by Glenn Hefley
If you missed Part 1 you can check it out HERE
We are going to talk about what you need for a website. There are a number
of different types of "free web spaces" out there on the Internet,
and we might talk about those in a future article; what we are going to talk
about here is 'your own' website. This could be your family's website, your
personal website, or a company website.
The first item on our list of "things to do" -- is to register a
name. A web-site name is called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). These names,
or URL's are leased out by Registers. No one "owns" their website
name. It is leased, and as many companies in the past have found, if you don't
keep up your lease, you can loose the name. Changes have also come around that
just leasing the name is no longer enough, you must actually use
the name in good faith.
The Registars, such as GoDaddy or Network Solutions keep track of your name,
and register the name with InterNIC. InterNIC
is, for all tense and purpose, the Internet. The Registrars also are responsible
for keeping your DNS records up-to-date as you edit information for your website.
DNS is Domain Name Service, and is the tie between your website name and the
IP address of the server which your website is located. Having the name doesn't
give you a website, it gives you the name of a website. Now you need a Hosting
company. Hummingbird Hosting for example is a commonly used one, there are several
others out there to choose from, but I have to narrow down view fields here
or go insane describing this to you.
Hosting companies are not all the same, in price, service or legality. I've
been doing this for some time and I've seen some very crooked Hosting companies.
For example, a few years ago a hosting company in California was editing their
client's website pages to include a link to their main website, without the
client's knowledge. The link would not show up on every view, just often enough
to get the link to register in the search engines. Another one was using their
servers to send out spam, and when their server was blacklisted by places like
Google, Yahoo, AOL, and MSN, the clients they had on the servers could also
not send email to those areas either.
If you are looking to host your business website, or a website that is important
to you, then do some research and find a good web hosting service. I mentioned
Hummingbird, and while I don't endorse them I've had no problem with them for
the last few years. Same could be said for many other web hosting services.
Find one you like, and then do some research, check for complaints.
It use to be that you wanted a web hosting company that has the services you
require. Now, it is best to require services that most web hosting companies
offer. For example, having your website built using PHP and MySQL is probably
more reliable than using the Microsoft MSQL and ASP. The reason is, more web
hosting companies offer MySQL and PHP, than those that offer Microsoft Servers.
This is because the license cost to own a Microsoft server as a web hosting
machine is huge. There are some web hosting companies that offer the service,
but more offer MySQL and PHP, or Perl.
If you decide that you are going to go the Microsoft way despite this, be aware
that very large and stable web hosting companies have folded up over a weekend,
leaving their clients to scramble and find new hosting services, so keep a current
list of other web hosting companies you can move to.
Web Hosting normally comes with a Database of some type (normally MySQL), email
service with POP3 access and 10 to 100 names, depending on the service you get,
PHP, Perl, and ASP. Some have Web Analytics Programs. You generally pay for
how much space you are given on the server, and how much traffic you have to
your site. Both of these are normally in the equation for the subscription fee.
You might be thinking, "Heck, with Linux I can just host my own",
which is very true, you can host your own website. There is nothing wrong with
that, you just get a Static IP Address, tell your Registrar what it is, and
you have a server on the Internet. Make sure you understand the security, and
administration needs before you do this ... if this is your first website, company
or otherwise, it is probably best, and much less expensive in the long run to
use a web hosting service first, and then move your website in-house.
Okay, we've looked around, did our homework, found a web hosting company, and
we have a website name. We still do not have a website. Now we need two skill
sets, a web designer, and a web programmer. Web Designers, are exactly that,
they Design the way the pages will look. Some of them also have some HTML skills,
very rarely do they have programming skills, for things like forums, client
forms, order forms, shopping carts, etc. To build these, you need a programmer
who knows how to setup databases, and write the code you need to do the things
you want to do. I have never met someone who was great at both design and programming.
That doesn't mean that they don't exist, it just means I haven't met one.
Finding a team is a good way to go. There are many places you can find freelancers
as well, such as Guru.com. Start with small projects (5 pages or so) and build
your relationship with them.
Another way to go is to start with an Open Source package, such as osCommerce
or a business website such as Mambo
and then find programmers and designers who are familiar with that setup. These
packages are very extensive in the services and options they offer, and only
need a few customizations to make them your own. They also have the benefit
of being widely known by many programmers and designers, so that if you have
trouble with your crew, you aren't stuck with a website no one knows how to
work with.
Why not checkout our related articles? How to build a simple Webpage / Website
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