Forum Moderators: mack
bye
Your first website is always a challenge. There just seams to be so much to learn. Now that you have a site built I think you have crossed the biggest hurdle in the process. The next stage is to make your website available over the internet, so that anyone can view it.
In order to host your website on the web you need to sign up with a web host. A web host is a company who offer web space on their internet web servers. The main difference between your pc and a web server is the speed that a web server is connected to the internet. A web server will typically be connected using a very fast internet connection so that is can serve web pages and content very quick.
When it comes to hosting there are 2 options. paid or free. Free services usually have a catch such as, they may place a banner on your page or show a pop up advert to your users. This is how a free host makes their money. A paid service will offer you web space with no banners or any other form of advert. With a paid service you have a lot more control over your site. Paid services are also generally a lot better and offer more features.
When you sign up with a web host what you buy or sign up for is some disk space on their web server. You will be issued with a username and password that will allow you to connect to the server to upload or alter files.
To connect to the web server you will need to use a tool called an FTP client. FTP stands for File Transferee Protocol It is a system used to move files over the web. There are some pretty good free programs out there as well as a lot of very good commercial products. In simple terms an ftp client is a user interface that allows you to move files from your computer onto another computer. In this case your web hosting companies server.
The company you sign up with will provide you with the required log in details to use your ftp tool. You will need a username, a password and an FTP server address. The server address is usually either ftp://domain.com or ftp.doman.com again, your chosen hosting company will be able to supply you with the correct details.
When you have your hosting account set up and are logged in using your ftp client it is simply a case of drag and drop to move your files to the remote web server. Once your files are in place it is then a case of visiting your website and your site will be visible.
If you wish to use a domain name (www.example.com) you can usually register a domain name through your web host. The web host will usually set this all up for you and your domain name will then point to your web site.
Hope this helps.
Mack.
