Webhosting

It is usually best to have a place to put your pages, before you create them. They will need a home…they are called “homepages”
after all. At least they are called homepages until “they” become more than “one”. At that point, they are called “websites”.

Finding a webhosting service is not hard. It is suggested that you just sign up with a free service for now…just until you figure
out how all of this works.

If you are designing a business site, we would suggest Hypermart. This is the best free business webhosting service available.
They only allow business pages. They can support all the bells and whistles, so it will be a great place to learn.

If you are designing a personal website, we suggest FreeServers. They allow business sites as well, but they don’t have all the
extras that are really needed for a business site, such as a secured server. However, they are perfect for personal pages.

There are many other free sites, all with different features. We have provided a pretty good list for you in The Webhosting
Directory.

Now, here is some important information you will need later on, when you are ready to pay for webhosting…and you will be at
some point.

There are many aspects you should look for when you are ready to pay for webhosting…especially if you are designing a business
site.

The first thing you should consider is the amount of space you will need. You certainly won’t want less than 10MB of space, and
you will want even more than that if you can afford it.

The next thing that should be considered is the servers reliability and speed. Is their guaranteed uptime at least 99%? Are they
using T3 connections? These are very important considerations. If your site can’t be accessed by your potential visitors half the
time, or the pages take four days to load, you have wasted your time designing the site, and your money paying for webhosting.
Ask these questions of potential webhosting services.

Next, you should see what extra features they offer. Some things to look for are:

   FTP transfer
   Free e-mail accounts
   Free autoresponders
   Use of a CGI bin
   Secure server for SSL transactions
   Unlimited web traffic
   Free registration or transfer of your domain name
   Web stats

Every webhosting service offers different things..some more, some less. The important thing is to get what you are paying for.
After taking into consideration the first three important things, space, uptime, and connection, you should go with the webhosting
service that can offer you the most added features for the money.

You will eventually want your own domain name, if you haven’t already gotten it. A domain name is “www.yourname.com“. It is
your web address that you will use.

Getting your domain is a simple process. If the webhosting service you sign up for offers to register your domain name, simply
follow their instructions. Otherwise, you can register directly from Internic. Simply go to their site, fill out the box that checks
to see if the name you want is taken or not, and if it isn’t, proceed to the sign up forms.

After submitting the forms, it will take a couple of days for your domain name to become active. Within 10 days of your domain
name becoming active, Internic will send you a bill for $70.00, which must be paid within 30 days. This pays your registration
for the first two years. After that, the cost is $35.00 per year.