Creating a Website: Putting a Website Online (part 2)

This is primarily intended for personal non-commercial websites, but many of the suggestions are helpful for all websites.

Return to part 1: Creating a Website

Putting the Website Online including Hosting and Domain Issues

  1. How much are you willing to spend to maintain (host) the website?
    Your website will need a "host". You will upload your files (html, jpg, etc) to the webhost. Free hosts (Geocities, Tripod, etc) have the advantage of being free, but they often have distracting ads and limits to what you can do with your website. Graphic, music, and video files take up a lot of "space" (usually referred to as "disk space"). While most hosts will shut down a website if you use too much bandwidth (having too many people visiting your website or downloading and viewing files), free hosts usually have a much lower limit than paid hosts. Some hosts (both free and paid) offer "wizards" or editors so you can create a website without knowing HTML, etc.
  2. Things to look for when choosing a host (especially a paid one)
    • How long has the hosting company been around? If the company goes out of business you may lose your website without any warning (as has happened to people I know).
    • What is the host company's reputation? Do they actually provide everything they claim? How often do websites go "down" (are temporarily unavailable)? How good is their tech support? How good are they at handling billing and other account issues?
    • If you don't know HTML and CSS, do they offer a wizard or editor for beginners?
    • If you are more experienced at designing websites (or if you want to use extras like Coppermine's Photo Gallery), do they offer support for PHP (and if so what version), ASP, SSI, .htaccess, etc?
    • How much bandwidth do they offer? How much disk storage? What happens if you go over your amount? Can you increase your bandwidth and storage and how much does it cost to do so?
    • Do you get any email accounts?
    • What file types are supported? While most webhosts will support html, htm, jpg, gif, and png many do not include mov, mp3, exe, and other file types.
    • What sort of technical support is available? How much does it cost? Does it include third-party software? (ie What if you are using a script for a counter that wasn't provided by your webhost?)
    • Does it offer extras like guestbooks, images, scripts, etc?
    • How often do they back-up your website or do you have to do the back-ups? (Even if they offer back-ups you should keep a copy on your computer and/or on CDs or other storage media.)
    • Do you have access to log files that include information such as the number of hits to your website, what websites link to your website, etc?
    • How user-friendly is the webhost? Does any technical support provided assume that you already have an understanding of some aspects of website design or is it descriptive enough for beginners?
    • Can you register your website (in other words register your URL such as http://www.mywebsite.com) with the hosting company? Does it allow you to use a privacy function (see Privacy Registration note below)
  3. Do you want a domain (.com, .net, etc)?
    Having your own domain means your URL will be http://www.yourdomain.com rather then http://www.hostingcompany.com/yourwebsite. I am unaware of any free webhosts that offer a domain. Domain registration usually costs about $10US and may not be included in the cost of the webhosting plan.
    A subdomain is http://subdomain.yourdomain.com. Some webhosts include subdomains. Even if you do not need to pay for them you will need to register them and it will take time for them to become active. Check with your webhost for specific instructions.
  4. If you want a domain, what do you want your website URL (http://www.whatever.com) to be?
    Check WHOIS to find out if the URL you want is available. It is a good idea to choose a URL that will still make sense if you expand the website. If you want to create a website about hockey, but you think you might want to add a section about baseball later you may want to choose a URL that is sports focused rather than one that is just related to hockey. (You should also be aware of the fact that copyright and trademark issues may apply.) If you are planning to show potential employers your website you may want a more professional sounding URL. You should also consider the fact that many people automatically type .com rather then checking to see if the website is actually .net or .org.
  5. How do you want to transfer files to your website? Do you want to be able to transfer a lot of files at once? Do you want to use an FTP program (I recommend Filezilla) or do you want a webhost that offers a web-based option for uploading (adding) files?
  6. Always check your website after uploading new pages or files.

Privacy Registration note: When you register your domain, you must legally provide contact information. Sometimes this information is abused. Thus, it is advisable to register your domain with a company that gives you a privacy option. The contact information displayed will be for an address owned by the company and they will forward correspondence to you.

Return to part 1: Creating a Website