lecture 6: domain names

Although, while you're a student at Leeds, you can easily publish your site by placing it in the www folder, you won't have access to this service forever. So you will need to find a web host of some kind. The technicalities of moving files to web hosts were covered last week. Please do read the relevant sections in chapter 6 of the course booklet and also note that though I mention some commercial services on this slide, no endorsement of these services is implied and they do not represent the totality of available services.

There are basically three types of web host:

• hosts you can use because you are employed by them or otherwise associated with them. I can host my sites at Leeds University because I work for them, and were you writing a site for a particularly large organisation, the same would probably be true there. However, bear in mind that organisations below a certain size are less likely to have their own web servers.
• free web hosts. Examples are Tiscali or GeoCities. Free hosts will always be tempting but the main disadvantage is that they will almost certainly place some kind of advertising on your page. This can firstly ruin a well-crafted page layout; second, the advertising may possibly be for a service or organisation which you do not agree with or find offensive (such as gambling).
• paid web hosts. These will either be open to all kinds of business, such as The Phone Co-Op, or be more specialised, like GreenNet. Bear in mind that as with so many other things in this world, you tend to get what you pay for. "Too good to be true" prices usually are; you may be afflicted by bad connections, lousy service and dubious fellow web sites. Shop around to find a host you are comfortable with.

The URL of your site will depend very much on the host you find. However, it is worth bearing in mind that domain names are often arranged separately from the host. For example, a site of mine (it's a bit moribund at the moment but I'll get back round to it one day) has the domain name, http://www.tangentium.org/ which I purchased from Easily for about thirty pounds over two years. But the site is actually hosted at Leeds University. In this case, Easily redirect visitors to Leeds, although maintain the "fiction" that www.tangentium.org is a separate host by ensuring that domain name is always shown in the location bar. (Try browsing the site and you will see.) This is relatively straightforward to set up but as with all this side of web publishing, seek the help of your ISP or web host administrator.

Why do this? Because it gives a site an identity. Especially if your site is commercial, it looks better to have a snappy domain name of your own than to be clearly hanging on the coat tails of a cheap-and-cheerful site like GeoCities. What this does open up is the question of whether someone else has already got the domain name you want, however. There's no simple answer to this - picking a unique name for your company or organisation is now part of the standard start-up process! (That was one reason why the site quoted above was called "Tangentium" in the first place.)

Good luck! But remember - always be sure what you're paying for before you hand over any money.