What is a domain name ?
The term "domain name" usually refers to a particular organization's registered name on the Internet, such as
example.com, satelitul11.com or name.edu. There may be many distinct computers within a single domain, or there may be only one. The term "fully qualified domain name" refers to a complete web site or other computer's name on the Internet, such as www.satelitul11.com or ip.myisp.com. The holder of a domain name may delegate almost any number of names within that domain, such as www1.example.com, www2.example.com, whimsical. example.com, and so on.
How do I register a domain name?
Registering your own domain name gives your web site a unique name throughout the Internet. Domain name registration is the act of staking out "mycompanyname.com" or something similar as your own.You can also register your domain directly with godaddy , register.com and the various other ICANN -accredited registrars. As of this writing, godaddy offers highly competitive pricing. You may find that their web site is very persistent in encouraging you to host your web site with them as well as registering your domain name with them. However, there is no requirement to purchase both services from godaddy.
How do I get a hostname for my home computer?
Right now, your computer at home -- or, more likely, your connection sharing device, such as a wireless router -- probably has a dynamic IP address. That means that other users can only refer to your computer by a cryptic address that doesn't mean much to human beings, such as 10.250.17.234. And if your IP address is dynamic, it changes every time you reconnect to your DSL or cable modem provider. Even if your IP address is static, you still need a way for users to access your site by name, instead of by number... unless you're willing to put up with a URL like http://193.225.116.194/. And you might change ISPs. So I recommend following this article's recommendations anyway. If a URL like that doesn't bother you, and you're sure you won't change ISPs and that you have a static IP address, You may skip this step. If you don't know which you have, you probably have a dynamic IP address. So how can we give out a reliable address to folks who want to connect to our web site or BitTorrent tracker... for free? Easily: we'll use a dynamic DNS service, such as DynDNS. DynDNS offers free dynamic and static DNS services. I use DynDNS as an example here, but you should also consider similar services offered by www.no-ip.com.
Why can't people connect to the web server on my PC?
Go back and follow them carefully. If you still have trouble, the remaining items in this list are good troubleshooting steps.
1. The IP address you are giving out may be the wrong one, or your Dynamic DNS software might not be set up correctly. Most users have dynamic IP addresses assigned by their ISP, and even those who do have static IP addresses often don't know what they are. You can solve this problem elegantly by using one of the free dynamic DNS services.
2. Personal firewall software on your PC may be blocking the traffic.
3. Do you see your router's logon prompt instead of your web site? You are probably trying to access your web site by name or Internet IP address, from a computer inside your network (a computer at home, behind your router). Some routers assume any web traffic from inside your network that is addressed to the router is intended for the router's own configuration interface. The good news is that people in the "outside world" can reach your site just fine! To connect from inside the network, just connect to your web site by its static local IP address instead. For example, if you are following my recommendations and have a Linksys WRT54G router, you can reach your web site at http://192.168.2.69. Just be sure to use relative links in your pages, so that every link you encounter doesn't send you right back to the router.
4. Do you still see the router's logon prompt even when you try to connect from outside your network? You probably turned on your router's "remote router access" feature by mistake. People turn this on by accident because they think it has something to do with hosting a web site at home. It doesn't. Turn it off, it is dangerous! You don't want other people accessing your router and changing configuration settings.
How do I make my pages more accessible?
Well-written HTML pages can be displayed with great success by the Lynx text-only web browser, which is the most common starting point for browsers for the blind and the vision impaired, provided that you follow these rules:
- If some of your content is only available in Flash animations, be sure to offer a text-only alternative.
- If some of your content is only available in PDF files, consider offering a text-only alternative. If you cannot do so, provide a link to access.adobe.com, Adobe's accessible version of Acrobat Reader.
- If some of your text appears only in the form of images, make sure your <IMG> elements have ALT attributes containing text that conveys the same information: <IMG SRC="browseourstore.png" ALT="Browse Our Store"> These ALT attributes are displayed by text-only browsers and are a must for accessibility.
Keep in mind that following these rules will also increase your site's compatibility with handheld devices, search engine indices such as Google, and other devices that display text primarily or exclusively.
What web browsers should I design for?
Iin an ideal world, you don't have to design for any specific web browser. XHTML, cascading style sheets and other World Wide Web Consortium standards allow you to specify exactly how your site should look and behave. Following standards allows you to ensure that your pages will not be "locked in" to a single web browser and will remain compatible with future software.
Of course, in practice, not all web browsers implement all of the World Wide Web consortium's standards, and not all web browsers implement them correctly. There are always quirks, and it makes sense to test your pages with the most popular browsers in order to iron out any rough edges. Right now, the most important browsers to test are Microsoft Internet Explorer (the most popular), Mozilla Firefox (the second most popular and growing quickly), Safari (standard on new Macintoshes), Netscape 4.x, and the plain text browser Lynx. Testing with Lynx is important because when search engines index your site, they "see" it in much the way text-only browsers do. For more information, see how do I promote my web site?
Although Netscape 4.x and 3.x are still in use by a small percentage of users, I do not recommend limiting your design choices entirely to the feature set of such older browsers. After all, users of those browsers have the option of upgrading to Firefox for free, unless they are using very old computers. I do recommend that you make sure your site is "reasonably useful" with those browsers. Every visitor to your site is a potential customer and deserves your respect.
As of this month (January 2007) on www.satelitul11.com, the breakdown of web browsers among visitors was as follows:
| Browser |
Percentage |
| Internet Explorer 7.x |
14% |
| Internet Explorer 6.x |
60% |
| Mozilla / Firefox |
14% |
| Netscape 4.x |
1.8% |
| Safari (MacOS X) |
1.25% |
| Konqueror (Linux) |
0.5% |
| Search engine spiders |
13% |
Similar figures from a broader range of sources can be found on Chuck Upsdell's Browser News web site.
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Is it legal to link to other web sites?
I am not a lawyer and I cannot give legal advice. If you have serious legal concerns, consult a lawyer.
Roughly speaking, the courts have held that:
- Linking from one web site to another in a normal way, so that the other page replaces the current page in the browser, like this:
<a href="http://www.site.com/">Interesting Other Site</a>
Is always legal; however, if you knowingly link to a site which infringes on the copyright of a third party, such as a site that sells knockoffs of DVDs, you may be held legally responsible as well. Especially, of course, if you profit from it.
- Creating a small "thumbnail" version of an image on another site and using that to link to the other site is also acceptable.
- Linking directly to images, not pages, on other sites, or especially embedding them in your own site without their direct permission, may not be legal and is definitely unethical. Examples:
Don't do either of these without permission of the other web site involved:
<a href="http://www.site.com/picture.jpg">
Picture On Someone Else's Site
</a>
<img src="http://www.site.com/picture.jpg">
- Using frames to bring up the web pages of another site so that they appear to be part of your own site, without permission, may not be legal and is also unethical.
Also, remember that if you embed images from other sites directly like this, the other webmaster can tell -- and they may change the image to something highly unpleasant. I've seen it happen before. And since using images like this without permission is stealing, I don't have any sympathy for those it happens to.
How do I copyright my web site?
I am not a lawyer and I cannot give legal advice. If you have serious concerns, consult a lawyer. However, I will share the following information, which you should confirm with a lawyer if you wish to pursue any kind of legal action. Copyright is automatic, and has been since 1989. You do not need to take any special steps to be the sole legal owner of your own work. However, there are certain legal benefits to be obtained by registering your copyright with your national government. At the very least, it will of course be easier to prove that the work is your own if it contains a copyright notice or other clear assertion that the work was created by and belongs to you. For example, this web page is Copyright 2007, Satelitul11.com.
Protecting images from theft is an interesting challenge; no method is 100% effective, but it is possible to "watermark" your images to ensure that you can prove that they were stolen.
A copyright is not the same thing as a patent. For instance, a patent might cover a general method for creating popup menus; but your copyright extends only to a particular piece of JavaScript source code, or to the appearance and content of your popup menus. While copyright is automatic, patents are granted by the government at the end of a lengthy and sometimes expensive process. Patents on software programming ideas, especially relatively simple ideas, have a generally negative impact and have recently been awarded far too frequently for unoriginal "inventions."
Short pieces of JavaScript or HTML code and general web design techniques are not something you can realistically protect and prevent others from copying, and I do not recommend that you attempt to do so. On the other hand, you may certainly pursue legal action if others steal your images or text.
Copyright can be a very powerful tool. Although the most common copyright "license statement" is the familiar phrase "All Rights Reserved," you can choose to grant or deny others the right to use your work in particular ways or for particular purposes.
How do I promote my web site?
to begin with, you can promote your web site quite effectively for free. First, make sure that your web site mentions the phrases you would reasonably expect an interested party to search for, as regular text in your HTML, not as a picture of text. For instance, if your organization is the Chess School of Lower Funburgh, you need to mention those words prominently on your home page, and they must be actual, mouse-selectable text, not just a picture of text! If you fail to take this step, it will not be possible for search engines to correctly index your site.
Second, make sure that the major search engines know about your site. As of this writing, Google is by far the most important. You can add your site to Google using their Add URL page.
Third, ask the webmasters of related web pages and sites to link to your pages, and encourage your readers to link to your site. This will bring people in directly, and it will also allow search engines like Google to find you. Just as important, links to your site from other sites are a basic measure of your site's importance that search engines use to decide the rank of your site in search results. In order to benefit from the editorial decisions already made by individual webmasters, search engines do their best to give "real" plain-text links a greater weight than advertising links when evaluating how relevant a web site is to a particular subject.
If your needs and your budget go beyond the traffic that simple word of mouth and, eventually, search engine indexing can bring, you should consider purchasing "sponsored links" on search engines. As of this writing, Google sells sponsored links displayed to the right of search engine result pages which are shown only to users who are searching for the exact words that you specify. This service is not free, but it is quite effective, and you pay directly for actual clicks that lead to your site.
A fifth tactic currently observed on the web is the purchasing of plain-text links on other web sites. Both users and search engines respond more favorably to plain-text ads, although the major search engines may begin to discount such links as they gradually learn to automatically recognize them. Of course, sites that fail to limit such plain-text ad sales to reasonably relevant products and services, or attempt to disguise them completely as content, may suffer a decrease in popularity and ultimately in ad sales. They could also suffer reduced search engine rankings as search engine companies find new ways to detect and penalize such behavior.
What is the cost?
A discussion of factors influencing web development costs is presented on the cost page of our sister site. We prefer to visit with each potential customer to determine the customers needs before quoting the cost of a web. Fixed costs include cost of domain name and hosting services. A small web site is an economical way to advertise and build a customer base
What are the advantages of a web presence?
A web presence symbolizes a forward thinking company. Web sites offer increased visibility with affordable advertising cost. Printed marketing materials are expensive and can not be revised without reprinting whereas a simple web site revisions is relatively inexpensive. Interactive web sites offer the advantage of providing service 24/7 without having to pay for round the clock staffing costs. Such sites enable clients to conduct business on their own schedule and avoid the strain of having to tend to business over the lunch hour or deal with impersonal time consuming telephone menus.
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