Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
YES! Absolutely Free.
No. Ads are only there if you put them on your web site.
There is no catch, however there are a few limitations (see #23). This service was started to serve the Catholic Church and community, in general.
Please see the link for Get a Web Site
Yes, this helps verify the Catholicity of your site.
Yes! However, only If you register your own domain name, your free hosted site includes an email system.
No FP was discontinued by Microsoft.
No, as long as it is for the Church’s work.
Yes, We can provide limited assistance for web sites. Send your request to us by following the instructions and including information requested on our SUPPORT page.
No, Our support is provided by volunteers. We handle everything through email to control costs and document requests.
Yes. We can refer you to volunteer web designers that will create it for free, however, these resources are limited. You might consider this article on How to Create a Website in 10 Easy Steps.
Yes, however as a subdomain you lose many features. We highly recommend that you register your own domain and point to our nameservers.
Yes, we have been running our Web Hosting services since 1995 and this hosting is as good as any paid service.
Usually through a program called FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or in some instances, SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol). You can get a free copy of a good FTP program from http://filezilla-project.org/ . There are many other similar programs available, both free and paid. Once your site is set up, simply connect to your site with the credentials that were provided to you and begin uploading your web pages, pictures, and documents.
Check the permissions on the script (If you are not sure what this means, do some reading on running cgi’s online. Also, make sure you have an .htaccess file in your main dir. Just create a flat text file that includes the following lines:
AddType text/html .shtml .htm
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml .htm
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
Options +ExecCGI
and the cgi should work fine.
Our hosted site isn’t currently set up to accept WORDPRESS, OOMLA, or DRUPAL installations. That is why we suggest that IF you want to use those template based hosting sites, the site at www.wordpress.com might be a good solution for you. We do not support Joomla, WordPress, or Drupal installations. If you are proficient with any of these and MySQL, you may attempt to install however we are not able to provide support, if you experience any issues. You must have purchased your own domain name and point the domain name servers atns1.catholic-church.org
ns2.catholic-Church.org
This can not be done as a subdomain under CCO (ie: www.catholic-church.org/newsite )
To a limited extent.
Your entire web site needs to have a backup and the computer that you use to create and manage your web pages should be THE backup of all files posted. In order to keep our costs down, we do not backup each of the web sites independently. Instead we do the entire server. If your site becomes corrupted or infected and all pages and pictures are lost, YOU need to have the originals readily available to upload and replace the infected or compromised pages/pictures.
Yes, While you do not need to know HTML in depth, you will need to have an idea about whatyou wish your web site to look like and look for a web page design software tool that allows you to create and manage web pages easily. Once you haveyour web page(s) created, you will use your FTP client software to POST it to your web site (server).
There are many options for building web sites using pre-built web sites. One such example is www.wordpress.com . Here you can create your web pages by following some simple instructions. These sites may also offer many templates to give your web pages a more professional look and feel. Once you have create your WORDPRESS web site, simply point yourdomain to it.
We recommend that you create a parish GOOGLE account and store all ofyour pictures within the picasaweb.google.com or plus.google.com albums.Then, you simply create a link to your album or specific pictures from your hosted web site.
We recommend that you create a parish GOOGLE account and use www.blogger.com. (This can be the same GOOGLE account that you created for your photo albums, as well as login credentials for theWORDPRESS site. Then, you simply create a link to your blog page from your hosted web site.
No. In order to reduce our costs and allow better resource management, we only provide SFTP/FTP access to your FREE Hosted sites. The creation of resources that may only be done through a cPanel are completed by us when you request this at support@catholic-church.org
We recommend the free guestbook service at www.smartgb.com. This service is free, if you allow them to post ads. You may eliminate all ads for a small annual fee (with them)
A nameserver is a computer that is permanently connected to the Internet and translates domain names into IP addresses (or vice versa), enabling you to enter www.example.com instead of 194.63.248.47.
https://shop.hostingmetro.com/members/cart.php?a=add&domain=register
Please make sure that you notify us once you have created your new account and registered your domain name. We will send a request to Hosting Metro, to set your “nameserver” correctly.
We NEVER send out email broadcasts or notices to our hosted site owners or webmasters. All correspondence from us is in direct response to an email request for support from YOU. All notifications for system problems are posted on our ALERTS page. So, if you didn’t request support from us, DO NOT OPEN OR RESPOND TO SUSPICIOUS EMAILS FROM US.
Forms such as Registration, requests for assistance, contact us, information request, order forms, and other similar forms on our site.
We recommend that you create a FREE account with www.formsite.com This site offers many templates and can easily be linked to your web pages. In most cases, the FREE account works perfectly. Compare the FREE versus PAID account offerings.
We recommend that you create a FREE account with www.surveymonkey.com. This site offers many templates and can easily be linked to your web pages. In most cases, the FREE account works perfectly. Compare the FREE versus PAID account offerings.
Other questions we received because of our domain name
Go to Masstimes.org
Go to your local parish and ask to use the PJ Kenedy “Official Catholic Directory” this will list any in the United States
You may donate to the St. Ambrose Foundation by sending a check or online via PayPal . There is a link on our home page and at the bottom of this page, that makes this easy for you to do.
