New to cPanel? First time, how to set up, configure, steps, and what to do immediately after webhosting subscription | iBuild.PH Knowledgebase

After you have subscribed to a webhosting provider and your hosting provider has a standard cPanel for its clients, there are some things you might want configure, to do immediately for an optimized and suitable setup. These are normally not provided in any instructions and are not set by default, but when done, will be greatly beneficial.

Log in to your cPanel, normally at domain.com/cpanel (your domain slash cpanel), and do the following:

Notifications and securing your account access

1. Go to Contact Information from the user menu, usually from the icon in the upper right corner of the page
2. Enter your primary email address (and secondary if needed). This way, you will be notified by email of any important notifications regarding your account, such as overusage and threshold limits of resources, and other account notifications that may affect your account if left unnoticed. These notification settings can be set as your preferred settings. See the lower part of the page and select or deselect options.
3. You may also reset and change your account’s password for added security under Password and Security.

Optimize the account and website performance

1. Go to Optimize > then Compress all content
   This will save resources by compressing the files on the server upon requests. You can see the loading speed performance after enabling. We have done tests using, for example, PageSpeed Insights and any speed monitoring tools, and indeed it helps!Better speed performance is always good, not just for user experience (UX), but significantly also for search engine optimization (SEO). Google and other search engines do like and even rank fast-loading websites!Read up here from Google itself:
   https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/how-search-works/ranking-results/
   https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2018/01/using-page-speed-in-mobile-search
   https://developers.google.com/speed
   https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2020/05/evaluating-page-experience
   https://developer.chrome.com/blog/search-ads-speed/

Show hidden files, and set the default directory of the File Manager

1. Go to File Manager > click Settings
2. Select Show hidden files, these are normally system files like .htaccess and similar directory or folder files that start with a dot (.) in their filenames; these are normally useful to be viewable for development and troubleshooting issues; these are normally hidden by default as a protection
3. Also, set the default folder where File Manager will load by default, e.g., whether under the root (parent-most level), or inside the public_html (public directory where website files are usually saved)

Select the correct PHP versions

Check the documentation of the system or website requirements.

1. Under PHP Selector > select the PHP version as necessary

Select the correct and required PHP extensions as needed

Check the documentation of the system, content management system (CMS), or website requirements. Certain CMS and plugins, and platforms like Drupal, WordPress, WooCommerce, etc. have very specific requirements in terms of PHP and database.

1. Under Extensions > select or deselect extensions as necessary
2. There may also be libraries or database settings that are needed.

PHP resources

Again, CMS, plugins, modules, applications, and platforms like Drupal, WordPress, WooCommerce, etc. have very specific requirements in terms of PHP and database.

Configure and set the correct and required values for the PHP parameters. Check the documentation of the system or website requirements. You may also check the maximum allowed resources of your webhosting plans and hosting subscription.

1. Under Options > set the required and needed values on the PHP limits and resources
2. Normally, these are the following: