Week 13
Choosing a Web Hosting Service
• Choose a Web hosting service before you begin work on creating the Web site’s pages
• The choice of a Web hosting service is more than just one of affordability—it is important to understand what services the company offers and the software it uses to host sites
• It is important to have a thorough understanding of what is involved in upgrading your server space and services in case your initial plan changes over time
Understanding Your Web Site’s
Technical Requirements
• First, evaluate your Web site’s content and goals and understand the tools that you will be using to create your pages
• Storyboard:
– Sketch of the Web site that shows the pages that you plan to include, separated into levels that show the
relationships of the pages to each other
– Storyboard is also called the site’s navigation structure, because it shows the path of navigation through the site
Understanding Your Web Site’s
Technical Requirements
• If you have pages that process information, such as
collecting data supplied by the user in a form and storing it in a database or other file or sending the results of that form to an e-mail address, the Web server must collect the data and save it in the specified format
• The Web server must rely on a server extension or a script to process the data collected in the form
• If your site uses Active Server Pages (ASP)—dynamic Web pages based on the content stored in a database then you’ll need to store the site on a Windows-based Web server because the Unix and Linux Web servers do not support ASP
Using a Secure Server
• Secure sever: encrypts data. If you plan to use
a secure server, you need to install a server
certificate to prove to users that the site is
actually secure
• Dedicated server: Web server that hosts only
one site
Understanding Your Web Site’s File
Size and Transfer Requirements
• Consider the amount of traffic your site will
receive and the sizes of the files that users will
download from the Web server
• Bandwidth or data transfer: amount of data
that is transferred from the Web server
– Most companies sell server space based on a file size limit and a daily or monthly data transfer limit – When you exceed either of these limits, you might
Understanding Your Web Site’s File
Size and Transfer Requirements
• Make sure that the company you select to host your site has technical support services available to you when you need them, especially if you are a new Web site developer
• When you talk to people at the Web hosting service, try to get a sense of the level of support and service that it provides
• When you view the online help resources, you can get a sense of the company’s intended audience and whether it will assist you with future questions
Securing a Domain Name
• When securing a Web hosting service, ask about the Web hosting service’s policy for securing a domain name for your Web site
– You can use a registrar such as Register.com to enter your proposed domain name and check its availability
– If the domain name you want is available, see if the Web hosting service can purchase it as part of your hosting
agreement and assist you to establish the company as the Web site’s host
– When you renew your Web site hosting contract, ask the company if it provides domain name renewal service so it will automatically renew your domain for you
Asking about Other Services Offered
by the Web Hosting Service
• Items, such as site statistics, e-mail accounts
for the domain name you registered, Web site
templates, Web site construction tools, and
database software are “value added” by most
companies
• You might need to pay an extra service fee to
obtain detailed site traffic reports, but this
information is very valuable when analyzing
who is coming to your site and which pages
Publishing a Web Site
• Publishing your Web site means moving your files to the company’s Web server
• Most companies will ask you to use FTP to move your files
• Control panel: Web page you access with your Web site’s user name and password that includes all the tools
• If you are using a Web site management program, you can use the tools in those programs to publish your Web site
Publishing a Web Site
• When you move your Web site’s files to the Web server, include all of the folders and supporting files to the Web server, and not just the Web site’s HTML documents
– A common mistake is to leave out the Web site’s
supporting files, such as pictures and multimedia files – If your HTML documents include relative links to
supporting files, include the supporting files in the same folders as the HTML documents
Publishing a Web Site
• After you publish a Web site for the first time, make any changes to the copy that you stored on your
local drive, and then move those files to the Web server
• If something happens to the Web site stored on the Web server (the remote Web site), you will be able to publish the files from the copy of the Web site on your hard or other local drive (the local Web site) • If you make changes to pages stored on the server
and someone is viewing those pages at the same time that you are editing them, they will have
