With the Welcome email from SiteGround you get a direct link to your Customer Area as well as the username and password you need in order to login. Here is how the Welcome Email looks like:

Once logged in you are able to access your account, support and billing sections; you can order additional accounts, extras and domains; you can also find plenty of free resources. Read more about your Customer Area in the detailed Getting started guide.

From your Customer Area you can access the control panel for managing your hosting account. To do this, click on [My Account Section] located in your Customer Area home.

Then click the [Go] button under cPanel as shown below.

From the cPanel you can manage your emails, databases, subdomains; you can install scripts and applications via Fantastico; check your stats, etc. Find out more about the cPanel management tool.

In the Billing Section you will find everything related to you service payments. You can check payments history, get a sales invoice, renew a service, or cancel a hosting service. You can access it by pressing the [Billing Section] button from your Customer Area home.

You can learn more about your Billing Section here.

If you have a domain name registered with SiteGround you will have access to a domain name management tool, from where you will be able to renew it, change its DNS settings, status and administrative contact information and obtain its EPP code (Authorization code). To access this tool, first click on the [My Account Section] button located in your Customer Area home and then continue with the [Manage] button for the corresponding domain name.

Find further information about how to manage your domain name.

There are many applications to choose from, when starting a new website. To make it easier for you we have selected some of the most frequently used tools suitable for the specific kind of website you want to create.

The following table gives you a quick overview of the scripts/applications you might use for your website:

The easy-to-use Zen SiteBuilder is created especially for people, who want to have a good-looking website immediately and have little or no web design knowledge. The SiteBuilder offers a choice of more than 180 templates and plenty of page types to choose from - home page, photo gallery, product gallery, contact page, etc. With the SiteBuilder you can easily build both your personal website and/or your simple online shop. You can access it from the My Account Section of your Customer Area.

Learn more about the SiteGround SiteBuilder and how to use it from the detailed Getting started tutorial.

SiteGround offers easy installation of blogs, CMS, ets. Each account comes with Fantastico - one of the most popular tools for a quick and easy installation of an application. Thanks to it, you can install blogs, forums, CMS and many other applications within a few mouse clicks. All you need is to follow the instructions displayed during the installation process.

SiteGround offers you detailed installation guides for some of the most popular applications included in Fantastico: Joomla, Mambo, Drupal, Moodle, phpNuke, PhpBB, SMF, osCommerce, Zen Cart, WordPress, Coppermine, Gallery 2, etc. To check them, visit the Most popular Fantastico De Luxe scripts/applications guidelines from the detailed Getting started tutorial.

The SiteGround Technical Support Team would gladly assist you with the installation of any of the Fantastico as well as non-Fantastico script/application we are compatible with on your hosting account. Most popular non Fantastico De Luxe scripts/applications are Sugar CRM, vTiger CRM, MediaWiki. To request manual script/application installation, follow the manual script/application installation guidelines.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is the most popular way for uploading files on a hosting account. There are two main ways to upload trough FTP: through a standard Web browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, etc.) or through a dedicated FTP software program, referred to as an 'FTP Client'. You can find your FTP login details in your Customer Area -> My Account Section section.

To start uploading files through FTP, check our FTP upload guidelines.

Any application that is locally installed on your harddrive and is used for uploading files on you account usually requires a username and password. Those are the username and password for the cPanel, with which you can manage your SiteGround hosting account. They are the same as the one that has been sent to you within the Welcome email after you purchased your account with us.

If you do not remember your password you can easily reset it by pressing Change Password. More about your username and password for uploading.

Creating an email account at your domain name is very easy with the control panel (cPanel) of your SiteGround hosting account. Just click the [Email Accounts] icon in your cPanel and follow the instructions.

You can read more about how to create an email account in our detailed Getting started guide.

There are two basic ways for checking your email hosted at SiteGround. You can either use one of the web-based email clients provided with your hosting account or a local email client like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, etc.

• Web - based email clients

  To access the web-based email clients you need to be logged into your Customer Area. Once you login, you can choose between two web-based email clients: Horde - one of the most functional web-based email clients, and SqurrelMail - its user interface is similar to Yahoo! Mail.

  

  

  More about web-based email clients here.

• Local email clients

  Some of the most popular local email clients are Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. They are very easy to be configured. You have to simply follow the steps about how to use local email clients here.

To contact our Technical Support Team, please log into your Customer Area and click on the [Get Support Section] button. There you will find a handful of useful resources. To contact the Technical team, please click on the HelpDesk - report a hosting related issue link.

Once you open the category, which best describes your problem, we advise you to have a look at the Find Quick Answers section. There, you see the most frequently asked questions, related to the topic and this is the fastest way to find a solution.

If you cannot find a solution to your problem, please proceed with the If your ... is not working, please click here to report your problem link located at the top, or the If neither the resources above, nor our extensive knowledge base could help you answer your question, please click here link at the bottom of the page.

You can find more information on how to post a ticket to our Tech Team in the detailed Getting started tutorial.

Through your Customer Area you can review and, if necessary, reopen all the posted tickets at any time. Please find out how to review and reopen your tickets here.

With the search feature we recently included into our HelpDesk, you are able to search for an answer to your question in our Knowledge Base and Tutorials articles.

To order an extra feature you need to login to the Customer Area and then continue to the [Order Extras] button.You will see a list of different extra features that could be added to your account. To proceed with the order, click on the extra feature you have chosen.

SiteGround provides you with a list of all kinds of extra features you can add to your account. Below you can learn more about each one of them.

• Domain ID Protect

  Domain ID Protect is a feature that makes the contact information related with your domain name private. In other words, you would be able to hide your name and organization, contact address, phone, email address, etc, which will be otherwise accessible trough public Domain Whois services. Learn more about the Domain ID Protect service.

• Addon Domain Slot

  The addon domain functionality allows you to host more than one website on your hosting account. In other words, you can have domain1.com and domain2.com pointing to different website content hosted on one account and sharing its resources. Read more about the addon domain slot.

• Private SSL

  The SSL certificate is used for secure communication via the Internet. With it you can transfer important data like e.g. credit card information from one computer to another securely. SiteGround provides two types of SSL certificates: Shared SSL certificate, available for free for you and the other people hosted on the same server, and Private SSL certificate, issued exclusively for your website. Learn more about the private SSL feature.

• Dedicated IP

  All accounts hosted on a shared server use the IP address of this server. Such IP address is called a shared IP address as it is used by all accounts located on the server. If you want to have an IP address issued only for your account, you would need a dedicated IP address.

• Upgrade to VPS

  If your website needs more resources than a shared hosting account can provide, or you would like to run an application not suitable for shared hosting, or you simply want a dedicated solution you can easily upgrade to VPS.

• Upgrade to dedicated server

  If you would like to host unlimited number of websites, or you would like to have your website hosted standalone on a server, or you need a more powerful solution than a VPS, you can easily upgrade to dedicated server.

In order to use your existing domain name with SiteGround you simply have to change the domain DNS settings. The correct DNS settings for your domain name are located into the Manage Hosting Account section of your Customer Area. You can access it by entering My Accounts Section and then continuing with the [Manage] button as shown below. Learn more about how to use your existing domain name with SiteGround from the detailed Getting started tutorial.

If you are moving an existing website to SiteGround, you can take advantage of our Free Website Transfer Promotion and request a free website transfer within the first seven days after signing up for an account with us. Thus, our website transfer specialists will have your website moved to the SiteGround servers for free and there will be no downtime. To request free website transfer, you simply need to login to the Get Support Section of your Customer Area and proceed to the HelpDesk. From there, continue to the Website File Transfer category.

More details about moving an existing website to SiteGround here.

When you start using your new hosting account with us, it may be quite inconvenient to leave your domain name managed by your old host. If you leave it you will have to communicate with two different organizations: one will be providing the hosting services for your website and the other will be providing domain registration services for your domain name. To avoid this inconvenience, you can move your existing domain to SiteGround. You can do that by ordering the extra service called Domain transfer. Click here, to learn how to transfer your domain name to SiteGround.

To access the cPanel you need to be logged into your Customer Area first. From the Customer Area index click on the icon My Account Section.

On the next page, look for the button Go in the cPanel column of the account table.

In order to login to the cPanel successfully, you need to use the cPanel username and password. SiteGround has initially sent this login information with the Welcome Email. If you do not keep the email you can see the username and reset the password from your Customer Area as described here.

cPanel is a powerful and in the same time user friendly tool that will help you manage your hosting account easily. SiteGround has prepared a short cPanel navigation videto tutorial and detailed screenshot tutorial for the most important topics connected to cPanel that you can review, here:

cPanel Navigation Video Tutorial

cPanel Screenshot Tutorial

To access your Billing Section you need to be logged into the Customer Area first. From the Customer Area index proceed to Billing Section icon.

You will be taken to the Billing Section home:

From the Billing Section home proceed with the Payments History link. You will be taken to the Payments history page from where you can review the date, the amount and the service you have paid for.

Note: Some payments made before 03 April 2007 may not be displayed in the list above.

From the Billing Section home proceed with the Request Sales Invoice link. You will be taken to the Payments history page from where you can review the date, the amount and the service you have paid for. To request an invoice for a certain payment, please press the Get Invoice button right next to it.

Your invoice will be immediately generated in a printer friendly format ready for you to print it out.

From the Billing Section home proceed with the Request a Service Cancellation link. You will be taken to a page where you could review all hosting services ordered from SiteGround together with the initial order dates. To proceed with the cancellation request, please press the Request Cancellation button corresponding to the service you would like to cancel.

From the Billing Section home proceed with the View Upcoming Renewals link. You will be taken to a page where you will see a description of all the services you have ordered from SiteGround as well as their expiration dates. These are the last dates at which you can renew the listed services.

From the Billing Section home proceed with the Renew a Service link. You will be taken to a page where you will see a description of all the services you have ordered from SiteGround as well as their expiration dates. These are the last dates at which you can renew the listed services. To renew a particular service, please proceed with the Renew Now button.

To access the domain name management tool you need to be logged into your Customer Area first. From the Customer Area index click on the My Account Section icon.

Please proceed with the Manage button located at the Domain Names table.

Once logged into the domain name management tool home you will see all its current settings.

If you have registered a domain name with SiteGround at the time you have ordered a hosting account, the renewal of the domain name would be performed together with the renewal of the hosting account and for free. If this is not the case, you will have to renew the domain name separately from the account.

To renew your domain name, you need to be the logged into Domain name management tool home. There you will see the Your Domain table which gives information about the registration and the expiration date of your domain name. To renew the domain name simply press the Renew button next to it.

From the domain name management tool home please proceed with the Change button located in the Your Domain DNS table.

Fill in the new DNS settings you wish to use for your domain name and press the Update button to save the changes.

Note: Please be very careful when changing DNS settings. Wrong DNS settings can result in your website being inaccessible, as your domain name will not point to the website location.

Normally, once a domain name is registered by SiteGround it is placed in status "Registrar-lock". This status means that no transfer request can be initiated for this domain. If you wish to transfer your domain name to another registrar you need to change the status of the domain name from "Registrar-lock" to "Active". You can do this by pressing the Change button located at the Your Domain Status table.

Press the Update button to save the new status of your domain name.

Note: Once a .eu domain name is registered by SiteGround it is placed in status "Registered". This domain status does not need to be changed in order to transfer your domain name to another registrar.

Note: Always, before starting a transfer of your domain name to another registrar, make sure you have access to the administrative email address listed under your Domain Name Administrative Contact Information. Please read the next section to find more information on how to change this information.

Due to the ICANN regulations you are required to provide a valid contact information (your name and organization, living address, phone, email address, etc) when registering a domain name. This information is accessible trough public Domain Whois services. If you wish to hide it you may get advantage of the Domain ID protect SiteGround provides.

If you need to change the contact information related with your domain name you can do this by pressing the Change button of the Your Domain Administrative Contact Information table.

Press the Update button to save the changes.

Note: The domain administrative contact information cannot be changed for .eu domain names.

The EPP code (Authorization code) which is required for the transfer of some domain name extensions could be found in the Your Domain EPP Code table.

Note: EPP code is not required for the transfer of .eu domain names.

When a .co.uk or a .org.uk domain name is registered by SiteGround its TAG is set to ENOM. If you would like to transfer such a domain to a registrar different than ENOM you will have to change its tag. You can do this by pressing the Change button located at the Your Domain TAG table.

Please note that once you press the Update button it will take between 2 and 3 business days for the domain tag change to take effect.