View Single Post
Old 30-09-2004, 12:04   #1
Jon M
Inactive
 
Jon M's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: East Midlands
Age: 46
Services: Rural BB - Radio Link via Virgin Fibre
Posts: 2,947
Jon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze array
Jon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze arrayJon M has a bronze array
Send a message via MSN to Jon M
The "I want a website" Guide

The "I want a website" Guide

*** Warning!! ***
This guide is long, but purely because the subject is very complex.
If reading this amount of information isn't for you, then I suggest you re-think setting up a website full stop. Because you WILL need to do some research.

So there you go, this is your last chance to turn back.

Introduction

There are many different methods that people associate with getting a website up and running.
Also, there are many different requirements placed on those websites.

This guide is intended to assist you no matter which category of website owner you fall into.
Whether it be beginner, intermeadiate or advanced.

However, the most logical seperation in groups isn't experience, but money.
Therefore I'll do my best to offer appropriate options at each stage for the free-loaders and yuppies alike. ( I'm going to use the following shorthand for the remainder of the guide: ": -£ :" for the cheapest option, ": £ :" for moderate spenders and ": £ÂÃ ¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£ÃƒÆ’‚£ :" for the money-no-object crew. )

Where do I start?

Firstly you need to decide what you want to do and how much time you're willing to put into a site.
You need to know the focus or subject your site will have, how many people you expect to visit your site and whether you want it to be business or personal. All these factors will drastically affect what you do during the next few stages.

Next, you'll need a domain.

Domains

Domain definition:

A "logical" region of the Internet.

People sometimes refer to them loosely as "sites."

Generally, a domain corresponds to an IP address or group of IP addresses.
An IP address is a unique identifyer for the physical hardware that responds to requests for your domain.
You'll also find domain names to the right of the @ sign in an email address, or about ten characters into a URL.
For example, Microsofts's domain name is microsoft.com.

The domain name of the email address "billgates@mailserver1.microsoft.com" is still microsoft.com. If you read the email address from right to left the last part ".com" is the domain type.
Domain names are issued by a licenced authority.
A .com is supposed to be reserved purely for companies, but since the USA like to think they're the only country in the world they tend to treat it as their country extension, which is in fact ".us" just as the extension for the UK is ".uk".
Other supposedly generic extensions include .edu (educational establishment), .net (network), .org (non-profit organisation) and .gov (government body) to name a few.
  • Whether you're planning to set up a site without spending a bean.. or whether you want an all singing all dancing multimedia business presence, you'll need a domain to let people find you on the internet.
  • Your domain should reflect your sites theme as much as possible, but that is largely optional.
  • The price you pay for a domain will vary, possibly more than you think, based on whether you go for a .com, .co.uk, .me.uk, etc and also, on which registrar you use.

*** Beware!! ***
Depending on where you register a domain, you may find you're tied into hosting your site with the company you get the domain with. Also you may find that you can't change or transfer your domain without a long painful session of emails and/or faxes.
If you want full control of your domain you'll need to be very sure that you read small print, terms & conditions and ask questions when you're not sure about something. ( Please refer to the section on hosting below to see why controlling your domain name can be very important )

: -£ :
Domains on the cheap are very easy, but that comes at a price in another sense. You will generally be very restricted in what you can actually do with many of the services. ( dot.tk for example, specifies that when you sign up for a free domain, all you're really doing is getting a name that forwards to your site at another location, you don't legally own the domain either which is a big one, as you can have it taken away from you if the site is inactive for 90 days. )
A simple search will give you quite a few alternatives, but the simplest method at least for NTL users is to rely purely on your own webspace and therefore use the http://homepage.ntlworld.com/username for your site.

If you take this free domain option, you will need to forward it to your webspace or hosting server. For an NTL user you would forward to http://homepage.ntlworld.com/username, the only other methods would be to forward to a static address like http://64.213.43.108/yourdirectory or to another legitimate domain name http://www.your-otherdomain.com. The last option is most useful if you have arranged to use a sub-domain of someone else. So you could do the following: http://www.myfreedomain.com forwarding to http://mysubdomain.myfriendssite.com.

Bear in mind that free domains will be fairly obscure. You will not be able to get common domains like .com, .org, .co.uk, .net, .info, .tv. If you want one of those you'll have to make the step up to the next section.

: £ :
You can in theory buy a domain with any authorised registrar, but for the purposes of simplicity and security I'm going to stick to UK based examples.

As this article demonstrates :link: it is very important to choose a reputable company. If you don't you could end up with a bucketload of spam, cold callers, hidden fees and possibly an invalid domain alltogether.

Here is a couple I would personally recommend:
: £ÂÃ ¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£ÃƒÆ’‚£ :
Register and host your site with one company.

Generally the most expensive methods are the least hassle. But don't quote me on that
With this option you can get a registrar to host your site and sort out all the associated technicalities.

This is an option also suited to the technophobes, as you'll be spoon fed all the nessecary information by the company that you choose. (at least you should if they're reputable)

The same caution is recommended as in the previous cost option.

Hosting

Why is hosting important?
  • A good reliable host will make sure your site is backed up and online (available) as much as possible.
  • A good host will have a stable, high bandwidth connection.
  • The features offered on your account are as important as the content of your site. So a host that provides everything you need is essential.
  • You will get better value for money if you shop around.
  • A bad host will offer little or no support when there are problems.

There are millions (almost literally) of hosting options and companies which makes your next step probably one of the most difficult, but for the purposes of this guide and on the back of my own bias, I'll keep it very restricive and simple.

: -£ :
Stuartbe has kindly covered this option in his guide here: :link:

: £ : & : £ÂÃ ¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£ÃƒÆ’‚£ :
<edit Rob: links deleted as no longer appropriate>
Obviously, you are free to try out any host you find, but my own experience leads me to err on the side of UK based companies who are governed by UK laws and regulations.

Once your hosting has been set up and paid for you'll need to make sure the two are reading from the same page so to speak.

DNS Settings, Web-Forwarding and Domain setup
If all those terms fill you with dread, don't worry.
The different options detailed in each section now show their value.
The higher cost and technophobe options will be dead easy as long as you've chosen by this point to get your hosting and domain from the same company.
All you do is fork over the funds and wait for the email with your instructions.
If you are one of those people, you can stop reading the guide here, as the company themselves should give you everything you need from now on but please take note of the next section "DNS propogation".

It does get more complicated though when your domain is in one place and your hosting somewhere entirely unconnected.

Get a domain with a company that offer full DNS access/control!
Often this will mean that you have a "control panel" in the list of features when you sign up. But it's no guarentee that you'll have access to the bits we need to change.
If you've already got a domain and don't have access like this it's not a problem really, just a bit inconvienient, because you'll have to make change requests to the company support/admin staff (which can take days rather than the minute or so for doing it yourself).
If you're setting up your domain to point at your NTL/Telewest or any ISP provided webspace or if you've used the free webserver guide by Stuartbe then you can ignore the "DNS" options. What you need now is the "web-forwarding" section in your domain control panel.
Once you've found it or when asking for it to be changed, you'll need to use the URL (http://mywebspacelocation).

The control panel options will vary, but you'll usually just get a box to fill in with a button to submit it.
If you want the page to display the domain name in the address bar while someone is on your webspace ("http://mypaiddomain.com" instead of "http://homepage.ntlworld.com/myfolder") you'll need to use the "framed" web-forwarding, also sometimes called "cloaked".
Again, for those using these free hosting options, you can now skip to the next section "DNS propogation".

For those with any other hosting webspace you should get an email or control panel information screen once you've set it up with a section giving you their "Nameserver" address.. "ns1.i-websolutions.co.uk" for example.
If they don't send you this information, you can ask them for it.
Once you have the address, go back to your domain registrar or control panel and find the section referencing "Nameservers". Next, fill in the control panel form, or request it to be changed to the address you've got.
You'll usually be putting in two name server addresses but they'll normally only differ by one digit (ns1.hostdomain.co.uk and ns2.hostdomain.co.uk).

DNS Propogation
You'll be glad to know that you're now almost finished.
This note is purely to warn you that the majority of the changes detailed in the last section will take a period of 24-48 hours to actually become active. Also, that means that if you asked your domain registrar to make a change it will possibly be this amount of time before you see it happen (or longer if the admin takes his time).

Building your Site
Hopefully now that you're at this stage, putting your domain name into a browser will either give you the contents of your ISP free webspace, or a holding page from your hosting company.
Your next job is to start adding files to your webspace using "FTP" (file transfer protocol).

First of all you'll need a good "FTP" client.
I'd recommend getting hold of FileZilla.
Once you've downloaded and installed, you'll need to connect to your webspace. Hopefully, you'll have a lot of very clear information on FTP in your setup email or control panel, most of which should be self explainitory.
Fill in the username, password and address details and hit "connect".
Usually, your default page will need to be called "default.html", "index.html" or "index.php". If you're in doubt just ask your host or one of us here on the forum.

The next stage is really up to you... use google to find some tutorials on basic web-design to get you started, you never know I might somehow find time to post a "website guide part 2"

I hope this helps someone out there, let me know if you think I've missed anything, or if you want to add something useful.

Bye for now,

~s1lv3r
Jon M is offline   Reply With Quote