Intro to HTML - Computer Infotech®

A Simple Way to Create Web Pages

Publishing Your Site

Now that you have created your web site, you need to get it posted to the World Wide Web so everyone else can see it. There are several places to publish your pages. Here are a few:

Your ISP: Most Internet Service Providers offer a few megabytes of web space with their ISP accounts. The amount of space and what you can do with it varies. You won't be able to have your own domain name and your web address (URL) will look something like this: http://www.memberpages.isp.net/username. Often, you are prohibited from having a business site on your ISP web space.

Free servers: There are many companies out there who offer free web hosting. These companies can offer this service through the use of banner ads, which means that every page of your web site will have a banner advertisement located somewhere on your page, most often at the top. All you need to do to find a free hosting company is type "free web hosting" into any search engine.

Paid Hosting: There are hundreds and thousands of paid hosting services available today. Fees, amount of web space and "extras" all vary from one company to another. The amount of availability of technical service also varies from one company to another. In searching for paid hosting, look for companies that offer the best deal for your money, along with 24/7 tech support and a toll free number. If you don't understand all the extras they offer, ask questions. How quickly and courteously they answer your questions will give you your first clue as to the kind of support they provide.

Businesses, Schools or Organizations: Some businesses, schools and organizations provide places for people to host their web sites for either a small fee or for free as a service to its members or in exchange for a link from your site to theirs. For example, a religious organization may offer web space to its member churches to enable them to have their own web sites.

To actually publish your site, you will need an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program. This program allows you to transfer the files from your hard drive to the server which will host your files. There are several free FTP programs and a good one is WSFTP available online. Just search for "download WSFTP".

Once you have your FTP program, you will need your username, host address, and password from your hosting company. Set up your FTP program following the directions provided when you downloaded the program. When you are ready to upload your files, remember the following:

Upload your files into the same directories on the server as you have them on our hard drive. For example, you have a folder called mysite on your hard drive. In that folder, you have four files and another folder called images. In the images folder are all the images to your site. As you upload to the server, you will upload all the files and the images folder inside the mysite folder from your hard drive to the web space on the server. Your hosting company shoudl tell you which folder to put all of your files in on their server. In that folder on their server, you will have all of the files and folders that were in the mysite folder on your hard drive. DO NOT UPLOAD THE mysite FOLDER.

On your hard drive, you have

mysite (folder)

index.htm (file)
recreation.htm (file)
meals.htm (file)
schedule.htm (file)
images (folder)
camp1.jpg (file)
camp2.jpg (file)
lake.jpg (file)
wskiing.jpg (file)
hiking.jpg (file)
dining.jpg (file)

In your directory on the server, you upload all of the files:

index.htm
recreation.htm
meals.htm
schedule.htm

Then you create a folder called images and open that. Upload all of the image files into the images folder:

camp1.jpg
camp2.jpg
lake.jpg
wskiing.jpg
hiking.jpg
dining.jpg

Now open your web browser and go to the URL of your web site. Do you see your site just as you expected? If not, go back to your FTP to determine if you have uploaded all of the files and folders as you should have. For further assistance, check with the company hosting your site.

Your First Site In Conclusion

This information compliments of
Computer Infotech^®
Maine Web Design & Hosting Services
(207) 223-5103
Contact Us

Updated December 2004