Frequently Asked Questions

What are the choices of Operating systems available for hosting?
Is there a Setup cost?Can I pay monthly?
Where are the servers located? What is the uptime?
How do I pay?
Is paying by credit card secure?
What's the time taken for domain registration and hosting to be setup?
What is reseller hosting? How it works? For whom?
Who is the Registrar of domain names?
What is a hosting control panel?
What is a domain control panel?
What is a reseller control panel?
What databases do you have for NT and Linux?
What is the response time for email?
Do you offer webmail with POP3+SMTP (using Outlook)?
Who bills my credit card?
How do I upload my files for hosting?
Why isnt my site showing?
What's the protection against virus attacks?
How to setup database for my website?
What is your company profile?
Where is Kolkata? Where in Kolkata?
Your phone # and emails?
How do I contact you? when?
Will prices rise next year? What are hosting & domain renewal costs?
What is VSNL hosting in India?
Do you design websites? What are the charges?
What are your charges for web hosting?
What are your charges for domain registration?
Why is my main page not showing? Is there a rule?
How to submit to search engines? How much does it cost?
Whats the waiting period to get listed into a search engine?
Do you do searchengine insertions?
Why are there so much price variations on the Internet for hosting?
Why dont you advertise the names of your existing clients on the site?
Why didnt I receive a reply to my mail? Whats wrong?
Can I transfer my existing domain name to you? Can I park? Can I transfer out?
What is DNS? Whats your DNS details?
Do you offer backup? how often? Is there an extra charge?
Whats protected directories? Do these help?
Whats an ftp a/c? whats a POP3 a/c? whats SMTP?
Is there any difference between .htm & .html extension?
Do you offer custom plans?
Whats the catch?

Answers:

What are the choices of Operating systems available for hosting?

The choices of Operating systems for servers are Windows 2003 .NET Advanced Server with IIS 5 and above guaranteed to perform at a rated uptime of 99%

Is there a Setup cost?Can I pay monthly?

There is NO setup cost whatsoever, all the prices you see on our website are fixed and final and you dont pay anything over and above those prices. All mentioned amounts are annual prices and are payable annually, there is some provision for monthly payments for our services.

Where are the servers located? What is the uptime?

Our servers are physically located both CA, USA and in UK plugged into T3 networks with multiple redundant links connected to multiple service provider backbone, this provides our server with a guaranteed 99% uptime throughout the year.

How do I pay?

Please refer to this page for all the details on payment modes for our services: Click here for Payment Options...

Is paying by credit card secure?

Paying us by credit card is always secure and also simple. We use the services of one of the largest online credit card processing and handling companies in the World, PAYPAL. All payments are routed through 128 bit SSL (encrypted) servers and also have fraud detection signature software. We also have the policy in place in accordance with US federal laws to return any credit/debit card payments that may unfortunately have been fraudulently used and hence charged against. Please visit https://www.paypal.com for an exhaustive list of security features for credit card processing.

What's the time taken for domain registration and hosting to be setup?

If payments for domain registration are made online, then the process for registering the domain is real-time, for hosting its about 12 hours. For offline payments the setup time is within 24 hours of physically receiving the DD/MO/PO or cash.

What is reseller hosting? How it works? For whom?

Reseller hosting is used for hosting multiple websites, from one hosting a/c by dividing it up at whatever ratio you need to have. Eg. a 50 MB 2003 .NET reseller account may be used to host upto 10 websites of 5 MB each. One or more websites can be setup at any given time by logging into a reseller control panel and carving out the space for a website. Any website a/c can be modified/created/deleted by the reseller real-time. This package is mainly meant for individuals who are engaged as web designers, or companies who want to do business as web hosting concerns without investing in servers, softwares and peripherals. The reseller's clients will never no us. The customized branding features give the feel and look of the site of the resller with his Co. name. We use generic anonymous name servers to make us untraceable by resller's clients. This a/c can also be employed by companies who have quite a few websites for sister concerns.

Who is the Registrar of domain names?

The registrar for all domain names registered through us is Directi, an ICANN accredited registrar, based in India

What is a hosting control panel?

Hosting control panel is a web-based interface to manage your hosting a/c and is used for various purposes like, setting up mail a/c, aliases, allocating mail & ftp space, database, ftp a/c, custom errors etc.

What is a domain control panel?

Domain control panel is a web-based interface to manage your domain name a/c and is used for various purposes like, renewals, booking additional domain names changing Registrant, Admin, Technical, Billing, DNS information etc.

What is a reseller control panel?

Reseller control panel is a web-based interface to manage your reseller hosting a/c and is used for various purposes like, administering your own website, creating/editing/deleting your customer hosting a/c, setting up permissions to use a database feature, allocating monthly bandwidth, allocating the number of mail a/c, subdomains, ftp a/c etc. All the features are real-time.

What databases do you have for NT and Linux?

We have MS-SQL, Access database and MySQL database in our server

What is the response time for email?

Typically 12-14 hours.

Do you offer webmail with POP3+SMTP (using Outlook)?

We offer both webmail and POP3 email a/c with SMTP server to send and receive emails from your home/office computer using Outlook Express/Netscape Communicator etc. and through webmail facility to check mail from cyber cafe. Any other public place or when you are away from home/office.

Who bills my credit card?

The charge on you credit card statement will be by paypal.com, its because they collect all the payments made online on our behalf from our clients.

How do I upload my files for hosting?

You can upload files for hosting from your computer by using a ftp software (Cute ftp or WS ftp downloadable free from www.download.com www.zdnet.com). You have to use the user ID, password and ftp address that we provide to you with your hosting a/c to login through the ftp software and sending the files for hosting on the remote server. This process is actually very easy and both these softwares come with tips and brief tutorials built-in.

Why isnt my site showing?

There can be several reasons. If you have just purchased a domain name and hosting a/c then it takes about 24 hrs for the domain name to point to the hosting a/c this happens because the root servers of the Internet gets updated once a day. If you have changes the DNS details of your domain name previously bought to point to your hosting a/c, then again you'll have to wait for 24 hours to view the site. If your hosting a/c is about time has already expired. If your domain name has already expired. If you have not pointed to DNS details right, to point to your hosting a/c (for domain names that haven't been bought from us). If your ISP may be experiencing temporary problems. If our datacenter may be experiencing temporary problems. These are the plausible causes for you site not showing.

What's the protection against virus attacks?

Our datacenter and our server have 3 tier-level for virus protection, to ensure your site is in no way affected. But there are instances where the attack is so massive that the whole or parts of the Internet collapses, called denial of service attack and even the best of efforts may futile, it last happened in February 2003 where even sites like yahoo.com, msn.com microsoft.com simply collapsed and it took 24 hrs to restore complete services for these websites.

How to setup database for my website?

A database can be setup right from the control panel that we provide you with. On the database section you get a choice of MS Access, MS SQL database, you have to add a database by giving it a DSN name, setting its path &assigning password(if you want password protection) and upload the database file using ftp into the designated folder on your site.

What is your company profile?

Mail Mantra is a 5 years old web hosting and designing concern founded in Kolkata Calcutta, India. We have around 900 sites hosted on our servers and we have designed about 130 websites till date, we have around 80 resellers operating from our servers. We also undertake CD-Rom presentation on contractual basis and also software development, mainly relating to web-based softwares.

Where is Kolkata? Where in Kolkata?

Kolkata is the second largest metropolis in India, it is located in the Eastern part of India and has a population of about 15 million people. It is the hub of all Industrial activities in Eastern India with its International Airport, Harbour, Underground Railways, 2 Railway Junctions, Tramways and Inland waterways. Calcutta is the city of Rabindra Nath Tagore, Mother Teresa, Amarta Sen, Swami Vivekananda...... We are located in the South-central suburbs of Calcutta, about 12 Kms from the City-cental, in Behala.

Your phone # and emails?

Our Phone numbers are : 55351616, 27000368. Please prefix: +9133 when calling from outside India or prefix: 033 when calling from other parts of India.
Mobile number is: 9830680828. Please prefix: +91 when calling from outside India or prefix: 0 when calling from other parts of India.
Our email addresses are: sales@mailmantra.com | admin@mailmantra.com Please feel free to contact us. .

How do I contact you? when?

You can email us or leave a message at Yahoo! or MSN pretty much anytime you choose. You can telephone us anytime between IST 700 hrs to IST 2300 hrs, 7 days a week. ( IST = GMT + 530 hrs)

Will prices rise next year? What are hosting & domain renewal costs?

No, prices will not rise, infact over the last few years prices have declined steadily. Though prices may fall. Renewal costs for domain name and hosting are the same as the registration/booking cost for the first time and if costs fall benefits will be passed on.

What is VSNL hosting in India?

We also have our servers in Mumbai datacenter of VSNL, and we offer Linux hosting from our servers there. The main benefit it that since VSNL is the service provider for most ISPs in India, the connection/download speed for the websites being accessed in India is almost 25-40% higher than those from our servers located elsewhere. For clients accessing sites outside India, the reverse is true and hence in those cases our normal (USA & UK) hosting is preferred.

Do you design websites? What are the charges?

Yes, we design websites for anybody who wants his/her website to be designed professionally. The rates and packages are available here: Web designing...

What are your charges for web hosting?

All website hosting packages are listed on this site separately mentioned for Linux, Windows 2000, VSNL-Linux, and reseller hosting for both Linux and NT. Please follow the menu bar on the top of the page to visit the various pages to know more.

What are your charges for domain registration?

Domain registration charges are Rs. 375/- or USD 8.50 per domain name per year for .com,.net,.org domain names and Rs. 500 or USD 10.50 for .biz,.info domain names. Renewals cost are the same as registration charges.

Why is my main page not showing? Is there a rule?

One of the most common reason is missing out on uploading the main page, though there are several other reasons that can also contribute to your main page being not visible. The foremost reason is not following a simple rule while designing the website, that the name of the main page (while hosting on Windows) should be default.htm or default.asp or (while hosting on Linux) should be index.html or index.php or index.cgi etc. this rule should be followed religiously whether or not you are currently facing any problem by not sticking to it.

How to submit to search engines? How much does it cost?

There are several search engines on the net & most are utterly worthless, some of the search engines that count are Google, Yahoo!, Altavista and Lycos (in order of importance). The most sought after SE is Google and its absolutely free to submit. It takes anywhere 2-4 months to get into google and once you are into google you automatically go into yahoo, altavista and lycos. Though Yahoo! charges some money to get into its directory, but then again its a wastage of resource. Another directory to look into is dmoz.org (free submission) and this is the site from where even google sources its search. So just remember that getting into search engines take time and not money. There are thousands of sites offering quick inclusion for monetary consideration and almost all of them are hoax, out to mint money from gullible site owners.

Whats the waiting period to get listed into a search engine?

Depending upon the rush its anywhere between 2-4 months of waiting but its worth the wait. Type 'add url' for search in Google and a link will be displayed to add your site directly to google, remember its free.

Do you do searchengine insertions?

Yes, we submit to google for every hosting a/c setup with us but we dont guarantee whether or not google finally adds your site to its index, you are requested to resubmit your site to google after a month (process described in the pervious answer).

Why are there so much price variations on the Internet for hosting?

Websites are broadly divided into 2 parts, mission critical and non-mission critical. The cost for mission critical hosting is Stratospheric and needed by companies like yahoo, msn, google etc. For the rest of the world its non-mission critical hosting which is relatively cheaper and this is the market web hosting companies are fighting it out. Cost difference arises mainly due to overhead, advertising and establishment costs, because there is only minor variations in price for servers to be located at good datacenters anywhere around the globe. Eg.For 2 web hosting companies, one located in USA and another in India, assuming that they both host from from the same kind of datacentre, the cost price for any buyer for the same specs of hosting would be around 25%-40% lower when buying from an Indian company. Both are expected to deliver the same performance and after-sales service to the customers. Choose your pick!

Why dont you advertise the names of your existing clients on the site?

We dont advertise the names of our clients on our site (like most hosting companies) for a simple reason: PRIVACY. We are expected not to reveal the names or companies of our clients so that no one can trace them back to our servers. That is also precisely the reason why all our name servers are anonymous and untraceable to us.

Why didn't I receive a reply to my mail? Whats wrong?

Most of the mails we receive are regarding the topics that are already discussed here in the FAQ section and since we receive literally hundreds of mails every day, its not possible for us to reply on topics that are already covered here. Thats why people are encouraged to go through the FAQ section first on any website and then enqiure on topics not covered therein. This is a deliberate policy to save on costs & time factors and to streamline operations and not get bogged down by excess mails and ultimately the benefits are for our customers so that we can pass on the lower cost of operations to them.

Can I transfer my existing domain name to you? Can I park? Can I transfer out?

Yes, you can transfer your existing domain name from your current registrar to us, transferring your domain name automatically renews your domain name for another year. The only thing to keep in mind that the domain name should not be less than 60 days old or it should not have less than 6 days to expire. Expired domain names cant be transferred. The transfer cost is the same as registration cost. Parking any domain name is free (compulsorily under ICANN rules). In the unfortunate event you have to transfer out your domain name to another registrar, we'll provide all the support needed and will release the domain within 24 Hrs of getting a formal request from the receiving registrar, though we firmly believe such a situation will never arise.

What is DNS? Whats your DNS details?

DNS or Domain name server is the pointer for the domain name to show where the hosting for the site is located, ie. on which server on the Internet. Our Domain name server details are:
ns1.winsecureserver.com / ns2.winsecureserver.com

Do you offer backup? how often? Is there an extra charge?

Yes, we do. The backup option is available through the hosting control panel. You can set the frequency of the backup for your site as often as you wish. There is no extra charge for this feature.

Whats protected directories? Do these help?

Password protected directories are directories that can be assigned password to open or delete that directory. Its helpful if you have more than one person accessing the site through ftp protocol. If you have only one user for ftp handling, then this feature is not important.

Whats an ftp a/c? whats a POP3 a/c? whats SMTP?

Ftp a/c means File transfer protocol and is needed to upload files to the server for your. POP3 is an email a/c which can be accessed by softwares like Outlook Express and Netscape Communicator and is more convenient than webmail when checking from your home/office computer. SMTP is the protocol to send mail from these softwares from your home/office computers.

Is there any difference between .htm & .html extension?

No, nothing at all.

Do you offer custom plans?

Yes, we offer custom plans for those who ask for it. For your custom requirements please email to: sales@mailmantra.com

Whats the catch?

There is no catch. Nothing at all. The features that you see are the features that you get, the prices that you see is the prices that you get and the performance that you see is the performance that you get. Period.