IMPORTANT:  We recommend website domain owners who are transfering an existing website or email services from an old provider to Netfirms to wait 24-72 hours after pointing your domain to Netfirms before cancelling services from old hosting provider. This will ensure that web and email services for your domain will not be interrupted. Please also ensure that youn are not behind a firewall or proxy that may interfere with your internet activities.

A. Creating a New Website

Once you have registered your domain name, setting up your website can be done in a few easy steps:

1. Netfirms Welcome Letter: Ensure that you have received your Netfirms Welcome Letter as it will provide you with your Netfirms membername, password, and account information.

2. Choose a web design tool: Choosing a web design tool from Netfirms is the fastest way to set-up your website:

NetObjects Fusion Starter CD (for Windows users): comes with many templates to choose from and a Site Wizard to build and publish your site

WordPress: comes with many templates to choose from and an easy-to-use interface to build and publish your site

Netfirms Commerce Pro: turn your website to an online store to sell your products

Netfirms Picture Pro: a fun tool to help you upload pictures to a photo gallery

phpBB forum: allows you to turn your website to a bulletin board

Microsoft FrontPage: this popular tool works just like Microsoft Word

Macromedia Dreamweaver: this popular tool works just like your favorite word processor to build and publish your site

Guidelines:

(a) Most file types should be uploaded to a location inside your /www folder. If your domain is forwarded to /yourdomain.com/, then upload your website files to /www/yourdomain.com/.

(b) The only file types that should be uploaded to the /cgi-bin folder are Perl/CGI (.cgi, .pl ) and Python (.py) scripts. If your domain is forwarded to /yourdomain.com/, then upload your Perl/CGI/Python scripts to /cgi-bin/yourdomain.com/.

3. If your domain is newly registered or if you recently transfered the domain to Netfirms by pointing the domain to ns1.netfirms.com and ns2.netfirms.com, please wait 24-72 hours for your domain to fully propagate. This is propagation time is standard.

4. Promote your website and attract traffic to your website:

Submit your site to search engines: Click here for a tutorial.

Submit your site to Netfirms for "Site of the Week consideration: Click here for instructions.

B. Transferring your Existing Website to Netfirms from your Old Hosting Provider

IMPORTANT:  We recommend website domain owners who are transfering an existing website or email services from an old provicer to Netfirms to wait 24-72 hours after pointing your domain to Netfirms before cancelling services from old hosting provider. This will ensure that web and email services for your domain will not be interrupted.

Once you have signed up for a hosting plan with Netfirms you can transfer your website to Netfirms in a few easy steps:

1. Contact your domain registrar and ask them to point your domain to Netfirms nameservers: ns1.netfirms.com and ns2.netfirms.com. For additional assistance, please click here.

2. Check your email for your Netfirms Welcome Letter which will include your Netfirms membername, password, and account information.

3. Upload a copy of your website to Netfirms using any FTP client such as: Filezilla, FrontPage, or Dreamweaver.

Guideline: Most file types should be uploaded to a location inside your /www folder. The only file types that should be uploaded to the /cgi-bin folder are Perl/CGI (.cgi, .pl ) and Python (.py) scripts.

4. 24-72 hours after you have pointed your domain to Netfirms, proceed to cancel your old hosting account.