JWG Website Tutorials:
Hosting Guide
Thinking of upgrading to paid hosting from an MSN Group or a free host?
Read this step by step guide first, before handing over your cash....It could save you money and hassle!! Even if you can't afford paid hosting, you should be able to find a decent free host, and possibly consider purchasing a domain name, which you can then point to your free site.
Contents
Domain Names
domains: OK so you are now ready to move on and build a professional website. The first thing you will need is a domain name. When you have a free website from Lycos/Geocities/Angelfire etc, your url is something like http://members.freehost.com/yourusername. This can be quite long, and not very memorable. Upon upgrading to paid hosting, your url becomes www.yourname.com or similar. Much shorter, and more user-friendly! Many webhosting companies either offer a free domain name with the package, or will set one up for you for a few extra dollars.....
However, I am going to advise you to go down a different road, and buy your own domain name separately, directly from the Registrar, before signing up for your hosting package. Why? Because this offers you much greater flexibility with your domain name, as you own it and look after it yourself, and can move it from webhost to webhost without a great deal of hassle...
A word of caution first...
When you purchase your domain name from a registrar, do make sure that you will be able to move it to any webhost of your choosing,
BEFORE you buy it. Most reputable registrars will have no problem with this.
Although many will have their own hosting packages, you are under no obligation whatsoever to purchase
anything else from your registrar, apart from your domain name, (despite their often strenuous attempts to persuade you to do so!).
If a company insists on you purchasing their hosting with your domain name, use another company instead.
You may wish to purchase hosting from your registrar, but you shouldn't be compelled to do so.
You can even buy a domain name and forward it to your free website, or the free webspace that you usually get from your ISP, (Internet Service Provider) - ask them for details of this- If you buy your domain from GoDaddy, you can get "masking" (now free!) which means that when your visitors type in yourdomain.com or whatever instead of seeing yourfreesiteurl, they see yourdomain.com in their address bar when they reach your site. Godaddy has some more info on masking.
All domain names are registered with a Registrar, (a company that has been approved by the authorities to do this), and if you obtain your domain name through a webhost, they have simply registered it with a Registrar, on your behalf. What is wrong with this then, as it saves you effort? Well yes, it does initially, but when you want to move to a better hosting package say, or your webhost suddenly disappears into cyberspace, you are left with a domain name that you can't move or gain access to, (as it has been registered by a webhost who has the username and password for the account with the Registrar)....and if the webhost hasn't put all the right details in, (this does happen!) you can't even transfer it to your new hosts......
Even worse....sometimes it is not actually technically YOUR domain name, although you have paid good money for it, it is registered by your webhost at the Registrar as belonging to them, and although you use it; if you wanted to transfer to a different host, you could not take your domain name with you, as it comes with the webspace, and is really only rented!!
Many webhosts nowadays are improving the control and flexibility you get over your domain name when you purchase it through them, but do check it out thoroughly first, before signing up for anything.
Therefore to avoid the possibility of any of this trauma occurring, I still recommend in most cases, that you register your own domain with the Registrar first.
There are a large number of accredited Registrars available for you to choose from. Visit internic.net for more info on Registrars etc..
I have found GoDaddy Software to be one of the cheapest Registrars, plus they are quite easy to do business with, and very friendly and helpful....I have registered new domains with them, and transferred existing domains to them, and all has gone smoothly.......
They charge $8.95 (£5.83) or less to register a new domain name for 1 year, and $6.95 (£4.05) to transfer an existing domain name to them, which includes a 1 year extension to your existing registration period, (ie: your domain name is registered for 1 year from March 2004 to March 2005... You transfer it to GoDaddy in November 2004, and the domain is renewed automatically until March 2006).
GoDaddy can only register certain ccTLDs (countrycode Top Level Domains) as it is a US based Registrar. (Currently they offer .co.uk, .org.uk, .me.uk, .cc, .be, .jp and .tv at very good prices) ~but not .nz. aus. .de....etc~
If you would like to register one of those instead, go to cctldwhois and scroll down the list to find your chosen country.
For UK domains, see nic.uk for the main UK registry. Try ukreg.com and 123-reg.co.uk for reasonably priced domain names.
Web Hosting
hosts: Right, so you have chosen your domain name , registered it, and "parked" it at the Registrar. (you get a free holding page saying "Coming soon! yourdomain.com" etc....) Now what? You need to find some suitable hosting for it. A good place to start your search is FindMyHosting.com At this excellent site, you can do a search based on YOUR needs, and the database will come up with a number of hosts that match your criteria, for price, size, bandwidth, extra features and so on. I found my current host by doing that search, and am very happy with them :-)
More links to hosting companies can be found in the hosting section of our Links & Resources directory.
Free Hosts
free hosts: For free website hosting, try searching freewebspace.net: free-webhosts.com: and 100bestfreewebspace:. All of whom allow you to put in a search based on your own needs, but please be aware that free hosts will not offer the same facilities, bandwidth, space and so on, as paid providers, so you may have to scale down your requirements, or consider some "cheap" hosting instead.
Terminology
terms: Everyone's needs vary, so there is no such thing as the perfect "one size fits all" package, but there are certain terms to look out for, and understand what they mean:
Unlimited Bandwidth
--This is very confusing and potentially misleading. In theory it means that there is no limit whatsoever on the amount of bandwidth your site uses:
{Bandwidth = hits to your site...every time someone visits your site, and downloads a page, they are using your bandwidth}
If your site is very busy, it will use a lot of bandwidth, which is why free sites are often unavailable for certain periods of time,
as their bandwidth allowance is rather small, and if it is a popular site, it will use this up very quickly, especially if it has a daily, rather than
a monthly allowance. Be very wary of hosts offering unlimited bandwidth. Ask them what their upper limit is.
It may be a lot lower than you realise. It is generally better to avoid such hosts altogether.
XXGB of bandwidth per month
--- As above, the higher the number, the better...
Most hosts offer anything from 1-30GB per month, and sometimes the more expensive hosts offer the lowest amounts!
Always shop around for the best deals.
XXXMB of webspace
----This is how much physical space is allocated to you on the webhosts' server computers. Physical space is a lot cheaper than bandwidth
(which is also sometimes called "data transfer allowance" by the way), just to confuse you still further!!
You should be able to purchase quite a lot of webspace fairly cheaply nowadays, with the mass availability of huge computer hard drives.......
300-500MB of space and more is not uncommon now, but if you bear in mind that the average non-commercial website probably uses less than 50MB
in total, you dont actually NEED that much, however, if it comes with the package, so be it!
MySQL Database(s) included
---If you want to run a forum, gallery, links directory, CMS (content management system), etc, on your website, you really need one of these.
PHP- based websites are becoming very popular nowadays, so I strongly suggest finding a host that offers you at least one database, preferably more.
POP3 Email Accounts
---All webhosting packages give you some email accounts now.
Some offer unlimited mailboxes as they are called. This simply means email addresses using your domain.
for example: tutorials@jewelswebgraphics.com, (tutorials is the name of the mailbox, and jewelswebgraphics.com is
the name of the domain).
You have to set these up within your webhosting control panel, and you will choose a password for each mailbox.
When you want to set up an email client on your computer to pick up your emails from these mailboxes, (eg: Outlook Express or Thunderbird),
you will have to give put in a username, (the name of the mailbox) and the password you
chose when you created the mailbox in your control panel. Read my email tutorial for further help and information.
Pointing your domain to your webspace
pointing: This is the bit that the webhost does when you buy a domain with a package, but it is not difficult to do yourself. When you have chosen and paid for your website, your hosts will tell you that your webspace is ready, and that you can now change the nameservers of your domain to theirs. This means in effect that you are giving your domain the IP address of the hosting company: So you login to your account with your registrar for your domain, and follow their instructions to get to the section on nameservers. Your host will have given you the nameservers to use which will be something like: ns1.hostname.com, and ns2.hostname.com. You will then type these nameservers into the relevant boxes, and follow instructions, as to how to apply these changes. Most registrars have quite comprehensive help sections, and give very clear instructions on how to make any changes to your domain. It will take about 48 hours or so for your domain to "resolve" ie: show up when you type it into your browser address bar.
Publishing your website
publishing: You have now reached the final stage...Uploading your website from your computer onto the webspace that you have just purchased. This is known as publishing, ftping, or putting depending on the software used. (Please read my tutorial on site structure before you begin).
If you use Microsoft Front Page 98/2000/2002/2003 etc, you can publish your site (using the Publish feature within FP itself), directly to your webspace if it has FrontPage Extensions enabled. Many, if not all, paid hosts do nowadays, but not many free hosts are offering this service anymore. You will probably have to ask them to turn these extensions ON for you, as they tend to be turned OFF by default. If they come with your package, you will not be charged extra for this. If you have created your site using FP Extensions, it is essential that you choose a host offering FP Extensions, as many features of your site will not work properly otherwise, and you will probably have to use the Publish feature anyway, rather than an ftp client.
If you do NOT want to use FP Extensions, you can turn them off in FrontPage before you begin creating your website. In FP 2002, Go to Tools : Page Options: and click the Compatibility tab. Untick the box that says "Enabled with Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions.
In FP 2003, Go to Tools: Page Options: and click the Authoring tab. Untick the box next to "Browse-time Web Components"
You can then upload your site using any ftp client as discussed below, and will not need FP Extensions enabled by your host.
For more information on web page design, please see my newbie guide
If you use other software to create your site, you will probably want to upload your files using an FTP client.
Here is a list of free ftp clients you can download.
I personally like AceFTP and have been using it for ages. I have also written a simple beginners tutorial on how to use this ftp client.
Many others are very similar, and just as good at doing the job, so it is very much a matter of personal preference which one you use.... If you use another ftp client and need any help with it, just post in the blog, and I will be glad to help you if I can...
When you have uploaded your files, (making sure that you name your home page: index.html), type your domain name into your browser address bar, and hopefully your new site will appear in all it's glory! Check all your links, images etc...If any don't work, redo them using your html editor, and re-upload the pages. This will overwrite the old pages, and away you go!!
I hope you find this guide useful, and if there is anything you don't understand, or would like more information on, please don't hesitate to post your questions in the jwg blog.
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