Purchasing your domain name is the first step in creating your web site. After you buy that virtual property, you will need a host! Hosting companies provide a wonderful service. Few webmasters have the means, or the desire, to have their own servers at home. Servers function much like “mega” browsers. They are online all the time and store the web page files that visitors will access.

A nice analogy for this process involves real estate. Your domain name is your virtual land. This will be where your house, or web site, is constructed. When you own your acreage, you still aren’t through. You also need a home for your belongings. Online, you need a home for your web page files and graphics. A hosting company’s server provides this home.

Few general webmasters want to contend with home servers. They are fussy, complicated, and if there’s ever a crash, every file you have on that server goes with it.  Purchasing services is like leasing, but there are added benefits for webmasters.

Maintaining your web site through a reputable, professional hosting company offers you security. They are professionals and are trained to keep those servers running at all times. If your site is hacked, they will take care of it, because it means all their clients’ sites are in jeopardy. If there is a technical problem they will repair it. Most hosting companies also offer free technical support and accessories to “decorate” your virtual home with.

The better hosting companies will offer numerous options and will charge reasonable prices for their service. These companies will allow you to be as technical as you want, or as simple as you like.

When you have your domain and your hosting company selected, you will upload your files from your computer to the server. This is most often done through a process called FTP (file-transfer-protocol). Your hosting company will likely offer this service for you to upload files. If you prefer to work from your computer, there are many software programs that accomplish the same thing. Two popular FTP programs for the home computer are also free. They are Filezilla and CoffeeCup Free FTP.

The process is quick and easy for even the most non-technical webmaster. The internet is full of resources and information to help you on your way to domain administration.

Tags: domain host, FTP, hosting company, hosting services

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Dreamweaver: Getting Started. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.