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What is cPanel Used For?
cPanel is a crucial tool to help you access hosting features via a simple, non-technical dashboard. It’s regarded as an industry standard, and most hosting services turn to it for its functionality and ease of use.
cPanel lets users manage the key elements of your site’s web hosting, including uploading and organizing website files, overseeing databases, managing domains and subdomains, and creating and managing email accounts, among other things.
These tasks require a significant amount of technical knowledge to be completed without cPanel, but it simplifies them and makes web hosting accessible even for those lacking prior experience.
How to Access Your cPanel Dashboard
Accessing your cPanel dashboard is simple, but how you need to go about it depends on your web hosting provider. Most web hosting providers will send you a welcome email when you register an account and subscribe to their services, which should contain the link to your cPanel.
However, even if your hosting provider makes it hard to find a direct link to the cPanel web hosting dashboard, you can do the following to access it.
Method 1?– After your website’s URL address, add a colon and either “2082” or “2083.” If your website starts with HTTP, add “:2082.” If it starts with HTTPS, add “:2083.” For example – https://www.domainexample.com:2083
Method 2?–?Type in your website’s URL address followed by “/cpanel.”?For example – https://www.domainexample.com/cpanel
Method 3?– If the methods above don’t work, use your website’s IP address. For example – https://10.10.10:2083
Then, once you reach the login page, type in your cPanel username and password. Most web hosting services will provide your cPanel credentials in a welcome email when you subscribe.
How Does cPanel Web Hosting Work?
cPanel helps you manage nearly all aspects of your web hosting setup, from setting up your domain to keeping it secure and tracking its metrics. So, what is a cPanel interface mainly used for? Here are some examples.
- Domain Management — cPanel allows users to manage domain names linked to a hosting account. This includes actions like creating subdomains and setting up parked domains. In addition, it offers tools for Domain Name System (DNS) management.
- Email Management — With cPanel, users can create and manage email accounts associated with the domain. cPanel also lets users handle spam filters, set up email forwarding, and more.
- File Management — cPanel helps users directly upload, manage, and edit website files. It also offers website data backup and restoration tools and supports File Transfer Protocol (FTP) accounts for bulk file transfers.
- Database Management — It includes features like phpMyAdmin for MySQL database management. cPanel lets users create, manage, and modify databases, which are crucial for open-source CMSs like Joomla and WordPress.
- Performance Metrics — cPanel helps users track and analyze website performance metrics. This means users can track error logs, visitor statistics, resource usage, and similar metrics.
- Security — cPanel provides essential security tools to protect websites, including IP blocking, SSL and TLS management, Hotlink protection, firewall configuration, and more.
Which Web Hosts Provide cPanel?
Many web hosting providers offer cPanel WordPress hosting, shared hosting, VPS hosting, and other services. Here are three popular choices this year.
Bluehost
Bluehost is a great pick for bloggers and WordPress users looking for versatile hosting options with cPanel. Its plans are scalable, budget-friendly, and suited to both advanced users and beginners, with a comprehensive set of website-building tools. Besides including cPanel, Bluehost offers a free domain and a free SSL certificate.
HostGator
HostGator offers a 99% uptime guarantee, 10GB of SSD storage, and malware scanning with its cheapest shared hosting plan. These features make it one of the most reliable web hosting services around – and it also supports cPanel.
InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting is a versatile web hosting provider that caters to the needs of small-to-large businesses and offers first-rate customer support. Its cheapest shared hosting plan provides two free websites and lets you use cPanel and create up to ten email addresses.
cPanel – The Bottom Line
Thanks to cPanel, millions of websites have been launched by users without significant technical expertise when it comes to website creation and management. Although web hosting providers offer various tools to improve user experience, such as AI-powered website builders, few are quite as useful as cPanel.
cPanel acts as a central hub for website and server settings and is a one-stop shop for managing domains, security, files, and more. Besides being helpful, cPanel is easy to use and access and is offered by most top-tier hosting services, so it isn’t likely to go away anytime soon.
