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A website hosting company takes all of the pages you create
on your personal computer and puts them on the web.
They store, or “host,” your page files in a giant
folder on their giant computer. Your folder has your web address
(domain name) on it.
The hosting company’s computer is connected to the
World Wide Web, and whenever someone types in your web address,
they get plugged into your folder on the hosting company’s
computer, and they can browse through all of the pages you’ve
sent (uploaded) there. Get it? These “hosts” are
also called “servers”—they serve your content
up to the masses!
So you need to sign up with a web hosting service, otherwise
your website will exist only on your own home computer.
The best web hosting service is “lunarpages”
(www.lunarpages.com).
They will charge you about $7. each month for their totally-adequate-for-99%-of-us
"Basic Hosting" package.
The industry has named lunarpages
web hosting the #1 rated, affordable web hosting service.
That pretty much says it all!
Their basic hosting account will allow you to store tons
of pages, graphics, and other files.
Personalized e-mail
Also, you will be able to set up e-mail accounts linked to
your site. For instance, if your website is called mysite.com,
you can have e-mail addresses like bob@mysite.com and info@mysite.com.
You’ll be able to add a practically limitless amount
of e-mail accounts—set one up for each of your friends
or family members!
Your lunarpages
account will even let you set up your e-mail so you can use
that Microsoft Outlook program your computer came with. Just
double-click on the Outlook icon, and BOOM—there’s
your e-mail. No need to get onto the internet, log into Yahoo
or Hotmail, and get blasted with advertisements before you
can actually read your e-mail.
Run more than one website!
Another thing that’s cool about lunarpages
is that you can run a bunch of websites from just one account.
Interested in how many people visit your page? No prob—lunarpages
has tons of statistics about your visitors.
Lunarpages
has hundreds of features and tools, many of which you will
find useful—the bigger your website, the more useful
lunarpages’ features will be.
Lunarpages'
"fantastico" area makes it a snap to set up your
own chatroom, blog, image gallery, or community discussion
board, and there are several tools for e-commerce, too.
But the very best thing about lunarpages
is that their customer service is totally awesome. If
you’re a beginner, they will tirelessly help you get
started, and if you’re a web business, they won’t
let you down.
IMPORTANT: Match your DNS numbers!
After you sign up with your web hosting service, there’s
one more very important thing to do: Match your DNS
numbers.
You may be wondering how the World Wide Web computers would
know to go to lunarpages
to find the folder of your stuff when someone types in your
webpage address, I mean there are other web hosting companies.
This is how: When you sign up for web hosting with lunarpages,
you can access a set of DNS numbers (Domain Name Servers).
You go back to where you registered (bought) your domain name
(www.register.com)
and you change the domain name’s DNS numbers to match
the DNS numbers provided to you by lunarpages.
This way, whenever someone types your website address (domain
name) into his or her browser (Explorer) the WWW computers
know to go searching for your content at lunarpages.
If the DNS numbers associated with your domain name do not
match the DNS numbers of your website host, your domain name
(website address) will not work!
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