Once you have designed your web site you will want to publish it to the Internet. This page explains how.
Web pages are made available over the Internet by computers called web servers.
These are computers that are permanently connected to the Internet and they serve the web pages that you see on your screen.
Another word for web servers is hosting - hosting web sites. This means making them available to the world wide web from a web server.
Web servers are similar to ordinary computers but they are used in a special way.
Web pages are called from browsers and the message goes to the web server which responds by sending back the html code and the images that make up a web page.
Many web servers run on an operating system called UNIX (or LINUX) although some use operating system made by Microsoft ™
Web servers require special software to deliver their web pages. A widely used programme goes by the name of Apache.
Thus, you might hear experts talking about "unix servers running apache".
In order for a web site to be found on the Internet, it is often necessary to have a domain name. This is an address that can be easily memorised.
webworkerskitchen.co.uk is an example of a domain name.
Domain names are translated onto IP addresses - numbers that are like those used to enable you to phone a friend. Each web server has its own individual IP address. This is how one web server can be located in the millions that exist on the Internet.
In order for all these domain names to be found, there are things called Domain Name Services (or DNS for short).
To get a new domain name, you have to register one on the Internet.
Each domain name ends in a country suffix. Thus, .co.uk is a company based in the UK. .co.jp is a company based in Japan.
Testing and checking your site
When you have designed your site, inserted the text and are about ready to publish, you should check it and test it. Ideally, you should get someone else to do this for you. Think about setting up a testing circle.
Things you have to check
All the links work
There are no missing images
The test has been thoroughly proof read
That there are no redundant files you do not need
Things you have to test
If your web site has dynamic code of any kind or forms, you should test that these work correctly.
Testing can be carried out on a teat area of your web server, away from the live domain name area.
Set up a testing circle
If you are going to be doing web sites regularly, you can set up a web testing circle. This is a group of web designers who agreed to check and test each other's work. Requests to test and check should be monitored so that each member of the circle is doing about the same amount of work for other members of the group.
