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In this section we try to provide useful articles that will help webmasters find their way in the webhosting market. Any contributions are welcome, so please feel free to submit your own article.
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- If you wish to contribute and have your article published on NosHosts, please do not hesitate and send your materials to articles@noshosts.com
Getting your website up and running
The process of setting up a website is nothing you should be afraid of, but there are definitely a few things every new webmaster should know. The whole process is divided in a few simple steps, starting with registering a domain name and ending up with a website on the internet.
The first thing you should think about is the domain name. This is the key to a successful website. The major TLDs (.com and .net) are already pretty full, so picking up a domain name like myweb.com is almost impossible. That's why you should probably check for a more complicated domain name or try with a less common TLD (.biz, .info, .ws, etc), or eventually with your local country's TLD. Once you have found a domain name that is free for registration, it's time to get started. You need to decide whether to register your domain name by yourself or let your hosting company make the registration for you. Generally it is recommended that you do the registration by yourself, since you will have the freedom to do with your domain name whatever you wish, and later on move it to a different hosting company without complications. However, if you are a newbie and domain name registrations, configuation and DNSes is something you don't know a thing about - probably it is best that you let your hosting company register your domain name and do all the configuation.
Next - web hosting company. This is where every webmaster should be very cautious. First you need to decide what type of hosting your website needs. If your site is built for ASP or any other windows-oriented scripting language or database, you need a windows hosting. However, most websites are simply html-based or use PHP scripting language and probably a MySQL database. In this case you need to go for the regular type of hosting - linux hosting. There are many hosting companies available on the net, but only a few are actually worth using. When searching for a hosting company you need to look for several key factors:
- is it linux or windows type hosting. (depending on your website)
- since when does the hosting company exist
- do they offer 24/7 support
- any customer reviews?
- how much disk space is offered
- how much monthly bandwidth
- do they oversell their resources
- is it a monthly or yearly payment option
Once you have decided which hosting company to go with, it's time to sign up. During this process you need to be very careful to make sure you provide your exact contact and billing details to make sure your order goes through. Double-checking everything is a good thing to do. Check to make sure you're actually signing up for the package you wish, check the billing cycle, it is crucial that you verify your domain name for and typos since if you also request a domain name registration, you will have a wrong domain name registered for you. And finally, check to make sure that the payment routine is SSL secured. Once you complete this step you should receive your account details from your new hosting provider. Log into the control panel to look around. If you have requested a domain name registration, you will probably have to wait about 12 hours before it becomes publicly available across the internet. Otherwise, if you have registered your domain name by yourself, now is the time to ask what DNS servers you should set for your domain name in order to make it active from your new server.
In the meantime, while waiting for your domain name to become publicly available, it is a good idea to upload your website files to the hosting server. Generally there are two ways for uploading content to a web hosting server.
- FTP. (File Transfer Protocol) This is the most common way for file transfers. All you need to do is get an FTP client program (there are many available across the internet) and use the connection details provided by your hosting company to connect to the server.
- control panel file manager. Some hosting companies provide a file manager that is built into the control panel. It is a good alternative to FTP, but sometimes custom file managers have difficulties with specific browsers, uploading multiple files or whole directories, so that's why professionals stick with FTP.
- FrontPage. Almost all hosting companies also provide a gateway for uploading your content using MicroSoft FrontPage, however it is not a good idea to use this feature if you have a linux host. There are many incompatibilities between a windows based application and a linux based hosting server, which will most likely make you change your mind and use FTP insted.
Once you have uploaded your website files to the server and your domain name has become publicly available across the internet, you have completed the final step in getting your website up and running. Voila, it is already online!
The process of setting up a website is nothing you should be afraid of, but there are definitely a few things every new webmaster should know. The whole process is divided in a few simple steps, starting with registering a domain name and ending up with a website on the internet.
The first thing you should think about is the domain name. This is the key to a successful website. The major TLDs (.com and .net) are already pretty full, so picking up a domain name like myweb.com is almost impossible. That's why you should probably check for a more complicated domain name or try with a less common TLD (.biz, .info, .ws, etc), or eventually with your local country's TLD. Once you have found a domain name that is free for registration, it's time to get started. You need to decide whether to register your domain name by yourself or let your hosting company make the registration for you. Generally it is recommended that you do the registration by yourself, since you will have the freedom to do with your domain name whatever you wish, and later on move it to a different hosting company without complications. However, if you are a newbie and domain name registrations, configuation and DNSes is something you don't know a thing about - probably it is best that you let your hosting company register your domain name and do all the configuation.
Next - web hosting company. This is where every webmaster should be very cautious. First you need to decide what type of hosting your website needs. If your site is built for ASP or any other windows-oriented scripting language or database, you need a windows hosting. However, most websites are simply html-based or use PHP scripting language and probably a MySQL database. In this case you need to go for the regular type of hosting - linux hosting. There are many hosting companies available on the net, but only a few are actually worth using. When searching for a hosting company you need to look for several key factors:
- is it linux or windows type hosting. (depending on your website)
- since when does the hosting company exist
- do they offer 24/7 support
- any customer reviews?
- how much disk space is offered
- how much monthly bandwidth
- do they oversell their resources
- is it a monthly or yearly payment option
Once you have decided which hosting company to go with, it's time to sign up. During this process you need to be very careful to make sure you provide your exact contact and billing details to make sure your order goes through. Double-checking everything is a good thing to do. Check to make sure you're actually signing up for the package you wish, check the billing cycle, it is crucial that you verify your domain name for and typos since if you also request a domain name registration, you will have a wrong domain name registered for you. And finally, check to make sure that the payment routine is SSL secured. Once you complete this step you should receive your account details from your new hosting provider. Log into the control panel to look around. If you have requested a domain name registration, you will probably have to wait about 12 hours before it becomes publicly available across the internet. Otherwise, if you have registered your domain name by yourself, now is the time to ask what DNS servers you should set for your domain name in order to make it active from your new server.
In the meantime, while waiting for your domain name to become publicly available, it is a good idea to upload your website files to the hosting server. Generally there are two ways for uploading content to a web hosting server.
- FTP. (File Transfer Protocol) This is the most common way for file transfers. All you need to do is get an FTP client program (there are many available across the internet) and use the connection details provided by your hosting company to connect to the server.
- control panel file manager. Some hosting companies provide a file manager that is built into the control panel. It is a good alternative to FTP, but sometimes custom file managers have difficulties with specific browsers, uploading multiple files or whole directories, so that's why professionals stick with FTP.
- FrontPage. Almost all hosting companies also provide a gateway for uploading your content using MicroSoft FrontPage, however it is not a good idea to use this feature if you have a linux host. There are many incompatibilities between a windows based application and a linux based hosting server, which will most likely make you change your mind and use FTP insted.
Once you have uploaded your website files to the server and your domain name has become publicly available across the internet, you have completed the final step in getting your website up and running. Voila, it is already online!
