Does the Web Hosting Provider Have a Good Hosting Control Panel?

A hosting control panel is an interface that makes it easy for the average user to perform tasks that, in the past, had to be performed by the web hosting provider’s staff. For example, anyone can easily create a new e‑mail account with just a few clicks using one of these panels.

If a hosting provider does not have a hosting control panel, that’s a good sign to move on.

There are two qualities to look for in a hosting control panel:

Comprehensiveness —The panel should allow you to control much more than just e-mail accounts and fi le uploading. Even if you’re planning on having someone else do some of the tasks for you, you want to have control over as many aspects of your hosting account as possible.

Ease of use —Are the various areas of the panel easy to navigate?
Does the panel provide good instructions, and are the inputt ing and report screens clearly laid out? Is there good help available right there in the panel (text or video help)?

Hosting control panels generally are third-party soft ware, although some web hosting providers have created their own systems that are as good or sometimes bett er. The two most popular third-party packages used by providers are cPanel and Parallels/Plesk.

The most common tasks you’ll probably perform through a hosting control panel are :

1.  E-mail management (creating accounts, auto-responders, and so on)
2. File uploading
3. Viewing your site’s statistics
4. Accessing your web mail.

These functions generally are very straightforward and there’s not much you can mess up. Tasks that you might want to have handled by someone who knows what they’re doing include sett ing up or modifying
databases, creating sub-domains, or sett ing up redirects.

Whether or not you’re the one who’s going to be using it, a good hosting control panel is a must. It will save you a lot of time, money, and frustration.