Getting Started Guide
From Site5Wiki
Welcome to Site5! This guide is designed to help you through the process of setting up a new web hosting account. Should you have any questions not answered below, you can either ask other customers at our community forums or contact customer service as described in this article.
We're looking forward to providing you with stellar hosting service!
Subpages:
- Getting Started Guide
- Getting Started Guide/Order Form Tutorial
Pre-Sales Questions
The Order Form
New Order Processing and Verification
Once you submit your order, it will be sent to our order processing queue. If the order passes a series of tests, it will be automatically setup. In this case, you can expect to receive your new account information within 5 to 10 minutes.
If one or more of the verification tests fail, there's no reason to worry—it doesn't mean your order has been discarded. In order to combat the massive amount of fraud occurring on the Internet, our tests have to be very strict and are often triggered by totally legitimate orders.
You do not need to send an email inquiring about a pending order. We review and activate accounts in the order received and will contact you if there is a problem with the order. Although orders are provisioned by our system 24 hours a day, please note that if an order needs additional verification, this is done between 9am - 5pm EDT (Mon-Fri).
Please do not duplicate orders for the same domain, as this will slow our verification process
and may cause for duplicate orders to be rejected.
Please note that part of our verification process involves placing a phone call to the phone number provided with your order to ensure that it matches the one associated with your credit card. When placing a new order, please supply an accurate phone number at which you may be contacted for the verification of your order. Please be sure that the phone number you provide to us is one that you answer regularly, and make sure that anyone else answering that phone line is aware that you may be receiving a call from Site5's sales team! 
If we are unable to reach you, your order will be declined and removed from our system.
Once our sales team is able to verify that your order is valid, it will be processed and you will receive your new account information via email.
*Please note that this verification process could take up to 48 business hours to complete.
What should I do if my credit card is declined or if the credit card transaction has errors?
If you receive an automated email from our billing system notifying you that your credit card has been declined, please log into your Site5 Backstage account to provide Site5 with a new credit card against which to settle current and future charges. In most cases, our billing system will automatically attempt to process a payment for your pending balance once your new information has been saved.
If you believe that the declined message is in error, you should contact your credit card issuing financial institution.
If you have received an automated email from our billing system that indicates a processing error (timeout, transmission error, etc.), you should wait until our billing system attempts to charge your card again within 24 hours. Often these error messages are temporary and generated by credit card network issues.
If you have received an automated email from our billing system that includes an error such as "General Error - Contact Merchant Provider" the card you have entered is likely a card type which we are unable to accept. Please contact Billing in this case.
Welcome E-mails
When your account is processed, you will receive several emails. These emails contain information about your new Site5 account. You will receive at least the following emails (not necessarily in this order):
- An invoice. Your invoice will list the charge for your new services. In almost all cases, an invoice sent following account setup will contain line items for the new charge to your account, as well as the payment received. This is because we don't process an order until we receive payment. If you used a promotional code for your order, your invoice should also contain a line item for the discount provided by that code.
- An email with your Backstage login information. When your order is processed, we will automatically create a login for your email address to the central Site5 portal: Backstage. Please note that if you log into BackStage 'before' your account is provisioned, you may see a different charged amount than that on the website. Do not worry. This is Pre-Discount pricing you see. Your account will be charged the correct amount on provisioning and BackStage will reflect this once the account has been activated.
- Your hosting account information. This email contains information specific to your new hosting account. It contains your account's username and password--both of which are required to start uploading files to your site.
IMPORTANT: Change both your hosting account and your Backstage passwords immediately! Email is not an encrypted form of communication, and, as such, any text sent via email could potentially be intercepted by an unauthorized third party. Changing your passwords immediately will ensure that your access information remains confidential.
Changing Account Passwords
- Backstage Password - This password can be changed by logging into Backstage at https://backstage.site5.com/, clicking the "Account" tab and then clicking "Account Preferences" on the left-hand menu.
- Hosting Account Password - A hosting account's password must be changed in that account's SiteAdmin control panel. Login to Backstage, click the "SiteAdmin" tab and then select the account for which you would like to change the password. Once you are in SiteAdmin, click "Password" on the left-hand menu, then click the "Change Password" sub-option. You will need to know the current password in order to set a new one.
- Lost Password - If for some reason you have forgotten your password and the reset password link will not work for you, please email sales@site5.com asking us to reset your password for you. Please include the domain and last four digits of the credit card on file. Your password will be sent to the email address on file with Site5.
Setting Up Your Domain Name (i.e. www.yoursite.com)
Immediately after your account is activated, you can access your website, FTP and other services by using the IP address given in your account welcome email.
However, before you can access your Site5 hosting account using your domain name, you will need to change the domain's nameservers to point to Site5. Because this is such an important aspect of getting your hosting account setup, and because it can be a confusing process, we have setup a comprehensive Domain Name Guide to help you through the process.
Go to the Domain Name Guide!
Accessing Your Site Without a Domain Name
You can view your site before the DNS changes have propagated at http://'''iphere'''/~'''usernamehere''/ Don't forget the trailing "/" and the "~" characters. Replace iphere and usernamehere with the IP address and username for your account as provided in your Site5 hosting welcome email message.
Setting Up Email
To create an email account, login to your SiteAdmin control panel and click My E-Mail Center, then Manage Email Accounts - towards the bottom of the page there is a section labeled 'Add POP email account'. This is where you will setup your additional e-mail accounts.
- Note: When logging into these accounts you must use the full e-mail address as your username (i.e. myname@yourdomain.tld) you will replace yourdomain.tld with your accounts domain name.
- NOTE: By default you have no email address setup. The main username may look like it is setup as an email, but if you wish to use it, you will need to add it as an email account.
- Note: Even though it states to create POP email account, it still creates IMAP and SMTP as well as POP3.
For full information on how to use your account's email functionality, see our Email Guide.
Uploading Your Website (Setting Up FTP)
You may begin uploading to your Site5 hosting account immediately once you have received the welcome email containing your IP address and login details by using a FTP client or SiteAdmins's File Manager. If you are using a FTP client, enter your account's IP address into the "host address" field. Once your FTP client has connected to your account, double-click to enter the public_html folder (or www/ folder, which is a symbolic link/shortcut to this folder) and begin uploading to your site. To replace the default place holder page you must simply upload a page named index.html in lowercase lettering.
Your main FTP login and password was sent to you via email to the address that you supplied to us at the time of ordering your account. If you have changed your SiteAdmin password you will need to use the new password that you chose. Please note that your SiteAdmin/FTP login is not the same as your Backstage login information and although you can access the control panel interface from Backstage, you can not use the Backstage login information to access any other aspects of your account.
To access your account via FTP you will need a FTP client. There are many different FTP clients available, so you should find one that suits your needs the best: FTP clients.
The hostname will be the domain name of your website (ex: domain.tld), the user name will be your SiteAdmin account username, and the password will be the password of the SiteAdmin account. The user name and password are CaSe SeNsEtIvE, so you must enter them exactly as they are configured. This FTP account will give you access to all files stored in the account's home directory.
Your Site5 account also has the ability to have sub-FTP accounts which can be added from the FTP accounts area present in your SiteAdmin control panel. These added FTP accounts are accessed using the same settings as the main account only they must include the domain name in the user name, and the password that you choose when adding the account in the FTP manager. For example, if your account's domain is example.com and you add an FTP account named test via the FTP account manager the user name for this account would be test@example.tld.
Added FTP accounts also have their own quotas which are configured when adding the account. This is a limit on how much data in megabytes the account is permitted to upload and download on a per month basis. You can choose allow the FTP account unlimited access by clearing the quota box when adding the account. If the account is already added you can change the limit by clicking the QUOTA button in the FTP manager that appears next to the account in the list.
If you find that you are able to login to your FTP accounts successfully, but are unable to download or upload any files to the server, or you are being disconnected when using certain commands you may need to enable PASSIVE FTP ( or PASV ) which can be configured in the FTP application you are using. If you continue to have the problem after enabling PASSIVE FTP ( or PASV ) please contact us via our support system for further assistance.
Your Control Panels: Backstage, SiteAdmin and MultiAdmin
We reference several different control panel names in this document. Here's a rundown of what each of these panels does...
- Backstage
- Backstage is what we like to call our customer portal. It links together everything a customer needs to know about Site5. It provides a single point of access to your billing information, as well as gateways to SiteAdmin (and MultiAdmin, where applicable) for all of your hosting accounts.
- Every person who uses any aspect of Site5's service should have their own separate Backstage login--even if they are both accessing the same hosting account(s). One Backstage login can be used to manage many different accounts and services. For a detailed explanation of Backstage, see the Backstage Guide.
- SiteAdmin
- SiteAdmin is the control panel you use to manage an individual hosting account. A hosting account is essentially one of the hosting plans sold on our website. If you purchase multiple hosting plans, each one will have its own SiteAdmin. You can easily jump between SiteAdmin interfaces for your hosting accounts if they are linked in our system (contact our billing department if you need accounts linked).
- In addition, if you have a hosting account with MultiSite capabilities, each of the MultiSite sub-accounts you create will have its own separate SiteAdmin control panel. All of your sub-accounts will automatically be linked to your Backstage login in this case.
- MultiAdmin
- You use MultiAdmin to create and manage your MultiSite sub-accounts. Not all hosting plans include MultiAdmin. If you purchased a hosting account with MultiSite capabilities (MultiSite is not the same thing as a domain pointer), you will have access to a single MultiAdmin control panel. When you add a new MultiSite sub-account through MultiAdmin, that sub-account will automatically become linked to your Backstage login and a link to its individual SiteAdmin control panel will appear under the SiteAdmin tab in Backstage.
- Note: If you don't see a "MultiAdmin" tab when you login to Backstage, your account does not have MultiSite capability.
To recap:
- SiteAdmin is for managing a single hosting account.
- MultiAdmin is for creating MultiSite sub-accounts (each one of which will then have its own SiteAdmin management interface)
- Backstage links all of your other control panels together into one convenient interface. It also lets you manage your account contact information, user access and billing information.
Accessing Backstage (backstage.site5.com)
Ready to start using Backstage? Simply head on over to Backstage and enter the login information that was provided with your Backstage login email (this email comes separate from your new account email).
Backstage Customer Portal: https://backstage.site5.com/
(Note that you don't need to memorize this URL--just click the "Customer Login" in the upper right-hand corner of any page of the main Site5.com website)
Accessing SiteAdmin and MultiAdmin
To access SiteAdmin, simply click the SiteAdmin tab in Backstage and select the site you wish to manage (for a standard shared hosting account, you will only see one site listed). If you have a MultiSite enabled account, you will also see a MultiSite tab in Backstage. The names of your MultiSite primary accounts are listed on this page. Simply click the domain of the account you wish to manage (note that only your primary MultiSite account domains are listed--sub accounts only appear under the SiteAdmin tab).
NOTE: If you don't see the SiteAdmin tab in your Backstage interface, you have no active hosting accounts. If you are a new customer, this means that your order has not yet been processed by our sales team. Once your order is approved and setup, you will receive an email notification, and the appropriate tabs will appear in Backstage.
Transferring Without Downtime
We want your transition from your current host, or your self-hosted server, to be as smooth and painless as possible. Webhosting is supposed to be fun, after all--and having periods where your site is unavailable is the antithesis of fun. So we have some advice concerning your move to Site5.
Getting Help
If you have any questions, please log into your Backstage Account and click on Support, from there you can access the ticketing system, customer manual and more!
Another great place for help and discussion is the Site5 Community Forums: http://forums.site5.com. The Forums are a "customer helping customer" resource, a great place to discuss common issues, programming, site configuration, and such. The forums are not a customer support channel. If you have issues with a Site5 server, please use a Support Ticket email (see below). No one in the Forums has access to the Site5 servers.
Live Chat Support
Live chat can be used for pre-sales-related questions (please no technical support—our live chat sales representatives can not assist with support questions). To use our live chat, simply go to our home page http://www.site5.com and click the Live Sales Chat on the top right hand navigation bar across the top of the screen. We also encourage you to open a support ticket via Backstage.
Email/Helpdesk Ticket Support
The most efficient way to get all questions and concerns addressed is by emailing our highly-skilled engineers at customer.service@site5.com or by creating a ticket via Backstage. At this time, Site5 does not offer telephone support for technical issues.
Please provide your main account domain and username, as well as a step-by-step outline of how we may reproduce your problem -- including any login information that may be needed to review your situation when submitting any new support ticket.
Shortly after emailing our support team, you will receive an automatic response message, containing a ticket ID number. If you do not receive this auto-response and/or a ticket ID, it is possible that your message has not been received and we would encourage you to submit a new ticket. Please wait at least 15 minutes before submitting another ticket if you do not receive an automated response from our system.
Please be sure to check your spam and junk email folder and add .*.@site5.com to your email whitelist.
[AAA-000000] the subject line of your original email to us;
i.e., three letters-hyphen-series of numbers, all enclosed in straight brackets.
Our ticket-based support system functions ideally for solving problems and answering questions as your ticket is escalated up the "food chain" until any questions or issues can be resolved. Most inquiries are addressed within minutes, however, if you are inquiring about a complicated matter, it may require additional review as it is moved up to higher-level technicians.
If you are ever unhappy with a response or need additional assistance, please simply respond to the ticket and we will be more than happy to help you.
We ask that you please refrain from submitting multiple tickets regarding any single issue
as this will prevent our staff from providing support as efficiently as preferred.
It could also delay resolution, as each reply will place your ticket at the bottom of the queue.
It is best to use a third-party email provider like Gmail, or the email address given to you by your Internet Service Provider, as your contact email address within Backstage. If your server is having problems, chances are that you will not be able to access the email address on that server, and therefore won't receive our support team's responses.
