Introduction
You're at the point where you built
and tested your website on your own computer and now you
want to show the world your new creation, but how do you do
it? Now that you've come to think about it, you're not even
sure how people actually get to web sites; where are the web
sites actually sitting, what is the web in the first place?
In this article I am going to give you
the minimum you need to get your site 'live' on the web. I
won't go into painful micro-details that would put all but
true nerds to sleep, again there is just enough so that you
have a basic understanding of what's going on.
What is the web?
In a nutshell, the web is a whole
bunch on interconnected computers talking to each other. The
computers (on the web) are typically connected by phone
lines, digital satellite signals, cable and other types of
data-transfer mechanisms. A 'data-transfer mechanism' is a
nerd's way of saying: a way to move information from point A
to point B to point C and so on.
The computers that make up the web can
be connected all the time (24/7), and they can be connected
only periodically. The computers that are connected all the
time are typically what is called a server. Servers are
computers just like the one you're using now to read this
article, with one major difference; they have a special
software installed called 'server' software.
What is the function of server
software / programs?
Server software is created to 'serve'
web pages and web sites. Basically the server computer has a
bunch of web sites loaded on it and it just waits for people
(web browsers) to request or ask for a particular page. When
the browser request for the page the server sends it out.
How does the web surfer find a
website?
The short answer is: by typing in the
URL, or in other words, the website address. So for example
if you wanted to find the web site
www.seektemplates.com you would type in the address into
your web browsers address bar or maybe use your 'favorites'
link to seektemplates. There are other ways to find web
sites (like search engines) but behind the scenes web sites
are all being found by going to the web sites official
address. That brings us our last nerd detail; how does a
website get an official address so that the rest of the Web
can find it?
Registering your domain name
If you ever wondered what the heck
registering a domain was all about ...you probably guessed
it by now. But just is case; registering a domain name gets
you an official address for your web site on the World Wide
Web so that the rest of the Web can find you. Like your home
address is unique in the real world, there also can't be any
duplicate addresses on the Internet, otherwise no one would
know where to go! In other words domain names are unique
addresses on the web.
Why does registering a domain name
cost money?
If you want to have your own unique
address on the web, your own domain name, it will cost a few
bucks for each year you want to 'own' the name. The cost of
registering a domain name ranges from less than $10 USD to
$30 USD per year and maybe more. You can register a domain
from 1 to 10 years.
The reason it cost is because there is
this central 'address book' of all the worlds domain names
that needs to be updated and kept going - somebody's got to
pay for that! You may have noticed that I just snuck in a
little extra piece of information: the giant 'web address
book' of domains.
That leads us to our last bit of nerd
information: when you type in a web sites domain name or
click on a link to that domain name, your browser starts
asking servers where that particular domain name is sitting
and the servers are able to tell the browser where to go by
referring to the giant address book I mentioned above.
The two steps to getting
your web site 'live' on the Web
With the nerd background details under
our belts, we can now go over the two steps to going live on
the Web:
- Register your domain.
- Rent some server space.
1. Registering your domain
There are many companies out there
that allow you to register the domain name for your web
site. Prices vary, as does the quality of service, but at
the end of the day, they all handle the details of getting
your domain name listed in the giant address book I spoke
about earlier.
These days, you will find many of the
names you may be interested in registering are already
taken. As I mentioned above, domain names have to be unique
and many have been slurped up.
What is the difference between .com,
.net, .org etc?
Practically speaking there is really
no difference these days. Search engines don't discriminate
between a .COM address and a .NET address. The only thing
you might consider is that people tend to type in .COM
automatically since it was the first publicly know domain
extension. So when registering a domain name, I would go for
the .COM first and if it were taken, I would then try for
any of the others. (.net, .org, .tv etc ...)
You probably guessed; a .COM address
is not the same domain name of the same name with a
different extension.
As such each of the addresses can be
registered separately.
2. Renting server space to
'host' your web site
When renting space on a server so that
it can serve your web site on the World Wide Web, it is
often called 'hosting'. Companies that provide this service
are often called 'host' or hosting companies.
After you registered your domain, all
you need to do it contact a hosting company and tell them
you want to host you web site and that you have a proper
domain name. They will guide you through the process and you
should be live on the web in no time!
Another cheaper option
Some people may not want to buy a
domain or pay for hosting because they have just a personal
web site for fun or practice. You can still get your website
live on the web by using a free hosting service that allows
to create what they call a 'sub-domain'. A sub-domain is
just a domain that is part of another domain. So if
www.seektemplates.com offered sub-domain hosting you could
have an address like:
www.seektemplates.com/yourWebsite/
Or it could be like:
http://yourWebsite.seektemplates.com
What ever way the free hosting service
decides to do it, the point is that your web site domain is
really a part of the parent domain, in this case
www.seektemplates.com. Doing it this way, you don't need to
buy a domain name and you don't need to pay for hosting.
This is fine for fun/project websites,
but if you are serious about your web site (say it's your
business website) using sub-domains is like taking someone
else's business card and writing you name on it! You figure
it out ...
One last point, I've heard of free
hosting services that will allow you to host proper domains
with them for free and without annoying ads that other free
host will insert into your pages. But I've never used them,
and in my opinion you always get what you pay for. In the
internets' recent past there was once a crop of free service
providers that would give away access to the web via
dial-up, they were notorious for bad service and all have
since gone bankrupt ...I wonder why?
Moving your web site files onto the
server
After you have your domain name
registered and your hosting service in place, the last step
is to upload the website onto the server. You can transfer
your web site to your host's server using an FTP program.
An FTP program is a type of software
that is used to move files from one computer to another over
the Internet. FTP is the acronym for: File Transfer
Protocol, this just means that this is a 'way' of moving
files. There are several free FTP programs you can use to
move your files onto the server, and many HTML editors and
web design programs like Dreamweaver have FTP capabilities
built in.
One option you probably have to FTP
your files to the server, is Internet Explorer. Internet
Explorer 5 and up have an FTP program built right in and you
can use it by just typing in the FTP address of the server
in the address bar preceded by the keyword: FTP. Here is an
example:
FTP://207.35.15.69/youwebsite/
Conclusion
I would like to point out that
seektemplates.com now offers hosting and
domain registration services (at a great price too! :)).
Having said that, I hope that you found that my article is
not written to push or promote the idea of getting domain
names. I've tried to present the information in a 'fair and
balanced way'. Ok, I can occasionally be caught watching
Bill O'reilly.
