If you've just learned how to write webpages, you probably want to make a home for them on the web (i.e., get an internet address). Here's how to do it.
First, find a free webspace provider (FWP) that you like. There is a huge index of FWPs, with lots of useful information, at www.freewebspace.net. I used that site and found redrival.com, which is where my site is "hosted", as it's called. I recommend redrival, but right now they're in the middle of some big upgrades that aren't going to be done until November sometime, so they're not accepting new members till then. But you don't have to go with redrival, browse through the list at freewebspace.net and find one that you like.
[ Update, added March 2001: redrival.com has started putting popup advertisements on all member sites, and now charges a fee if you want to use FTP to upload your files. That is totally unacceptable, and I'm no longer hosting my site with them. They were good while they were a FWP, but now they charge you, both with ads and for FTP. So now I host my site on my school's server, and have a backup at www.cfm-resources.com . ]
The reason that I chose redrival is that 1) they don't put advertisements on your webpages, which most FWPs do, 2) they give you 20 MB (megabytes) of space, which is pretty much, and 3) they allow you to upload your files through your browser and via FTP. [FTP is file transfer protocol, and using an FTP program you can log into your FWP's FTP server and transfer files much like you copy/move files within Windows Explorer.] The reasons... 1) well, ads are just annoying. 2) My website is about 13 megs right now, not counting the big files that I link to that I have stored at xoom.com, so 20 MB, though it seems like a lot, can get used up pretty quickly if you've got a bunch of pictures and a few sounds on your site. I wouldn't get anything less than 10 MB. 3) Uploading your files through your browser is convenient when you only have one or two files to upload, or when you're at someone else's computer. But it can be a pain when you have a lot of files to upload. So it's just nice to have both options available. Plus, sometimes FTP or web servers go down, which is the situation I'm in right now at redrival... during their upgrade processes, they had to take the FTP servers offline. If they didn't also have the browser-based upload, I wouldn't be able to update my website during the upgrade process (which has taken a few months now).
So, once you've got a FWP and you've uploaded your website, you just tell your friends the address. If you chose redrival, for example, your address would be redrival.com/yourusername, where yourusername is the name you choose during the signup at the FWP. One really important thing to know is that when people type that address into their browser, it will actually take them to redrival.com/yourusername/index.htm, so make sure you create a page as the "opening page" for your site and name it index.htm (or index.html if you prefer; I use htm because traditionally, extensions are 3 characters, plus it's one less letter to type).
Now, if you'd rather have an address like NoDivisions.com, you need to register a TLD, or top-level domain name. That's what I did -- I did it through the registrar www.namesecure.com, and it cost me $70 to register that address for 2 years. So yeah, you have to pay for it, but $70 for 2 years isn't much at all, and it's a ton nicer and easier to remember than redrival.com/grapejuice, which is where my website is actually hosted. The deal is, I registered the TLD at namesecure, and then I told them to set it up so that it points to my website at redrival.com/grapejuice. You don't have to use namesecure to register your TLD, there are lots of registrars. It is actually done through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and they maintain a list of accredited registrars here. The main thing to look for in a registrar is whether they offer some form of "URL forwarding", which is what I explained about nodivisions.com pointing to my site at redrival.com/grapejuice. namesecure offers this, but not all registrars do.
Once you've got your site and address all settled, you can register it with search engines if you want to. This will let people use a search engine to find your website. If you don't do this, then the only way people will know about your website is if you tell them -- your site isn't automatically added to search engines. The best way to go about this is to go to a few of the bigger search engines and click on their "add your site" or "add url" link:
www.yahoo.com
www.webcrawler.com
www.go.com
www.hotbot.com
www.google.com
www.northernlight.com...or whatever ones you like.
They'll want to see some meta tags on your pages, so click here or here or here to learn how to create them. There are also some sites, such as www.scrubtheweb.com, that will offer to register your website with "all the major search engines" for free. You can go that route if you want, but I haven't had much luck with them. Either way, you'll need meta tags.
So that's about it. Have fun! Write to me and let me know about your new page!
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