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debbie T Designs - Web Design Made Simple

Web Hosting

You can always view your pages on your hard drive, but that isn’t as much fun as having the WORLD view your pages.

Before an official web page can be viewed online, you need to set up the location that will be storing your online web pages. This is called a web host. Web hosts provide you with the space to save your web pages, so they can be viewed on the Web.

Check With Your Internet Service Provider

Before spending any money for a paid hosting service, check with your ISP (ie. Comcast, AOL, Earthlink); most offer (ad-free) web space for personal use. This is a great way to get your feet wet without signing a commitment for a paid web domain and web hosting. And you can avoid the advertising and pop-ups added by the other free web hosts.

View my test site at my ISP, Comcast. Comcast offers an upload manager, along with FTP access.

Free Ad Supported Web Hosts

There are a lot of web hosts that offer free web space, but it comes with a cost. Advertising is automatically added when your files are uploaded, and most times, the added html messes up your perfectly coded page when you validate using the W3C Validation Service (more on validation in a later tutorial.) If you can live with that, then a free site can be a great way to learn how to run your own web site. But if you are serious about web development, you will eventually want the full control of a paid web host. Real web hosts are so cheap, there really is no excuse.

Some free (ad supported) hosts:

GeoCities (Yahoo) The added advertising coding is not as obtrusive as other free hosts, but it will cause errors when you try to validate your code. Hopefully you can easily distinguish their errors from your own errors. View my GeoCities site if you would like to see an example. If you already have a Yahoo account, then it is very simple to sign up for free hosting. Once you have signed in, you can upload files using their Easy Upload tool. Geocities does not offer FTP access with a free account, but they might try to convince you to upgrade to their pro accounts for a small fee. I do not recommend using GeoCities or Yahoo for paid web hosting.
Freewebs is very similar to Geocities. It has its own control panel with a site manager. FTP access is not available unless you upgrade to the premium account, which I do not recommend. The good news is, even with the advertising JavaScript, it allowed my web file to validate as xhtml strict. View my Freewebs site. Please read each page carefully as you are signing up for a new account.
Tripod is one of the worst. The advertising code they add to your files is extremely disruptive. If you would like to view an example, you can check out my Tripod web site. I created this page with only a heading and a small paragraph, but take a peek at the source code; it’s a mess with everything they added. If you do decide to give them a try, be very careful when filing out the sign-up forms and read the pages very carefully. You might not want to list an important email in your contact information to be safe.
Bravenet - I did not sign up for a Bravenet free site, but I have seen examples of their generated pages. I do not recommend their services.

Free Host Space with Godaddy Domain Purchase

If you desire your own domain name (i.e. yoursite.com or yoursite.us) then I can personally recommend GoDaddy.com. I have used them to purchase and renew my domains for many years; I have not had any problems, but keep in mind there have been negative reports from other users.

The good news is, with a little up front cost for a domain purchase, you can sign up for free (ad supported) web space with Godaddy. As with Geocities, your perfectly coded pages will fail validation due to the added advertising code, but it is a good way to start to manage your own web space. They offer FTP access, and a generous amount of file space and bandwidth (file transfer) along with PHP support. While I recommend Godaddy for domain names and free hosting, I do not recommend upgrading to a paid account; there are better choices for paid hosts.

Please read the page text and forms very carefully when signing up for a Godaddy account. Once your domain is purchased, you must sign up for the free hosting account. Their help page explains the procedure.

Step Up to a Paid Hosting Account

If you are truly serious about your web site, then the best way to retain full control is to step up to a reputable paid hosting account. Truthfully, the monthly fees are not that expensive, and it is worth it to find a permanent home for your site.

Personally I recommend Hosting Matters. I have been a customer since 2000, and have been very satisfied. They offer a variety of hosting plans (starting at $6 per month), and are ethical as well as security conscience. They do not offer telephone support, but their help desk support is extremely quick.

If you would like further information on web hosts and domain sellers, I highly recommend checking out http://www.webhostingtalk.com/.

Possible features to look for in a web host:

File space - 50 to 100mb should be sufficient for an average web site. More space is needed if you plan on hosting several domains on one account.
Bandwidth (Data Transfer) - 2 to 3gb should be more than enough for an average web site.
Perl, PHP and MySQL
SSI (Server-side Includes)
Email accounts with spam control
Add-on domains (if you desire more than one domain name, you can host them all from one hosting account using sub-domains.)
FTP access
Optional Shell access will also allow more secure SFTP
cPanel (control panel) for managing your account
Fantastico - a wonderful tool for automatically installing scripts like blogs, forums, wikis, and image galleries.
Web stats like AWstats and Webalizer

I have heard good reports on these other hosts:

Pair
Dreamhost (disclaimer: this is an affiliate link)
Hostgator

Leave a comment about your favorite web host

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3 Comments

Comment by Marjorie on September 29th, 2006

Clear, prescise and to the point, every aspect of web page building covered in well presented in a warm, friendly and professional tone. Thank you
Comment by Llewelyn Tudor on April 13th, 2008

hi
My web host is Dotster, have you heard of them? I’m not too sure what they offer but the cost was very reasonable and I’m very new to the ‘game’.
I’ve just started and have found your web design course very interesting so far.
Best regards
Llew Tudor
Comment by debbie T on April 15th, 2008

Hello Llewelyn!
Yes, I have heard of Dotster, but I don’t know much about them.

I am glad you are enjoying the site!! Keep learning!

If you would like to make an observation or suggestion, please take the time to write a comment. If you prefer to contact me privately, there is a contact form.

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