, and why every connected device needs the new one entered afterwards.
- [How to create a catch-all email address](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-create-a-catch-all-email-address): How to make your domain accept mail sent to any address at all, and why most domains are better off without one.
- [How to create an email forwarder](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-create-an-email-forwarder): How to make one email address automatically forward its messages to another, without creating a separate mailbox for it.
- [How to fix "authentication failed" in a mail client](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-fix-email-authentication-failed-errors): What causes a mail client to reject a mailbox's login, checked from the most to the least likely cause.
- [How to fix email you are not receiving](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-fix-email-not-receiving): A step-by-step way to find out why messages sent to your address are not arriving, from DNS to mailbox storage.
- [How to fix email that will not send](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-fix-email-not-sending): The most common reasons an email client refuses to send, checked in the order most likely to find the fault.
- [How to keep email working during a migration](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-keep-email-working-during-a-migration): The sequence that stops email being lost or delayed while a domain and its mailboxes move to a new host.
- [How to migrate mailboxes to a new host](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-migrate-email-to-a-new-host): The order that keeps mail flowing while mailboxes move to a new host: create accounts, copy messages, then switch MX records.
- [How to recover deleted emails](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-recover-deleted-emails): Where a deleted email actually goes before it is unrecoverable, and what to try before assuming it is lost.
- [How to make a website contact form deliver reliably](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-send-email-from-a-website-form): Why contact form emails go missing more often than direct email, and the setup that reliably fixes it.
- [How to set up a DMARC record](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-set-up-a-dmarc-record): How to write and publish a DMARC record, and why every domain should start at policy none before tightening it.
- [How to set up a shared mailbox for a team](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-set-up-a-shared-mailbox): Two ways to give a team a single email address to work from, and which one suits a small team versus a larger one.
- [How to set up an out-of-office autoresponder](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-set-up-an-autoresponder): How to turn on an automatic reply for a mailbox, and the settings that stop it firing more than once per sender.
- [How to set up an SPF record](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-set-up-an-spf-record): How to build, publish and check an SPF record so receiving servers recognise your legitimate mail senders.
- [How to set up DKIM signing](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-set-up-dkim): How to enable DKIM signing for your domain and publish the selector record that lets receiving servers verify it.
- [How to set up your email in Apple Mail](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-set-up-email-in-apple-mail): How to connect a domain mailbox to Apple Mail on macOS, including the settings that most often get typed wrong.
- [How to send and receive your domain email in Gmail](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-set-up-email-in-gmail): How to read and send domain email through Gmail's interface by linking your mailbox as another account, without moving hosting.
- [How to set up your email on an iPhone](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-set-up-email-on-an-iphone): How to add a domain mailbox to the iPhone Mail app so it sends and receives without missing messages.
- [How to set up your email on Android](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-set-up-email-on-android): Step-by-step instructions for adding a domain mailbox to an Android phone through the Gmail app.
- [How to set up your email in Outlook](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-set-up-email-on-outlook): The exact settings and steps for adding a domain mailbox to Outlook on desktop, with IMAP recommended over POP3.
- [How to set up email on your domain](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-set-up-email-on-your-domain): Create a mailbox on your domain in your control panel, then connect it to a mail app using the settings your control panel provides.
- [How to cut down the spam reaching your inbox](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-stop-spam-reaching-your-inbox): The filtering settings and DNS records that between them reduce most of the spam a mailbox receives.
- [How to use webmail](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/how-to-use-webmail): How to open and use the browser-based inbox that comes with every mailbox, without installing a mail app.
- [IMAP or POP3: which should you choose?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/imap-vs-pop3): The difference between the two ways an email app can fetch your mail, and why IMAP is the right default for almost everyone now.
- [Host-provided email or Microsoft 365?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/should-i-use-my-host-for-email-or-microsoft-365): What host-provided email and Microsoft 365 each do well, so you can pick based on what your team actually needs.
- [What are MX records?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/what-are-mx-records): What an MX record does, why it is separate from your website's DNS, and where to find the ones set for your domain.
- [Which email ports should I use?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/what-are-smtp-imap-and-pop-ports): Every port number a mail client asks for, what each one is used for, and which ones to actually choose.
- [SPF, DKIM and DMARC explained](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/what-are-spf-dkim-and-dmarc): Three DNS records that between them answer one question: is this message really from you? Here is what each proves.
- [What is a mailbox quota and what happens when it is full?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/what-is-a-mailbox-quota): What a mailbox quota is, what happens the moment a mailbox reaches it, and how to free up space again.
- [What is email spoofing, and can you prevent it?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/what-is-email-spoofing): How a spoofed email fakes its sender address, why it is possible at all, and the records that make it harder to pull off.
- [Why your emails go to spam, and how to stop it](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/why-are-my-emails-going-to-spam): Every common reason outgoing mail is filtered as spam, ordered from the fixes that matter most to the ones that matter least.
- [What to do if your domain is blacklisted](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/email/why-is-my-email-blacklisted): How to check whether your domain has been blacklisted, what typically causes it, and how to get it removed.

### Domains & DNS
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns — 36 articles.
- [Can I use a domain I bought somewhere else?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/can-i-use-a-domain-i-bought-elsewhere): Yes — a domain registered anywhere can be hosted with us without ever moving its actual registration.
- [Every DNS record type, explained plainly](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/dns-record-types-explained): What each DNS record type actually does, in plain terms, and the handful you will realistically ever need to touch.
- [How long does DNS propagation take?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-long-does-dns-propagation-take): Usually a few hours, occasionally up to 48 — and your own browser is almost always the last thing on earth to catch up.
- [How to add a CNAME record](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-add-a-cname-record): A CNAME points one name at another instead of at an address, and it comes with one hard rule about what else can share its name.
- [How to add a TXT record](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-add-a-txt-record): A TXT record just holds text for another system to read, most often used to prove domain ownership or authorise a mail sender.
- [How to add or edit an A record](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-add-an-a-record): Where to find the A record setting in your DNS zone, what each field means, and how to confirm the change actually took.
- [How to host a second website on one account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-add-an-addon-domain): How one hosting account can run several genuinely separate websites, each with its own folder, domain, and DNS pointing.
- [How to buy a domain someone else already owns](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-buy-a-domain-someone-else-owns): Finding out who holds a domain you want, approaching them properly, and using an escrow service so neither side is trusting the other blindly.
- [How to check which DNS a domain is actually using](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-check-what-dns-a-domain-is-using): How to find out, with certainty rather than a guess, which company actually controls a domain DNS right now.
- [How to choose a domain name](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-choose-a-domain-name): The practical rules that separate a domain name people remember and spell correctly from one that quietly costs you traffic for years.
- [How to delegate a subdomain to another server](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-delegate-a-subdomain): Handing DNS control of one subdomain to a different set of nameservers, while everything else on the domain stays exactly where it is.
- [Why your domain shows the wrong website](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-fix-a-domain-that-shows-the-wrong-site): The short list of causes behind a domain loading someone else site or an old version of your own, checked in the order that finds the answer fastest.
- [How to fix "DNS server not responding"](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-fix-dns-server-not-responding): A browser error that almost always points at your own device or network, not the website you were trying to reach, and how to tell which.
- [How to get an EPP or authorisation code](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-get-an-epp-code): The unique code your current registrar issues to prove you control a domain before it can move anywhere else.
- [How to move a domain between two accounts](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-move-a-domain-between-accounts): Moving a domain from one account to another with the same provider, without breaking the DNS records the site currently depends on.
- [How to park a domain on your account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-park-a-domain): Adding a domain to your account without giving it its own website, so it either mirrors your main site or shows a simple holding page.
- [How to point a domain to your hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-point-a-domain-to-your-hosting): The two ways to connect a domain to a hosting account, when to use each, and how to tell the change has actually taken effect.
- [How to recover a domain that has expired](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-recover-an-expired-domain): What to do at each stage of an expired domain, from a same-day renewal through to paying a redemption fee before it is gone for good.
- [How to renew a domain name](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-renew-a-domain): Renewing before the expiry date is simple; the details worth knowing are auto-renewal, payment failures, and what a late renewal costs.
- [How to redirect one domain to another](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-set-up-a-domain-redirect): Two ways to send one domain to another, and why a proper 301 redirect matters far more than it looks like it should.
- [How to set up a wildcard DNS record](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-set-up-a-wildcard-dns-record): One record that answers for every undefined subdomain of a domain at once, along with the SSL and security trade-offs that come with it.
- [How to transfer a domain to a new registrar](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-transfer-a-domain): The steps to move a domain to a new registrar, the checks to do first, and why the transfer itself never touches your website.
- [How to use external DNS with your hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/how-to-use-third-party-dns): Keeping DNS with a third-party service while your website stays hosted with us, and the one detail that trips people up when doing it.
- [What are nameservers?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/what-are-nameservers): They decide who gets to answer questions about your domain — and changing them hands your whole domain to a different company.
- [What actually happens when a domain expires](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/what-happens-when-a-domain-expires): A domain going past its renewal date is the start of a multi-stage process, not the end of one, and each stage costs more than the last.
- [What is a CAA record?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/what-is-a-caa-record): A record that restricts which certificate authorities are allowed to issue an SSL certificate for your domain at all.
- [What is a domain registrar?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/what-is-a-registrar): The accredited company you register and renew a domain through, which is not always the same company hosting your website.
- [What is a DNS TTL?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/what-is-a-ttl): The number of seconds a DNS answer is allowed to be cached before it has to be checked again, and why it decides how fast a change spreads.
- [What is an AAAA record?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/what-is-an-aaaa-record): The IPv6 equivalent of an A record, mapping a name to a longer-format address so IPv6-only visitors can still reach the site.
- [What is an SRV record?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/what-is-an-srv-record): A record that names the host and port for one specific service on a domain, rather than answering for the whole domain at once.
- [What is DNS, and how does a domain find a server?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/what-is-dns): The system that turns a domain name into the address of a server, and what really happens in the gap between typing and loading.
- [What is a domain transfer lock?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/what-is-domain-locking): A setting that blocks a domain from being moved to another registrar until you deliberately switch it off, separate from the 60-day ICANN rule.
- [How to check DNS propagation properly](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/what-is-domain-propagation-checking): The right way to check whether a DNS change has actually spread, instead of the one method that reliably gives you the wrong answer.
- [What is WHOIS privacy and do I need it?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/what-is-whois-privacy): A service that swaps your personal contact details on the public domain record for the registrar's own, so spam and cold callers reach them instead.
- [Which domain extension should you choose?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/which-domain-extension-should-i-choose): What actually separates .com from a country-code extension or a newer alternative, and the one factor that matters more than any of them.
- [www or no www: does it still matter?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/domains-dns/www-vs-non-www): Neither version is technically better any more; the only real mistake is leaving both live without one properly redirecting to the other.

### SSL & Security
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security — 28 articles.
- [Do I need an SSL certificate?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/do-i-need-an-ssl-certificate): Yes, every site needs one now, including a small brochure site with no forms — here is what changes if you skip it.
- [Free SSL vs paid SSL: what you are buying](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/free-ssl-vs-paid-ssl): The encryption is identical either way. What paying actually buys is a deeper identity check, a warranty, and features free certificates skip.
- [How to add security headers to your site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-add-security-headers): A handful of response headers close off entire categories of attack for very little effort. Here is what each does and how to add them.
- [How to block an IP address from your site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-block-an-ip-address): Two reliable ways to stop a specific address reaching your site, and why blocking one IP rarely stops a determined, repeated attacker for long.
- [How to tell whether your website has been hacked](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-check-if-a-site-is-hacked): The specific, checkable signs of a genuine compromise, and how to tell them apart from an unrelated glitch before you act.
- [How to choose passwords worth having](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-choose-a-strong-password): Length beats complexity, reuse is the actual weakness, and a password manager quietly solves both problems at once.
- [How to fix mixed content warnings](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-fix-mixed-content-warnings): A secure page quietly loading an image, script or stylesheet over plain HTTP. Here is how to find every instance and fix it properly.
- [How to fix "Your connection is not private"](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-fix-your-connection-is-not-private): The warning always means one of three specific things: no certificate, an expired one, or a mismatch. Here is how to tell which and fix it.
- [How to force HTTPS on your website](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-force-https-on-your-site): A certificate being installed does not redirect anyone by itself. Here is the rule that sends every visitor to the secure version automatically.
- [How to keep a site out of search engines](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-hide-your-site-from-search-engines): A request that well-behaved crawlers respect is very different from actually restricting access. Here is which setting does which job.
- [How to install an SSL certificate](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-install-an-ssl-certificate): Free SSL is already included and issues itself automatically. This covers how to confirm it, speed it up, and add a certificate you bought separately.
- [A practical website security checklist](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-keep-a-website-secure-checklist): The handful of specific, checkable things that account for most of what a secure website setup actually needs, in the order to do them.
- [How to password-protect a folder](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-password-protect-a-directory): Add a login prompt in front of a folder in a few minutes, using either your control panel directly or an .htpasswd file underneath it.
- [How to clear a Google "deceptive site" warning](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-remove-a-google-safe-browsing-warning): Cleaning the site is only step one. The warning stays until you request a review and Google confirms the site is genuinely clear.
- [How to renew an SSL certificate](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-renew-an-ssl-certificate): The free certificate on your hosting renews itself. A certificate you bought separately does not, and needs renewing before it expires.
- [How to scan your site for malware](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-scan-a-site-for-malware): The practical ways to actually check your files for malicious code, and how to read the results without missing what matters.
- [How to set safe file permissions](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-set-file-permissions-safely): The two numbers that cover almost every case on a website: 755 for folders, 644 for files, and why 777 always creates a worse problem.
- [How to turn on two-factor authentication](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-set-up-two-factor-authentication): A second, independent check beyond the password, so a leaked or guessed password on its own is no longer enough to get in.
- [How to stop brute-force login attacks](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/how-to-stop-brute-force-attacks): Automated tools quietly try thousands of guesses against your login form. A few layered defences make that approach stop being worthwhile.
- [Is shared hosting secure?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/is-shared-hosting-secure): Yes, accounts are kept isolated from each other. In practice, the biggest risk on shared hosting comes from your own setup, not your neighbours.
- [What a DDoS attack is, and what you can do](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/what-is-a-ddos-attack): A flood of traffic from many sources at once, aimed at overwhelming a site rather than breaking into it. Here is what it actually looks like.
- [What a web application firewall does](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/what-is-a-web-application-firewall): A filter sitting in front of your site that inspects requests and blocks patterns that look like an attack, before they reach your code.
- [What is a wildcard SSL certificate?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/what-is-a-wildcard-ssl-certificate): One certificate that covers a domain and every first-level subdomain under it, instead of issuing and managing one for each.
- [What an SSL certificate actually does](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/what-is-an-ssl-certificate): The padlock explained plainly: what a certificate actually verifies, what it encrypts, and the questions it was never built to answer.
- [What is HSTS?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/what-is-hsts): A header that tells browsers to never even attempt the insecure version of your site again, closing a gap a redirect alone leaves open.
- [How phishing works and how to report it](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/what-is-phishing-and-how-to-report-it): A convincing copy of something you already trust, built to make you act before you think. Here is how it works and where to report it.
- [What to do first if your website is hacked](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/what-to-do-if-your-website-is-hacked): A calm, ordered checklist for the first hour: contain it, change every credential, restore clean, then find how it got in.
- [Why does my site still say "Not secure"?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ssl-security/why-does-my-ssl-say-not-secure): A certificate can be installed correctly and the warning can still appear — usually for one of a handful of specific, fixable reasons.

### Control Panel
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel — 26 articles.
- [A tour of your hosting control panel](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/a-tour-of-your-hosting-control-panel): The main sections you will find in your control panel and roughly what lives in each one.
- [Can I get root access on shared hosting?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/can-i-get-root-access-on-shared-hosting): No, shared hosting is a server shared between many customers, so nobody gets root on it.
- [How to add a redirect without editing files](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-add-a-redirect-in-the-control-panel): Sending visitors from one URL to another using your control panel's redirect tool instead of editing a file.
- [How to change your control panel password](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-change-your-control-panel-password): In most cases the panel opens via your client area login, so that password is the one to change.
- [How to change your PHP version](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-change-your-php-version): Switching the PHP version your account runs, and what to test straight afterwards.
- [How to check your account resource usage](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-check-your-resource-usage): Finding your current disk space, bandwidth and usage figures, and what to do when one is close to its limit.
- [How to create a custom 404 page](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-create-a-custom-error-page): Replacing the default blank error page with one that helps a lost visitor find their way back.
- [How to create a database in your control panel](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-create-a-database-in-the-control-panel): Creating a database and a database user, and where to find the connection details afterwards.
- [How to create an FTP account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-create-an-ftp-account): Creating login details for an FTP client and connecting to your hosting account with them.
- [How to turn directory listings on or off](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-enable-directory-browsing): What causes a folder to show a bare file listing, and how to turn that behaviour on or off deliberately.
- [How to get into your hosting control panel](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-find-your-control-panel): Where to click from your account to reach StackCP, and what to check if the link is not where you expect.
- [How do I find my server IP address?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-find-your-server-ip-address): Where your account's IP address is shown in the control panel, and the couple of situations where you actually need it.
- [How to install an application in one click](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-install-an-application-in-one-click): Using the app installer in your control panel to put WordPress or another application onto your hosting in minutes.
- [How to manage DNS records in your control panel](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-manage-dns-in-the-control-panel): Adding and editing the DNS records for a domain that uses your hosting account's nameservers.
- [How to manage SSL certificates in your control panel](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-manage-ssl-in-the-control-panel): Checking the SSL certificate on a domain, and what to do if one needs installing or renewing.
- [How to create and manage subdomains](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-manage-subdomains): Creating a subdomain, pointing it at the right folder, and cleaning it up again later.
- [How to restore a single file from a backup](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-restore-a-file-from-a-backup): Getting back one deleted or broken file without touching anything else on the site.
- [How to change which page loads first](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-set-a-default-index-page): How a folder decides which file to show first, and how to change that order if you need to.
- [How to set up a cron job](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-set-up-a-cron-job): Scheduling a task to run automatically, and how to read the five-field cron syntax that controls when.
- [How to stop other sites hotlinking your images](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-set-up-hotlink-protection): Stopping other websites from loading your images directly and using up your bandwidth to do it.
- [How to use phpMyAdmin](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-use-phpmyadmin): Opening phpMyAdmin from your control panel and using it to browse, edit, import and export a database.
- [How to use SSH on a hosting account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-use-ssh-on-shared-hosting): What SSH access on a shared hosting account actually lets you do, and how to turn it on and connect.
- [How to use the file manager](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-use-the-file-manager): Uploading, editing and setting permissions on your website files without needing FTP.
- [How to see how many visitors your site gets](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-view-website-statistics): Where basic visitor numbers live in your control panel, and why most site owners add analytics on top.
- [How to read your website error logs](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/how-to-view-your-error-logs): Finding the error log for your site and making sense of the lines it writes.
- [What control panel do I get with my hosting?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/control-panel/what-is-stackcp): StackCP, provided through our hosting platform partner 20i, and reached from inside your client area.

### Databases & MySQL
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases — 24 articles.
- [How many databases can I create?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-many-databases-can-i-create): It depends on your plan, and the number is shown in your control panel rather than fixed across every account.
- [How to back up a database on a schedule](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-back-up-a-database-automatically): A scheduled export you never have to remember to run is worth more than the best manual backup habit.
- [How to change a database character set or collation](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-change-a-database-collation): Changing the database default does not touch existing tables, which is the part that catches people out.
- [How to connect an application to MySQL](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-connect-an-app-to-mysql): Every MySQL connection, in any language, comes down to the same four values — here is where to find them and how to use them.
- [How to check how big your database is](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-count-your-database-size): Your control panel and phpMyAdmin both show it directly, and a short query breaks it down table by table.
- [How to create a MySQL database and user](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-create-a-mysql-database-and-user): Every application needs a database, a user, and that user attached to the database — here is the order to do it in.
- [How to delete a database without breaking a site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-delete-a-database-safely): Three checks before you delete a database, because there is nothing to undo it with afterwards.
- [How to export a database](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-export-a-database): Turn a live database into a single portable SQL file, ready to back up, move, or hand to a developer.
- [How to find the query slowing your site down](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-find-a-slow-database-query): A slow site is usually a slow query wearing a disguise — here is how to catch it in the act.
- [How to fix a "too many connections" error](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-fix-too-many-connections): The database has a limit on simultaneous connections, and something is holding on to more of them than it should.
- [How to fix "unknown database" errors](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-fix-unknown-database-errors): The database name your application is asking for does not exist, at least not under that exact name, on that server.
- [How to grant a user access to a database](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-grant-database-privileges): A database user with no privileges cannot do anything, and one with too many is a risk you do not need to take.
- [How to import a database with phpMyAdmin](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-import-a-database-with-phpmyadmin): Point phpMyAdmin at a SQL file and it rebuilds the database from it — provided the file is small enough for a single upload.
- [How to import a database too large for phpMyAdmin](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-import-a-large-database): A file too big for a browser upload still has three practical ways in — compression, splitting, or the command line.
- [How to move a database to a new server](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-move-a-database-to-a-new-server): An export, a transfer, an import, and a small set of connection details to update once it lands.
- [How to optimise a MySQL database](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-optimise-a-mysql-database): OPTIMIZE TABLE reclaims space and refreshes statistics — but it behaves differently depending on the storage engine underneath.
- [How to repair a corrupted MySQL table](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-repair-a-mysql-table): A corrupted table has a specific fix, and it is different depending on whether the table is MyISAM or InnoDB.
- [How to reset a database user password](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-reset-a-database-password): Resetting the password is the easy part — updating every application that still has the old one saved is the part people forget.
- [How to search and replace inside a database](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/how-to-search-and-replace-in-a-database): A plain find-and-replace can silently corrupt serialized data — here is how to do it without breaking the site.
- [MySQL and MariaDB: what is the difference?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/mysql-vs-mariadb): Two databases that speak the same SQL and the same connection protocol, with a history and a licensing model that pulled them apart.
- [What is a database table prefix?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/what-is-a-database-prefix): A short string in front of every table name, mainly so more than one application can share the same database.
- [Why is my database host "localhost"?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/what-is-localhost-as-a-database-host): It means "this same machine" — not a placeholder, and not something to change unless you actually need to.
- [What SQL injection is, and how sites get hit](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/what-is-sql-injection): A decades-old vulnerability that still appears in new code, and the small set of habits that reliably prevent it.
- [What is utf8mb4 and why does it matter?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/databases/what-is-utf8mb4): MySQL called something utf8 that was not quite real UTF-8, and utf8mb4 is the character set that actually is.

### PHP & Development
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development — 28 articles.
- [How to check which PHP version your site uses](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-check-your-php-version): A one-line PHP script and the PHP settings screen in your control panel both show the exact version your site runs on.
- [How to call an external API from PHP](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-connect-to-an-api-from-php): cURL, an authentication header and a decoded JSON response — the three parts of calling any external API from a PHP script.
- [How to debug a blank white page in PHP](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-debug-a-white-page-in-php): A white screen means PHP hit an error and showed nothing — here is how to make it show you exactly what happened and where.
- [How to deploy a Laravel application](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-deploy-a-laravel-app): Point the document root at Laravel's public folder, set up .env, run migrations, and cache the config — what a Laravel deploy needs.
- [How to enable a PHP extension](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-enable-a-php-extension): Most PHP extensions are a checkbox away in your control panel — here is where to find it and what to do when one is missing.
- [How to get PHP dates and timezones right](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-handle-timezones-in-php): Setting the right timezone in php.ini, and the one habit — storing everything in UTC — that stops multi-timezone dates going wrong.
- [How to increase PHP max execution time](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-increase-php-max-execution-time): Where max_execution_time lives, how to raise it without root access, and the point at which a longer limit stops being the right answer.
- [How to increase the PHP memory limit](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-increase-php-memory-limit): Where memory_limit is set, how to raise it safely, and why a higher number is not always the actual fix for an exhausted-memory error.
- [How to increase the PHP upload file size](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-increase-php-upload-file-size): Two directives control upload size, not one — miss the second and a bigger upload_max_filesize changes nothing at all.
- [How to read a PHP error log](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-read-a-php-error-log): The error log names the exact file and line that failed — here is where to find it and how to read what it is telling you.
- [How to run a Node.js application on your hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-run-a-node-js-app): Node needs a long-running process that shared hosting cannot give it — here is what that means and where a Node app actually belongs.
- [How to run a PHP script on a schedule](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-schedule-a-php-script): Cron runs a PHP script on a schedule with no browser involved — here is the five-field syntax and how to check a run actually worked.
- [How to secure a PHP application](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-secure-a-php-application): The handful of defences that stop almost every real attack on a PHP application, and the reasoning behind each one.
- [How to send email from PHP reliably](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-send-email-from-php): mail() sends, but it rarely authenticates — here is how to send through SMTP instead so the message actually reaches the inbox.
- [How to set environment variables on your hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-set-an-environment-variable): Without root access, environment variables come from a control panel screen where one exists, or from a .env file your app loads itself.
- [How to set up a staging environment](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-set-up-a-staging-environment): A subdomain, its own database, and a safe way to copy data across — what a staging environment needs before you can trust it.
- [How to deploy your website from Git](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-set-up-git-deployment): Adding SSH keys, connecting a remote and choosing pull-based or push-to-deploy — what a Git deployment setup needs on hosting.
- [How to turn PHP error display on while you debug](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-turn-on-php-error-display): A short-term switch that shows errors on the page while you debug, and must be turned off again before anyone else sees the site.
- [How to upgrade PHP without breaking your site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-upgrade-php-safely): Check compatibility, test on staging, then switch the live version over — the order that keeps a PHP upgrade from taking your site down.
- [How to use Composer on shared hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-use-composer-on-shared-hosting): Composer runs fine on shared hosting over SSH — here is how to install it, run it, and keep dependencies out of the public folder.
- [How to use .htaccess on your hosting account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-use-htaccess): One file that controls redirects, rewrites and access rules for a whole folder — and one typo in it that can take the site offline.
- [How to deploy your website with rsync](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-use-rsync-to-deploy): The rsync flags that matter, a dry run before the real one, and how to stop it overwriting files it should have left alone.
- [How to set up SSH keys for your hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/how-to-use-ssh-keys): Generate a key pair, add the public half to your hosting account, and connect over SSH without a password from then on.
- [Ten .htaccess rules worth knowing](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/htaccess-rules-worth-knowing): Ten .htaccess rules that come up again and again, from forcing HTTPS to blocking hotlinking, with working syntax for each one.
- [What causes a 500 error in a PHP script?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/what-is-a-500-error-in-php): PHP hit a problem it could not recover from — usually a broken .htaccess, a fatal error in the code, or a limit it ran straight into.
- [What is OPcache and should it be switched on?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/what-is-opcache): OPcache keeps compiled PHP in memory instead of recompiling it on every request, and there is no good reason to leave it switched off.
- [What is PHP-FPM and why does it matter?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/what-is-php-fpm): The process manager that runs PHP behind most modern hosting stacks, and the reason your host almost certainly already uses it.
- [Which PHP version should I be running?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/php-development/which-php-version-should-i-use): Run the newest PHP version your application supports and that still receives security updates — rarely the oldest one that merely still works.

### Migrations & Transfers
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations — 22 articles.
- [Do I need to tell Google I changed hosts?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/do-i-need-to-tell-google-i-moved-host): No, not for a plain host change with the same URLs — there is genuinely nothing for Google to be told.
- [How long does a website migration take?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-long-does-a-website-migration-take): A few hours to copy and test, then about a week of overlap while DNS finishes catching up everywhere.
- [How to copy a site to a subdomain for testing](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-copy-a-site-to-a-subdomain): A subdomain copy gives you a real, public URL to test changes on without touching the live site at all.
- [How to keep your URLs working after a move](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-keep-urls-working-after-a-move): Every URL that stops working after a move is a link, bookmark or search result quietly turning into a dead end.
- [How to migrate just the database](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-migrate-a-database-only): Export, create an empty database on the new server, import, then point the application at it — the files do not need to move at all.
- [How to migrate a static HTML site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-migrate-a-static-html-site): No database, no plugins, no configuration file — a static site is the easiest migration there is, if you still test before switching DNS.
- [How to migrate a website to new hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-migrate-a-website-to-new-hosting): Copy first, test second, switch DNS last. Get that order right and a migration is boring — which is exactly what you want.
- [How to migrate a WooCommerce store](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-migrate-a-woocommerce-store): A store keeps taking orders while you migrate, so the real challenge is not losing any of them during the handover.
- [How to move off a hosted website builder](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-migrate-from-a-website-builder): Most website builders do not export a working site, so leaving one is closer to a careful rebuild than a straightforward copy.
- [How to migrate a site from a cPanel host](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-migrate-from-cpanel): Getting the files and database out of cPanel is the easy part — the order you copy, test and switch DNS in is what actually protects you.
- [How to migrate a very large website](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-migrate-large-sites): The same order of operations applies, just stretched over more time and with a few extra tools to move that much data cleanly.
- [How to migrate a website with no downtime](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-migrate-without-downtime): Zero downtime is not a special technique — it is what happens automatically when the steps are done in the right order.
- [How to move a website to a new domain](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-move-a-site-to-a-new-domain): A domain change is a bigger job than a host change, because every URL changes and each old one needs a redirect to its replacement.
- [How to pick the right time to migrate](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-plan-a-migration-window): The best migration window is the quietest one you have, with enough slack afterwards that a surprise does not become a crisis.
- [How to roll back a migration that went wrong](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-roll-back-a-failed-migration): Rolling back is simple if the old hosting is still running, which is exactly why you should never cancel it early.
- [How to test a migrated site before going live](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-test-a-site-before-going-live): The whole point of testing before DNS switches is that mistakes are free to find and free to fix while nobody else can see them.
- [How to preview a site with your hosts file](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/how-to-use-a-hosts-file-to-preview-a-site): One edit on your own computer lets you load the new server privately while every other visitor keeps seeing the old one.
- [Is website migration free?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/is-website-migration-free): Yes — website migration is included free with our hosting plans, with no separate charge for the move itself.
- [The website migration checklist](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/website-migration-checklist): Every task a website move involves, grouped into before, during, on switch day, and the week after.
- [The seven things that go wrong in migrations](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/what-could-go-wrong-in-a-migration): Almost every migration horror story traces back to one of a small, predictable set of causes.
- [What to check after a migration](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/what-to-do-after-a-migration): Switching DNS is the middle of a migration, not the end — the week that follows is where the real risks actually surface.
- [Will changing host hurt my search rankings?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/migrations/will-i-lose-seo-when-i-change-host): Not on its own — search engines rank URLs and content, and a clean migration changes neither.

### Speed & Performance
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance — 28 articles.
- [Is a CDN worth it for a small website?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/does-a-cdn-help-a-small-site): Usually yes to turn one on, but the honest answer depends on how spread out your actual visitors are.
- [Does hosting actually affect site speed?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/does-hosting-affect-site-speed): Yes, for the server response part specifically, but it explains far less of a slow page than most people assume.
- [How to cache a site that changes constantly](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-cache-a-dynamic-site): How to get the benefits of caching on a site that has logins, carts or content updating constantly.
- [How to compress images for the web](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-compress-images-for-the-web): How to get images down to a sensible size for the web without the loss of quality being visible.
- [How to enable compression on your site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-enable-gzip-or-brotli-compression): How to turn on text compression for your site, and how to check it is actually being applied afterwards.
- [How to read a waterfall chart](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-find-what-is-slowing-a-page-down): What every bar, gap and colour in a waterfall chart actually means, and how to use it to find a real cause.
- [How to fix Cumulative Layout Shift](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-fix-cumulative-layout-shift): Why pages jump around as they load, and how to reserve space in advance so they stop doing it.
- [How to survive a traffic spike](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-handle-a-traffic-spike): What actually breaks first when traffic surges, and the preparation that matters more than reacting in the moment.
- [How to improve Largest Contentful Paint](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-improve-largest-contentful-paint): How to find the specific element dragging down your LCP score, and the fixes that actually move it.
- [How to lazy-load images](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-lazy-load-images): How native lazy-loading works, and the one image on every page that should never use it.
- [How to minify CSS and JavaScript](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-minify-css-and-javascript): How minification actually reduces file size, and how to test for the breakage it occasionally causes.
- [How to monitor your website uptime](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-monitor-website-uptime): How uptime monitoring actually works, and what to check first the moment an alert arrives.
- [How to stop web fonts slowing your page](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-optimise-fonts): How a web font ends up delaying the page or shifting its layout, and the specific settings that fix each cause.
- [How to reduce database load on a busy site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-reduce-database-load): How to find what is actually straining the database, and the maintenance most busy sites are quietly overdue for.
- [How to reduce the number of requests a page makes](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-reduce-http-requests): Why every extra file a page loads adds delay, and how to cut the number down without changing how the page looks.
- [How to set browser caching headers](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-set-browser-caching-headers): How to tell a browser what it can keep and for how long, so a repeat visit does not re-download everything.
- [How to speed up a slow WordPress admin](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-speed-up-a-slow-admin-area): Why the admin area is often slower than the site itself, and the plugins usually responsible for it.
- [How to speed up a WooCommerce store](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-speed-up-a-woocommerce-store): Where a WooCommerce store actually loses its speed, and why the fix is different for catalogue pages and the checkout.
- [How to test your website speed properly](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-test-your-website-speed): How to run a speed test that gives you a real answer, and the common mistakes that produce a misleading one.
- [How to serve WebP images](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/how-to-use-webp-images): How WebP compares to older image formats, and how to add a fallback for the rare browser that needs one.
- [NVMe and SSD storage: what the difference means](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/nvme-vs-ssd-hosting): What actually differs between NVMe and standard SSD storage, and which part of a hosting request it actually affects.
- [Core Web Vitals, explained without the jargon](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/what-are-core-web-vitals): What LCP, CLS and INP actually measure, why Google picked these three, and the published thresholds for each.
- [What a CDN does, and when you need one](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/what-is-a-cdn): What a content delivery network actually does, and the honest answer to whether your site needs one.
- [How page caching works](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/what-is-page-caching): Why rebuilding a page from scratch on every visit is expensive, and what caching actually does instead.
- [What is server response time, and what is good?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/what-is-server-response-time): What the server is actually doing during that measurement, and how it differs from the total time a page takes to load.
- [What is TTFB and why does mine look high?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/what-is-ttfb): What the wait before the first byte actually measures, and the short list of things that usually cause it.
- [How to tell when you have outgrown your plan](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/when-to-upgrade-your-hosting-plan): The real signals that a plan is genuinely undersized, as opposed to a page that just needs optimising first.
- [Why your website is slow, and how to find out](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/performance/why-is-my-website-slow): A way to work out whether your site is slow because of the server, the page itself, or the network in between.

### Backups & Recovery
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups — 20 articles.
- [Does my host back up my site for me?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/do-you-back-up-my-site-for-me): Often, in some form — but the specifics vary by plan and are worth confirming rather than assuming, and a copy of your own is still worth keeping.
- [How long are backups kept?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-long-are-backups-kept): It depends on the plan and can change over time — check the client area or ask support, and keep your own copy regardless.
- [How often should I back up my website?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-often-should-i-back-up-my-site): Match the frequency to how much work a lost day would cost you — a shop needs daily, a brochure site can often go longer.
- [How to automate your website backups](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-automate-website-backups): A backup you have to remember to run by hand eventually does not get run — here are three ways to automate it instead.
- [How to take a backup before any risky change](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-back-up-a-site-before-an-update): Before any update, plugin change, or risky edit, take one quick manual backup — it only has to undo this one change.
- [How to back up your email](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-back-up-email): Email lives on a different system to your website, so it needs its own backup — here is how with an ordinary email client.
- [How to back up your website](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-back-up-your-website): Files and database, taken together, kept somewhere other than the account they protect — here are three ways to manage both.
- [How to download a full backup of your account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-download-a-full-account-backup): Generate the archive in your control panel, then pull the whole file off the account with FTP or SFTP rather than a browser tab.
- [How to move backups off your hosting account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-move-backups-off-your-server): Having a backup and having an off-site backup are two different things — here is how to actually achieve the second one.
- [How to recover a website you deleted](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-recover-a-deleted-website): Stop, work out exactly what is gone, then check for a backup before touching anything else — order matters here.
- [How to recover a site hit by ransomware](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-recover-from-ransomware-on-a-website): Isolate the site, restore from a backup taken before the compromise, rotate every credential, and fix the entry point before you bring it back online.
- [How to restore a database from a backup](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-restore-a-database-backup): The database half of a restore has its own tools and its own common errors — here is how to do it properly.
- [How to restore one file without restoring everything](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-restore-a-single-file): One missing or broken file rarely needs a full restore — pull that single file out of the archive instead.
- [How to roll a site back to an earlier date](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-restore-a-site-to-an-earlier-date): Rolling back is a deliberate restore to a specific date, and everything created after that date is lost the moment you commit to it.
- [How to restore a website from a backup](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-restore-a-website-backup): A restore overwrites the live site with the backup, so do it in the right order — here is what that order is.
- [How to test that your backup actually works](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/how-to-test-that-a-backup-works): An untested backup is a belief rather than a safeguard — here is how to turn it into a fact you can rely on.
- [A disaster recovery plan for a small website](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/what-is-a-disaster-recovery-plan): Most small sites have a backup, but no plan for actually using it — write the decisions down before you need them, not during.
- [The 3-2-1 backup rule, applied to websites](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/what-is-the-3-2-1-backup-rule): Three copies, on two kinds of storage, with one of them off-site — a decades-old backup rule that maps neatly onto a website.
- [What should a website backup include?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/what-should-a-website-backup-include): A full backup is your files and your entire database taken together, and here is exactly what belongs in each half.
- [Where to keep your backups](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/backups/where-should-i-store-backups): The default place a backup ends up is usually the one place it should not stay — here are the realistic alternatives.

### Errors & Troubleshooting
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting — 44 articles.
- [How to fix "Error establishing a database connection"](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/error-establishing-a-database-connection): A blank page with one line of text, and five possible causes. Here is how to tell which one you have, in the order worth checking.
- [How to clear your browser cache properly](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-clear-your-browser-cache): Support will often ask for this first, because a stale cached copy of a page is a surprisingly common cause of a fault that has already been fixed.
- [How to fix a 403 Forbidden error](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-403-forbidden-error): The server saw your request and refused it on purpose — here is how to find out which rule is doing the refusing.
- [How to fix a 404 Not Found error](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-404-not-found-error): The server looked and found nothing there — here is how to work out whether the page moved, was deleted, or was never really at that address.
- [How to fix a 500 internal server error](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-500-internal-server-error): The least informative error on the web. The real message is always in a log — here is how to find it and what it usually says.
- [How to fix a 502 Bad Gateway error](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-502-bad-gateway-error): One server passed your request to another and got back garbage — here is how to work out which of the two is actually at fault.
- [How to fix a 503 Service Unavailable error](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-503-service-unavailable-error): The server is telling you it is temporarily unable to cope — here is how to tell a stuck maintenance flag from genuine overload.
- [How to fix a 504 Gateway Timeout](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-504-gateway-timeout): Something upstream took too long to answer and the gateway gave up waiting — here is how to find exactly what was slow.
- [How to fix a broken .htaccess file](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-corrupted-htaccess): Apache reads this file on every single request, so one invalid line breaks the whole site the moment it is saved.
- [How to fix a CORS error](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-cors-error): The browser blocked the request on purpose, as designed — here is how to tell which side actually needs to grant permission.
- [How to fix a contact form that does nothing](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-form-that-does-not-submit): Nothing happens when the button is clicked, and the failure could be sitting in the browser, the server, or the email step after both.
- [How to fix a site redirecting to spam](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-hacked-redirect): Visitors landing on adverts or a strange site instead of yours almost always means injected code somewhere, not a lost or destroyed site.
- [How to fix a mixed content console error](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-mixed-content-error): Your page is secure but one thing on it is not, and the browser is refusing to pretend otherwise — here is how to find that one thing.
- [How to fix a PHP parse or syntax error](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-parse-error): PHP could not even read the file, let alone run it — here is how to use the exact line it names to find the real mistake.
- [How to trace and fix a redirect loop](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-redirect-loop): Two redirects are fighting over the same request, and the browser is caught between them — here is how to work out which one is wrong.
- [Why your site shows a list of files](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-site-showing-directory-listing): A plain list of filenames where your homepage should be means the server has nothing to show instead — here is the fix.
- [Why your browser is showing raw PHP code](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-site-showing-php-code): Your page never rendered because the server handed out the raw source code instead of running it — here is why that happens.
- [Why your site still shows the old version](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-site-stuck-on-an-old-version): The change genuinely saved. Something between the server and your screen is still handing out a copy made before it happened.
- [Why your site works with www but not without](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-site-that-works-on-www-only): To a browser, www.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com are two different addresses unless something explicitly ties them together.
- [How to debug a blank white page](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-a-white-screen-with-no-error): Nothing on the page at all, not even an error — here is how to make the failure describe itself instead of hiding.
- [What to do if you see "Account Suspended"](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-account-suspended-page): Your files and data are still there — a suspension is a switch, not a deletion. Here is what causes it and how to get it lifted.
- [How to fix a connection timed out error](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-connection-timed-out): The domain resolved fine — something between you and the server simply never answered in time. Here is how to find where.
- [How to fix a site that loads without styling](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-css-not-loading): The page itself loaded fine — it is the stylesheet that failed, and the browser network tab will show you exactly why.
- [How to fix ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-err-connection-refused): Nothing answered on the other end at all — here is how to tell whether that is the server, the address, or something on your own network.
- [How to fix ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-err-name-not-resolved): Your browser could not turn the domain name into an address at all — here is how to work out why DNS has nothing to give it.
- [How to fix ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-err-too-many-redirects): Your browser gave up after looping between the same handful of URLs — here is how to find which one is sending you back.
- [How to fix uploads that keep failing](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-file-upload-failures): A stuck progress bar or a rejected file could be five different things — here is how to work out which one you actually have.
- [How to fix "headers already sent"](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-headers-already-sent): PHP tried to send a header after the page had already started printing content — here is how to find exactly where that content began.
- [How to fix images that will not load](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-images-not-loading): A page full of broken image icons could be a wrong path, a permission, or a blocked request — here is how to tell them apart.
- [How to fix an "Index of /" page](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-index-of-page-instead-of-website): A bare list of files and folders is what a server shows when it cannot find an index file — here is why that happens and the fix.
- [How to fix "maximum execution time exceeded"](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-maximum-execution-time-exceeded): A script ran for longer than PHP allows and was stopped mid-task — here is how to give it more time, or find out why it needed it.
- [How to fix "allowed memory size exhausted"](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-memory-exhausted-errors): PHP hit its memory ceiling and stopped rather than risk taking the whole server down with it — here is what to do about it.
- [How to fix a site that breaks only on mobile](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-mobile-only-display-problems): Working on a laptop and broken on a phone is a specific, common pattern with a small set of specific, common causes.
- [How to fix "permission denied" errors](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-permission-denied-errors): The server is doing exactly what it should — refusing a file it has not been given the right access to. Here is how to grant it correctly.
- [How to fix "session expired" errors](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-session-expired-errors): Somewhere between one page and the next, the server stopped recognising you as logged in — here is why that happens and how to stop it.
- [How to diagnose a slow first byte](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-slow-first-byte): Time to first byte measures how long the server thinks before it answers at all, before a single image or line of CSS is even requested.
- [How to fix "This site can't be reached"](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-fix-this-site-cant-be-reached): One heading covers several completely different faults — here is how the small print underneath tells you which one you actually have.
- [How to put a site into maintenance mode](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-put-a-site-into-maintenance-mode): A holding page tells visitors you are working on it, rather than leaving them staring at a half-finished change or an error mid-update.
- [How to read a server error log](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-read-a-server-error-log): One log entry usually says more than an hour of guessing — here is where to find it and how to read what it is telling you.
- [How to report a problem so it gets fixed fast](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-report-a-problem-to-support): The gap between a ticket solved in one reply and one that takes five is almost always down to five specific pieces of detail.
- [How to tell if your site is down for everyone](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-tell-if-a-site-is-down-for-everyone): A site that looks down to you might only be down for you — here is how to check from outside your own network before assuming the worst.
- [How to troubleshoot any website problem](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/how-to-troubleshoot-any-website-problem): The specific error changes every time, but the method for tracking it down barely does. Here is that method, laid out in order.
- [What does a 500 error actually mean?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/what-does-a-500-error-actually-mean): It means the server tried, failed, and chose not to tell you why in public — the real reason is written to a log only you can read.
- [Why does my site work for me but not for others?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/errors-troubleshooting/why-does-my-site-work-for-me-but-not-others): If it loads for you and not for someone else, the site is not broken in general — something between the two of you is different.

### VPS & Servers
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers — 30 articles.
- [The Linux commands you will actually use](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/essential-linux-commands): The commands that come up constantly on a real VPS, grouped by what you are actually trying to do rather than listed alphabetically.
- [How much RAM does my VPS need?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-much-ram-does-my-vps-need): It depends what is running, but free -h on an existing server and a look at what each extra service costs gets you a real answer fast.
- [How to add swap space to a VPS](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-add-swap-space): Creating a swap file with fallocate and mkswap, making it permanent in fstab, and why swap is a cushion rather than a substitute for RAM.
- [How to check whether your server is performing](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-benchmark-a-server): Measuring your own server with sysbench, dd and iperf3, and why comparing today against last month matters more than any single number.
- [How to connect to your VPS over SSH](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-connect-to-a-vps-over-ssh): SSH is how you control a VPS from the command line, and setting it up properly the first time saves you a lot of trouble later.
- [How to create a non-root sudo user](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-create-a-sudo-user): Why root should not be your daily account, and the exact commands to create a proper sudo user in its place on any major distribution.
- [What to do when you are locked out of your VPS](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-fix-a-vps-you-are-locked-out-of): The browser-based console gets you back in even when SSH will not, and then the same handful of causes cover almost every lockout.
- [How to install a control panel on a VPS](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-install-a-control-panel-on-a-vps): What a control panel actually buys you on a VPS, the main options, and why it has to go on a genuinely clean, freshly built server.
- [How to install a LAMP stack](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-install-a-lamp-stack): Installing Linux, Apache, MySQL/MariaDB and PHP together on a fresh VPS, and confirming each piece actually talks to the others.
- [How to install Nginx or Apache](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-install-a-web-server): Installing Nginx or Apache on your VPS, checking it serves a page, and where each one keeps its site configuration afterwards.
- [How to install a free SSL certificate on a VPS](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-install-lets-encrypt-on-a-vps): Installing a free Let’s Encrypt certificate with certbot, and making sure it actually renews itself before it expires.
- [How to see what is using your server resources](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-monitor-server-resources): The commands that show you exactly what is consuming CPU, memory and disk on a VPS, and how to identify the process responsible.
- [How to move from shared hosting to a VPS](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-move-from-shared-hosting-to-a-vps): Building the new server first and testing it privately before you touch DNS is what keeps this move from causing any visible downtime.
- [How to read Linux server logs](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-read-linux-server-logs): Where Linux keeps its logs, the commands to actually read them, and how to filter thousands of lines down to the one that matters.
- [How to restart services safely](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-restart-services-on-a-server): The right systemctl commands to restart or reload a Linux service, and why checking its status straight afterwards is not optional.
- [How to secure a new Linux server](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-secure-a-new-linux-server): The concrete steps that actually matter for securing a fresh Linux server, in the order that keeps you from locking yourself out.
- [How to set your server hostname and rDNS](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-set-a-server-hostname): Setting the hostname is one command; reverse DNS has to be set by whoever owns the IP address, which for a VPS means asking your host.
- [How to set up cron jobs on a Linux server](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-set-up-a-cron-job-on-a-vps): The five-field crontab syntax explained properly, plus the logging habit that stops a failed scheduled job from failing silently.
- [How to host a domain on your VPS](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-set-up-a-domain-on-a-vps): Pointing a domain at your VPS is DNS plus a matching web server config — here is both halves, and how to check they agree.
- [How to set up a firewall on your VPS](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-set-up-a-firewall-on-a-vps): How to enable and configure a firewall on your VPS with ufw or firewalld, without accidentally shutting yourself out over SSH.
- [How to set up a new VPS from scratch](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-set-up-a-new-vps): The order of operations for a fresh VPS, from your first SSH login through to a locked-down server ready for a website.
- [How to set up automatic backups on a VPS](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-set-up-automatic-backups-on-a-vps): A simple, scripted backup covering files and databases, scheduled with cron and copied off the server, plus how to actually test it.
- [How to set up Fail2ban](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-set-up-fail2ban): Installing Fail2ban to automatically block repeated failed logins, configured safely so you do not end up banning yourself.
- [How to transfer files to a server with SCP and SFTP](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-transfer-files-to-a-vps): Copying files to and from a VPS with scp, sftp and rsync, and connecting a graphical tool like FileZilla when a terminal is not what you want.
- [How to keep a Linux server patched](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-update-a-linux-server): Updating a VPS safely, handling the reboots that kernel updates require, and automating security patches so this stops being a manual chore.
- [How to keep a job running after you disconnect](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/how-to-use-screen-and-tmux): How screen and tmux keep a command running on your VPS after you disconnect, and the handful of shortcuts you actually need to use them.
- [Managed or unmanaged VPS: which do you want?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/managed-vs-unmanaged-vps): The dividing line is not the hardware, it is who is responsible for the operating system, security patching and configuration afterwards.
- [VPS or dedicated server: where the line is](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/vps-vs-dedicated-server): A VPS is an isolated slice of shared hardware; a dedicated server is the entire physical machine to yourself. Here is what that changes.
- [What a VPS is, and how it differs from shared hosting](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/what-is-a-vps): A dedicated, isolated slice of a physical server that behaves like your own machine, with root access and nobody else sharing your resources.
- [What is KVM virtualisation?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/vps-servers/what-is-kvm-virtualisation): KVM gives every VPS its own genuine virtual machine and kernel, isolated from every other guest on the same physical host.

### Reseller Hosting
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller — 22 articles.
- [Do I need billing software to resell hosting?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/do-i-need-whmcs): Not for your first few clients, but manual invoicing stops being manageable well before you might expect it to.
- [How many clients fit on a reseller plan?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-many-clients-can-a-reseller-plan-hold): It depends on your plan's real limits and how much each client actually uses, not a fixed number that applies to everyone.
- [How to bill hosting clients automatically](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-bill-hosting-clients): Recurring invoices, automatic payment collection and a clear failed-payment process, so renewals no longer depend on you remembering them.
- [How to create a hosting account for a client](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-create-a-client-hosting-account): Sizing the package, creating the account, and handing it to a client cleanly, from your reseller control panel.
- [How to handle an abuse report about a client](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-handle-an-abuse-report): Investigate before you act, decide against your own terms of service, document every step, and reply to whoever reported it.
- [How to handle backups for client sites](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-handle-client-backups): Decide, and state plainly, exactly whose responsibility backups are, then test that a restore actually works before a client needs one.
- [How to find your first hosting customers](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-market-a-hosting-business): Your existing network, a clear niche, and partnerships with people who already build sites will get you further than broad advertising.
- [How to bring a client site onto your platform](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-migrate-a-client-site-in): Audit the existing site, preview it on the new account before touching DNS, then switch over on a schedule the client actually agreed to.
- [How to upgrade or downgrade a client](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-move-a-client-between-plans): Check usage against the new plan first, then change the package, adjust billing, and confirm nothing broke on the way.
- [How to design the plans you sell](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-package-hosting-plans): A short, clear list of plans that map to real client needs beats a long list of tiers nobody, including you, can remember the difference between.
- [How to price hosting plans](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-price-your-hosting-plans): Know your true cost per account, price for the support you provide rather than the lowest number online, and plan for churn from the start.
- [How to set up private nameservers](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-set-up-private-nameservers): Branded nameservers like ns1.yourbrand.com make your hosting look like your own infrastructure, and the setup has one step people always forget.
- [How to set up WHMCS for a hosting business](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-set-up-whmcs): Install it, connect a payment gateway, build products that match your plans, and run one full test order before trusting it with real clients.
- [How to start a web hosting business](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-start-a-hosting-business): Reselling hosting is one of the cheaper businesses to start, but it still needs a model, a price and a plan for support before you take the first payment.
- [How to run support without it running you](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-support-hosting-customers): Support is the part of a hosting business that grows fastest without you noticing, so it needs boundaries from the very first client.
- [How to suspend and unsuspend a client account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-suspend-a-client-account): Suspend it from your reseller control panel, tell the client why, and reverse it the moment the reason for suspending is resolved.
- [How to hand a client over cleanly](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-transfer-a-client-to-another-provider): Export everything promptly, hand over the domain if you control it, settle the final invoice, and close the account only once they confirm it worked.
- [How to white-label everything a client sees](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-white-label-your-hosting): Go through every place a client actually looks, and make sure each one says your name and nobody else's.
- [What your hosting terms need to cover](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/how-to-write-hosting-terms-of-service): The topics a hosting terms of service and acceptable use policy genuinely need to address, before a dispute forces you to work it out.
- [Reseller hosting or a VPS for your agency?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/reseller-vs-vps-for-agencies): Reseller hosting trades some control for far less admin; a VPS gives you that control back at the cost of becoming responsible for the server.
- [What is overselling, and is it safe?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/what-is-overselling): Selling more resource than a plan technically has, on the assumption most accounts never use their full allowance at once.
- [What reseller hosting is, and who it suits](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/reseller/what-is-reseller-hosting): A single hosting account split into packages you sell under your own name, with none of the server administration attached.

### Ecommerce & WooCommerce
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce — 26 articles.
- [How to get HTTPS working on a store](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-add-a-ssl-certificate-to-a-store): A checkout page half on HTTPS and half on HTTP is not a minor warning — most payment providers simply will not process on it.
- [How to import products in bulk](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-add-products-in-bulk): A CSV import can populate hundreds of products in minutes, or duplicate your whole catalogue in the same amount of time if the file is wrong.
- [How to back up a store without losing orders](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-back-up-an-online-store): Restoring a store to yesterday sounds fine until you remember every order placed since then just disappeared.
- [How to choose an ecommerce platform](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-choose-an-ecommerce-platform): The right platform question is not which one has more features — it is how much control you want and what you already know.
- [How to fix a WooCommerce checkout that fails](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-fix-woocommerce-checkout-problems): A broken checkout loses money every hour it stays broken, so work through the common causes in order rather than guessing.
- [How to prepare a store for a sales rush](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-handle-a-black-friday-traffic-spike): The traffic your store handles fine on a normal Tuesday is not the traffic it needs to survive on the one day everyone shows up at once.
- [How to keep an online store fast as it grows](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-make-an-online-store-fast): A store that was fast on launch day slows down for specific, fixable reasons as the catalogue and the order history grow.
- [How to keep stock in sync across channels](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-manage-stock-across-channels): Sell the same product in two places without a single source of truth for stock, and overselling is a matter of when, not if.
- [How to migrate a store without losing orders](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-migrate-a-store-without-losing-orders): A store never stops taking orders just because you are moving it, so the migration has to account for orders placed mid-move.
- [What to do about abandoned carts](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-recover-abandoned-carts): Not every abandoned cart was ever going to convert — the ones worth chasing are the ones lost to friction you can actually fix.
- [Why people leave your checkout](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-reduce-checkout-abandonment): Some checkout exits are unavoidable, but a surprising number are self-inflicted and fixable once you know what to look for.
- [How to secure an online store](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-secure-an-online-store): A store is a bigger target than a brochure site because there is more to steal and more ways in — here is where to focus first.
- [How to sell in more than one currency](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-set-up-a-multi-currency-store): Multi-currency is not one setting — it touches pricing, payments, tax and your own bookkeeping all at the same time.
- [How to make order emails actually arrive](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-set-up-order-emails): An order email that silently fails to arrive looks fine from the admin screen and generates a support ticket from everywhere else.
- [How to add PayPal to your store](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-set-up-paypal-on-a-store): PayPal brings its own customers who already trust it — here is how to add it without duplicating or confusing your existing checkout.
- [How to add product structured data](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-set-up-product-schema): Structured data is what lets a search result show a price and stock status without a customer ever clicking through.
- [How to set up shipping in WooCommerce](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-set-up-shipping-in-woocommerce): Shipping is zones and rates, but the order you set them up in decides whether a customer sees a price at all.
- [How to connect Stripe to WooCommerce](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-set-up-stripe-on-woocommerce): Installing the plugin takes minutes — getting from test mode to a live payment without a mistake is where this guide actually helps.
- [How to set up tax in WooCommerce](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-set-up-tax-in-woocommerce): WooCommerce can calculate tax automatically — what rate to charge whom is a question for an accountant, not a setting.
- [How to set up WooCommerce](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-set-up-woocommerce): Installing the plugin is the easy part — this is the order to configure it in so nothing important gets skipped.
- [How to stop caching breaking your cart](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-stop-caching-breaking-your-cart): Cache the wrong page and one customer starts seeing another customer's basket — here is exactly what to exclude and why.
- [How to take payments on your website](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-take-payments-on-your-website): Hosted checkout, embedded fields, or building your own form — the choice affects your security workload far more than your conversion rate.
- [How to test a store before you launch it](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/how-to-test-a-store-before-launch): A store looking finished and a store being tested are two different things, and the gap between them is where launch-day problems live.
- [Does my store need to be PCI compliant?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/is-my-store-pci-compliant): Almost certainly yes in some form, but how much work that means depends entirely on whether card data ever touches your own server.
- [What hosting does an online store need?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/what-hosting-does-an-online-store-need): Broadly the same hosting a brochure site needs, but with less tolerance for the things that go wrong when you skip on any of it.
- [WooCommerce or Shopify: the real trade-off](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ecommerce/woocommerce-vs-shopify): Neither platform is simply better — the honest question is whether you want control or convenience, because you cannot fully have both.

### FTP & File Management
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files — 20 articles.
- [FTP, FTPS and SFTP: which to use](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/ftp-vs-sftp): Three protocols with confusingly similar names, one of which sends your password in the open. Here is what actually separates them.
- [How to change file permissions](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-change-file-permissions): Setting the right permission number on a file or folder using your FTP client or file manager, and the one number to never use.
- [How to connect to your hosting with FTP](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-connect-with-ftp): A plain walkthrough of connecting to your hosting account with an FTP client, from finding your login details to seeing your files on the server.
- [How to delete files without breaking your site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-delete-files-safely): The habits that keep a clean-up from turning into an outage, and what to do before deleting anything you cannot immediately identify.
- [How to edit a file directly on the server](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-edit-a-file-on-the-server): Making a quick change to a file already on the server, using the editor built into your control panel, without downloading and re-uploading it by hand.
- [How to find a file on your hosting account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-find-a-file-on-your-server): Using the search built into your file manager, or narrowing it down folder by folder in an FTP client, when you cannot remember where a file went.
- [How to fix FTP connection problems](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-fix-ftp-connection-problems): The handful of things that actually stop an FTP connection working, checked in the order most likely to fix it fastest.
- [How to free up disk space on your account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-free-up-disk-space): Where disk space actually goes on a typical hosting account, and what to clear before assuming you need a bigger plan.
- [How to organise a website's files](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-organise-website-files): A sensible folder structure inside public_html saves far more time than it costs to set up, especially once a site has grown past a handful of pages.
- [How to get back a file you overwrote](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-restore-a-file-you-overwrote): Where to look immediately after overwriting a file by mistake, in the order most likely to get it back without restoring anything you did not need to.
- [How to give a developer FTP access safely](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-set-up-an-ftp-account-for-a-developer): Creating a separate, limited FTP account for someone working on your site, rather than handing over your own main login.
- [How to move files directly between two hosts](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-transfer-files-between-two-hosts): Copying files straight from an old hosting account to a new one without routing everything through your own computer first.
- [How to unzip a file on the server](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-unzip-a-file-on-the-server): Upload the archive once, then use the Extract option in your control panel file manager instead of downloading and re-uploading every file inside it.
- [How to upload a very large file](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-upload-a-large-file): Getting one very large file, or a great many small ones, onto your hosting account without the transfer failing partway through.
- [How to use FileZilla](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-use-filezilla): Installing FileZilla, connecting it to your hosting account, and using its two-panel layout to move files on and off the server.
- [How to manage files from the command line](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/how-to-use-the-command-line-to-manage-files): The handful of Linux commands that handle everyday file management jobs faster than an FTP client, once you have shell access set up.
- [File permissions, explained](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/what-are-file-permissions): What those three-digit numbers on your files actually control, and why almost everything on a website should be either 755 or 644.
- [What are hidden files, and how do I see them?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/what-are-hidden-files): Files whose name starts with a dot, like .htaccess, are hidden by default in most listings until you turn on show hidden files.
- [Where do I upload my website files?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/where-do-i-upload-my-website-files): Into the public_html folder, and nowhere else, if you want visitors to actually see what you have uploaded.
- [Why is my uploaded file not showing on the site?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/ftp-files/why-is-my-uploaded-file-not-showing): Usually one of three things: the file went into the wrong folder, its permissions are wrong, or your browser is showing you a cached page.

### Billing & Account
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account — 18 articles.
- [How do renewals work?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-do-renewals-work): How a hosting or domain renewal is billed, where to check the date and price, and how to stop one before it charges you.
- [How to add another contact to your account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-add-a-contact-to-your-account): Giving someone else visibility on your account without handing over your own login, and what they can and cannot do with it.
- [How to cancel a service](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-cancel-a-service): Cancelling a service from your client area, what it does to your site, and how to time it so you are not charged for a period you will not use.
- [How to change your account email address](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-change-the-email-on-your-account): Updating the address your account logs in with and sends billing notices to, and why a personal inbox is the safer choice.
- [How to change your payment method](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-change-your-payment-method): Update the card or payment method on file in your client area so future renewals do not get stuck on an expired one.
- [How to downgrade your hosting plan](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-downgrade-your-hosting-plan): Moving to a smaller plan from your client area, and the usage checks worth doing first so the downgrade does not get rejected.
- [How to download an invoice or receipt](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-download-an-invoice): Past invoices and receipts are kept in your client area, ready to view or download whenever you need a copy.
- [How to request a refund](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-get-a-refund): Requesting a refund is a short ticket or email — here is what to include and what our published refund policy actually covers.
- [How to open a support ticket that gets answered](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-open-a-support-ticket): A ticket that includes five specific things gets solved far faster than one that just says something is broken.
- [How to pay an invoice](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-pay-an-invoice): Where to find an unpaid invoice in your client area and the quickest way to clear it before it affects your service.
- [How to get back into a locked account](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-recover-a-locked-account): The first things to try when you cannot sign in, and how to get support to verify you when those do not work.
- [How to transfer your account to someone else](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-transfer-your-account-to-someone-else): Handing a hosting account over properly, in the right order, so ownership genuinely changes and nothing goes offline.
- [How to update your billing details](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-update-your-billing-details): Where to update the name, address and tax details that appear on your invoices, and why it is worth keeping current.
- [How to upgrade your hosting plan](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/how-to-upgrade-your-hosting-plan): How to move to a bigger plan from your client area, and what actually happens to your site while the upgrade takes place.
- [What currency will I be charged in?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/what-currencies-can-i-pay-in): The currency shown at checkout is the one you are billed in, then and for every renewal that follows.
- [What happens if a payment fails?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/what-happens-if-a-payment-fails): A declined renewal is common and rarely urgent — here is what generally happens next and the fastest way to sort it.
- [How does the 30-day money-back guarantee work?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/what-is-the-money-back-guarantee): A straightforward promise: try hosting for 30 days, and ask for your money back if it is not right for you.
- [Why was my account suspended?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/billing-account/why-was-my-account-suspended): Suspension almost always traces back to one of a small number of causes, and support can tell you which one applies to you.

### SEO & Marketing
Index: https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing — 26 articles.
- [What is the difference between a 301 and a 302?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/301-vs-302-redirects): One says the move is permanent, the other says it is temporary — and search engines treat those two claims very differently.
- [Does where my site is hosted affect SEO?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/does-hosting-location-affect-seo): Barely, and only through load time for distant visitors. The signals that actually target a country live elsewhere.
- [Does HTTPS affect SEO?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/does-https-affect-seo): Google has confirmed it counts, though as a lightweight signal. The larger effect is what happens without it.
- [Does site speed affect search rankings?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/does-site-speed-affect-rankings): Yes, through Core Web Vitals — but the bigger cost of a slow site is visitors leaving before it finishes loading.
- [How to add schema markup to your pages](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-add-schema-markup): Structured data that describes your page in a format search engines can parse directly, plus how to test it before it goes live.
- [How to be cited by AI search engines](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-appear-in-ai-search-results): The same fundamentals that help ordinary search, applied to a different kind of reader: one that quotes rather than links.
- [How to check Google can crawl your site](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-check-if-google-can-crawl-your-site): Being online and being crawlable are not the same thing. Here is how to check the difference directly rather than assume it.
- [How to do keyword research without a budget](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-do-keyword-research): Free tools can genuinely do this job. Here is how to use them, and how to read what a search actually wants.
- [How to fix duplicate content](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-fix-duplicate-content): Most duplicate content is not copied text — it is the same page reachable at more than one URL. Here is how to find and fix it.
- [How to earn your first backlinks](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-get-your-first-backlinks): Genuinely earning a link, one relationship or one useful piece of content at a time. No shortcuts, because the shortcuts do not work.
- [How to get your site indexed by Google](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-get-your-site-indexed-by-google): A new site is invisible until Google has crawled and indexed it. Here is how to remove the obstacles and ask directly.
- [How to migrate a site without losing traffic](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-migrate-a-site-without-losing-traffic): Changing host does not hurt rankings by itself. A migration that changes URLs or breaks redirects is what actually does the damage.
- [What to check when traffic suddenly drops](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-recover-from-a-traffic-drop): Confirm it is real, then work through the causes in order of how likely and how fixable each one actually is.
- [How to set up 301 redirects](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-set-up-301-redirects): A 301 tells search engines a page has permanently moved. Here is how to set one up correctly and what breaks when you get it wrong.
- [How to write an llms.txt file](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-set-up-an-llms-txt-file): A proposed convention, not a standard search engines are bound to honour. Here is what it is and how to write one honestly.
- [How to set up website analytics](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-set-up-analytics): Adding the tracking code is the easy part. Here is what to decide first and how to check it is actually working.
- [How to set up Google Search Console](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-set-up-google-search-console): Verifying a site takes minutes. Here is the fastest verification method for your setup and what to look at once you are in.
- [How to set up local SEO for a small business](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-set-up-local-seo): A different set of signals from ordinary SEO, built around one thing being consistent everywhere your business is listed.
- [How to structure a website so it can rank](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-structure-a-website-for-seo): The structural decisions that make a site easy for both a visitor and a crawler to understand, made once and rarely revisited.
- [How to create and submit a sitemap](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-submit-a-sitemap): What a sitemap actually does, how to build a valid one, and where to submit it once it exists.
- [How to write a robots.txt file](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-write-a-robots-txt): The syntax, the common mistakes, and the one thing robots.txt cannot do no matter how you write it.
- [How to write title tags and meta descriptions](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-write-a-title-tag): One is read by ranking systems, the other is not — and Google rewrites both more often than most guides admit.
- [How to write content that actually ranks](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/how-to-write-content-that-ranks): No trick outranks a page that actually answers the question better than the alternatives already sitting in the results.
- [What is a canonical tag?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/what-is-a-canonical-tag): A line in the page head that tells search engines which of several similar URLs is the one that should actually be indexed.
- [What is crawl budget, and does it affect me?](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/what-is-crawl-budget): The limit on how much of a site Google chooses to crawl. For most small sites it is not the bottleneck it sounds like.
- [What structured data is and where it helps](https://ifasthosting.com/knowledgebase/seo-marketing/what-is-structured-data): A vocabulary for describing a page in terms a machine can parse directly, and what it can realistically earn you.
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