A cron job is an automated task, which performs a specific action - usually executing a script in a hosting account. The task is pre-set, therefore it will run regularly - hourly, daily, weekly and so on. There are numerous reasons to make use of a cron job for your sites. As an example, you can get regular reports how many site visitors have signed up on your website, some temporary folder may be emptied automatically each week or a backup of your content may be generated in a standalone folder within your hosting account. Using cron jobs can help you with the management of your sites since it is possible to get several things done automatically and get reports for them, in lieu of spending valuable time and efforts to do them by hand.
Cron Jobs in Shared Website Hosting
The Hepsia Control Panel, that comes with all the shared website hosting, allows you to create cron jobs in a few basic steps even when you have not used this function before. After you log in and proceed to the Cron Jobs section where you can create background tasks, you just have to copy and paste the system access path to Perl, Python or PHP depending on the script you will execute, type the path within your account for the actual script file and choose how often your cron job has to be carried out. For the aforementioned, you'll be able to use the standard mode and select the days, hours, minutes, etc. using simple drop-down menus, or maybe if you are more knowledgeable, you can use the advanced mode and specify the time period with numbers and asterisks i.e. the standard method which you might have used with various other Control Panels.