WebHostingBuzz not user friendly for beginners

[herrmann]

I'm a new user and I was very excited with my first hosting experience until I started having all sort of problems with my account from the very beginning (signing up and billing process). I was unable to even get my welcome e-mail and get started. I spent literally hours in the chat trying to get everything straight. Now that I finally got my welcome e-mail, it has been a nightmare to try to get to the Cpanel and start working on my web page. Neither in the welcome e-mail nor in the "Getting started guide" there is a SIMPLE AND CLEAR EXPLANATION on how to start working on your web page. There is no visible link in the home page for clients to access the Cpanel and start working either. I decided to go to the suggested link to learn about the Cpanel and found out that is 221 pages long!!! They don't make it easy for inexperience clients as they claim in the advertisement. If anybody had the same experience and had some suggestions, please reply. I hope I can finally figure out how to start building my site before my subscription ends.

[Alan B]

You're right that it can be difficult to get started on cPanel. There are a lot of settings and setup steps, and I haven't seen a really good basic beginner's guide. Some of us here will be contributing to a WHB knowledge base, so that should help.

[Matt R.]

You don't need to read it all in one go, but a combination of trying things out in Cpanel and referring to the guide should work. The features are appropriately named, and often it's best just to try the features out.

[Franki N]

turn a few knobs, flick a few switches - I find is the best way to get familiarisation with anything new infront of you.

The best thing with hosting is that if you do managed to turned a few knobs too far, you can always get support to recreate your account and restart you on a clean slate (and hopefully won't make the same mistake the second time round)

[missivy]

Umm, I think cPanel is the same for the majority of web hosts. cPanel isn't exactly exclusive to WHB. If you're a beginner, you should google for the basics like FTP and how to setup an email account.

Okay...let me try to help you.

If you want to make a new website a la Site Builder provided by cPanel, then go to RVSiteBuilder at the bottom of your control panel. RVSiteBuilder is for complete beginners so there are steps to build your site.

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If you want to design it from your own editor like Dreamweaver. Then, all you have to do is upload it to your site. You can choose FileManager on cPanel to upload your files to your site or get an FTP program like WS_FTP on Windows or CyberDuck on Mac. Input the FTP details you got in your Welcome email to your FTP program. Your program will then connect you to the file structure of your site. You'll see a bunch of folders and files. Look for the "public_html" folder. Upload whatever you want showing on your site to your public_html folder.

Just make sure your the first page you want showing to your site is called index.html or whatever extension you use like index.php, index.cfm et cetera.

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I personally don't find cPanel hard to navigate. Just click around; it's got little icons to help if you don't get acronyms like FTP and SSL.

[tjplaw]

I'm a new user and I was very excited with my first hosting experience until I started having all sort of problems with my account from the very beginning (signing up and billing process). I was unable to even get my welcome e-mail and get started. I spent literally hours in the chat trying to get everything straight. Now that I finally got my welcome e-mail, it has been a nightmare to try to get to the Cpanel and start working on my web page. Neither in the welcome e-mail nor in the "Getting started guide" there is a SIMPLE AND CLEAR EXPLANATION on how to start working on your web page. There is no visible link in the home page for clients to access the Cpanel and start working either. I decided to go to the suggested link to learn about the Cpanel and found out that is 221 pages long!!! They don't make it easy for inexperience clients as they claim in the advertisement. If anybody had the same experience and had some suggestions, please reply. I hope I can finally figure out how to start building my site before my subscription ends.

It's not WHB's fault that your new to the world of websites and web hosting.

There is a learning curve for anyone just staring out.
That's why the company put up this forum to help those just getting started.

[nolex00]

well herrmann, if you want to build your own website, try using MSFrontPage, its not really good, in fact, it would create a lot of page errors, but it gets the job done.

RVSiteBuilder is a good tool too.

Get some templates to get you started, getting one is a headache though. its actually a good step in getting started, after that, its just a rough road ahead.

Good luck to you.

[laowei]

WHB should put a login form or link in the website：
http://www.webhostingbuzz.com/

Use the link or form to log into the account, just like HostMonster.com

[Saf M]

WHB should put a login form or link in the website：
http://www.webhostingbuzz.com/

Very simple for us to do that however WHB has unfortunately had three different billing systems. If we put one type of login up there, clients from older system would start creating tickets with complaints that they cannot login.

[laowei]

That is a compatible issue. It is not easy for 3 different billings systems.

But if you think one system is old, that means the new system will be
better than old one. So the older system should be upgrade finally.

WHB may put a link, not a login form. When the user click the link,
let user select different billing system, or according to the joined date
to automatically select billing system.

The other option, building a look up table to map user name to the billing
system, when user input user name and password, the login system find
the billing system from the table, then automatically login.

Very simple for us to do that however WHB has unfortunately had three different billing systems. If we put one type of login up there, clients from older system would start creating tickets with complaints that they cannot login.

[omniuni]

I've worked with a couple of hosts. I've found WHB to be one of the easiest by far to get started with. Perhaps if there is a wiki or something, though, we can build a guide for people completely new to web pages.

[zeiss]

I have to agree with herrman...an EASY and SIMPLE step by step "getting started" guide would be great ! I'm not talking about page design and uploading (I use dreamweaver, flash, filezilla etc..) but cpanel and OMG WHM....sure cpanel isn't that difficult....but a quick set up guide (like we get with all of our new electronics these days) would be fantastic, especially for the webmail (squirrel, horde, forwarding, accessing...) sure I eventually wandered around and bumped my head enough times,but.... , and again....WHM.....argh....oh yeah...WHM will set it up for a fee....but I have control issues ! lol

[marksalehouse]

Hi Hermann,

I was the samea couple of years ago. What I did was get a large mug of coffee on the side, did a complete and utter backup and just sat down with the attitude, "I wonder what this does"

A lot of it was (and still is) over my head, but I now know the bits that I am most likely to use on Cpanel. In fact, I am seldom on it these days.

As TJPLAW says, its a learning curve.

People criticise frontPage (methinks cos it is an MS product) but to be honest, for a beginner it is very good. Later on you find it has excess code that you do not need unless you use the FrontPage finery.

Basically it is all down to spending some prime time with the components

Good luck with it.

M

[Grunter]

I'd like it if it was easier to find the client area. Its pretty much invisible to find.

[EasyCall]

I just don't get what the problem is for accessing your cpanel. The URL is in every welcome email that WHB sends out. Click the link and make a bookmark. Then you'll never have to worry about how to get there again.

Secondly, cPanel is the same on every host that uses it. If you think that it's hard, you should see the alternatives. Plesk drove me nuts, as did vDeck. cPanel rules and I'll never host anywhere that doesn't use it.

Every webmaster on here started out in the same boat as you - basically not having a clue how to get started, but step by step we learn, and keep learning. That's one good thing about these forums. If you have a question, ask it here, you'll get an answer. I've been building web sites since 1996 and I still learn new things here.

But for sure, the most imporant tools you'll need are an editor of some sort and an FTP program. I now use Dreamweaver, but I started out with one that was all code, no WYSIWYG. There are lots of free choices for editors out there. For FTP, I use Transmit on my Mac, but again, there are lots of free options.

I've never used the site builder programs that come with hosting packages. I think they are more confusing than building on my own computer and uploading, but I guess they work for some folks to get them started.

Colleen
http://www.easycall.net

[Matt R.]

We're adding to http://wiki.webhostingbuzz.com at least twice a week now as well....

[wispy]

I'm new here also and I can't even find rvsitebuilder on my control panel. Can anyone help?????

[ghans67]

When You log into your cPanel then near the bottom you will find a category called SOFTWARE Right at the bottom of the featured list there you will find the text link to RVSiteBuilder

[sewhothth]

I'm a new user and I was very excited with my first hosting experience until I started having all sort of problems with my account from the very beginning (signing up and billing process). I was unable to even get my welcome e-mail and get started. I spent literally hours in the chat trying to get everything straight. Now that I finally got my welcome e-mail, it has been a nightmare to try to get to the Cpanel and start working on my web page. Neither in the welcome e-mail nor in the "Getting started guide" there is a SIMPLE AND CLEAR EXPLANATION on how to start working on your web page. There is no visible link in the home page for clients to access the Cpanel and start working either. I decided to go to the suggested link to learn about the Cpanel and found out that is 221 pages long!!! They don't make it easy for inexperience clients as they claim in the advertisement. If anybody had the same experience and had some suggestions, please reply. I hope I can finally figure out how to start building my site before my subscription ends.

I just signed up and had almost a mirror experience. I can design on corel, Illustrator, photoshop, etc, but I don't know a lot about cpanel, and very little about publishing a web site. I built it, but had problems publishing. Turns out I missed my welcome email that had all the vital info on it because I had my Yahoo spam guard on and the email was treated as spam and was immediately deleted. I registered for the help desk but to this day my login is invalid. The live chat has been helpful, however they haven't been able to figure out the help desk situation either, so they entered a help ticket for me.

After all this, my software asked to what folder I wanted to save the package to. I had no clue as it wasn't listed on the email with the IP address and my user ID and password. Finally someone in the forum gave me the public_html folder. I've now published the site and I'm waiting to be able to see it on the internet. I'm not sure when this magically happens. I thought that as soon as it was uploaded to the server and published, it would be available. Someone in another forum said it could take up to 48 hours. I'm not sure.
I'm sure a lot of my frustration is me not knowing a lot of this. If I were to hire someone and pay them a large sum of money to build my web site and have them get it on the internet, it would run smooth as butter. Anyway, hopefully soon the site will pop up on the internet so I can get to making some money.

[sewhothth]

Umm, I think cPanel is the same for the majority of web hosts. cPanel isn't exactly exclusive to WHB. If you're a beginner, you should google for the basics like FTP and how to setup an email account.

Okay...let me try to help you.

If you want to make a new website a la Site Builder provided by cPanel, then go to RVSiteBuilder at the bottom of your control panel. RVSiteBuilder is for complete beginners so there are steps to build your site.

---

If you want to design it from your own editor like Dreamweaver. Then, all you have to do is upload it to your site. You can choose FileManager on cPanel to upload your files to your site or get an FTP program like WS_FTP on Windows or CyberDuck on Mac. Input the FTP details you got in your Welcome email to your FTP program. Your program will then connect you to the file structure of your site. You'll see a bunch of folders and files. Look for the "public_html" folder. Upload whatever you want showing on your site to your public_html folder.

Just make sure your the first page you want showing to your site is called index.html or whatever extension you use like index.php, index.cfm et cetera.

---

I personally don't find cPanel hard to navigate. Just click around; it's got little icons to help if you don't get acronyms like FTP and SSL.

So did I do this right, wrong, ok? I worked on my site using Webeasy Pro6. I built the site and then purchased the package from WHB to publish it. I didn't use the cpanel because the welcome email said I could use it if I were somewhat experienced with it. I just went through the publishing wizard on the software. It sounds like people are signing up and then building their sites. Or are these fairly simple one to to page personal sites?