I need a website to find "what steps are involved in publishing a website"?

Question

Trying to write a paper on what steps are involved in publishing a web site.

Answer 1

1.  build your basic web site on your local computer.

2.  Go to any web hosting service, and purchase a hosting package you can afford, that will cover the traffic you expect to get, as well as the space you will need for your site.

3.  Go to any domain registering website (www.netsol.com) and purchase your domain, and direct it to your host.

4.  Edit your website to fit the new domain and host

5.  FTP your website into place.

You are published.

Now...

Step 1 may involve learning HTML, or PHP, or ASP, or whatever language you choose to build your site in.  You may opt to use a WYSIWYG editor like Frontpage or Dreamweaver, where building a site can be as easy as using a word processor.

Step 2 may involve many Google searches for "web hosting", or may be combined with step three.

Step 3 may involve going to www.godaddy.com or any of the discount domain registrants.  You can also purchase hosting packages that include everything (Domain name, hosting, email, subdomains, etc) in one all inclusive price.

Step 4 might be skipped, if you like the site just the way you built it, and you got the domain name you wanted all along.

Step 5 may not be necessary, if you go with a host that forces you to use their online web transfer system, or if you use a program like Frontpage to build your site... since with programs like Frontpage, you can transfer your newly constructed site up to your host with just a few mouse clicks.  You can even build your website at a host that uses Frontpage Extensions... meaning you can connect directly to your host with your computer, and edit it in real time.  However learning how to use a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program is always smart.

Answer 2

I general there are 3 steps to publishing a website.  

1. Setting up hosting.

2. “coding” the site

3. Publishing the site

Setting up hosting involves either finding a entity (usually a company) that has servers configured to host websites, a block of IP addresses reserved to assign to the website and a connection to the internet fast enough to reliably serve the site.  The host will create an account for you once you’ve provided payment.  Accounts typically include space on the web server for your web pages, an account on an email server that you can set up email addresses related to your site, and possibly space on a database server if you are going to have database driven pages.  The host will also usually set add your domain name to their name servers (DNS) so that your web address points to the IP address they assign you.  If you lease the name from the host (some-times it’s free with the hosting) then it’ll probably all be set up for you.  If you lease the name from a 3rd party (called a registrar), than you’ll have to provide the IP address of the primary and back up name servers of your host to your registrar so they can set up their name servers, and you’ll have to tell you host what the domain name is so they can set up their side.

Coding the site covers a pretty broad spectrum.  On one end the host will include some kind of software in the hosting that gives you templates to choose from and all you have to do is fill in a few blanks.  If you’ve got what you want to say in an electronic document you can have you site “coded” in a few hours and be done.  The middle option would be writing your own HTML.  HTML can be written in anything from notepad to dedicated software such as Dreamweaver.  Dedicated software will help speed up the process with premade JavaScript functions, built in (though usually limited) graphics editing a WYSISYG (what you see is what you get) editor that lets you layout the site visually and often a host of other features like compatibility and compliance testing.  On the more complicated end is writing your own server side code to connect to databases, process credit cards for ecommerce or any one of a thousand other things you’ve seen websites do. (If the web page has an extension other that .html or .shtml it’s doing some serve side coding)

The final stage would involve publishing the site.  If your using a tool you host provided than publishing takes nothing more than pressing the publish or make viewable button.  If you’re writing your own site than you typically FTP the site to your host.  Most web development software has an FTP client built in and you plug the FTP user name and password (and an address or IP) that your host provides you in press the push or upload button.  Web servers are configured to show certain pages by default, such as index.html or default.asp so you’ll need to make you home page something like that, or configure the web server to recognize a different default page.  You’ll also need to make sure you have set up the pages in a logical linked architecture so that pages can be navigated. But that’s really part of a different paper.

Hope that helps

Rob

SMG Creations: http://www.smgcreations.com/