Web Design/Getting Your Site On the Web

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Web Design → Getting Your Site On the Web This page is part of the Web Design project.

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Web Host 2.1 Personal web server 2.2 Hosts 3 FTP 4 Control Panel 5 Testing 6 See also

[edit] Introduction

After you have a website on your computer, it can not be seen by anyone. It first needs to be put on the internet, or world wide web. Here we will explain this process.

[edit] Web Host

[edit] Personal web server

• Apache MySQL PHP on Mac OS X - use your Mac as a web server.
• LAMP server - Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl - these make really secure, stable web servers, but take some real computing knowledge to operate.

[edit] Hosts

First, you will need a host. They store your data and show your website to surfers.

There are many reliable hosts who will host your website for a fixed amount each month/year. This is useful if you're prepared to fork out money for your minuscule little project on such extras as "shopping carts" and scripts which you are never likely to use. Otherwise, get free hosting.

"Oh no." I hear you say, "everytime I type "free" into Google I get links to all sorts of websites of dubious reputation which would most likely get me fired". Well yes. That's why I did the searching and risked my job all for your whim.

Here they are:

Site	Size	Domain	Forced Ads?	Comments
DoraMail	20MB	/you	No	Looks professional. Very little space though.
FreeWebTown	2000MB (about 2GB)	/you	No	Horrible website. Space looks nice though.
iFastNet	300MB	Subdomain	No	Best-looking so far. Check you're getting the free package.
IPDZ	100MB	Subdomain	No	Also has cPanel. Looks very nice.
Dotservant.com hosting sponsorship	2GB	Your own domain	No	A true cPanel hosting account like other paid hosting service.
Google Page Creator	100MB	Subdomain	No	Tricky for HTML editing. But I think you can upload. Nice interface.
Free Hosting Web	300 MB	Domain	No	Absolutely free hosting, featuring 10 GB bandwidth and a free domain.

You'll agree, that if you ever decide to make a halfway decent website that you'll actually use, it's a far better idea to invest money into your time. It means stability, and above all (seriously, will you look at the state of some of these sites?), professionalism. I would however advise to start out with a free host, and if your project ever gains momentum, then invest some money into getting good hosting.

Alternatively, you could configure a server out of your own computer. This requires a more-or-less static IP address from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), and strict security policies on your "server." There are services, such as Dynamic DNS that allow you to point a URL that you own to your own computer, no matter what the IP address changes to, but these can be tricky to configure. Running a web server "out of your garage" also has power and up-time implications. The system must be stable enough to provide service at almost any time so that potential visitors will actually be able to access your website.

If anyone is looking to pay for a terrific LAMP server (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl) 1 & 1 and XLWEB Hosting offers great service for low cost. The service is "shared hosting" which means you don't get your own box, but the prices are unbeatable and the domain is included!

[edit] FTP

FTP stands for file transfer protocol. There are two components to this process: a server, and a client. The server is located on the same machine as the data, usually (for simplicity, we'll assume this scenario). An FTP server accommodates either authenticated or anonymous login. Every web hosting server has an FTP server for remote administration of that web site. The other side is the client, which must send the authentication information (or the username "anonymous" and, typically, an email address as the password). The client pushes or pulls files from the server; all actions initiate on the client, making requests on the server either to accept a file upload to the server or to serve a file for download by the client.

It is important to note that FTP traffic is unencrypted, which means that if someone "snooping" on the line intercepted the string of data coming out of your client box, it would be readable in its original form. The possibility of this snooping is another debate, but there is an encrypted alternative in use on web services that cost a bit more. Secure Shell services (ssh) provide a Secure FTP protocol, by which all the traffic is encrypted, so that an interception of that data would be no compromise to data whatsoever.

[edit] Control Panel

Some hosts allow you to control your site from your web browser. This makes the configuration of your site easier, but the actual administration of content should be done with a lower-level protocol, like FTP or Secure FTP (SFTP).

[edit] Testing

After the site is online, navigate to your site and see how well it looks and performs. Then you should find out how it works on other browsers, connections, and operating systems.

Here are some suggestions as to the breakdown of those testing areas:

• Browsers
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer because it is widely used (NCSA Mosaic engine)
  • Mozilla Firefox and the Gecko HTML engine.
  • Opera
  • Safari for Mac users
  • Galeon/Konqueror/Epiphany for Linux systems
• Connections
  • Take into account low-bandwidth users, such as 56k connections. This means image size and number
  • Take into account proxy-based connections
  • Take into account firewalled users within corporate or educational intranets whose internet access is heavily filtered. The biggest consideration in this category is other servers that are in the chain of connection between your web documents and the end user. Sometimes the packets can become "tainted" in transmission.
• Operating Systems
  • Microsoft Windows
  • Linux and POSIX-based operating systems
  • Macintosh OS

[edit] See also

• Web Hosting at Wikibooks.