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This guide is intended as recommendations for you as a customer having ordered a web hosting solution from us. The guide will not cover how to develop your website; it will only hint at where to get started.

Logging in to the control panel (cPanel)
The account information for your web hosting solution was sent to you by email to the address you specified when ordering. All of the required information for logging in to the control panel is found in this email. You can also login to the control panel through the client portal as shown in How do I log into cPanel?.

Email configuration
To configure the email settings, you must be logged in to the control panel. The points below deal with the most important aspects of email configuration:

• Creation of email addresses
  Create the desired email addresses as shown in the guide Creation of an email address in cPanel.
• Spam fighting
  Spamassassin is an effective and great tool in the fight against spam. We activate Spamassassin for you from the beginning. We also activate Spam Box that stores all of the email categorized as spam in the spam folder. In this way, you can sift through the spam before eventually deleting it. We recommend also setting up SPF and DomainKey.
  If you have a Premium or higher-level web hosting solution, we recommend that you deactivate Spamassassin an activate SpamExperts, which is a more accurate filter, instead.
• Email sent to non-existing email addresses
  Such email is often spam, but in some cases it may be due to a small spelling mistake in writing the email address, e.g. sending an email address intended for navn@dittdomene.net to navnn@dittdomene.net. You can choose between three different solutions for email sent to non-existing email addresses:
  • Delete them without sending a reply to the sender. Specify "Default address" as :blackhole: on the control panel.
  • Delete them and send a reply saying that the email was not delivered. Specify "Default address" as :fail:.
  • Deliver the email to one or more chosen email addresses. Specify "Default address" as chosen email address.
• Forwarding
  Forwarding can be used for several purposes:
  • To forward email delivered to a given email address to one or more additional addresses.
  • To forward mail to what is thought to be the correct email address.
• Automatic responder
  Auto-responder is used for issuing an automated reply to email sent to a given email address back to the sender.

The settings will not work until the domain has been registered/transferred.

Setting up a website
The great majority of our customers make use of a CMS (Content Management System) when setting up a website. In short, this is a system created for the purpose of managing the content of the website. WordPress is the most frequently used CMS, with about 60% of all CMS solutions in use today. The simplest way of getting started is to install WordPress or an equivalent solution using Softaculous, which installs everything for you instead of you having to complete the entire installation manually by uploading files and setting up the database.

Does WordPress seem difficult to use for you? Then the website builder is the solution for you. You will not have to think about which plugins to use or worry about keeping everything updated. You can try the 30 day trial for free and see if the solution is right for you.

You can also develop the website from scratch, but this often requires a lot of knowledge or a large budget. It will often be a combination of using a known CMS and then customizing it for your specific purpose. CMS solution often come with the option of installing plugins/modules that add functionality, which the solution did not have by default.

Not only CMSes are used for websites. Many people also install a forum, a webshop, a blog, questionnaires and other things on their websites. Have a look at the available options in Softaculous in order to pick up some ideas on what you would like to use for your website.

Already have an existing website?
We recommend you to follow the guide Migrate website and email using Migration Assistant if you already have an existing website and domain that you will transfer to us.

Do you want to redirect the traffic to another address?
You might not need or plan to have a website yet. In many situations it can be useful to redirect the traffic to another address. Follow Setup URL forwarding in cPanel to setup your redirect.

Uploading content
Did you install your website via Softaculous or the website builder? Then you will most likely not have to manually upload any files and can skip this paragraph.

There are however three different ways of uploading content:

1. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) / SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol)
   To upload files via FTP, you must use an FTP client. We have a series of guides dedicated to various FTP clients listed in our guide section under FTP. The information required for logging in via FTP was among the account information sent to you via email to the address you specified when ordering your web hosting solution from us. It is possible to use FTP both before and after the registration/transfer of the domain, but you must use two different host names:
   1. cpanelX.proisp.no can always be used (X being the number of the server on which your web hosting account is located)
   2. ftp.dittdomene.net can be used after the domain has been registered/transferred (dittdomene.net being your domain).
       
2. File Manager
   In the control panel, it is possible to upload files using File Manager (both before and after the registration/transfer of the domain).
    
3. WebDAV
   You can also add the website as an extra drive in your operating system, so it becomes very intuitive to download/upload files from/to your web hosting solution. In cPanel, this functionality is called Webdisk, and it is possible to execute an installation script from there that will set it up for you.

Do you need to view/make the website before you register/transfer the domain?

Secure your website with free complimentary SSL certificate
We recommend that you use SSL on your websites for security reasons and advantages in search engines. You can follow the guide below to use your complimentary free SSL certificate:
Install free SSL certificate

Or you may purchase one of our paid SSL certificates to increase trust and confidence for increased profits:
SSL Certificate

Configuration of warnings
You can get warnings regarding two separate issues during the day-to-day operations of your web hosting account:

1. Web hosting disk space
   You only have a limited number of MB of space available on your web hosting account. When this threshold is reached, it will no longer be possible to upload more content, and emails will not be delivered to any of the email addresses in the web hosting account.
2. Disk space for a specific email address
   You can specify how many MB to allot to an email address as a maximum. When this quota is reached, emails will no longer be delivered to the email address in question.

To receive warnings when these thresholds are nearing, you have to specify your email address on the control panel contact information page. We set the contact email address equal to the customer account address when the web hosting account is created.

Pointing and setup of external services
It is very common to have services with other providers than PRO ISP as well on your domain. Typical examples can be SaaS services where you often have to point a sub domain of your domain to the external service such as for example saasservice.yourdomain.net. Certain services might also require that you verify ownership of the domain by adding information. The guide Update zone file for a domain via DNS control shows how to do this.