sdobis Posted October 27, 2016 Share Posted October 27, 2016 I'm in the very super early planning stage of creating a website that provides a rating system for a type of product. Early, as in I have no idea how to make it happen. All I know is I want to do this but my technological abilities don't reach beyond basic computer usage. Who better to turn to than The Hive? If you've taken on this project before, how did you get started? What resources did you use to create the website or educate yourself? Did you have to learn the technology side of it, or did you use the help of others to create your site? I don't think I want to use a free web hosting site because there seem to be too many limitations. Thanks for any advice you have. I really want to make this happen! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wendy not in HI Posted October 27, 2016 Share Posted October 27, 2016 (edited) I did not create a website, but I do help manage a website using squarespace. Ours is not a free website. I find it mostly easy to use. They offer lots of different page formats and layouts and all sorts of things that I don't understand. You can stick with basics or you can add in coding if you know that stuff (which I don't) I mostly don't know what I'm doing with the website, but squarespace makes it easy to make changes. I'm looking forward to seeing what resources others give you - I could use the help!! https://www.squarespace.com/ Edited October 27, 2016 by wendy not in HI 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdobis Posted October 27, 2016 Author Share Posted October 27, 2016 I did not create a website, but I do help manage a website using squarespace. Ours is not a free website. I find it mostly easy to use. They offer lots of different page formats and layouts and all sorts of things that I don't understand. You can stick with basics or you can add in coding if you know that stuff (which I don't) I mostly don't know what I'm doing with the website, but squarespace makes it easy to make changes. I'm looking forward to seeing what resources others give you - I could use the help!! https://www.squarespace.com/ Thanks! I'll check it out. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebel Yell Posted October 27, 2016 Share Posted October 27, 2016 DH designs websites for a living. When people do not have the budget to pay him or knowledge to maintain a website on their own he sets them up with square space. Very easy to use and update. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nevergiveup Posted October 27, 2016 Share Posted October 27, 2016 I got a book on HTML and CSS and taught myself. My brother-in-law has a server and hosts it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomatHWTK Posted October 27, 2016 Share Posted October 27, 2016 Some tips: http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/introduction-making-websites-wordpress DH set up mine. But I know many people hire freelancers. I can't recommend anyone as that's not my field. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie Smith Posted October 27, 2016 Share Posted October 27, 2016 Eldest took a free class from Virtual Learning. As part of that class he made this website: http://kingjigo313.weebly.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 27, 2016 Share Posted October 27, 2016 NOTE: YOU ARE EXTREMELY WISE NOT TO USE FREE HOSTING. NEXT NOTE: ALWAYS BUY YOUR DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION AND YOUR WEB HOSTING FROM DIFFERENT PROVIDERS. MANY HAVE REGISTERED THEIR DOMAIN NAME WITH THEIR WEB HOSTING PROVIDER AND EVENTUALLY LOST EVERYTHING. NOTHING IS FREE... The first thing you will need is a Domain Name. The best ones end in .COM or. NET or .ORG in that order. Try for a name that is as short as possible and easy to remember and pronounce. Easier said than done. You can search availability on WHO.IS (note the dot) My Domain Registrar is Name.com GoDaddy.com is also very reputable. There are many other budget providers. One does not "own" their domain name. One pays for the right to use the domain name. The first time registration of a new .COM domain name (and possibly other extensions) will be less expensive than the renewals. I think the basic fee is approximately USD$12 per year at Name.com at this time. I look at their emails for a discount code and also on RetailMeNot.com and use the best discount I can. I have never paid anyone to do anything with respect to our web sites. Two of my web sites have been converted to use the FREE WordPress platform. That is incredibly popular and if I were just starting out, I would probably go for that. BACKUPS ARE INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT. NEVER DEPEND ON YOUR PROVIDER TO MAKE BACKUPS. MAKE YOUR OWN AND MAKE THEM FREQUENTLY. Cpanel is the most common platform for Shared web hosting servers. I have a "Reseller" account for our web sites and pay USD $2.00 per month. The same or better support/reliability as I got from our previous provider (about 13 years with them?) and I was paying them $13.90 a month. There are tons of Tutorials and How Tos on the web and there are tons of people who have gone before you and done it, so if you take it one step at a time, you will be fine. GL 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdobis Posted October 28, 2016 Author Share Posted October 28, 2016 NOTE: YOU ARE EXTREMELY WISE NOT TO USE FREE HOSTING. NEXT NOTE: ALWAYS BUY YOUR DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION AND YOUR WEB HOSTING FROM DIFFERENT PROVIDERS. MANY HAVE REGISTERED THEIR DOMAIN NAME WITH THEIR WEB HOSTING PROVIDER AND EVENTUALLY LOST EVERYTHING. NOTHING IS FREE... The first thing you will need is a Domain Name. The best ones end in .COM or. NET or .ORG in that order. Try for a name that is as short as possible and easy to remember and pronounce. Easier said than done. You can search availability on WHO.IS (note the dot) My Domain Registrar is Name.com GoDaddy.com is also very reputable. There are many other budget providers. One does not "own" their domain name. One pays for the right to use the domain name. The first time registration of a new .COM domain name (and possibly other extensions) will be less expensive than the renewals. I think the basic fee is approximately USD$12 per year at Name.com at this time. I look at their emails for a discount code and also on RetailMeNot.com and use the best discount I can. I have never paid anyone to do anything with respect to our web sites. Two of my web sites have been converted to use the FREE WordPress platform. That is incredibly popular and if I were just starting out, I would probably go for that. BACKUPS ARE INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT. NEVER DEPEND ON YOUR PROVIDER TO MAKE BACKUPS. MAKE YOUR OWN AND MAKE THEM FREQUENTLY. Cpanel is the most common platform for Shared web hosting servers. I have a "Reseller" account for our web sites and pay USD $2.00 per month. The same or better support/reliability as I got from our previous provider (about 13 years with them?) and I was paying them $13.90 a month. There are tons of Tutorials and How Tos on the web and there are tons of people who have gone before you and done it, so if you take it one step at a time, you will be fine. GL Such incredible advice! I have so much to think through. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vida Winter Posted October 28, 2016 Share Posted October 28, 2016 Lanny, question about cpanel - how did you get such a low price? I'm looking for a low-cost platform for a nonprofit. There is an existing domain name and web site but the webmaster is overcharging us. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 28, 2016 Share Posted October 28, 2016 Lanny, question about cpanel - how did you get such a low price? I'm looking for a low-cost platform for a nonprofit. There is an existing domain name and web site but the webmaster is overcharging us. The vast majority of web hosting providers have cPanel on their Shared web servers. I used other panels, for years, but after having switched to cPanel, I would NEVER consider a provider that does not have cPanel. My web sites are very small and (sadly) have very low traffic. I have a "Reseller" account so each domain (web site) has it's own cPanel and can be logged into independently of the other one. This is much safer than having more than one web site (domain) on the same Shared hosting account. as "Add On" domains. My account since January 2015 has been with FrantechSolutions/BuyShared. A small company based in Canada. This is the URL for their web site: https://buyshared.net/ Before I had the Reseller account with them, I got a $15 a year VPS from them which I use for OpenVPN so we have a secure way of accessing critical web sites (banks, etc.) if we are not at home. I pay them USD $2 from my Paypal account every month for the Reseller account. The VPS I have with them is on a server in NJ and the Reseller account is on a server in Las Vegas. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 28, 2016 Share Posted October 28, 2016 Lanny, question about cpanel - how did you get such a low price? I'm looking for a low-cost platform for a nonprofit. There is an existing domain name and web site but the webmaster is overcharging us. @Vida Winter The most important thing you have is the domain name. You or your organization MUST control the domain name registration at all times. If the Webmaster you are paying currently controls that, you MUST get that control away from him/her. Web hosting providers that control the domain name of the client and I suspect webmasters who are being paid, frequently control the domain name registration and there are numerous very sad threads on http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ begun by people who are more or less being held hostage, because they did not take the precautionary step of being in absolute control of their domain name and got themselves into a bad situation. If your web site is currently hosted on a cPanel server, you can make a "Full" cPanel Backup of everything on the web site. Without having Root Access to a cPanel web server, you cannot restore that "Full" cPanel Backup yourself. When I migrated my web sites to Frantech Solutions / Buy Shared, during January 2015, I was planning to do it myself, but I ran into an issue. I should have migrated the Primary domain first. Ended up having them "Restore" the "Full" cPanel backups I'd made for each domain, onto their Shared web server in Las Vegas. That was much easier and faster and in the future that's the way I will do it, if and when I need to move from one web server to another web server. Now, I make "Full" cPanel backups, knowing that if there were an issue, I would not be able to Restore from the Backup, and that I would need the Server Administrator to Restore that "Full" Backup for me. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vida Winter Posted October 28, 2016 Share Posted October 28, 2016 Thank you, Lanny - I will check ownership of domain name. I think the current webmaster will cooperate with the transfer - we just can't afford him. The website only gets slight traffic about 2 months out of the year. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 28, 2016 Share Posted October 28, 2016 (edited) Thank you, Lanny - I will check ownership of domain name. I think the current webmaster will cooperate with the transfer - we just can't afford him. The website only gets slight traffic about 2 months out of the year. There are several contacts shown for the Registrant of a Domain Name. Registrant, Administrative and Technical. I believe it is the Administrative contact that gets the various emails, when the registration of a domain is being transferred. The easiest way to do it is if it is going from one account to another, on the same Domain Registrar (Name, GoDaddy, etc.). Then, one does a "Push". Fast and easy. The other way, is to transfer a domain name from one Registrar to another. I did that earlier this year, transferring a domain name I had in my account on Name.com to the account of a company who uses Network Solutions (NetSol). That required a series of emails and I think it took several days. I would respond to emails and then the other party had to respond to emails. THE most important thing you have is the Domain Name. You must get that into the power of someone who is absolutely trustworthy and will not end up black mailing your group at some point in the future. NOTE: If that is the only domain name in the account at the Domain Registrar (Name. com or GoDaddy.com etc.) then possibly you (you, not him) can change the password and Registrant information and continue with that same account. If He has more than one domain name in his account, then you need to get it transferred into an account you control. Edited October 28, 2016 by Lanny 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdobis Posted October 29, 2016 Author Share Posted October 29, 2016 Thank you, Lanny - I will check ownership of domain name. I think the current webmaster will cooperate with the transfer - we just can't afford him. The website only gets slight traffic about 2 months out of the year. I wanted to add that I love your user name. One of my favorite books recently. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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