Frequently Asked Questions

Answers: General

Do you offer custom packages?

That depends on what your definition of “custom” is… We don’t offer any plans that you can set the features and/or limits, but our plan lineup spans the web hosting spectrum. Why go through the trouble of creating your own custom package when we have affordable options that have been expertly designed to fit your website.

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Will you match a competitor's price?

No. We quantified all of the necessary variables and divided by the number of moons around Jupiter to come up with our plan pricing. We are not a bottom-of-the-barrel hosting company, and our focus is on your Site5 experience (which will be considerably better than any $2/mo hosting experience).

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How long has Site5 been in business?

Site5 was formed officially in early 1999, which means we've been around for over 9 years. We are a privately-held company operating out of San Ramon, California. Over the years we've built up quite a reputation for our dedication to our customers and our custom-made hosting features.

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How many websites does Site5 host?

Start counting one number per second for the next two days, seven hours, thirty-three minutes and twenty seconds, and you’ll be getting to the neighborhood of how many sites we host… If you want to save yourself some trouble, you can just trust us when we say, “We host a lot of sites.” We'd love to have you join us!

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Do you give non-profit or educational discounts?

No. Sorry. We keep our prices low for everyone, and are therefore unable to offer additional non-profit or educational discounts. We like to think that buying hosting from Site5 can be an educational experience in and of itself: In choosing Site5, you learn about supply and demand, market leadership, brand differentiation, and you will even get to sit at the virtual “cool kids’ table.”

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My website gets a lot of traffic--will this be a problem?

This usually depends on the nature of your website. While relatively straightforward sites (think basic html/xhtml content, most shopping sites, webpages, blogs, etc.) can receive tens of thousands of hits at any given time and work perfectly fine, problems can arise with more complex sites--sites with lots of images, scripts or interactivity with visitors. Tens of thousands of users each accessing a database at the same time can cause quite a strain on a server and might be too much for a shared web hosting environment.

The thing to remember is that the term "shared hosting" (which is another term for standard web hosting) means that your site will share a server with other users. This allows for plenty of usage while keeping prices low, but certain sites may not be appropriate for such an environment. If you are unsure whether your high volume website will work with our shared plans, please feel free to e-mail our sales department, and we will be happy to assist you in determining the best solution for your needs.

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What if I need more space and bandwidth?

If you need additional space and bandwidth, you can simply upgrade your account to a higher plan. Upgrading your plan provides a much better value than paying for more bandwidth and storage on the side.

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Answers: Features and Technology

Do you have [insert feature name here]?

Probably. We support just about everything under the sun (and a few things over the sun). Check out our web hosting plan comparison page for information on all the features we offer. One of the best things about having a Site5 account is that you are going to get the features you are looking for and then some. Site5 has several exclusive homegrown software developments that are designed to make your web hosting experience as enjoyable as possible.

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I have my own SSL certificate--can Site5 install it for me?

Sure! We allow you to use your own SSL certificate if you'd like. There is a one time $15 installation fee for all custom SSL certificates. Contact our customer service department for assistance.

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What do you mean by "low site to server ratios" and how does this benefit me?

The number of accounts hosted on a web server can have a significant impact on how quickly that server is able to respond to page requests. Since all users of a server share system resources such as processor time and RAM, a server with too many accounts can be slow to respond and cause your site's visitors to become frustrated and leave.

Many hosting companies pack too many accounts onto each server in an effort to maximize profit. At Site5, we feel that the long term customer satisfaction resulting from providing high performance hosting is far more important than the short term profits made by overfilling servers. Our customers love the extra speed they get at Site5, making them more than happy to recommend Site5 to their friends, family and website visitors.

Join Site5 today and experience the many benefits of our "undercrowded" servers!

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Is your network fast and reliable?

Yes--very. (Imagine that we are standing next to you moving our hands rapidly and snapping to indicate how fast our servers really are…) Site5's servers are connected to an extremely powerful and fully redundant network (no single point of failure). Our network has over 20 GB/s of available bandwidth from Tier 1 transit providers.

Click here for more information on our network.

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What is the difference between NetAdmin and Backstage? Which one should I use to manage my account?

Backstage is our central customer control panel. It allows you to view your billing and contact information, manage all of your Site5 services, view and submit new support tickets, buy, transfer and manage domain names, view important announcements from Site5 customer service and grant other users access to your account.

NetAdmin is the control panel used to manage features of a specific web hosting account. It allows you to manage email features and mySQL databases, autoinstall scripts, view web statistics and much, much more. Through Backstage you can access the NetAdmin control panels for all of your hosting accounts without needing to login to a separate interface for each one.

You can access every part of your account from within Backstage. Backstage provides automatic login to NetAdmin, so there is no need to login to NetAdmin directly. To login to Backstage, simply point your browser to https://backstage.site5.com/ or click the "Customer Login" link at the very top of the main Site5.com website.

Backstage and NetAdmin are developed in-house by the Site5 Engineering Team, and are constantly being updated with exciting new features!

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Do you do regular backups of my account?

Yes, we perform nightly backups on all accounts, but don't count on our backups alone! Your website is important, and you are the one ultimately responsible for ensuring that your data is backed up!

We make every effort to back up all account data on a nightly basis, but we can’t guarantee that our backups will be complete, up to date or even available at all. We are not responsible in the event that some or all of your account data and settings are lost (please see our service agreement for more information).*This note may sound cold and heartless, but it helps reinforce the importance of making your own site backups.

You should always keep an up to date copy of your website on your local computer; by doing this you will always have a copy of your site on hand in the event of data loss. You can easily download file, database and settings backups from the backup area of NetAdmin.

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Answers: Ordering

My order wasn't setup immediately. What should I do?

Stop, drop, and roll... That is usually a good policy if you are ever worried about something having gone wrong. As soon as you get up and dust yourself off, you will likely find that your order has been flagged for further review and verification by a customer service representative (since our auto-provisioning system would typically have you online within 15 minutes).

You do not need to take any further action. Our staff continuously checks the order queue for orders requiring verification and will contact you via email or phone if additional information is required to process your order.

Orders are only manually reviewed during business hours Monday through Friday. If your order is placed outside of business hours and requires manual verification, it will be performed at the start of the next business day. We appreciate your patience in this situation.

If for some reason you have not heard from our customer service department after a full business day, please let us know.

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I'm confused or having trouble with the ordering process. Who should I contact for assistance?

If you're having trouble ordering, our sales team will be happy to help!

You can contact our sales department at sales@site5.com or use the "Live Sales Chat" link at the very top of the Site5.com website to chat with a friendly Site5 sales representative.

We're glad you decided to join the growing Site5 community, and we look forward to providing you with outstanding web hosting service!

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Can I register a new domain name at the same time I place my order?

Not yet. Currently our order form does not handle domain name registrations. If you are signing up for service with a new domain name and would like to register it through Site5, here's what to do:

1) Place your order for a hosting account using the domain name. It does not need to be registered before you place your order.



2) After you receive your new account information, login to Backstage and click the "Domains" tab.



3) From here, you will be able to register your new domain name.

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Do I need to have a domain name picked out and registered before I submit my order?

Picked out: Yes


Registered: No

When you place an order, the order form will ask you to enter a domain name for your new account. Our web servers will be configured to work with this domain name when your account is provisioned. If you would like to change the primary domain name on your account, you can do so by sending a request to our customer service department.

You do not, however, need to have this domain name registered before you place an order. If you do not yet own the domain name, you should make sure to verify that the domain name is actually available and not already in use. You can do so at our domain name lookup page.

You can register your domain name with Site5 (by using the "Domains" tab in Backstage) or through another registrar of your choice at any time.

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Answers: Miscellaneous and Nonsensical

Who made your website?

Since Site5's inception, our websites have been crafted entirely by our founders: Matt Lightner (writing, HTML and coding) and Rod Armstrong (graphics, layout and general "look good-ness"). You will find that the site is constantly updated (both content-wise and design-wise) since we are always looking to improve every aspect of Site5 (and because we can never make up our mind on the "perfect" website).

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Do you make websites for people?

No. Definitely not. Absolutely, positively not. Making websites is really hard work, and if there's one thing we don't like, it's hard work!

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Will you send me spam? Do you have a privacy policy?

No. We spend countless hours combating spam. It doesn't make much sense for us to turn around and send unsolicited mail ourselves.

If you are a spammer and you are on the fence about sending spam to us, please don't... We can guarantee that no one at Site5 wants to refinance their home mortgage through some random email they got where the sender's name does not include any vowels, so you can save a little bandwidth by leaving us off of your list.

Our privacy policy can be found here.

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Is the Pope Catholic?

This question has nothing to do with web hosting, but it is frequently asked, so it should be included every F.A.Q. page you visit.

As it turns out, this question is often asked sarcastically or matter-of-factly in order to imply a response in the affirmative ("yes") since the Pope is Catholic.

Typically, the question would arise in a scenario like this:

Jane: Did you go to the party?
John: Is the Pope Catholic?

See? John "asked" the question... Now you know the answer.

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How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

You thought we would go the old "A woodchuck would chuck a chuck of wood if a woodchuck could chuck wood" response, but after doing a bit of research, we found that a woodchuck would chuck about 700 pounds of wood if a woodchuck could (and did) chuck wood. Apparently Richard Thomas published an article in the Wall Street Journal with reasoning behind this conclusion.

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Answers: Scripts and Programming

Will you install my programs and scripts for me?

We’re sorry, but we can’t accommodate that kind of support. Our hosting accounts come with an autoinstaller that allows you to install over 50 scripts with the click of a button. Click here for a complete listing of scripts that can be automatically installed. In addition to those popular scripts, Site5 has written a custom-installer for the popular Ruby on Rails based blog system, Typo.

If you need to install scripts that are not listed above, we cannot assist you nor can we provide support for any of those third-party scripts (even if they were installed with the autoinstaller). This policy is not to withhold any specialized information or hoard our team’s experience. It is impossible for all of our support staff to be fully versed in every available script, and if we have not tested and included the scripts in question, we would be jeopardizing the shared hosting environment by letting them all run rampant across our network.

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Will you install custom Perl modules?

Yes. Our technical support team will install almost any Perl module upon request. Simply contact customer service with your request.

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Answers: Domain Names

Do you sell domain names or do I have to buy my domain from another company?

Site5 does, in fact, sell domain names. You will see a "Domains" tab in our customer control panel, Backstage. Click this tab to search for and purchase new domain names through our revolutionary, ultra-usable Domain Manager.

Additionally, you can transfer your existing domain names to Site5 with the click of a button.

Domain names through Site5 cost $8.88/year.

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I want to buy a domain name without hosting. Where do I go to order just a domain name?

Currently we don't sell domain names as a standalone service… If you aren’t experiencing Site5 hosting, you are missing out on our core competency, and we can’t give you an opportunity to do that.

Once you receive your web hosting account information, you can transfer existing and purchase new domains using the "Domains" tab in Backstage.

Note that this does not mean that you won't be able to continue domain name service without an active web hosting account. You can continue domain name registration service through Site5 as long as you choose, regardless of whether or not you still have web hosting through Site5.

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Answers: Billing and Payments

If I'm not satisfied, will you give me a full refund?

We like happy customers. If for some reason you're not satisfied with our service, let us know. We would love the chance to work with you to resolve any problems you experience. If you cancel within 60 days of signing up, we will provide you with a full refund.

Please see our guarantees page for detailed terms and conditions on our 60 day money back guarantee.

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Do you accept PayPal?

At this time we do not accept payments via PayPal, but our secure credit card checkout process is as fast as greased lightning... That statement doesn't really make sense since there's really no way to "grease" lightning, but if there were a way to make lightning faster, we could compare our checkout speed to that super-lightning creation. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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Can I pay by check or money order?

Site5 only accepts payment via credit card at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience.

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What credit cards do you accept?

We currently accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express.

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How much will I be billed upon signup?

Upon signup, you will be charged for your first contract period. For example, if you sign up for a six month plan, you will be charged six times the monthly rate for that plan (the six-month discount monthly rate, to be more specific).

Our order form will calculate the amount of your first invoice before you submit your order, so that you can make sure you know exactly what you will be charged.

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Answers: Policies, Usage and Terms of Service

Do you allow Reselling on your current hosting plans?

The short answer is "yes"... with some caveats. On our current web hosting plans (http://www.site5.com/hosting/), you are free to do with your webspace as you may (as long as it is within the guidelines of our TOS, RUP, and Service Agreement), including selling/subletting that space to friends or clients. In fact, with our multiple domain pointers and high resource availabilities, our upper level plans offer a great solution if you are looking to sublet just a few clients.

If you are looking for a true reseller plan, check out our available Reseller plans.

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Do you offer Reseller services?

Yes, actually we do! As of October 2006, we have re-launched our Reseller plans with better features and hardware than ever before.

You can find them at http://www.site5.com/resellers/

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What is your Resource Usage Policy? If my site gets busy, will it be suspended?

In shared web hosting, the ability to use your account is limited not just by your space and bandwidth, but also by how much of your server's resources (processor and RAM) you may be able to use at a given time. Since you are sharing a server with many other clients, each must operate their site within certain limits to ensure that all accounts perform as well as expected.

We also completely understand, however, that webmasters are often unaware of instances where their site is using too many resources, and that such usage is not done maliciously. Our Level 3 staff is partially dedicated to handling resource usage issues and working with clients to resolve them.

For a more detailed explanation of our usage policies, please see the following knowledgebase article:

http://www.site5.com/support/rup.php

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