Publishing

Go Public!
Hey, I'm on the Web!

You create your web site on your hard drive, but you will place or publish your files on a web server so they will be accessible via the web. This means that you will have to arrange with a company that has a web server to accept or host your site.

Your ISP

One source of hosting that may be available to you is your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Many ISPs include hosting of web sites as part of their agreement with their clients. Typically, they provide about 5 MB of disk storage. You will need to talk with your ISP about the particulars of their hosting.

Free Web Sites

There are companies that provide free hosting for web sites. In return for their giving you free hosting, you give them permission to place advertisements on your site (there are a few sites that do not put ads on your site). The amount of disk storage included with the hosting varies with the company.

Before you sign up, read their policies so you'll know what your agreement is with them. Some companies claim intellectual ownership of all material you post on their site, so be careful!

Many of the free web sites have templates that make it easy to build your site. For a list of free web sites, go to the hosting page of my web design site.

Paid Web Sites

If you want a site that is free of advertisements, you'll probably have to pay for site hosting. For around $5 to about $10 per month, you can have your site hosted without advertisements, and your web address will be a sub-directory off the domain of the hosting company. The amount of hard disk storage, and the amount of traffic your site will be allowed varies with the hosting company. A search on "web hosting" will give you many links to hosting companies. Before you sign up, read the contract carefully. The web site I use for my hosting is 1AND1.

Your Own Domain

If you want your web address to be a domain that is unique for you, you will need to have your own domain and have your site hosted on the Internet. For example, General Motors has its own domain, gm.com, and its web address is http://www.gm.com/.

Domains are obtained from companies that are authorized to give out domains. The company that I use is 1AND1. In choosing your domain name, try to include one that contains your most important keyword, because some search engines use the domain name as a source of keywords. 1AND1 also does inexpensive hosting of your domain.

Publish Your Pages

To publish your web site, you move the files (pages and graphics files) to the server you are using. Once your files are on the server, they are "on the net" and are available to others.

You will need special software to publish your files. Companies that host your web page will provide this software, and they provide instructions how to move the files to your site.