Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Virtual Hosting and Non-Virtual Hosting?

The main difference, and most noticeable, is the address of the site. To best show this, we will use an example of someone who picks the name of his company, Bob's Hardware.

If Bob uses Non-Virtual Hosting, his web page address would be http://www.drcheap.com/bobshardware and his email address would be bobshardware@drcheap.com

On the other hand, if Bob decides that he wants Virtual Hosting, then he would choose bobshardware.com as his domain name, his site address would be http://www.bobshardware.com, and he could then create whatever email addresses he wants, such as bob@bobshardware.com and websales@bobshardware.com. Or, for his repair shop, repairs@bobshardware.com.

With Virtual Hosting, Bob has better name recognition for his business and people can easily remember the address if they forget to make note of it. He also gets more storage space and flexibility, allowing his site to expand with his growing business.

Is there a limit to how many hits my web site can have each month?

About 99% of web sites have a "typical" amount of traffic, but on occasion there are sites that receive so many hits (or use so much bandwidth) that they need their own dedicated server (or sometimes multiple servers). Many hosting providers will list that you can have a specific maximum amount of traffic each month (e.g. 1000MB or 1GB per month is common). While most sites will never even come close to that amount in a month, it is a pre-defined limit, and the webmaster has it hanging over their head all the time.

Due to the structure of the Internet, as well as the laws of physics, it is impossible for any provider to offer an infinite amount of traffic. However, we feel that a customer should not have to worry about whether or not they will be charged more for exceeding some pre-defined traffic limit. As such, we do not list any hard limits on hits, traffic, or bandwidth usage for our services.

Typically what pushes a web site into high-traffic levels is certain types of content -- namely pornographic material, pirated music & software, file download archives, etc.

How do I get a domain name registered?

Domain names used for Virtual Hosting accounts are allocated out on a first come first serve basis, so the first requirement is that no one else has registered the name already.

Once you have picked a name that is available, there are two options:

  1. We supply some technical information and you choose your registrar and take care of everything else yourself. You will directly pay your registrar for the domain at their prices.
  2. Let us do the dirty work -- we will take care of everything, getting it properly registered for use with our server. Please see the domain registration section of our services page for more details.
What if I already have a domain name and/or web site elsewhere?

If you already have a domain name registered, there is no additional registration cost. We will supply you with the necessary technical information to point it at our servers.

If you already have a web site as well, you can FTP your files from your computer, or directly from your old server if possible, to our server. When you update your domain to point at our servers, it will take a couple of days for the change to "propagate" around the Internet. As long as you have your files uploaded to our server before this happens, your site will not experience any downtime during the transition. It is up to you to handle any cancellation procedures that your previous provider requires.

Do you design my web site?

We typically do not offer this service as our specialty is operating the network & server side of web hosting. Designing a web site is not too terribly difficult, and there are plenty of tutorials and applications available that can help. If you require a professionally designed site, we suggest contacting a web design firm in your local area whom you can sit down and go over ideas with in person.

If you have a site that we are hosting, and would like us to make some modifications to it, fix something specific, or maybe have some questions about the HTML, just contact support for some free advice and simple help. If you need serious/numerous modifications, we will charge a moderate fee.

How can I pay for my web hosting service?

All accounts with Dr. Cheap are billed via Paypal as a subscription. Once your account is set up, you will be given instructions for setting up your one time and/or recurring payments.

Do I get a discount for hosting multiple web sites?

Yes! We always welcome more business, and to encourage it we will offer volume discounts based on the services provided.

Typically the discounts are in the 25-35% range, and can be even higher if you have enough sites. This is a great deal if you are a web designer, and would like to re-sell our services to your clients.

What if my question is not listed above?

Please use the form on our Support Page to ask us your question. We welcome all questions, even if you are not a customer yet!

Ask Dr. Cheap for permission before attempting to use ANYTHING on this site!
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