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These instructions are designed as a guideline
to help you get your website setup and running with CoastHost.net as quickly
and easily as possible. You are encouraged to read these instructions to get
an understanding of how our system works, and how to best make it work for you.
1: I just signed up with CoastHost.net
After signing up with CoastHost.net we will process your order and setup your account.
If paying by credit card, you should expect to receive your Welcome Email within 4 hours.
If payment is made via bank transfer or cheque, you will receive your Welcome Email upon completion of
payment. This Welcome Email has the subject "Account Setup - yourdomain.com", and contains your login
details and user information to get you started using email, uploading your site,
transferring your domain, logging into the member section as well as other links and
info.
2: Transferring your domain
New Domain Name:
If you ordered a new domain through CoastHost.net, we will register the domain on your
behalf as soon as account payment has been confirmed. Usually within a few hours of
you placing your order. It will then take a further 24 to 72 hours before your domain
becomes fully active. Once your new domain has propagated, you can access your website via
http://www.yourdomain.com and http://yourdomain.com
Before this time, whilst waiting for your domain to propagate, you can still
access your website via it's temporary URL. This temporary URL is sent with your
Account Setup email.
Transferring an existing domain:
In order to move your existing domain name to Coasthost you need to
contact your domain name registrar (the company you registered your domain with)
and update the "DNS" records for your domain to reflect the CoastHost.net DNS servers
you received in your Welcome Email.
Alternatively you can send us the login details for your domain registrar
and we will update the DNS servers for you.
3: Domain propagation
Propagation refers to the time it takes for your domain to be recognized by
Internet providers around the world. Some of CoastHost.net's features including Email,
FrontPage, WebStats etc require your domain to have completed propagation.
To check whether your site has propagated, enter your domain name
(http://www.yourdomain.com) into a web browser. If your domain resolves to a
welcome page similair to the one below, then your site has propagated.
Once you have updated them it can take up to 72hrs before your web site is fully recognised by all the servers
around the world. This is called 'propagating'. Although we say 72hrs the period is often 12-24hrs depending on
the network you are connected to the internet with.
DNS servers can be updated before or after ordering with Coasthost. However if you are using email or there
is an existing web site for the domain, we recommend updating after ordering. Doing this allows for a smooth
transition of your web site. To ensure the change over is seamless, we provide a temporary domain where you
can upload your web site to while your DNS servers are propagating through the internet.
Updating the Primary and Secondary DNS servers is relatively easy if you have the password or key. If you do
not have access to the password or key for your domain, please contact us for help. There are usually automated
methods of retrieving passwords and keys by email.
4: Site Upload/Creation
To upload your site you can use either FTP, FrontPage or the Online File Manager.
If you wish to publish your site with FrontPage you must enable Frontpage extensions
from within your Site Control Panel. If you are using
Frontpage extensions to upload/publish your site, it is recommened not to to use
FTP at any time.
5: Email Setup
When we setup your account, we automatically setup your master email account.
Your email will become active once your domain has propagated.
To check your email, you can use either WebMail, or an email client of your choice.
6: Members Area
Within your Welcome Email you will receive your login details so you can access the
CoastHost.net Members Area. Once logged in you will have full access to your
WebSite Control Panel, Account/Billing details
plus much more. From here you can create additional email accounts, change accounts
settings, view invoices etc.
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