BlueHost.com

BlueHost Helpdesk and Knowledgebase

If your domain is registered somewhere else (e.g., GoDaddy or Network Solutions) you will have to change the DNS entries at your registrar to point to the BlueHost name servers. Once you have done this, you will be able to see your web pages hosted on BlueHost.

The DNS entries for BlueHost are

ns1.bluehost.com (74.220.195.31)
ns2.bluehost.com (69.89.16.4)

You will need to enter both names. You don't need to enter the IP numbers.

Most hosting companies warn you that it can take up to 48 or 72 hours for the DNS changes to be distributed throughout the internet. I have once found a change to take longer than 24 hours and I can't prove it wasn't due to the hosting company. Usually the DNS entries for US sites seem to get updated in hours - at least for the DNS servers I use.

1. Go to http://www.bluehost.com
2. The login form is in upper right hand corner of page
3. Enter the user name you were provided by Basically Brilliant! - this is usually the first 7 characters of your domain name + a numeric digit; OR enter your domain name for the user name.
4. Enter the password you were provided
5. Be patient, it can talk some time for the control panel to load
6. Icons and text are displayed for the functions available.

You can create email accounts for your domain (as in me@mydomain.com) from the email control panel on bluehost. You can also edit account information and setup forwarding (automatically have all email that arrives at one of your accounts forwarded to a central account).

Email accounts hosted by bluehost can be accessed by a variety of methods including POP, SMTP, IMAP and web based.

Login to your bluehost control panel. Find the Email control panel section and click on the Email Accounts icon.

• Your site consists of two major parts.
  • First are the standard files such as php, html, css, image and other files that make up your site and are shown in the file directory list (e.g., from FTP).
  • Second is the MySQL database. The database is not a file that is visible when browsing the directories.

Both the files and database need to be backed up. Because your site files are somewhat static (unless you are uploading files or redesigning your site), the files probably do not need to be backed up as frequently as the database.

Your files are most easily backed up by creating a compressed archive file from your BlueHost control panel's File Manager.

Most Content Management System (CMS) software installed by Basically Brilliant! uses MySQL databases to store the content information for your site. You should backup this information regularly. Instructions on how to backup you database from your BlueHost account are here.