As you create your web site, you will build and test it on your hard drive. To put your site on the web so others can access it, you have to "publish" the site by putting all of the files (both HTML files and graphic files) on the web server that will host your site. While you are constructing your site, you may want to publish your site frequently to make the latest versions of your pages available to the web.

Some editor programs have the ability to publish your pages. In addition, there is a free program called WS_FTP LE that many people use with non-commercial sites (if your site is commercial, you can purchase the professional version of the program). In both cases, there is certain technical information that you will need to know about your web server. See the system administrator of that server for help in publishing your site.

The ftp page of this site explains how to use WS_FTP LE.

Develop On Your Hard Drive

An obvious caution. Don't show your "dirty laundry" to the public. Do your development work on your hard drive. Fix your mistakes. Clean your pages up. Then, when everything looks nice, go public and publish the "polished" pages.

Relocation To Another Server

Sometimes people move their web site to a different server. They then have the problem of having to notify their friends, relatives, and customers of their new URL. Frequently, not everyone is notified, and people continue to access the old site.

One solution to the problem of people accessing the old site is to modify the old site to notify the visitors of the new URL, and, if the visitors have a newer browser, to automatically transfer the visitors to the new site.

This automatic redirection can be done with the insertion of a refresh meta tag in the home page of the old site. In addition, the home page is rewritten to announce the move of the web site to the new server. The refresh meta tag goes in the XHTML header of the home page, and it looks like the following (all one line).

The integer 0 in the content argument is a relative time-delay. Increase the value of that number to keep the announcement displayed longer before the relocation to the new site occurs. The URL in the tag shown above is an example; in your case it is the URL of your new site.

If visitors might enter your site without going through the home page, you can insert the refresh meta tag in the headers of the pages through which they might enter your site. Also, if the web server hosting your old site is a Unix server, it can be told to redirect all htm or html files to the home page of the site (you will then only need to redirect the home page).

Let's pretend that this site has been relocated. Click on the following link as if it were a link to the old location of this site. You will get an announcement of the relocation, and then, if you have a newer browser that supports the refresh meta tag, you will automatically be sent to the home page of this site. If you have an older browser that does not support relocation, click on the link given in the announcement, and you will be sent to the home page of this site. This relocation uses a time-delay of "3".

Link to Web Design Course