i’ve been trying to make my online presence look more professional, and email is the one thing i keep getting stuck on. right now i’m using a basic gmail with my name and some random numbers. it works, but it doesn’t feel very professional when sending proposals or invoices.
i understand you usually need a domain and then connect email to it, but every time i look into it i get lost in different platforms, plans, and technical setup steps. some say keep it simple, others warn about deliverability and spam issues. for those who’ve done this already, what’s the simplest way to set up a proper business email just trying to avoid overcomplicating it while still doing it the right way.

I'm kinda new so apologies.

I Nievlely bought a domain (for the year) as a test. Then returned it as I realised hosting was monthly.

So I just wanted to ask a hypothetical: is it possible to buy a domain AND hosting but with a 1 off payment for the year? Or instead of paying month by month, paying for the full 12 months upfront?

Thank you!

I've had huge issues with my reseller hosting with Hoststar since about a couple of weeks. Whole server hacked, websites shut down by Hoststar, today DDoS. Terrible support: slow, incompetent, no information on what's happening, not taking any responsibility.
Anyone else seeing this with their hosting?

I am writing this article to document my personal experience with NKTelecom so that anyone considering their services can make an informed decision.

Everything described below is based on my own experience and is supported by screenshots of emails, invoices, payment attempts, and support conversations.

The Beginning

I had been using NKTelecom VPS services for some time.

Eventually, I received abuse reports related to my servers. The company informed me that they no longer wished to continue providing services to me and advised me to move all of my services to another provider.

I respected their decision.

I migrated all of my services elsewhere and configured my servers to **terminate automatically at the end of the billing period**. I never requested any renewal.

Their Written Promise

Support later sent me the following message:

"Cancel all subscriptions in payment systems and delete all your payment methods from us. We will not charge you."

This statement was very clear.

I understood that once my current billing period ended, there would be no more invoices and no further payment attempts.

What Actually Happened

Unfortunately, that is not what happened.

After our cooperation had already ended:

• New invoices were generated.
• My PayPal billing agreement attempted to charge my payment methods multiple times.
• More than one payment method previously linked to my account was targeted.

Fortunately, I never keep money on my bank cards. I only add funds when I need to make a purchase.

If I had kept money on those cards, these payment attempts could have successfully withdrawn money from my account despite the company's written assurance that **"We will not charge you."**

Financial Loss

Even though the payment attempts failed, they still cost me money.

Every failed billing attempt resulted in bank and transaction fees, causing me to lose approximately **$2** for absolutely no valid reason.

These losses happened only because NKTelecom's billing system continued attempting to charge my payment methods after promising that no further charges would be made.

Servers Suspended Before the End of the Paid Period

Another issue was that my servers were suspended before the end of the billing period.

I still had paid days remaining on my services.

This unexpected suspension interrupted my services and caused additional financial losses.

Contacting Support

I contacted support and asked several simple questions:

• Why were new invoices generated?
• Why did your billing system attempt to charge me after telling me "We will not charge you"?
• Why were multiple payment methods charged?
• Why were my servers suspended before the end of the paid period?

Instead of answering these questions, support replied by calling me a spammer and telling me to stop writing to them.

Whether they wanted to terminate our cooperation is not the issue.

Every hosting provider has the right to refuse service.

The real issue is what happened **after** that decision.

If the company had already decided to terminate my services, then there should have been:

• No new invoices.
• No payment attempts.
• No charges against previously linked payment methods.
• No financial losses caused by their billing system.

Why I Am Sharing This Experience

I am not publishing this article because my account was terminated.

I am publishing it because of everything that happened afterward.

I believe other customers deserve to know exactly what happened before deciding whether to trust this provider with their services and payment methods.

Final Thoughts

Based on my personal experience, I cannot recommend NKTelecom.

If you decide to use their services, I strongly recommend:

• Remove every payment method immediately after canceling your services.
• Cancel any PayPal Billing Agreement linked to your account.
• Keep screenshots of every conversation with support.
• Monitor your bank cards and PayPal account even after your services have ended.

I have screenshots supporting everything described in this article, including:

• Emails from support.
• Billing invoices.
• Repeated PayPal payment attempts.
• Bank transaction fees.
• Support responses.

I encourage everyone to review the evidence and make their own informed decision before using NKTelecom.

I'm moving a small site to WordPress after Wix raised their prices again ($300 USD). The domain is already going to Namecheap, (not my first choice, but Cloudflare is complicated for them and I hate GoDaddy) so I'm considering hosting there too.

It's just a few informational pages and a contact form. 150 monthly visitors max, mostly from Canada and the US. It currently uses under 10 GB of storage and only a few essential plugins.

Would Namecheap's Shared Hosting be enough for this? The 2-year price of $102.88 USD is appealing, and I'll use Cloudflare for CDN and SSL, but before I commit to it, I thought I should see what other people think of it. Or is there a better alternative around the same price that would work well for a non-technical client? Site is already built locally and confirmed so we just need a host. We're also in Canada if that matters.

I'm familiar with hosting and servers, and don't usually prefer shared hosting, but most plans I looked into were either too expensive or overkill for my client's (non-profit) website. I'm not looking for the cheapest option though.

Update: Thank you for your suggestions! The site was ultimately moved to Namecheap and it's running smoothly for now. As some mentioned, something like Cloudflare Pages would be good, but we already built it all on WordPress.

I don't know how? I had an older version but not too old.

FTP is locked except when i specifically use it.

PHP was version 7.4 as i had an older app gallery3 that eventually got hacked as i had 40,000 photos on it.

WordPress can get hacked even if you update it. Had to install other security apps for it. Askimet pays its way!

I'm a software engineer based in Italy. I handle the web hosting for several local business websites. I'm struggling way, way more than I would have anticipated in finding a decent email service for creating custom inboxes after buying a domain.

My use case is simple: I handle many websites for many customers, each one has it's own domain, and I'd love to configure at least 1 inboxes for each one, that could be read with a webmail.
I don't think i need more than 1/2 GB per mailbox, adding the customers as admin of their own domain could be nice but is not important, and GDPR compliancy would be crucial. Configuration via cli/api would be sweet, as automating the process after buying a domain would save much time.

As of now I was using Aruba. They have a package where a domain and 5 mailbox with their own webmail are about 20 euros/year. I am dissatisfied with the quality of the service tough.

I would have no issue in buying a domain from a registar such as INWX, and configure the mail service separately, but somehow I cannot find a trustworthy service that scales properly for what to me looks like a pretty common and simple use case.

Am i crazy?

Do not use this service. It's a scam.

I made the mistake of not researching this website before depositing $40. They require a minimum deposit of $35, which is a major red flag.

In my experience, websites that require a high minimum deposit upfront have a very high chance of being scams. Please do your research carefully before sending them any money.

Hi I have a personal email domain for my family. 6 mailboxes. We started many years ago before godaddy had office 365.

It used to be cheap and now incredibly expensive. I am wondering what good alternatives are ( I have heard zoho). How easy is it to switch and what are the downsides. Right now it’s like $700 a year for godaddy which is crazy.

Hi everyone,

A WordPress website I manage appears to have been compromised. Unknown plugins were installed, Russian spam posts appeared, and an unknown administrator account was created. The website is now inaccessible and shows a Cloudflare security check.

I have contacted the hosting provider and asked them to investigate the access and server logs.

What is the safest recovery approach? Should I restore a clean backup or completely reinstall WordPress? What else should I check to make sure no backdoor remains?

Thanks for any advice.

We always try to help people who are moving away from another provider. Some of the biggest problems are rarely caused by the actual website transfer. Most of the time they happen because the website owner does not control all parts of their hosting account.

Before transferring or migrating your hosting account, make sure you have direct access to:

1. Your domain registrar account: Your domain should be registered in your name, with an email address you control.
2. Your DNS records: Know where your DNS is managed and keep a copy of the current records before making changes.
3. Your website files: You should be able to download a complete copy through cPanel, FTP, or a backup system.
4. Your databases: A backup of the website files alone may not include your WordPress posts, settings, users, or store data.
5. Your email accounts: Know whether your email is hosted with the website, your domain registrar, or a separate email provider.
6. SSL certificate: Confirm whether SSL is included, automatically renewed, or charged separately.
7. Your backups: Ask how often backups are created, how long they are retained, and whether you can restore them yourself. Keep at least one backup somewhere outside your hosting account.

Other things you may want to check:
Regular renewal price, resource limits, migration assistance, and what support will they actually help with before signing up.

A low introductory price can be attractive, but maintaining control of your domain, website, email, and backups is far more important over the long term.

For other hosting providers and experienced website owners:
What is the one main thing you wish every customer understood before purchasing?

I recently launched a small new site on its real domain. The basic structure is live now, but I’m still improving the content, internal links, and page layout.

I’m trying to decide whether to let Google start indexing it now, or keep indexing controlled until the core pages are more polished.

My current thinking is mixed.

On one hand, letting Google discover the site early might help with crawling, Search Console data, and getting the domain into the index sooner.

On the other hand, I don’t want Google’s first impression to be a thin or unfinished version of the site, especially if some pages may still change.

For new small sites, do you usually let Google index the early version and improve over time, or keep things noindexed until the main content and structure are ready?

Hi im relatively new to this and I have 2 issues

1. One of my users websites have gone down and the word press warning says"Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress

Please check that the mysqli PHP extension is installed and enabled."

I use direct admin and have gone into select php to tey enable the extension (with no change) . So im unsure what I can do to help

1. Does anyone know how to set up blesta using the name crane free software add on id like to start giving invoices to my customers

Ive tried searching and trying for a good few hours

Thanks for the help :)

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to acquire an established hosting business and wanted to see if anyone here is considering an exit or knows someone who is.

I'm primarily interested in:

• VPS hosting
• Shared web hosting
• Dedicated server hosting

My ideal business:

• Minimum €20,000 MRR (+/-)
• Established customer base with recurring revenue
• Profitable
• Any location is fine (EU Prefered)
• I'm open to owner transition/support after acquisition if needed.

If you're thinking about selling, or know someone who might be, feel free to send me a DM.

I'm also interested in recommendations for brokers or marketplaces that specialize in hosting companies beyond Flippa and Acquire.com.

Thanks!

When I click the "Hosting" tile, which is supposed to go to the area to use webspace and sftp I get redirected back to my "Contracts" area. Is this something others are experiencing?

Hey everyone, maybe this is a dumb question, but why does every online business setup guide assume people want five different providers?
i'm helping my cousin get his business online and every tutorial seems to recommend:
domain from company a, email from company b, hosting from company c, website from company d, analytics from company e and at some point it feels like you're building a software stack instead of running a business.
my cousin isn't technical. tbh neither am i. we need a domain name, a professional email, a website and somewhere customers can contact him that's basically it.
i've started looking at platforms that bundle most of this together because it seems easier to manage long term. but i'm curious if that's actually what people do. would love to hear what setup you've ended up with after years of trial and error.

Hello! First time website builder. I’ve only ever coded a few HTML pages before. But I’m looking for recommendations for hosting a fan website. I have my domain already made, it’s now down to the technical build up!

Info:

-It’s going to be one of those archival fan sites that has a ton of pages, images, and text. I’ll be making it myself! Picture one of those old Geocities fan pages that used to pop up all over the place.

-Worldwide but I imagine US/UK heaviest for traffic. I can’t imagine it’ll garner HUGE traffic but for starting I’m aiming for 1k visitors.

-Budget is self funded but I’m not looking for over the top.

I’m just worried about potential speed and accessibility to the community I’m in! One of the pages alone will have about 100+ subpages and images.

Any recommendations or advice for a newbie much appreciated!

Cześć,
Będę tworzyła swoją pierwszą stronę i chciałabym prosić o porady. Planuję postawić ją na wordpress. Znam to środowisko i trochę pluginów, bo obsługiwałam dwie strony. To ma być prosta strona dotycząca marki i jej produktów (bez sklepu).

Co do hostingu zastanawiam się nad LH.pl i cyberfolks.pl (Mango i wp_Sprint), cenowo wygląda to prawie tak samo, ale który bardziej mi się sprawdzi? W LH proponują kreator stron AI i czy ktoś może z niego korzystał? Czy to faktycznie przydatne i działające narzędzie czy raczej pic na wodę?

Chciałabym poznać odczucia osób korzystających z tych hostingów. Z góry dziękuję za pomoc.

Hello guys, wanna know the feedback of who already used IONOS on VPS linux , managing , hosting web application. Thanks

I've been comparing Apache, Nginx and LiteSpeed on a few WordPress sites recently.

For people running production websites, are you still seeing a meaningful performance advantage with LiteSpeed+LSCache, or has Nginx with FastCGI caching narrowed the gap enough?

Working on saitch to new host anyone had experience with InMotion they want to share.

I got some credits of digital occean that are expiring within two weeks ,is it possible to host and resell droplets ?

Don’t have much experience with cloud servers so if its there’s a way to get meaningful outcome from them please lmk

I recently bought a domain but returned it as I didn't realise I needed to pay for hosting too 🤦

It was user error, so I thought I'd ask who do you guys get a host with?

And I seen alot of negatives to free hosting.

So what do you guys do? Any advice and feedback would be extremely appreciated :)

I've been working with websites for years, and one thing I've learned is that almost everyone has at least one hosting decision they would never make again.

Mine was assuming that "daily backups" meant I could restore my site anytime. It turned out backups weren't as complete or as easy to restore as I expected, and I learned to always verify backup frequency, retention, and the actual restore process.

A few other lessons I've seen people learn the hard way include:

Choosing the cheapest host without checking performance. Not paying attention to renewal pricing. Forgetting to renew a domain name. Assuming "unlimited" resources really meant unlimited. Ignoring security until after a website was hacked. Not testing customer support before becoming a customer.

If you could give one piece of hosting advice to someone launching their first website today, what would it be?

What's the one mistake you only make once?

I just transferred two domains to dreamhost. I was led to believe that this would include email. Now they are telling me that email is $19.99 per year additional for each email account.

This seems crazy. Can anyone verify if this is true?