Helpful Tip

Websites are inherently complex, however, we know a number of technologically challenged people who have learned how to work with them.

There is a learning curve and it is a bit steep sometimes, but do not let that discourage you.

A domain name identifies a server on the Internet. A domain name must be registered before you can publish a Website or set up e-mail. You can learn more about registering a domain name by clicking here.

A domain name can cost under $10 per year, although some domain registrars charge quite a bit more. It can take up to three days for a new domain name to become visible to the world on the Internet.

Unless you care to build and maintain your own Web server you will want to use the services of a Web hosting company. The price for hosting varies depending on what is offered. Most domain registrars offer this service, often at favorable prices. Before signing up for hosting try to get recommendations from other users.

Your Website may be hosted on a server running on the Windows or Linux platform. For comparable services Linux is often the less expensive platform. Advanced features such as Cold Fusion, ASP, SQL, PHP, and MySql run on one platform or the other, but not on both, so do some research before signing up.

• Some hosting plans offer disk space for only one domain. Our domain registrar offers several plans of this type.

• Some hosting plans allow you to divide your disk space among multiple Websites. Click here to learn about the company that has hosted this Website for several years. We recommend them to more technically savvy users.

Web hosting and e-mail are not related, even though they may use the same domain name. Your domain registrar can often provide e-mail services even if your Website is hosted elsewhere.

Your domain registrar will usually offer e-mail services whether or not you host your Website with them. Some do not, and they can make life complicated. If you don't know what MX-records and Cnames are, you do not want to put your feet in these waters.

A number of domain registrars offer Web hosting, e-mail hosting, and a combination of the two. The better ones can accommodate a "split" of the Web and e-mail hosting.

A domain name must be registered with Domain Name Services (DNS) so people can find it, otherwise they will receive an "Error 404 - Page not found" message. Your domain registrar will update the DNS records with the proper information for your domain name.

• Click here to enjoy some creative 404 errors.

To set the DNS entries you would visit your domain registrar's site and select the domain name from the list of domains you have registered. Then find an option such as "Set Nameservers" or "Update DNS Records".

If you are hosting your Website with your domain registrar there will probably be an option to use their default name servers. Otherwise, you would enter the names of the name servers provided by your Web hosting company. The will generally provide 2 or 3 names and their corresponding IP Address.

• Normally you enter the name of each name server.
• You should see the IP Address for the server replace the name.
• Verify that the IP address for each name server is correct.

You registrar will usually offer to provide an Under Construction page or to Park the domain. This will give give visitors to the domain a simple message stating that the site is not yet available.

• To learn more about DNS please visit our DNS page.

Once you have obtained Web hosting you will need to create and publish your Web pages. There are many programs available for this. They range from dirt cheap and basic to expensive and extremely elegant. We use DreamWeaver, which is fully featured and a bit expensive. Many people like Microsoft's Front Page, which often comes bundled with other Microsoft products. Trellix often comes free with other products.

You can find Website builders costing under $100 at your local retail store. These are designed for the Web novice. Some are excellent and some are total junk and pricing is not always relative to the quality. Read the reviews and talk to people before buying one. You will need to use discernment when dealing with these programs. Reviewers often offer their first impressions, but they do not have to live with their recommendations.

Once your Website is built it must be "published" to the Web server so it can be viewed. Templated Website builders usually have this feature built in. Most Web design software has FTP (a file copy program) built in. You can also find separate FTP programs but be careful: some of them come bundled with adware, unless you pay for the full version.